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GD Maddening No Monastery or being stuck on chapter 6


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I was thinking about doing this kind of run myself since quite some time and a few attempts have been had. This has been a relatively serious attempt, if not entirely optimised in every aspect. I´m also kinda wondering if someone has an idea for chapter 6 – where I´m currently stuck.

I picked Golden Deer, for no other reason than that my most recent run had been AM and otherwise I have exactly 1 more CF run under my belt than a VW run, so might as well. No Church route for me, because not being able to invest in, or rather: preferably not investing in units I will lose after 50% of the game, sounds like a major loss of overall combat ability that I am not willing to deal with.

 

As for rules:

Spoiler

No monastery. That means, if at all possible, skip from the very first day of the month to the last day of the month. If there is a forced quest, do that quest and then immediately go to the calendar overview and skip to the end of the month. None shall be talked to; nothing shall be picked up etc. pp. Of course, that means no Abyss either. No recruiting either, beyond those who offer themselves as victims and auto-recruits.

[I´m thinking about it, but a 1 for 1 switch out rule would be ok for Ashen wolves – so switch Constance/Hapi for someone like Lysithea/Annette/Dorothea, Balthus for Raphael/Dedue/…Caspar? and Yuri for either the fast people or hybrids like Lorenz. That would also allow Abyss classes.]

Changing unit goals is allowed at the beginning of the month. Not doing this just results in tons of pain, especially for mages.

Using the shops from the map prep menu is fine.

No DLC in general.

I guess this could be considered a rule, but I only trained 1 unit in each mov type: Leonie -> Flying, Lorenz -> Riding, Hilda -> Armor. I´ll be honest, I don´t actually remember why, I guess to restrict reclass ideas/shenanigans?

 

General notes (until chapter 6):

Spoiler

Every map felt like Awakening lunatic early game, and I kinda enjoyed that. I don´t know, it´s kind of weird, but it felt like the basic premise of FE: strong but few player units against many but mostly weaker enemies was turned around. Considering that enemies tend to just stand around in little groups and are ideally lured in and ganged up on that worked out, unless of course an attack missed. Which only then really necessitated a reset if the missed hit was a gambit, because I would often try to use that as an opening attack, which if missed proved a major loss of damage.

I was broke as hell. I only reached Prof. rank… D? during the chapter 6 skip, so only got 2k gold. My only way of getting Prof. exp. was answering the questions that pop up during skipping (I only ever got one per skip). Considering that I was going through weapon uses like a madman (Lorenz broke 2 Iron Lances alone) due to Combat Arts being essential and that I had to buy additional seals and also tried to get me some Battalions… yeah. Ignatz could finally reclass in chapter 6, but I had no money for another Beginner Seal. Though I´m not sure, but I didn´t optimise the questions during skipping, so maybe I could have gotten a higher rank earlier.

Mages have been the scariest enemies so far. 15-16 AS in chapter 6 with 20-23 dmg hitting Res and 12-14 AS with 21-23? Big oof. Only Byleth, who was speed blessed and Leonie were able to not get doubled, and only the use of a Pure Tonic prevented still serious injury.

Also, I know that this is a dead horse I´ve been beating quite a bit but screw the enemy skills they are given. The cool thing about Poison Strike Archers is that depending on if they move first, you are dead, but if they move last you survive with 1HP. Ofc, in chapter 4 you don´t really see the enemy in general, in chapter 5 the enemy groups that do indeed have Archers in them almost always have overlapping ranges (more on that down below) and have you ever really looked at the layout of chapter 6? There is barely a corner an Archer can´t reach, the most Archer-safe area being the second room on the left and even then you cant stand on the right most tiles, because you´ll either take damage from 1x Archer or 1x Archer + 1x Mage. Shoutout to my boys, the Dark Mages who have Seal Strength, making luring them out with physical units a mistake.

In contrast, I´m left to wonder why Catherine and Gilbert don´t have any skills. Sure, Catherine doesn’t realllllly need it except maybe Hit+20, but Gilbert needs like all of them and then some.

Mages have it really bad in this kind of play. A whole 1-5 uses for most spells doesn´t leave much room for exp and their combat ability beyond that is… suboptimal would be a euphemism I feel. Same goes for Healing - I´ve gone through all the vulneraries the game gives out and also bought some for chapter 5 because 5 uses of Heal is too little. Though it does get better as of Monk.

 

Notes on chapters:

Spoiler

Nothing to report on chapter 1-2.

As for chapter 3, Catherine did most of the work.

In chapter 4 I wasn´t strong enough to 1) take on the DK, though this was expected but also 2) too weak to separate in 2 groups and get both chests. I got the spirit dust chest, which in hindsight was good because without the +2 Mag Lysithea wouldn´t have 1RKO´d Armored Knights in chapter 5/6 but also bad, because I had to buy an Intermediate Seal which is kinda expensive.

Ah yes, chapter 5. I found out that, if you have the archer that is not in Miklans arena and that can fire over the wall around where the first two waves of reinforcements spawn, attack you, only him and the first group of enemies to the left of the reinforcement pillar charge at you; everyone else will stand around as usual. This can be useful, because as far as I know, triggering the pillar spawns also has that specific group of enemies charge you down for a pincer attack. It also pulls one of the two archers in the second (out of 3) group before Miklans arena, which I think gives you 1 tile where only the Fighter and no one else – by virtue of having lured the Archer out already – can attack you.

Also, if the Physic Priest in Miklans arena heals an enemy, he too will charge you, not triggering other enemies it seems.

The Archers in Miklans arena seem to be coded as 2 groups NE/SE and NW/SW. If you trigger Archer NW to the tiles above Miklan, Archer SW will charge at you, Archers NE/SE will stand around. Dunno if the same goes for the other group, because there was a little mishap.

Also, this Demonic Beast (DB) was just about the most difficult TH-monster fight I´ve had. Only way for me to deal damage was abusing the power of stairs and Curved Shot for a grand total of 5-6 dmg from Leonie/Claude. SotC would have been an option, if I had any healing left. It not regenerating it´s barrier made this way harder. Chapter 5 completed in 85 gruesome turns, of which 15 were spent fighting the big boy.

Chapter 6, current roadblock. It was in this month, that I could finally promote 3 units to intermediate classes and guess who was one of them? Archer Claude. Oh well, if I hadn´t forgotten about that I might have been able to throw some exp in Hildas/Raphaels direction instead.

It looks like I only really have two options, and both include hoping for some timely crits. I am too weak – partly due to the loss of Claude – to take out all enemies on the map in time, the problem here being the Archers on the right. Splitting up in the beginning is not an option anyway, because it makes me too weak to go through either side. I could probably take on the DK, if it wasn´t for the Cav in the room and DK cantoing away. I’d need to land either a Ruptured Heaven crit on DK or the Cav and that´s too unreliable, cuz I really don´t want to replay a map 10 times to get that one sweet spot crit (~11% crit on DK). Unless ofc that´s the only alternative sighs.  A third alternative would be splitting up just before DKs room, which I tend to have cleared between turn ~15-19 with some damage dealt on the DK room mages, but that would split me up in 1) minimum 2 guys trying to kill the Cav in DK room ( 1 for door/1 for kill, presuming I lure the Mages inside) 2) I guess 2 guys for the Armored Knight guarding the chest (I don´t know how his targeting would work – worst case scenario is him using a gambit) and 3) whatever is left for the Cav reinforcements and the Archers. Anyone have any alternative ideas, or will I have to yolo it on the rng?

 

Units:

Spoiler

m!Byleth: lvl 12 Merc

Claude: lvl 10 Archer

Leonie: lvl 11 Pegasus Knight

Hilda: lvl 7 Fighter

Raphael: lvl 8 Fighter

Marianne: lvl 7 Monk

Lysithea: lvl 7 Monk

Ignatz: lvl 5 Commoner

Lorenz: lvl 5 Monk (I have a save with him as Noble, but he really needs the extra magic uses)

Edited by Imuabicus
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1 hour ago, Imuabicus said:

No Church route for me, because not being able to invest in, or rather: preferably not investing in units I will lose after 50% of the game, sounds like a major loss of overall combat ability that I am not willing to deal with.

Well, I was able to make it work on Hard with both just using Faith, but on Maddening limiting their usage should still be doable. Focus on Edelgard getting ranks off Armour for Smite for instance, get Pegasus for movement utility, that sort of thing.

(And at least Hubert's easily benched anyway, with his mageiness he won't be doing too much anyways as you've said)

But then again, it looks like you're kind of stuck with only the class and that's a choice I can't fully onboard with myself.

1 hour ago, Imuabicus said:

No monastery. That means, if at all possible, skip from the very first day of the month to the last day of the month. If there is a forced quest, do that quest and then immediately go to the calendar overview and skip to the end of the month. None shall be talked to; nothing shall be picked up etc. pp. Of course, that means no Abyss either. No recruiting either, beyond those who offer themselves as victims and auto-recruits.

Monasteryless?

I am not going to pretend I'm ready for it myself, but regardless I don't have 3H to hand at present anyway.

The real kicker is that you're only getting experience off the main maps as well, which is..... kind of terrifying.

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I think your strategy of splitting up near the end of C6 should be workable.

It's a bit late now but if you were to try this run again I would definitely make it a priority to get your mages to Beginner tier faster (you should be able to get them enough exp in chapter 3, but you need to keep your eye on it). As you're finding, the low professor rank means money is an issue, and mages having their full spell uses would save you money on both damage-dealing (attack spells) and healing. And in the specific case of GD, Lysithea could have had Dark Spikes by the end of C6 if you'd gotten her a bit more combat, which would give you a bailout option (she needs about ~45 attacking actions by this point, since you don't have Instruct or Seminar, assuming Reason is kept as one of her two goals).

Hopefully you're able to get most of your team to Level 10 by the end of this fight, and can afford the Intermediate seals!

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The cavalier in the Death Knight's room should pose no issue since you can just use stride to engage the Death Knight and defeat him in one turn. One tip that could help getting in chip damage on the DK is getting Fading Blow on Byleth. The art grants +30 Crit Avoid, so the Death Knight would be unable to crit Byleth or double them with Rally Speed. Add in some gambits and a Knight Kneeler Steel Lance from Leonie, even with base stats the Dark Knight should go down easy without having Dark Spikes on Lysithea.

Here some tips from my experience dealing with no Monastery playthrough that may help:

- Don't use too many units at the beginning. Without Quest and Aux Battles, regular exp and, more importantly, class exp will be very limited and result in weakening your better units if you give exp to weaker units. Better to raise your weaker units later through Adjutants when you have you have reliable units rather than dilute the pool of exp when you're at the hardest part of the game. Not having enough gold is just a short term symptom of this.

- Use your weaker units to support your stronger units through utility. Things like Healing Rallies, or Utility gambits such as Impregnable Wall will be good regardless of the what level a unit is at. Lorenz, for example, could help Leonie or Byelth better tank Mages by learning Ward at C Faith.

- Find ways low investment ways to make your units better. One overlooked fact about Leonie, for example, is that she learns Battalion Desperation at C Authority. That skill can be quite useful since it'd mean she'd need less healing between attacks.

Edited by LoneRecon400
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3 hours ago, Dayni said:

Well, I was able to make it work on Hard with both just using Faith, but on Maddening limiting their usage should still be doable. Focus on Edelgard getting ranks off Armour for Smite for instance, get Pegasus for movement utility, that sort of thing.

(And at least Hubert's easily benched anyway, with his mageiness he won't be doing too much anyways as you've said)

Yeah, but Edelgard is kinda one of two frontliners in BE, the other being Byleth, at least until either Petra or Ferdinand start getting some stats. And since she´d be in the thick of it, she´d get exp, level up, gain stats, rinse and repeat and suddenly she´s ypur best unit. 

I wouldn´t underestimate the effects of Mire and Banshee tbh. Those a great spells to have. 

3 hours ago, Dayni said:

The real kicker is that you're only getting experience off the main maps as well, which is..... kind of terrifying.

Compare the levels my units are at (5-12), to the chapter 6 enemies: lvl 18 all around, with DK being 20.

1 hour ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

It's a bit late now but if you were to try this run again I would definitely make it a priority to get your mages to Beginner tier faster (you should be able to get them enough exp in chapter 3, but you need to keep your eye on it). As you're finding, the low professor rank means money is an issue, and mages having their full spell uses would save you money on both damage-dealing (attack spells) and healing. And in the specific case of GD, Lysithea could have had Dark Spikes by the end of C6 if you'd gotten her a bit more combat, which would give you a bailout option (she needs about ~45 attacking actions by this point, since you don't have Instruct or Seminar, assuming Reason is kept as one of her two goals).

Hmm, I dunno if that´s possible, not having mathed it out. 2 problems I see with this, partly cause I don´t know the inner workings of how the game does what: I can´t control who gets chosen in automatic training (I only have E/E+ instruct points and 8 guys), and the second and third auto instruct run on 50 motivation - assuming I even get Byleth to be map mvp the month prior for the first instruct (unless the game instruct whoever sits at 100 motivation?). Leveling up Mages specifically seems like a tall order, considering someone needs to stand in front, a task Byleth/Leonie/Hilda/Raphael do succeed in, but with the shift of focus to mages I feel they´d lag behind too much to be effective.

If I were to try this challenge again, I´d pick Blue Lions.Looks like a much better house.

1 hour ago, LoneRecon400 said:

The cavalier in the Death Knight's room should pose no issue since you can just use stride to engage the Death Knight and defeat him in one turn.

If defeating the DK in one turn would have been so easily possible, I porbably wouldn´t have made this topic.

54 minutes ago, LoneRecon400 said:

- Don't use too many units at the beginning. Without Quest and Aux Battles, regular exp and, more importantly, class exp will be very limited and result in weakening your better units if you give exp to weaker units. Better to raise your weaker units later through Adjutants when you have you have reliable units rather than dilute the pool of exp when you're at the hardest part of the game.

This just leads to a lack of damage. Unless a unit isn´t in range (which is my mistake), they are actively doing something; noone sits around because chip is life. 

55 minutes ago, LoneRecon400 said:

- Use your weaker units to support your stronger units through utility. Things like Healing Rallies, or Utility gambits such as Impregnable Wall will be good regardless of the what level a unit is at. Lorenz, for example, could help Leonie or Byelth better tank Mages by learning Ward at C Faith.

I use what I have, I have none of this. Rally Speed and Break Shot is the peak of my utility so far. Marianne will learn Silence during this chapter, so that´s neat. 

 

Looks like the 10% yolo will be my best bet. 

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1 hour ago, Imuabicus said:

Hmm, I dunno if that´s possible, not having mathed it out. 2 problems I see with this, partly cause I don´t know the inner workings of how the game does what: I can´t control who gets chosen in automatic training (I only have E/E+ instruct points and 8 guys), and the second and third auto instruct run on 50 motivation - assuming I even get Byleth to be map mvp the month prior for the first instruct (unless the game instruct whoever sits at 100 motivation?). Leveling up Mages specifically seems like a tall order, considering someone needs to stand in front, a task Byleth/Leonie/Hilda/Raphael do succeed in, but with the shift of focus to mages I feel they´d lag behind too much to be effective.

Yeah, I was assuming you get zero exp from the random auto-instruct, for the record! Just talking about the numbers you get from passive weekly instruction from goals (which is unaffected by this challenge).

Otherwise, I dunno, it doesn't seem like mages should be any harder to level in chapter 1-3 than any other playthrough? You weren't significantly behind on skills then. Even if you have someone standing up front, you get to choose who gets the kills. And mages get much more value from kills than someone like Raphael, just because "2x spell uses" is a big deal while the upgrade from Noble/Commoner to Fighter/Myrmidon/Soldier is not. So if you aren't able to get everyone to Level 5 by the end of Chapter 3, you should prioritize the people who get the most from it.

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