Questions for an ironman run of Thracia 776

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

I am playing thorugh FE5 right now casually to gain the knowledge for an ironman attempt.

It will be the very first time I seriously will do this kind of challenge.

 

But I would like to ask in advance about to get some questions regarding skill or scroll optimazation. 

 

Since bases are more important than growthrates, I am fairly sure that very most prepromotes like Dagdar or Glade are very useful in an ironman run besides units with personal and broken weapons like Orsin, Finn and especially Asbel. Olwen will be used anyways with dire thunder and vantage combo.

 

However I am not quite certain what to do with the other gainable scrolls like sol or accost.

I still have no real idea who to give accost to since Tanya's HP is too low to make permanent use of it. I remember giving it to Asbel in my very first run which was overkill, but against bosses with master weapons it was an instant kill. It might be waste because he also has adept, but I like having safe kills for him. The counterpart of getting attacked by a ballista twice, however, is a serious issue thanks to FE5's hitrates. 

I like to give paragon to Karin because fliers are amazing, if they have the range to reach a ballista on their own (ten move required), but I think anyone else can use it too.

 

As for the scrolls I like to pump everything on Leif early on, and if he has the stats I was looking for, than I give them all to Karin till about level 10 and promotion to make highest possible benefit from paragon. After than I switch A LOT. Od scroll is definitely a must have for a low leveled healer (Safiya, Tina, Sara...).

 

As for the route split I consider A better because of the recruitable units (Misha and especially Sleuf), but B has an enemy with Bhuj Iirc, but I'm also open for your opinions.

Edited January 26, 2020 by Rosalina

[Eltosian Kadath]

20 hours ago, Rosalina said:

However I am not quite certain what to do with the other gainable scrolls like sol or accost.

Nanna makes for a good user of the wrath scroll that way she can use the critical damage to make the earth sword healing especially potent. Same idea with Linoan and Nosferatu, but unless you save a life ring for her (and probably defense ring too) she wont have the bulk to survive a solid hit, which is what makes this combo particularly potent.

Sol should go onto someone who both hits hard with high skill, and hopefully tanks well (or at least OK) that way you don't have to rely on it, instead making them more self sufficient. Blatant favoritism makes a trained Mareeta come to mind as a good user of it, but there are almost certainly better options.

Adept should go on a good combat unit that capped speed (and doesn't have a class that gets it on promotion, as both Swordmaster and Sage do so). A trained Osian comes to mind as a good user of it.

Paragon should go to whatever growth unit you want to show favoritism to. Many suggest you avoid giving it to a sword user because of the Paragon Sword, but if you want to train more than one sword user it can still be useful on them.

On 1/26/2020 at 1:00 AM, Rosalina said:

 

I like to give paragon to Karin because fliers are amazing, if they have the range to reach a ballista on their own (ten move required), but I think anyone else can use it too.

That would work well.

Accost is the tricky one... I wasn't sure what to do with it on my ironman too. I'd be tempted to slap it on whoever has the highest defense (preferably that uses swords that way they can use the extra defense from the paragon sword) and try to use them as intentional ballista bait to burn through them twice as fast, but its hard to get units with good defense before the Dain scroll so who it goes on is hard to say.

Almost forgot the Nihil scroll existed. If it effects Pavise maybe it would be good on Asvel, or another boss killer. Sorry I just don't know enough about how Nihil works to really make a better suggestion.

If you go B route for Luna, just get it onto someone with high skill that sees combat, as the more it procs the better, and how useful it is is more determined by enemy stats than playyer stats.

 

20 hours ago, Rosalina said:

 

As for the scrolls I like to pump everything on Leif early on, and if he has the stats I was looking for, than I give them all to Karin till about level 10 and promotion to make highest possible benefit from paragon. After than I switch A LOT. Od scroll is definitely a must have for a low leveled healer (Safiya, Tina, Sara...).

I found their ability to prevent even low crit chance kills tempting enough to keep them spread out most of the time, plus if you happen to lose someone with multiple crusader scroll, it is a devastating loss. That being said there were times when I found a safe time to concentrate them on a unit to train, and found it particularly rewarding, so it may be better long term (although spreading out the crit prevention eases the mind and possibly prevented deaths when low crit chances started showing up in random combats).

 

20 hours ago, Rosalina said:

 

As for the route split I consider A better because of the recruitable units (Misha and especially Sleuf), but B has an enemy with Bhuj Iirc, but I'm also open for your opinions.

A route has better rewards by simply giving a A rank staff user, a pair of Warp staff and a Rescue staff. I went B route on my ironman, because I lost one (two if you count Erios) of the A route recruits due to a dead Karin, plus I find B route easier (but a lot more obnoxious, which I was willing to suffer through), and I think the loot (most notably the early Berserk staff) and characters of the B route more interesting. I have a far more extensive breakdown is below...(warning below is absolutely overkill)

Spoiler

A Route has better recruits, but the B route recruits aren't useless either. Erios has better physical stats and bulk than Olwen and A rank in both swords and Thunder magic at base, and with skills but has 0 PCC and worse magic, starts higher level, and has no personal weapons. You can't get him without a dead Olwen, so only really relevant if you want her dead (or she dies/unrecruited before the split). Sleuf starts with A staff, which makes him the best recruit from both paths hand down. Misha is obnoxious to get, but she flies and her bases are usable, plus she capped all her weapon ranks. On the B side Shannam is useless as a combat unit, but his bargain skill is kinda useful. You get Sarah a chapter earlier (and she isn't trapped on an island like in her join chapter of  A route) as well, and she is both easy to train (she has paragon) and excellent, plus she comes with a extra restore staff on the B route. Finally there is Miranda who comes at a very low level with no weapons, but she does have growths, Wrath, and the highest base Fire tome rank, before Ced shows up with an A in everything but Thunder.

B Route has more interesting weapons and status staves, but the A Routes access to movement staves, which probably trumps it. Staff wise the A route gives access to two Warp staff (one has to be nabbed from a minor boss), a Rescue staff, and a Fortify staff. On the B side you get too Silence staff, the first Berserk staff (which has to be stolen from a boss) and a restore staff on Sarah. Both give a free Silence on Sarah, and plenty of rewarp and physic to grab. Onto weapons, A route gives access to more sleep swords, but all of them require an enemy be put to sleep (or thief staffed), while the one in the B route is easier to capture (although the unit has miracle to be slightly more annoying). The wind sword is obnoxious to get on both, but if you are getting Misha, you get the wind sword on A, while on the B route you have to get it from a Swordmaster that has Adept to make it risky to capture (although it does come a chapter earlier). The extra Bhuj on the B route has the added danger of being on a Berserker with Wrath (just use the Thief staff or Sleep staff, it isn't worth the risk of attempting a capture combat with that monster). B route has some other odd weapons available like an extra Devil Axe and Halberd, which while interesting aren't terribly useful. As for other rewards, the A route gives access to a Sol scroll on Erios, and a Nihil on Conomore, both mounted to make capture a more difficult option, while the B route gives a Luna scroll, (which is probably better than both Sol and Nihil) but its holder has both Luna and Adept, making capture extra dangerous. The Braggi scroll is free (and comes a chapter earlier) with Sleuf on the A route, while on the B route you have to steal it from Amalda (who is mounted to make capture difficult). The A route gives its knights proof earlier simply requiring you visit a village, while the one on the B route requires you to either not accept the villagers help, or keep the suicidal lemming alive. Finally the A route gives an extra magic ring.

Chapter wise the B Route is obnoxious, while the A Route is arguably harder. 16B is all forest with barely noticeable thickets to make the path rather winding and slow, and it introduces warp tiles like 24x, but they don't send you anywhere dangerous, they just delay you. It is one of the only chapters you will have to worry about enemy skills which is dangerous. Many of the enemies in 16B are rather dangerous, but most of the dangerous enemies are avoidable. 17B is the most ballista hell that has ever ballista helled, but none of the other enemies are really threatening, and you can easily take your time draining the ballista, it also has two Silence staff, so don't bother bringing magic users will magic lower than theirs. The A Route has a lot more enemies, and a lot of them are mounted, better positioned, with better leadership, and way tougher bosses. Now 16A is somewhat straight forward, although there are a lot of cavalry effective weapons on mounted and flying units, and all of the bosses (other than Kempf) have something that makes them tougher than the bosses on the B route. Plus despite how straight forward it is, there is that incentive to wait the 20 turns for Conomore to show up to grab his Nihil Skill, and keep him from showing up again latter (his counterpart Amalda starts on the map of 17B and takes at most 2 extra turns to deal with). Unless you really speed through 17A Mr 10 leadership stars himself, with immunity to staves, and a sleep staff to annoy you with to boot, will arrive and make all of the enemies suddenly both aggressive, and with that +30 hit/avoid are competent enough to be threatening. He only stays for 5 turns, but he can cause a lot of trouble in that time, especially when the 10 Mageknights spawn in the starting area on turn 12.

TL:DR A route has better loot, but is harder, while B route has more interesting loot, but is obnoxious.

 

Good Luck, just finished my first Thracia Ironman a little bit ago and it is intense.

 

[Altha]

I would recommend you to sell some of those. Olwen is bad even with vantage, you need ridiculous amount of resources to make Vantage!Olwen work, especially it's dangerous in Ironman run.  So Vantage scroll is pretty useless one. Also Accost is pretty dangerous skill, so I would also recommend sell it. Sol is pretty useless tbh. the maximum skill activation you will have is 20%, which is really unreliable and do not worth it. Luna on the other hand also is not really reliable, but more useful than Sol(killing Reydrick with Mareeta is pretty fun). Nihil I think can be useful on Leif, since it will be very useful in the Final Chapter(and nowhere else). Adept again is pretty unreliable, so I'd recommend to sell it as well. I also do not recommend to give a Paragon manual to Karin, since it's pain in a butt to train her. Of course I will say that promoted Karin is pretty good and if you promote her before Deen will show up, she will be your best flier for the rest of the game, since avoidance is pretty abusable in FE5. But hey, it's your choice to train Karin or not. Also, I suggest to put Wrath on either Nanna or Linoan since they both have access to Nosferatu weapons. As for the route, I will recommend to go to A route. Sure, in B route you will have early Berserk staff, Luna scroll and Vouge, but A route have better items, such as 2 Warp staves and Rescue staff. In both routes you can get 1 Master Seal. A route maps are less tedious and have much better units than B route(but hey, Miranda is secretly great unit, if you do one simple trick). So, that's my suggestions and recommendations, hope you'll find them useful. Good luck with your Ironman run

Edited January 29, 2020 by Altha