Finished AM Maddening.

[Shadow Mir]

4 minutes ago, Imuabicus said:

I mean I beat TH AM like this and quite handily so – the only major issue I faced was my dumb mistake in chapter 13 getting Gilbert killed. I don´t know how or if you play TH Maddening.

And yeah, my mages had dark magic range +1, though I had both Thyrsus and Caduceus. They also had Fiendish Blow. And my physical units had hit+20, Death/Darting Blow, the respective Prowess skill, maybe the Authority skill, the Snipers had the 1 range counter. Ah yeah, Weight -3 was also present for a good amount of time.

This is supposed to disprove my point? Because the way I see it is, if I grind up to B Flying and don't even bother to equip Alert Stance, what the fuck did I bother to do all that investing in Flying for then!?! Therefore, I see this as utterly devoid of purpose unless you were going for a flying class.

1 hour ago, Imuabicus said:

Yeah, but stuff like Dragonskin or inflating defensive stats has a solid chance of denying units their ability to contribute. Which I´d say is unforgivable in a game centered around using units as a means to an end (just think of H5 Medeus, a bit of a reverse case - melee units cannot contribute [unless you suicide them, which is fairplay - glory to Altea!] and the best strategy, in part due to map layout, is to suicide a effective damage unit and revive).

I don't like crap like that, because that's not interesting, and worse yet, it shows the devs don't care that they went too far (speaking of which, it's one of the main reasons I think H5 was poorly designed, others being the general dearth of healing resources early on and the first few bosses, which pretty much need some serious luck to kill without breaking their weapon. It doesn't help that they heal 20% of their health every turn, meaning that what little damage you did just gets healed off next enemy phase; it's not as bad with Gazzak as it is with Hyman and Gomer because he doesn't have a Hand Axe, but still...). It also stands out because it makes a huge disconnect with the story of the game, as dialogue states, or at least implies, that it's Marth's fate to wield the Falchion and slay Medeus, but he cannot because he's guaranteed to get doubled, and likely one-rounded. At the same time, Anankos in Heirs of Fate went to the other extreme, being tedious as fuck. And Dragonskin wasn't the issue here, nor was it the multiple phases - it is that he one-shots a good chunk of the kids (and if you want the reward, that being Point Blank, you need all of them to survive).

[Imuabicus der Fertige]

53 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

This is supposed to disprove my point? Because the way I see it is, if I grind up to B Flying and don't even bother to equip Alert Stance, what the fuck did I bother to do all that investing in Flying for then!?! Therefore, I see this as utterly devoid of purpose unless you were going for a flying class.

Are you... are you getting offended by how I play the game?

Also, I already said that I am prepping units for NG+ too. 

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

1 hour ago, Imuabicus said:

Are you... are you getting offended by how I play the game?

I'm pretty sure this is the motto by which Serenes Forest Forums operate.

1 hour ago, Imuabicus said:

Also, I already said that I am prepping units for NG+ too. 

I do like prepping units for NG+... but generally speaking, only in the background. If there's a unit I've recruited, but have no intention of using, then I can raise them in an area that would be relevant for them next time. That said, I agree with @Shadow Mir that it's something of a waste to train units you're actually using that way. Suppose you trained them in Authority instead of Flight - not only do you benefit from higher Authority on this run, but you can then buy it back on NG+, while raising their Flight on the second playthrough. That said, NG+ allows for trivializing the game one way or another, so play it however you'd like.

[Jotari]

7 hours ago, Imuabicus said:

I mean I beat TH AM like this and quite handily so – the only major issue I faced was my dumb mistake in chapter 13 getting Gilbert killed. I don´t know how or if you play TH Maddening.

And yeah, my mages had dark magic range +1, though I had both Thyrsus and Caduceus. They also had Fiendish Blow. And my physical units had hit+20, Death/Darting Blow, the respective Prowess skill, maybe the Authority skill, the Snipers had the 1 range counter. Ah yeah, Weight -3 was also present for a good amount of time.

If you think back to yesterday, the number 240 is the damage dealt by Felix to Edelgard on her last Healthbar. 

No, the reason I want them to have 3k HP (exemplary value) is so that the game can stop bothering with the goddamn barriers that reduce damage and miniscule HP bars in an effort to make it challenging. Yeah, I have a problem with the game having me waste my damage and with that my time for no good reason. Why no good reason? Because as I had mentioned before, she was no challenge whatsoever, her healing didn´t matter, because she lost a HPbar/turn, the skills per HPbar didn´t matter, because she lost her HPbar from above 50% and thus wouldn´t activate. There was no intricate “if unit X has 40 STR and equips weapon Y I reach 60 DMG threshold” involved, no, it was Byleth/Catherine/Dmitri/Felix walk up to the boss, slap her in the face and done. Yeah, Edelgard got stronger – a bit more HP to quadruple/crit away once the Barrier goes, outside of that, her 30-70% Hit didn´t matter, her 20-40 damage didn´t matter, her ~5% crit didn´t matter, her 33 (I think, don´t quote) AS didn´t matter, her Throne bonuses didn´t matter, her Vantage didn´t matter, her Desperation didn´t matter and her Wrath sure as fuck didn´t either and neither did her reinforcements. Hegemon Husk Edelgard is a boss given everything to be a nuisance, but fails to be a nuisance, simply because she dies before she can get shit done. Hence, no, multiple small HPbars don´t make for a more interesting boss, it makes them sitting ducks getting ripped apart on PP, even when they have a Developer theorycrafted build, that should punish PP attacks.

Unless of course your experience with Maddening Hegemon Husk was so vastly different from mine.

Yeah, but stuff like Dragonskin or inflating defensive stats has a solid chance of denying units their ability to contribute. Which I´d say is unforgivable in a game centered around using units as a means to an end (just think of H5 Medeus, a bit of a reverse case - melee units cannot contribute [unless you suicide them, which is fairplay - glory to Altea!] and the best strategy, in part due to map layout, is to suicide a effective damage unit and revive).

But it all the HP she had in her multiple HP bars was compiled into a single HP bar, then she just would have went down quicker. So you're asking for her to have more HP overall, but putting that extra HP into a single HP bar isn't actually going to help your issue, as having it in a single HP bar will just ultimately lead to depleting it quicker compared to multiple ones.

5 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

At the same time, Anankos in Heirs of Fate went to the other extreme, being tedious as fuck. And Dragonskin wasn't the issue here, nor was it the multiple phases - it is that he one-shots a good chunk of the kids (and if you want the reward, that being Point Blank, you need all of them to survive).

Okay, you've lost e here. I know it's a bit of a meme with you, but I just have to ask, have you actually played Heirs of Fate? Because actually killing Anankos in Heirs of Fate is not an issue, getting to him might be, but killing him isn't at all. The Corrins are perfectly capable of dealing with him, while the rest of your very sizeable army are busy dealing with reinforcements. And to boot there's a healing field in effect too that will make it lucky if Anankos even manages to land a hit. Ad din the rallies you can use and Anankos simply isn't a threat. Sure if you pointlessly throw units that are built for support at him then they'll die, but you have absolutely no incentive to do so when the game hands you the tools to actually deal with the threat and actively tells you to use them.

Edited June 29, 2021 by Jotari

[Dark Holy Elf]

 

6 hours ago, Imuabicus said:

Are you... are you getting offended by how I play the game?

5 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

I'm pretty sure this is the motto by which Serenes Forest Forums operate.

I don't think that's really fair; most people here I find pretty open-minded; we may feel passionately about things we've found effective but acknowledge that there's lots of ways to play this game and lots of things which can be effective, when used properly. It's actually something I really like about 3H in general; Maddening has some teeth, but there are still countless different ways to take it apart, and so many different things are viable in the approach to that.

On the other hand, I do think this is how Shadow Mir generally operates. He gets pretty flabbergasted when anyone mentions getting use out of Raphael, hybrid units, magical axes, or just axes in general, just to name a few.

 

[Imuabicus der Fertige]

7 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

I do like prepping units for NG+... but generally speaking, only in the background. If there's a unit I've recruited, but have no intention of using, then I can raise them in an area that would be relevant for them next time. That said, I agree with @Shadow Mir that it's something of a waste to train units you're actually using that way. Suppose you trained them in Authority instead of Flight - not only do you benefit from higher Authority on this run, but you can then buy it back on NG+, while raising their Flight on the second playthrough. That said, NG+ allows for trivializing the game one way or another, so play it however you'd like.

Yeah, but with getting Flying up, or Riding or Armor and the relevant weapon skills, I will have less trouble with getting a character into a class I want - sure Authority is nice,  but Authority doesn´t get me classes and classes > battalions.

And again, even being this "wasteful" I had little trouble on my playthrough. Keep in mind, with me skipping most of the lategame as well as the monthly grind, a lot of my units were in the range of lvl 32-36, with Byleth getting all the way up to 45 and Catherine/Dmitri up to 39 on a map, were almost all enemies are lvl 50.

4 hours ago, Jotari said:

But it all the HP she had in her multiple HP bars was compiled into a single HP bar, then she just would have went down quicker. So you're asking for her to have more HP overall, but putting that extra HP into a single HP bar isn't actually going to help your issue, as having it in a single HP bar will just ultimately lead to depleting it quicker compared to multiple ones.

Hence why I said HPbars in the range of several K, not a lousy 600HP, or w/e she has in total.

[Jotari]

17 hours ago, Imuabicus said:

Hence why I said HPbars in the range of several K, not a lousy 600HP, or w/e she has in total.

That's not what you said though, you said you didn't want multiple HP bars, you wanted a single big HP bar, hence why I was arguing the merits of multiple HP bars compared to one. If you're just saying you want a greater HP total regardless as to whether it's split between multiple HP bars or a single HP bar, then fair enough. I don't think that's particularly the best way to make a fun boss in a map like that, but if it's what you want I don't have much to say. I do have stuff to say about precisely how it would be implemented though.

[Imuabicus der Fertige]

8 hours ago, Jotari said:

That's not what you said though, you said you didn't want multiple HP bars, you wanted a single big HP bar, hence why I was arguing the merits of multiple HP bars compared to one.

I clarified this in our discussion. Twice. And gave you 3 examples of what I meant, unrefined as they may be. While telling you why small HPbars protected by barriers don´t work, because:

On 6/28/2021 at 3:52 PM, Jotari said:

By the end your offense can get so high with certain characters, that a single health bar for giant enemies would trivialize them and allow them to be easily two shotted.

[Jotari]

4 hours ago, Imuabicus said:

I clarified this in our discussion. Twice. And gave you 3 examples of what I meant, unrefined as they may be. While telling you why small HPbars protected by barriers don´t work, because:

That's a statement I made in favor of multiple HP bars. I don't see any good justification for a single HP bar from any of the comments you've made. Think you could refine those three examples? Because if a unit has 6000hp split between six HP bars compared to one HP bar, the multiple HP bars one will invariably take more effort to take down.

Edited July 1, 2021 by Jotari

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

34 minutes ago, Jotari said:

That's a statement I made in favor of multiple HP bars. I don't see any good justification for a single HP bar from any of the comments you've made. Think you could refine those three examples? Because if a unit has 6000hp split between six HP bars compared to one HP bar, the multiple HP bars one will invariably take more effort to take down.

The counterpoint, as I understand it, is - say I'm taking the enemy down from 5010 HP to 4080. If there are six 1000 HP bars, then the monster is instead brought doen to 5000 HP (so the battle takes longer). However! With the HP bar knocked out, the monster cannot counter-attack. So the attacker is more "safe" in this model.

Personally, I prefer multiple HP bars, but I at least get this argument. 

[Jotari]

21 minutes ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

The counterpoint, as I understand it, is - say I'm taking the enemy down from 5010 HP to 4080. If there are six 1000 HP bars, then the monster is instead brought doen to 5000 HP (so the battle takes longer). However! With the HP bar knocked out, the monster cannot counter-attack. So the attacker is more "safe" in this model.

Personally, I prefer multiple HP bars, but I at least get this argument. 

That does make somewhat more sense, but if the enemy has Vantage+ as was also suggested, then it's rather moot. In addition if you're dealing over 1000 hp per attack against the final boss then the game as a whole has a lot more problems.

Edited July 1, 2021 by Jotari