Is it possible to make Alvis use his Silver Blade?

[Jotari]

So in Chapter 20, Alvis obviously uses Valflame. But he also comes with a silver blade, making use of at least one of all those weapon ranks the emperor class gives him. Logic would dictate that he carries a physical weapon to defend against enemies with high res...only is it possible to get an enemy with high enough res to ever convince him to use the sword in battle? He has a pretty decent 47 attack with the silver blade, however he has a whopping 70 magical attack when using Valflame, in addition to +10 res and def. So you'd need to have a unit that has 23 more res than they have defense for him to swap out. Can such a unit be made? I'm thinking not, most units have a res cap that is barely higher than 23, if they can even make it to that. Let alone actually reaching it. Though with stuff like barrier rings and holy weapons you can go beyond the cap. All the units with +res holy weapons have decent defense though. As should basically any unit you breed through eugenics. But *shrug* it's something I've been wonder a while, maybe someone more familiar with the games mechanics can crunch the numbers.

And for anyone suggesting you just make him break Valflame, enemies have infinite durability in this game.

Edited October 28, 2021 by Jotari

[Eltosian Kadath]

18 minutes ago, Jotari said:

So in Chapter 20, Alvis obviously uses Valflame. But he also comes with a silver blade, making use of at least one of all those weapon ranks the emperor class gives him. Logic would dictate that he carries a physical weapon to defend against enemies with high res...only is it possible to get an enemy with high enough res to ever convince him to use the sword in battle? He has a pretty decent 47 attack with the silver blade, however he has a whopping 70 magical attack when using Valflame, in addition to +10 res and def. So you'd need to have a unit that has 23 more res than they have defense for him to swap out. Can such a unit be made? I'm thinking not, most units have a res cap that is barely higher than 23, if they can even make it to that. Let alone actually reaching it. Though with stuff like barrier rings and holy weapons you can go beyond the cap. All the units with +res holy weapons have decent defense though. As should basically any unit you breed through eugenics. But *shrug* it's something I've been wonder a while, maybe someone more familiar with the games mechanics can crunch the numbers.

And for anyone suggesting you just make him break Valflame, enemies have infinite durability in this game.

If you are talking about Geneaology of the Holy war (so chapter 10 instead of 20), I have some vague memories of people hacking the Valflame out of his inventory, and him still not using the Silver Blade, but it might take me a while to dig up a source for that, so take it with a grain of salt for now...

[Dr. Tarrasque]

Never seen him use it. Saw this video some time ago that tried to make him but lol

 

 

[indigoasis]

I don't remember if the weapon needs to be equipped or not in order to get its bonuses, but if it does... why would he ever switch and lose those bonuses, y'know?

53 minutes ago, Dr. Tarrasque said:

Never seen him use it. Saw this video some time ago that tried to make him but lol

 

 

The description of the video mentions that Arvis may not be programmed to use it, which could be the case.

[Ertrick36]

There are a few routes where I think this could be possible (getting Resistance 23 points higher than Defense, I mean):

• Most immediately apparent is using Seliph with Tilfing and a Barrier Ring.  Tilfing gives +20 Resistance and the ring gives an extra +5.  The challenge would be keeping his Defense from getting too high, which is already problematic considering it's six points higher than his Resistance.
• Second possibility is one of the Pegasus Knights (okay, you can only get one) or Mages.  In particular I think of Arthur and Tinny, with the former having much stronger favor.  But the only way for this to be really viable is if their parent is Claude, since typically the Defense growth is gravely sacrificed in favor of powerful Resistance.  Then give the candidate a Barrier Ring for good measure.  Unfortunately they won't have a holy weapon to boost their Resistance to crazy levels.  Julia would be a good option... if she was an option.
• Another possibility that isn't as viable is Ares, who uses Mystletainn.  I think this would only be viable if you could figure out how to manipulate the RNG just right to ensure Ares gets a ton of Resistance level-ups without any Defense level-ups.  But Mystletainn's reasonably high Resistance buff of +10 is enough that I thought it worth consideration.
• Fourth option would be to acquire the Barrier Sword and give it to a viable candidate.  This could (I think) be combined with the Barrier Ring to give a total bonus of +12 to Resistance.  This would be best used under the circumstances I mentioned in the second choice (the ones that could use swords, I mean).

Though tbh I think even if you fulfilled the criteria you still wouldn't be able to make Alvis take out the sword.  And I mainly think it's because either the AI is hardcoded never to switch away from using holy weapons (or Alvis in particular is hardcoded to never use the other weapon) or because the AI perceives the switch to the sword too grave a sacrifice to its overall offensive and defensive capabilities.  There's no easy way to tell how this works without looking into the code or making a custom ROM hack, as no other holy weapon-carrying enemy/NPC unit carries a weapon that deals damage to the opposite stat that their holy weapon deals damage to - not as far as I'm aware, anyway.  Alvis is a... unique case, as it were.

[Jotari]

On 10/29/2021 at 3:32 AM, Dr. Tarrasque said:

Never seen him use it. Saw this video some time ago that tried to make him but lol

 

 

I actually found that video shortly after posting. It uses silencing as a method which seems like it should be pretty solid evidence. Though my question of whether you can possibly get a unit with that much more resistance than defense is achievable. It is possible that the silencing isn't working because Alvis's AI thinks he can still use Valflame, as his 70attack is still listed on the battle prep. So I could see the AI thinking "Choose which weapon is best to attack with"->"Valflame deals the most damage to this enemy"->"You cannot use Valflame"->"End turn". One would need to silence another hybrid unit like the Barons with Hilda in the end game.

On 10/29/2021 at 6:24 AM, Ertrick36 said:

There are a few routes where I think this could be possible (getting Resistance 23 points higher than Defense, I mean):

• Most immediately apparent is using Seliph with Tilfing and a Barrier Ring.  Tilfing gives +20 Resistance and the ring gives an extra +5.  The challenge would be keeping his Defense from getting too high, which is already problematic considering it's six points higher than his Resistance.
• Second possibility is one of the Pegasus Knights (okay, you can only get one) or Mages.  In particular I think of Arthur and Tinny, with the former having much stronger favor.  But the only way for this to be really viable is if their parent is Claude, since typically the Defense growth is gravely sacrificed in favor of powerful Resistance.  Then give the candidate a Barrier Ring for good measure.  Unfortunately they won't have a holy weapon to boost their Resistance to crazy levels.  Julia would be a good option... if she was an option.
• Another possibility that isn't as viable is Ares, who uses Mystletainn.  I think this would only be viable if you could figure out how to manipulate the RNG just right to ensure Ares gets a ton of Resistance level-ups without any Defense level-ups.  But Mystletainn's reasonably high Resistance buff of +10 is enough that I thought it worth consideration.
• Fourth option would be to acquire the Barrier Sword and give it to a viable candidate.  This could (I think) be combined with the Barrier Ring to give a total bonus of +12 to Resistance.  This would be best used under the circumstances I mentioned in the second choice (the ones that could use swords, I mean).

Though tbh I think even if you fulfilled the criteria you still wouldn't be able to make Alvis take out the sword.  And I mainly think it's because either the AI is hardcoded never to switch away from using holy weapons (or Alvis in particular is hardcoded to never use the other weapon) or because the AI perceives the switch to the sword too grave a sacrifice to its overall offensive and defensive capabilities.  There's no easy way to tell how this works without looking into the code or making a custom ROM hack, as no other holy weapon-carrying enemy/NPC unit carries a weapon that deals damage to the opposite stat that their holy weapon deals damage to - not as far as I'm aware, anyway.  Alvis is a... unique case, as it were.

In regards to using other weapons, Julius at the very least will use meteors on enemy phase. Though he'll always have Loptyr equipped for player phase, I'm pretty sure. If he is hard coded to never use it, then it's just bizarre that they gave it to him to begin with.

Edited October 30, 2021 by Jotari

[BrightBow]

Is this even unusual behavior for the AI? 
If it determines that magic is the best method of attacking, but it's silenced, is it normally capable of resorting to a physical weapon instead?
In that situation, it could just be that the AI will try to use the tome anyway, but the game won't let it, so nothing happens.
Might not be a thing exclusive to Alvis.