Hardest Map Thus Far

[Moonlit Knight]

1 hour ago, Original Johan Liebert said:

Not the entire point, you can level the good units too. BTW, Tiki's paralogue area has weaker skirmishes than the main world map, but they're so weak they might not be worth doing mostly (I have seen 2 there, one group of level 1 units and one group of level 5 units).

Yes, I've noticed that skirmishes on the Paralogue maps don't seem to scale in levels - skirmishes on Jean's tea village map for instance have had early game-level enemies all the way to the end. So there might be the randomly determined silver-lining.

[goomoonryong]

For me, it's chapter 17. Really hate that chapter, it's so difficult to keep everyone alive in it, with the new cheated mechanic of the bosses.

[Mitama]

Yeah screw the Chapter 17 shenanigans. It was just so hard, took me so many tries.

Spoiler

Marni is just so tanky, my units just were not doing any damage. :’( AND screw Zephia in particular for constantly using Override.

I also found Chapter 15 slightly annoying. I understood how to change the floor tiles but it was still frustrating to have to move Seadall in a position that would get him killed but also where he could still activate the Dragon Vein powers.

[FRZNHeir]

I did the Tiki paralogue as soon as it opened up for me (Maddening/Classic, non-ironman)

 

Spoiler

It took me 5 hours and 86 turns on my winning run. The waves of dragon reinforcements were super annoying, and I ended up having to just turtle and focus them to get the win. Accidentally forged Etie a Silver Bow, and that was enough to one-shot one dragon per wave. I took advantage of the one emblem basically every other wave, since the waves come at a rate that means your emblem disengages when the next wave arrives. Giving Alfred the Bracelet of Rivals, and Louis got Sigurd's ring. The worst waves of reinforcements were the 2Cav 2Dragon ones, but Louis having Override + Ridersbane made it easy enough.
Side note- gave Jean the Micaiah ring. Made levelling him super easy, and he caught up quickly. Had my 2nd run of it ended by the other Dragon in Tiki's room, since he does 1-2 more damage than the other ones on the map and killed Louis.

 

[DaveCozy]

On 1/23/2023 at 5:05 PM, Shadow Mir said:

IIRC... Nope. It was AFTER this one the shop gets them (albeit limited). And infinite tonics.

Oh wow. So what I'm getting is that Chloé promotion to Griffin Knight is gonna be key to Maddening LTCs. In fact, someone linked me a ch10 Maddening 3-turn clear with her too: https://youtu.be/p-0_AMypwiI

Albeit... they relied on avoid and crits to clear it that fast. The Avoid part seems reliable since you can inherit Avo+10 from Marth, there's also Sigurd and Micaiah's engravings which give big Avo bonuses, and Alear with Marth emblem is pretty heavy with Avoid too (I think Rapier boosts it as well). What I think is super iffy is the crits... like even with forging, that's only 40ish% max you're reaching.

I'm not a fan of needing that much luck personally. I tried a similar strat but got a 4-turn clear instead, that's with less lucky crits. But I didn't lose anyone by comparison, and I am willing to say I made more effective use of getting exp with the units left behind at the bottom (Alcryst sniped Rosato, Framme got some heal exp for e.g.).

On 1/24/2023 at 3:36 PM, Xylaugheon Daily said:

I actually managed to win it pretty easily once I remembered I had a pure water. Easy baiting at that point. I just did chapter 11 and it had me worried, but then Ivy comes in with rings and it was no sweat. I had heard both 10 and 11 were hard chapters, but I honestly didn't think so. Then again I'm not afraid to meatshields someone I'm gonna bench either. Had to let Vander and Jade both bite it inn the first part of 10. It's like sacking a Pokemon during a Nuzlocke. 

Thinking back, I'm gonna change my mind here and say that 10 was much harder. 11 sucks because no time crystal initially, but it's not too bad as long as you have restore staves and yeah, like you said getting it midway helps a lot.

10 however really pained me, I resorted to skipping it in a similar manner linked above. EXP and the chests be damned.

Edited January 26, 2023 by DaveCozy

[dragonlordsd]

Did Tiki Paralogue as soon as it unlocked on Maddening Classic. One of the hardest maps in FE history for me, had to hugely abuse saving and rewinding. Took 4 hours and 32 turns.

Someone had asked for tips on this map previously, here's the basic rundown for me:

First, this map is long. Reinforcements are infinite, so you have to go fast. Biggest threat is running out of heals, which will happen eventually. Buy a lot of heal staffs and antitoxins before starting.

You have some breathing space at the start, so you can take your time on the enemies outside the temple. They mostly serve to annoy you, with the ridiculously high defense thieves being there to stack up as much poison as possible, so bring antitoxins. One of the enemies is also carrying antitoxin to help out.

Once you enter the temple, the real battle starts. First big tip is that the dragons are extremely weak to physical attacks, but extremely resistant to magic. They also can't counter at 3 range, so Etie with a longbow was hugely effective. Again, you want to clear through them asap. The long hallways are there to slow you down so the reinforcements can overwhelm you, but just focus on taking out one enemy cluster at a time. Keep your units together to be able to take out the reinforcement clusters. The dragons are always the biggest threat, regular enemies are just there to pick off your weakend units. Fliers are inadvisable on this map, as they can't take advantage of the movement boosts.

Once you open the second seal, you have to deal with Tiki. The first thing to know is, unlike every other dragon on the map, Tiki's attacks are all physical, not magical, and she can only attack at 1 range. You can exploit this with the obstruct staff to trap her in her room and separate her from her reinforcements. This is essential, as otherwise, she'll keep spamming her revive ability on them. On my playthrough specifically, I waited until she was in the hallway in the middle of the two cavaliers. Then I warped one unit with no weapons behind her, and placed another in front of her. The two cavaliers kept attacking, while tiki was stuck in between them. Then I sniped her to death with Etie.

[Nukemind]

Hardest map so far has been the snow blizzard map, prob chapter 7 or 8. Not the chapter itself. The skirmish with all silvers and Elwinds that spawned there. First time I gave up lol.

[Azz]

Just did Leif's paralogue and damn...

Am playing on normal and I can't even begin to imagine it on maddening. There are like four ballista which complete makes your fliers useless and they deal so much damage it's insane. There are also infinitely spawning reinforcements and a shit tone of offensive staff High Priest. Definitely is a Thracia map lol. 

[ZSSenpai]

On 1/22/2023 at 9:28 PM, Xylaugheon Daily said:

Playing on the same setting. I took one look at that paralogue and noped out. Did you finish it? Any tips? 

I did eventually finish this map on maddening!  But I had to reload to an earlier chapter (right after 7 when you get Alcryst) to redistribute my master seal in order to do so.  I went in with Alear (promoted), Chloe, Celine, Citrinne, Vander, Louis, Framme, and Alcryst (promoted).  I also had to buy a strength tonic for Alcryst, which pushed up his STR enough to oneshot all the dragons with a Steel Bow +2.  The key to this map for me was getting an archer to that oneshot threshold.  Once Alcryst could oneshot the dragons it was much more doable.

The way I did the map was to not even go up the middle alleyway at all after the reinforcements waves stop spawning.  I used Alear as a dodge tank and Louis (rotating him out for Chloe when mages spawned) to protect the other units.  You can stack them all at the bottom of the map behind Alear and Louis so only ranged units can hit anyone else.  Alcryst shoots a dragon every spawn wave.  Alear + Chloe or Louis kill the other dragon that spawns every wave.  The rest of the units kill whatever else spawns.

The waves DO eventually stop!  At around turn 35 or so?  The final wave is 3 dragons, that's when you'll know it's done.  

The rest of the map after the reinforcements are cleared is much easier.  Just proceed through it safely making sure to pull only a few mobs at a time. 

What I was not prepared for was Tiki and her friends charging for me as soon as I stepped on the second seal.  As I was out of position, I was forced to blow Marth's Lodestone rush sub-optimally, which meant I didn't have it for Tiki.  This led to Citrinne getting oneshot by her (I was off by 2 damage!!!! grrr), but honestly I was fine with that.  RIP Citrinne, I got you last chapter and you already died.

Next time, now that I know Tiki will charge me, I'm pretty sure I can get through it with no one dying.  But yeah this map was definitely a doozy for me.

Also, you can get the silver card on the map without warp by sending a unit around the right side.  I did this with Vander after the waves of reinforcements stopped.  But he had to stay there for the rest of the map because a dragon would kill him through the wall if I brought him back to fight Tiki.

This map scales to above your level, so you cannot outlevel it.  I haven't tried doing it late in a run yet, but I honestly think maybe doing it early (like, directly after it appears and you have Alcryst), might be the best move, as that's what let me succeed this time.  At some point with higher levels, Tiki gets more revive stones and that's...not something I want to deal with lol.

Edited January 26, 2023 by ZSSenpai

[ZSSenpai]

5 hours ago, dragonlordsd said:

First, this map is long. Reinforcements are infinite, so you have to go fast. Biggest threat is running out of heals, which will happen eventually. Buy a lot of heal staffs and antitoxins before starting.

The reinforcements are actually not infinite (see my post above).  They do eventually stop.  The final wave is 3 dragons.  That being said, doing the map the way I did it was slooooooooowwwww.  I think I finished on turn 96?  LMAO.

[Fabulously Olivier]

2 hours ago, Azz said:

Just did Leif's paralogue and damn...

Am playing on normal and I can't even begin to imagine it on maddening. There are like four ballista which complete makes your fliers useless and they deal so much damage it's insane. There are also infinitely spawning reinforcements and a shit tone of offensive staff High Priest. Definitely is a Thracia map lol. 

Yeah, Leif's and Roy's paralogues make me not want to play their games. Absolutely dreadful map designs.

 

I struggled the most with Chapter 17 though. Mostly to Zephia.

[Shadow Mir]

48 minutes ago, Fabulously Olivier said:

I struggled the most with Chapter 17 though. Mostly to Zephia.

Did she pizzazz the mess out of you? Or was it other crap as well?

[Fabulously Olivier]

8 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

Did she pizzazz the mess out of you? Or was it other crap as well?

Spoiler

It was the spamming override every turn while I was already busy with Veyle and Hyacinth.

 

Edited January 26, 2023 by Fabulously Olivier

[dragonlordsd]

5 hours ago, ZSSenpai said:

The reinforcements are actually not infinite (see my post above).  They do eventually stop.  The final wave is 3 dragons.  That being said, doing the map the way I did it was slooooooooowwwww.  I think I finished on turn 96?  LMAO.

Wow, really? As I said in my post, I finished it 32 turns. I just figured, after 24 turns of reinforcements, they weren't going to arbitrarily stop at some point, but I guess I was wrong.

[szechuan]

Sorry for having such a bland personality but I want to share how AWESOME chapter 10+11 are. Thematically, these are perfect and unlike anything I've seen in Fire Emblem, almost to a meta level, i.e.:

Spoiler

The fact that these feel and play out exactly like a final map but you're just done clearing the first third of the game, the fact that there are 3+2 bosses in 10 and technically 5 in 11, and they are all trying to kill you (especially the fact that all 4 hounds are ctrying to catch u on 11)

Gameplay-wise, they were incredibly challenging for me. I admit I "handicap" myself by choosing units equally across all maps, so I had to bench Chloe for this one and had to spoonfeed characters such as Lapis, but the divided front was too much for me and after many reloads, I had the Goldmary front team join the Rosado front in baiting Hortensia with Yunaka, who had 100% avoid against armors. And that was just the beginning (although Morion and Hyacynth were easier).

For Chapter 11 I was in absolute despair. I though I could at least change units, because draging Amber and Lapis around... freeze (i think it's called) was a PAIN, I had no healer, etc. Once I made it to the reinforments I could breathe, but I had to resort to giving stat increasing items to my units for the first time to get there.

All in all, fantastic map design.

[Xylaugheon Daily]

14 hours ago, ZSSenpai said:

This map scales to above your level, so you cannot outlevel it.  I haven't tried doing it late in a run yet, but I honestly think maybe doing it early (like, directly after it appears and you have Alcryst), might be the best move, as that's what let me succeed this time.  At some point with higher levels, Tiki gets more revive stones and that's...not something I want to deal with lol.

I did it just now, after Chapter 15, second try, and I did not like it. Things were very strong, able to put too much pressure and sneak in kills on weaker units (my first attempt I was camping the reinforcement point but once enemies from within started charging it was too much.) Ultimately, though, it's just such a long map and that's why I'd say it isn't very fun. Hoping the other DLC maps aren't bloated.

[Mirron]

On 1/24/2023 at 3:27 PM, Etrurian emperor said:

Strangely enough I find random skirmish battles the hardest of them. The stages have a certain script, an ebb and flow to them. You just have to know what you're doing.

But most skirmishes just throw you in a position where you're surrounded by multiple waves of enemies on all sides who are all stronger than your units are, meaning that no matter how good you play you'll eventually be swarmed to death by the horde. Perhaps not if you take a team consisting solely of all your A listers, but the entire point of skirmish is to train the units that lag behind, something that's kinda impossible if they perpetually risk getting swarmed by much stronger opponents and killed off. 

There was a skirmish I just had an option of doing that just sent waves of flying units, with my allies all split up, which... I was not going to do. I don't get why Skirmishes are so brutal.

[dragonlordsd]

4 hours ago, Xylaugheon Daily said:

 Ultimately, though, it's just such a long map and that's why I'd say it isn't very fun. Hoping the other DLC maps aren't bloated.

I dunno, if they're charging $30 for dlc, I want my money's worth. I don't want a map I can just blow through in 5 minutes. That said, I prefer longer maps anyway, so to each their own.

[DaveCozy]

On 1/26/2023 at 3:14 PM, Azz said:

Just did Leif's paralogue and damn...

Am playing on normal and I can't even begin to imagine it on maddening. There are like four ballista which complete makes your fliers useless and they deal so much damage it's insane. There are also infinitely spawning reinforcements and a shit tone of offensive staff High Priest. Definitely is a Thracia map lol. 

Out of all the Thracia maps to bring back, they just had to pick Reinhardt bridge map. Of course it had to be that one.

In Engage, I think it might be possible to rush straight to Leif with a (Re)Warp staff powered by Micaiah's emblem. There's a gap that is exactly 9 spaces wide, which is enough to fully use the 10-range you get with Micaiah. With +1 AoE you can send 4 other units (+the rewarper if using that staff) near him if you target the top right ballista. Or possibly above the group of enemies above the bridge, if you can't move through that ballista. Consequently skipping the entire bridge and ignoring the bottom left ballistas.

You do lose out on other goodies though.

Edited January 27, 2023 by DaveCozy

[Azz]

3 minutes ago, DaveCozy said:

Out of all the Thracia maps to bring back, they just had to pick Reinhardt bridge map. Of course it had to be that one.

In Engage, I think it might be possible to rush straight to Leif with a (Re)Warp staff powered by Micaiah's emblem. There's a gap that is exactly 9 spaces wide, which is enough to fully use the 10-range you get with Micaiah. With +1 AoE you can send the warper + 4 other units near him if you target the top right ballista, or possibly above the group of enemies above the bridge. Consequently skipping the entire bridge and ignoring the bottom left ballistas.

You do lose out on other goodies though.

Yeah, Leif's map was the first map where I was like 'nope, I'm not going to try and route and get all the goodies am done'. I even managed to kill those two OP sages on Sigurd's map for the 2000G they had but with Leif's map I had to draw the line lol.

Changing topic a bit, did anyone else find Micaiah's paralogue easy or was it just me? In fairness, I'm at the point now where I have 10/12 emblems, everyone is level 10-15 (and the recommend level was 10 Advanced class IIRC) and I'm also just better at the game (on normal however) but considering how each of the other paralogues all had smth that really would surprise you, even with the reinforcements after engaging Miccy it was quite easy. 

[Etrurian emperor]

So far easily chapter 17. I actually quite like the set up. A scenario where you fight all six of the main villain at once is pretty neat. I think the problem with the stage is that the devs might have had a bit too much fun in coming up ways to make it challenging. 

Like fighting six bosses itself isn't that problematic, but if you also add two giant monsters that are strangely powerful in Engage, and place those beast in the same range where you're supposed to fight the bosses things get a bit tricky. 

Or have an extremely tanky armor boss with two health bars. That's easy enough with some mages, but if you also give her a skill akin to Miracle, and then also have a cavalry army and a tanky cavalry boss make a beeline to her location as soon as she engages combat it starts to get more tricky. Especially if two other bosses also start running towards you. And maybe giving one enemy the skill to heal every enemy on the field can be a bit much.

I think the chapter would have been amazingly fun if they just scaled back things by a little bit. Maybe don't deploy the monsters with lots of power and range, maybe yank that revive stone from the tanky marni, or have the cavalry boss and his horse army not rush you. Even just taking away merely one of those challenges and keeping all the others would help a lot. There's also a kinda weird trial and error involved in exactly what triggers each boss and their army to activate.

[Original Alear]

On 1/26/2023 at 5:20 PM, ZSSenpai said:

The reinforcements are actually not infinite (see my post above).  They do eventually stop.  The final wave is 3 dragons.  That being said, doing the map the way I did it was slooooooooowwwww.  I think I finished on turn 96?  LMAO.

Turn 75 or so here...I was only on hard mode too.

[Xylaugheon Daily]

16 hours ago, dragonlordsd said:

I dunno, if they're charging $30 for dlc, I want my money's worth. I don't want a map I can just blow through in 5 minutes. That said, I prefer longer maps anyway, so to each their own.

60 turns where the bulk of it was skipping my turn because reinforcements is not 'getting your money's worth.'

 

There's a difference between purposeful size where you make good use of the maps design and throwing too many waves every two or three turns. This might even be fine on lower difficulties; the game definitely wasn't balanced for Maddening.

 

Trust me, I love a large map. My favorite game in the franchise is known specifically for it's map sizes. But it makes use of it's size. This paralogue did not.

[Vicyus]

On 1/23/2023 at 4:43 AM, Smokie1437 said:

Lyn's Paralogue was the first battle I had to actually restart and try again
 

  Hide contents

Since she suddenly decided to move and a million bow knights spawned near her while my team was spread all over the place.

Even on second try I ran into the same problem. Was able to squeeze the Bow knights with body blocking on the bridge north of her though and prevent them from running all over my team. Finally, Lucina's shield helped a lot to survive the enemy phase when Lyn was in 

Mages with bolongese spawned as well and made my life a living hell. Had to exploit ai and made everyone turtle to her opposite side, she moves first and has takes 2 turns to get far enough from her start point to spawn her reinforcements. Once she split herself up from her forces. Made someone use a Smash weapon to push her into my army and we wailed on her.

Ch 17 on hard has been the first time in my run I regret not focusing my exp to a few core units. Having to fight through six bosses, with ridiculous skills and two mini-bosses in the middle of the map; I've yet to clear it.

[CompteSecours]

Chapter 17 was kinda hard.