Xylaugheon Daily Posted February 11, 2023 Share Posted February 11, 2023 (edited) On 2/9/2023 at 6:28 AM, haarhaarhaar said: Yeah this could work - maybe Diamant gets Tiki long-term, and Seadall with Shielding Art + Ike is lots of free def. It's hard for me to imagine Tiki being worse than Ike on Diamant, although Diamant + Ike is lots and lots of synergy... Honestly, I haven't had trouble with using him effectively once he's been given Canter. You'll obviously have to wait to give him access, but I literally never have him engage. I just stick whatever I'm not using on him for the Bond Convos. Edited February 11, 2023 by Xylaugheon Daily Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anathaco Posted February 12, 2023 Share Posted February 12, 2023 On 2/9/2023 at 3:46 PM, haarhaarhaar said: What didn't work: Seadall was even weaker than I was expecting, and being arts-locked doesn't help. I vaguely thought about giving him Tiki to boost his stats/survivability, but that's a waste of an emblem. He'll probably get Micaiah if/when I get her back - are there any other good options for him? Sigurd's pretty nice on him for pure mobility, though the offensive part of his kit is virtually wasted. Leif would be an interesting choice due to his weapon advantage skill reducing damage from all 3 ranged weapon types, but idk how well that would actually work with Seadall's statline. Giving him Roy for Hold Out is another option- personally I just gave him Sigurd for the move boost when engaged and inherited Hold Out so he can take a hit if he needs to. Might give him Celica's counter skill against corrupted foes later on just so he can deal decent damage sometimes lmao. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
haarhaarhaar Posted February 12, 2023 Author Share Posted February 12, 2023 On 2/9/2023 at 10:06 PM, ulurujamman said: IIRC, 3H protagonist is called べレト (be-re-to) if male and ベレス (be-re-su) if female. It's an interesting quirk that Byleth is the name that stuck even if Engage seems to imply male Byleth as canon. Don't know the process by which スタルーク (su-ta-ru-u-ku) is supposed to become Alcryst though. Maybe it was a Star wars reference they didn't want to force past Disney ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I agree wholeheartedly about the gulf between the quality of the gameplay vs the quality of the writing. Ike and Lyn paralogues on maddening are some of the most tactically challenging maps I've ever played, in any game, but a 7 year old would find the plot trite. Who is the target demographic here? That is interesting! Haha yeah I tried romanising the Japanese name for Alcryst (Starook?) but couldn't figure out how it might fit with the crystal/rock theme. Also agreed, it's very hard to see who this game is aimed at. A friend of mine who is a novice FE player (her first game was 3H which isn't that representative of the franchise) is playing Normal/Classic and finds that decently challenging. So I can't imagine that anyone unironically appreciating the plot is old enough to really tackle the gameplay. That said, I'd rather have a well-designed game with a bad story over the other way round. On 2/11/2023 at 9:10 AM, Xylaugheon Daily said: Honestly, I haven't had trouble with using him effectively once he's been given Canter. You'll obviously have to wait to give him access, but I literally never have him engage. I just stick whatever I'm not using on him for the Bond Convos. Canter definitely seems like a good idea. And with the DLC, I suppose there will certainly be an excess of emblems, so there's no trouble just giving him whatever's spare. But I'd like to give him something mildly useful if I can. Now that I have seen the DLC, Camilla actually looks really good for him and I'm not sure who else in my current party I'd put her on. Although it does mean giving up her offense when engaged. 12 hours ago, Anathaco said: Sigurd's pretty nice on him for pure mobility, though the offensive part of his kit is virtually wasted. Leif would be an interesting choice due to his weapon advantage skill reducing damage from all 3 ranged weapon types, but idk how well that would actually work with Seadall's statline. Giving him Roy for Hold Out is another option- personally I just gave him Sigurd for the move boost when engaged and inherited Hold Out so he can take a hit if he needs to. Might give him Celica's counter skill against corrupted foes later on just so he can deal decent damage sometimes lmao. Interesting combo! Sigurd seems so useful that I doubt I'd let Seadall have him long-term - but a dancer with great range is nuts by itself, so maybe that's enough? I like the idea of Leif too, although my instinct is that Adaptable + Arms Guard (which should in theory activate Arms Guard against everything except arts/breath) still won't be a difference-maker. Seadall is basically a confirmed pick for the rest of the game at this point and is running Lineage/Mentorship atm so I can rush Special Dance - maybe he just gets Quality Time or something after that and is minorly helpful that way instead. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anathaco Posted February 13, 2023 Share Posted February 13, 2023 9 hours ago, haarhaarhaar said: Interesting combo! Sigurd seems so useful that I doubt I'd let Seadall have him long-term - but a dancer with great range is nuts by itself, so maybe that's enough? I like the idea of Leif too, although my instinct is that Adaptable + Arms Guard (which should in theory activate Arms Guard against everything except arts/breath) still won't be a difference-maker. Seadall is basically a confirmed pick for the rest of the game at this point and is running Lineage/Mentorship atm so I can rush Special Dance - maybe he just gets Quality Time or something after that and is minorly helpful that way instead. I suppose Leif may be alright on Hard mode- my Alcryst ended up able to function decently as a tank because he has 26 def for... some reason, so I can actually leave him exposed against an enemy or 2 and have him be completely fine. Meanwhile my Seadall has like 18 def, so add 7 and he's essentially one def less than that. Which isn't actually too bad all things considered. But yeah, a) that might be a pretty blessed Seadall, and b) probably won't hold up on Maddening. Didn't even consider that Leif gives access to the 3 melee weapon types though, I might honestly try it for the meme. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
haarhaarhaar Posted February 14, 2023 Author Share Posted February 14, 2023 On 2/13/2023 at 1:01 AM, Anathaco said: I suppose Leif may be alright on Hard mode- my Alcryst ended up able to function decently as a tank because he has 26 def for... some reason, so I can actually leave him exposed against an enemy or 2 and have him be completely fine. Meanwhile my Seadall has like 18 def, so add 7 and he's essentially one def less than that. Which isn't actually too bad all things considered. But yeah, a) that might be a pretty blessed Seadall, and b) probably won't hold up on Maddening. Wow, that is a good Alcryst, even taking class boosts etc. into account. I'm more surprised about him than Seadall (assuming late-game Seadall still in dancer?). Assuming Seadall isn't doubled, then with that Def he's probably alright for surviving a round or two of combat? Odds are enemy knife/sword users are doubling at least, but yeah better than I first thought. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
haarhaarhaar Posted February 17, 2023 Author Share Posted February 17, 2023 I slowed down a bit this week because the DLC paralogues took time, but the log is finally here! Divine Paralogue 2 (Hector) Spoiler MVP: Panette (+Lucina) Turn Count: 25 Time Crystals: 3 (+1 reset) It's time to switch Alear over to Corrin, so I have her learn Starsphere from Tiki. It might be a waste of SP, but Corrin is built for support anyway so I don't think Alear will need any more expensive skills if I keep running Corrin on her. Between that, switching some other emblems around, and picking up a Mend staff, I don't do any other prep for this map. I didn't have any issues difficulty-wise the first time I attempted this map, but I misread the enemy AI entirely. My plan for the beginning of the map was for everyone to go north, pick up the first chest, then cut off the thief targeting the second chest. But I take a lot of time with it (in part to observe the reinforcements, who show no sign of being drawn by me but head straight to Hector), and the thief targeting the second chest picks up the Dracoshield and heads back behind enemy lines. Turns out the bottom left of the map also counts as an exit - I thought all the exits were on my side of the map, but I have no way of preventing his escape now. To stop him getting away, I could have rewinded and attempted to pick up the pace, but the limit to the Time Crystal rewind meant it made more sense to reset and change my overall strategy. So second time around, I aggressively baited all the enemies near me (with Great Aether on Louis), not just the ones close by on the north path. Once they're cleared out, I notice that the poison vents don't trigger until one of my units waits in front of them. The poison vents are the terrain gimmick of this map (I guess every DLC map is going to have one of these?) and I guess also the reason so many enemies have droppable Antitoxins. Anyway, most of my army head east of the starting point - I won't be able to catch up to the Dracoshield thief but I should be able to cut them off now that I know where they'll exit. I only have 8 units on this map though, and I need somebody to open the north chest, so I send Panette and Seadall to do the job. Originally, I have Ivy join them, but the first reinforcements show up not long after I do, and there are enemies coming from further east towards Alear's group, so I pull Ivy back to help out. For a while I'm just in a holding pattern fending off enemies from both sides - I end up using a Time Crystal here wastefully. I'm testing out Alear's Dragon Vein effects, especially the fog (allowing Yunaka to dodgetank anywhere), but it turns out allies also have to pay the movement cost from the fog, meaning Yunaka can't reach her dodge tanking spot and is in danger. Meanwhile, I also use a Time Crystal to fish for a crit from Panette against a mage knight - it's not the end of the world if I don't get it, but landing the crit allows her and Seadall to move a bit quicker. Using the Yunaka/fog strat allows me to start cheesing the reinforcements, especially once enemies from the other side stop being aggressive. The chest down here is only a Pure Water, but I do also manage to kill the Dracoshield thief as he's returning from his thieving. Panette has now managed to make it to the northern chest area just as the other thief does, but I'm a little concerned about baiting the enemies around here as she can't take all that heat. So I let her wait it out, but the thief is able to exit directly from that corner, so I have to rewind again. This time I get Panette (after some dancing) to kill the thief - she has to engage for it, but she does manage - and then open the chest herself. Which adds a turn or two to her journey, but she's still able to recharge her emblem gauge and return to the main party while they're dealing with reinforcements. With everyone regrouped (except Seadall, who's behind a bit) I start moving towards the boss group. A couple of Bow Knights here pose a threat (one has a Radiant Bow, so I can't just tank them with Louis, and generally I can't block off their movement as my units aren't close enough) but Alear provides the solution - she's able to seal both their Mv by engaging with Corrin. What a great emblem! It's also the first time I use arts on her, so she can break the Bow Knight in question. Damage-wise swords are simply better, but I think she has space to carry arts on the odd occasion they come in useful like this. Now, I'm just trotting up to the boss eliminating enemies as I go, being careful not to leave units in range of the poison vents as much as possible. There's one more chest to open, and a risk that Hector charging forwards will cut me off from it. Hector is functionally immune to physical damage, but his hit rates are pretty awful and he hasn't equipped his ranged weapon, so I'm not super worried. Draconic Hex early on does wonders, and Panette/Merrin/Alear are carrying magic weapons, which turns out to be more than enough - it means only Yunaka can't help against Hector. Really, he's only slightly more difficult than Marni, and in the end deals no damage to anyone. Jean uses Goddess Dance to reactive Alear, Merrin and Seadall (who reactivates Jean in turn) and they finish the job. Having been super careful with placement for precisely this reason, I make sure to pick up the final chest with my penultimate action... and it's an Elixir. Which is not an exciting reward, but I guess it makes up for that Elixir I missed in Ch 13. And that's the end of the map. What worked: Admittedly Seadall was there to give her extra actions, but Panette was absolutely fantastic this map. She had to deal with a ton of different enemy types (armoured, mage knight, thief etc.) pretty much by herself, and was able to kill all of them by switching between her dagger, axes, and Lucina's weaponry, then complete the side objective I gave her and return to help the party out against reinforcements. She absolutely felt like an MVP in the traditional sporting sense, and I feel very justified in the choice of Wolf Knight + Lucina for her. What didn't work: I suppose my first approach to this map was overly cautious, and probably deservedly punished by losing the Dracoshield. I also let a couple of the droppable Antitoxins on enemies in the north go, as they didn't move at any point and I picked up quite a few from the reinforcements. Despite the rewinds here and there, I'm quite happy with everyone this map. Fun Fact: You can only inflict the poison condition on enemies once per combat. Yunaka attacked one of the Bow Knights and Panette performed a chain attack with a knife, but only one poison status was added. Which is good to know - I haven't seen any Venin weapons or the like so far, but combining those with backups seemed like a promising strat. It'd still be cool if I could do that, but less nakedly OP. Also, more mysteries open up on how the post-battle bond fragments are rewarded. I quite liked the theory it was determined by damage taken, but Jean took basically no damage and Merrin took a fair bit, and both gave me 100 frags after battle. Similarly, Seadall took no damage and Panette took lots, but both gave me 50. Also, all seven non-Alear units gave me fragments this map - normally, three units give me 100 and three give me 50, and occasionally it's even fewer units. If I can figure out the conditions, then it's at least possible to be earning 500-1000 fragments reliably per battle, excluding random drops - but I have yet to find rhyme or rhythm to it. Chapter 16 Spoiler MVP: Panette (+Lucina) Turn Count: 19 Time Crystals: 2 After last map, I got a skirmish! I wasn't expecting one to show up so soon (a mere six maps after the last one!), so I do the honourable thing and save-scum for a golden corrupted. The icon is again of a Griffin Knight (this time on Jean's paralogue map, which is quite open...), but I can't be bothered to scum more, and I'll probably delay doing it until Yunaka's in Sniper at least. It feels a bit weird to be progressing the story with so many paralogues outstanding, but I can see that I'm going to get Hortensia's retainers and Eirika this map, and picking up an emblem + recruits should be highest on the priority list. So we crack on with the "plot". Rosado and Goldmary join our army, and I get a good look at a different kind of dragon to the wyrms in Tiki's paralogue. Technically, I've seen these before in the Tower of Trials, but these ones are a lot beefier than I was expecting. I set my formation so that I can attack the closest one, but then the map reveals its gimmick - changing tides that decrease Avo and have a huge Mv penalty. Every time I don't bring Chloe, I seem to get punished for it. Anyway, this seems to hugely screw up my plans - Wyrmslayer Diamant can't even reach the dragon, let alone make a dent on it, and for a moment I'm not sure how I'm going to kill it at all. The solution is Merrin, who can use Failnaught when engaged and has the raw attack and speed for it to hurt. Thank God - but it hits home how limited my options for these kinds of enemies are. There's a house in the far corner of the map - I'm relatively confident the closest enemies won't pillage it, but it's still far away so I can't dawdle. But I don't have much of a choice as I'm left trudging through the tide with most of my units, as Louis and Yunaka entertain the enemies that start on the two forts to the north and south of the start. Then, the tide recedes and the terrain changes back, leaving me in range of lots of enemies at once. Aha, that's how this is going to go. Right, well now that I have an idea of the intervals between the tide's comings and goings, that's something we can work with. The Ruffian out to pillage the village has also arrived as I reach the central area, so a top priority is to eliminate him and visit that house. I send a smaller group (Alear/Panette/Seadall/Rosado) to kill him and head to the house, while everyone else hangs back and finishes off enemies nearby. A particular problem are the south enemies, who Ivy has had to dodgetank for a bit. Successfully, to be honest, because I've given her Lyn for this map and Speedtaker is the good stuff. Rosado isn't nearly as lucky, dying to a 7% crit, so that's a time crystal for them. Reinforcements continue to arrive, and the Alear group is slowly making their way to the house. I use the ice-type Dragon Vein to protect them (and the house), but it also triggers the movement of the second wyrm, which triggers more enemy movement. The Alear group still need another turn or two to actually visit the house and beat the enemies there, before heading back, and I don't want to risk taking on the wyrm without my whole army. So I basically have to double down on holding the center. Yunaka and Ivy do most of the work on the south side, although Yunaka takes a hit here and there. The tide's just come in, which works to my favour as it means I don't have to hold off infantry at the same time as the fliers. But I still have to use a Warp to get Merrin to a point where she can kill a flier - my original plan was for Jean and Louis to do it but they couldn't finish the job, so I needed a Time Crystal for Merrin to have space available. More reinforcements arrive by the time the Alear group make it back, and after I've killed them I try baiting the second wyrm, to no avail. Apparently he won't move past a certain point on the map. I'm going to have to go it. Rosado takes heavy damage chipping it, but after some poison/Draconic Hex it's been softened up enough for the kill. We're finally left with the bosses, who are perhaps the most straightforward part of this map. Marni is still as vulnerable to magic as she was two chapters ago, and Mauvier can't land an attack on Ivy when he comes over. Thankfully, he switches to his great lance, meaning everyone can whale on him from range without fear. I manage to rout the map on my way to victory - Panette got the final attack with a 7-person chain on All for One, which was fun. What worked: Ivy and Yunaka were pretty crucial for fending off reinforcements. Theoretically, Yunaka shouldn't completely lose her enemy phase if I move her to Sniper, but it'll definitely get worse, and Ivy will need Lyn or another source of Spd to continue dodge-tanking longer-term. But for now, both of them did great. What didn't work: I dropped Clanne for the last couple of maps, but on the evidence of this chapter Celine is probably worse. Her luck stat has been inflating her total numbers compared to Clanne, and Ignis has triggered here or there, but battle windows don't lie (most of the time), and Clanne has the edge on Mag and Spd (although he lacks staff access). I may have to reintroduce Clanne to the fold, but neither of them can keep up long-term, so I will need to start thinking about who can replace them as my 3rd mage/12th unit. I probably should have dropped Celine for Citrinne when I got her, but I think that ship has sailed. Pandreo? Or do I hold out for a possible recruit? Hopefully there aren't too many 12-unit maps coming up. Fun Fact: You can get a draw in the Arena! Which seems obvious in hindsight (Yunaka couldn't hurt Hector, but Hector couldn't hit Yunaka, so what else was going to happen?) but this is the first time I've seen it. Maybe I just didn't notice this because I don't use smash weapons on Player Phase that much, but if a unit is smashed by an attack and has nowhere to go (because another unit or an obstacle is in the space they've been smashed into) then they get broken instead. Wow - now I understand the point of the Berserker's class skill. Like, that's actually really interesting! Not sure if the armour immunity to break or Corrin's vines prevent this kind of breaking as well, but even so that's just revealed a completely different way of playing the game. My army isn't really built for taking advantage of this, but maybe it's something I employ properly on another run? Like a Berserker leading the charge for a super-smash and probably a break no matter the weapon type, with a Warrior or something following up. Maybe Dual Assist to give the Berserker a chance of chaining even after they're out of melee? If a Swordmaster goes first, then space-allowing they could ensure a smash-break as well. It's probably more situational than I'm imagining, but surely there are things to exploit here that I haven't even given a chance for. Story Corner: The house on this map is right on the edge of the sea, which the Elusian navy have rocked up from with all their ships and their big guns, but this villager seems genuinely shocked that there were enemy soldiers right on her doorstep. On the plus side, this is the first time we've seen the Elusian army actually travel anywhere - I don't know whether to be pleased or cynically grumpy that they only wheel out this basic practicality when it allows for the game's dumbest heist. Even the fact that I can rank heists in this game speaks to something ridiculous here. If you're interested, it goes like this: Veyle in Ch. 3. The woman has the Time Crystal (although we don't see her use it), super-magic, and the element of surprise, so losing a ton of rings is absolutely the correct outcome - frankly, it's not even obvious why she retreats beyond plot armour, and if we ignore how she reached Lumera's palace in the first place we basically have a good example of how to take something from someone in a medieval fantasy (morality aside). Veyle in Ch. 10. I still don't quite get how the ability to rewind everybody's time (not just individual time) allowed her to steal rings off fingers, but full marks for shock value, and actually engaging with the rewind mechanic in-story. The Ivy group for the Time Crystal/Lyn/Lucina. Even less sure how you steal back a Time Crystal from the villain who literally just reminded everyone how good a Time Crystal is, but cool. How you then don't get all the emblems back, when the game literally just showed you can do it with a Time Crystal, is anyone's guess. Either the Time Crystal is OP or it isn't. Don't change your mind in the next chapter, y'know. Rosado/Goldmary pretend to be loyal to Sombron, then run off with Eirika. In fairness, it's semi-portrayed as incompetence in-game, but this is still next-level, because the Four Hounds let Rosado and Goldmary into their army, and close enough to steal an emblem, after Hortensia openly admitted she left them behind to try and stall the Four Hounds about five minutes ago. They don't even have magic time powers, just a can-do attitude and a wyvern. At least it proves that idiocy has been distributed fairly evenly. Anyway, after that post-map Veyle convo, Alear is basically confirmed as one of Sombron's kids? Let me guess - the two-tone hair represents how she's half-good half-evil. If that's true, god save this writing. On the plus side, I do like the track accompanying the Four Hounds though, so I'm happy to see more of them. I don't have to always be a downer. Divine Paralogue 3 (Camilla) Spoiler MVP: Merrin (+those meddling kids) Turn Count: 35 Time Crystals: 1 I get an upgrade to fishing via the Sturdy Rod from the Flea Market. Trying it out leads to the embarrassing realisation that up until this point, I did not know how to fish. I was just button-mashing like in the sit-up challenge, and while that worked for small fish and some of the large fish, I just couldn't get enough button-presses in for the giant fish I now have the opportunity to catch. So I spent a bit of time with it, and found out that you're supposed to stun the fish by patiently reeling them in first, slightly like actual fishing. Who knew. It's a richer, if longer and more demanding, minigame than the 3H one, but let's see if doing it after every battle wears me out or not. I also have a bit more of a look at Rosado and Goldmary. Rosado performed better on the last map, and Goldmary wasn't hitting things very reliably, but a lot of Rosado's performance was probably down to this Lunar Brace ability on Eirika. It's priced at 3000 SP, which is steep, but it's definitely a good skill, and one I'd be eyeing for lots of units whose damage isn't keeping up. Rosado might actually have been a decent Warrior, but I'm very happy with Merrin, and I don't think I have a place for them in my army, despite their solid stats. Goldmary, on the other hand, turns out to have a really high Def stat. She's almost straightforwardly better than Louis in both General and Great Knight (slightly lower Str is the only demerit). I did not expect there to be competition for Louis' position, but the dominance he showed early on has tailed off a bit. So I send Goldmary into Great Knight - Louis would have gone into the class eventually, and I've been wanting to try it out at some point. I also have other ideas for Goldmary's build, but I'll hold off airing them just yet, because I want to assess the general viability of def-tanks in this game now that enemy offense is ramping up. She may not stay there for long, we'll see. Another big change before this map is finally sending Yunaka into Sniper, which I've been thinking about for a long time. Overall, Thief probably is the better class, because she loses a few points of Spd and Def in Sniper, and knives are better than bows generally, but I do really want to try this build, which is basically diminished damage on Enemy Phase/no poison in return for increased Player Phase range/damage. Well, even if I send her back to Thief now she'll go to Lv 21, not Lv 1, so it won't be the end of the world. This means I forge up a Mini Bow+5 (only way I can see of giving her 1-range) and give it the 3H engraving, as well as making a Killer Bow+2 and adding the Corrin engraving for extra crit. I could afford to max the Killer Bow, but I want to see how things go first before I fully commit the resources. I also pick up a Longbow for her, and now I'm ready for this map. From the map screen, it looks like you're bolted to some metaphorical rails here, as while fliers can move quite freely, everyone else is committed to using a series of bridges winding from one side of the map to the other to get to Camilla's area. So, I'm buckling in for a long map then. However, once you start the map Camilla reveals the gimmick, which is that she can flatten certain terrain types, turning it into flier-traversable terrain. Again, I'm very here for the new terrain-based gimmicks, and I really like the idea of the map changing over time. If this is what Fates was like, I really missed out by not playing that game. Anyway, I open with trying out my new tanks in Goldmary and Yunaka. Goldmary's defence (+Alear adjacent) is too high for the flier she's baiting, who ignores her, while Yunaka dodges a Halberdier, but then eats the subsequent chain attack and the longbow attack from a Sniper (displayed hit 17). Mixed start, to say the least. Enemy levels are a bit higher than when I first saw this map, so maybe they scale with my party? That's cool, I want the EXP. Anyway, chain attacks and mages are threats for both my new tanks, so I'll have to bear that in mind as I move forward. The relatively narrow passageways here constrain me much more than the enemies, many of whom are fliers. And the flier reinforcements are able to reach my army relatively quickly compared to my overall movement speed, so I'm pretty much always fighting or about to fight a Griffin Knight throughout this map. Ivy can do a decent job on them with Elwind, but apart from my bow users nobody is reliably ORKOing them. This becomes an issue at the first bridge, as an Elthunder mage with scary Atk hurts Yunaka and blocks the first bridge. Enough fliers are nearby for several units on the other bank to be threatened. My solution is to send Chloe (back in the side after a break from getting too much EXP) to finish the mage and bait the fliers in the process. Which works too well - they all flock to her, but somehow Chloe survives with 1 HP (hit rates against her were all in the 60s-70s, well above acceptable dodge-tanking levels, but FE is occasionally nice to you like that), which creates enough breathing room for me to get my army over to the other side and protect her. This makes me very cautious for the second set of bridges, where there's a sniper and mage lurking and some apparently immobile armours. I never really trust these units not to move, and for a turn or so I think the mage has Elthunder - anyway, I try baiting them but to no avail. So I have to get more aggressive, and I spend my only crystal of the map on this, killing the sniper but then letting Ivy get close to the mage, for her to eat a crit on Enemy Phase instead. Because of the lack of space for non-fliers, I have no choice but to use Goddess Dance here so the units furthest forward could get rid of all the enemies in range. This feels like a turning point in the map, and I send most of my units forward, Merrin bringing up the rear with Jean (who's refilling his emblem gauge), Seadall and Kagetsu. Chloe and Ivy push up a bit to help with more fliers, but I trigger the movement of a bunch of enemies in front, as well as reinforcements behind, in doing so. Dealing with them is a kind of seesaw, as Ivy and Chloe pull back and Goldmary heads forward to try and help, while everyone else takes down the enemies behind me. But Great Aether (on Goldmary) comes in handy, and I'm able to ride my momentum to take surprisingly little damage overall. I've been pretty stingy about buying/using staves thus far, so I always have an eye on not healing/using Vulneraries where possible. On the other hand, I've been engaging a decent amount in the first half of the map, which I try to avoid, so as I move everyone through the path here I make sure they recharge if they're able, or prioritise them for attacks so they can fill their gauge naturally. The rest of this map is a procession, tbh. The reinforcements double up (fliers arriving from the south as well as the north, as well as the periodic waves of enemies from the starting point) but the number of enemies I face on any given turn is very manageable due to the size of the map. Camilla also has been outright flattening terrain, which makes me wonder whether I could have intentionally triggered that by waiting in a particular area for a long time. If I'd done that at the start, maybe I could have cut out some of the hassle of following the path. In any case, I just trundle forwards. The ice-type wyrm with the 2000G drop waits in an awkward position, but Ivy and Chloe do end up being enough to kill it. I try to bait Camilla's Dark Inferno, but I have to get closer than the edge of her range to bring her out. The flame tiles she creates apparently also have a Mv cost, so it's difficult to get enough units to her group, and the two enemies closest to her have Revival Stones for some reason, but I still have enough damage output to kill one, reduce the other to 20 HP on its final bar, and beat Camilla while I'm at it. What worked: Yunaka can semi-reliably delete a flier on Player Phase (her crit rates are currently in the 70s with the Killer Bow, and they'll rise once her personal and/or the Sniper class ability activates), and Merrin was generally one-rounding them by herself. Yunaka will need more speed and damage going forwards, but I have ideas for that, and I'm feeling encouraged. What didn't work: This map really sorted those who had high Mv/range from those who didn't. For example, Kagetsu struggled to stay relevant, which was uncharacteristic. There are also concerns on the horizon. Goldmary's hit rates have actually gotten worse since she went into Great Knight (Louis was suffering from similar problems in General so maybe it's just endemic to the class type?), and even Yunaka doesn't have great hit rates - they're hovering in the 70s, which isn't good enough for a crit build. Chloe's general performance is also a concern - her damage is not impressive, she wasn't doubling much, and her dodge tanking is unreliable (enemy hit rates in 60s and so on). At the same time, all three of them did their jobs quite well on this map, which is why I can't straightforwardly say they didn't work - but these are issues I need to follow up. Fun Fact: I could have mentioned this previously, but I just want to highlight how hard the devs have leant on Ike's personality being just 'oblivious meathead'. During ring polishing Ike says things like "You'll even clean there? I mean, if you aren't embarrassed then it's fine", and completely shrugs off Goldmary's advances in their bond convos. I do feel like there was more to Ike than being blunt and good at fighting, but they have nailed a lot of his character. Divine Paralogue 4 (Soren) Spoiler MVP: Merrin (+the power throuple) Turn Count: 13 Time Crystals: 0 I spent a ton of bond fragments before this map. Nearly 7,000 on bond levels (most of which was in service of getting Merrin Dual Assist+), and an extra 5,000 on Claude's S-rank bond ring. Back when I first got bond rings, I investigated the system a little but basically wrote them off as I figured I'd rather have emblems. However, lurking on these forums has taught me that there are some really good abilities on the bond rings. The Claude ring was top of my list to acquire. Olwen's Dire Thunder (auto-doubling with Thunder on Player Phase) looks straightforwardly good, and maybe it'd save Clanne/Celine, but there's no chance of it until I get Leif back, and the DLC at least brings competition for mages. Bow users also generally want emblems, but Claude's Wind God ability pairs so perfectly with Yunaka's build that it's hard to resist. It extends the range of the Killer Bow, meaning I can trigger the Sniper ability more often for it, and makes Yunaka's enemy phase with the Mini Bow more versatile. I've been scumming for it since I got Byleth, but this is the first time I've even seen the Claude ring, and I could be paying a lot more than 5,000 frags for it if I let it go now. I also engrave Diamant's Killer Axe with Camilla's engraving. This is a map with 12 slots, so Clanne is coming in for Celine. I think I field him as my no. 12, and if someone better comes along he gets dropped. Anyway, my first priority is to stop the thieves from running off with the loot in the chests. I don't really want to divide my army here, because my suspicion is that I'm going into another slog, but I'll do it temporarily if it means not wasting time chasing down thieves headfirst into reinforcements. There's a chest east and south of my position, and the east chest is slightly better protected, so that's the one I decide to open myself - I will let the thief in the south open that chest and then kill him on the following turn. Which, to be honest, wasn't very smart of me, as the route going east then down would have been far more manageable than the route straight south. Goldmary, Panette, Yunaka and Merrin move into position to attack the closest enemy to the east, while readying for a Goddess Dance (courtesy of Chloe via Seadall). On their second action, Merrin crits the thief, opening things up for Goldmary to crack the chest straight away. She's running Tiki, so I figure she can survive a turn. Everyone not involved in this heads south. I was expecting the lava bombs (although the amount of set damage is pretty rough), but this map also pulls out smoke on us. Thankfully, the effects of it aren't as powerful or lopsided as the miasma from Seadall's map, but it still impedes movement and will only cover more tiles over time, so that's incentive to push forwards before I lose places to put my units. As expected, the thief opens the chest, and Goldmary/Tiki survives the turn, although she probably can't survive another one. She doesn't have enough movement to get away from the mage in particular, so I'm going to have to pull out the Rescue staff. Originally, Chloe was going to do this, but Rescue is annoyingly a B staff, so I have to pull Jean back so he can pick up the staff from Alear and use it to save her. Meanwhile, I'm just about able to kill the thief who's opened the chest, and am basically committed to going down this route as I can see enemies coming this way. Alear and Jean stay behind a bit to deal with the armoured units coming out of the east area, but everyone else is heading towards the central area, where things are quickly getting congested. The AI seems to be happy healing units on the magma craters instead of moving off them, and breaking my units at random, but that changes when I set up Kagetsu and Great Aether to bait all the fliers at once. It's not just the fliers who move towards Kagetsu (although two of them stay as Physic bots) but lots of armours and cavalry through the central passageway. My army are positioned relatively well, but I can't beat them all this turn without very dangerous positioning, so this time Jean uses Warp on Alear so she can come over and Dragon Vein the central clearing. Which limits the damage to a single attack on Alear (I left Arts on her so she wasn't broken by the lance paladin, but she dealt 0 damage anyway so same difference). Now I'm able to clear the remaining enemies out without too much exposure. I've still got the immobile High Priests, a couple of fliers and some mages left in the area, as well as reinforcements every turn. For now, I leave the central area (another mistake) and continue to head south to deal with the reinforcements. Which is where I encounter my first Enchanter! Damage-wise they aren't much to write home about, but they come with convoy access and the enchant ability. I can't tell whether the effects are determined randomly or by particular kit that each unit possesses, but there are a bunch of different enchantments, which work like better versions of Chain Guard. Such as repelling the next physical attack, or ignoring magical damage, and so on. I have to be a bit careful to ensure I don't accidentally proc some of these, but it's not too hard, especially with Merrin and Panette on the front line. The lack of non-crater spaces on the south path means my advance isn't very quick, but I'm too cautious with the central enemies to attack them straightaway (I don't want to eat lots of magical damage, and I figure I can just outlast their Fracture/Physic). As Merrin and Panette make it out of the passageway towards the boss area I eventually do attack the central clearing. However, this procs Soren's movement, and his entire group head forwards, as do the wyverns off the map. The wyverns on both sides are threatening, but the ones furthest south can all hit Seadall so they are the primary threat. I don't have many units there, so I pivot, attempting to kill off the wyverns closer to the center, while Jean uses Rescue on Seadall and Alear uses Dragon Vein to separate Seadall from the wyverns. This doesn't go perfectly (a row of chain attack misses means I have to dance Jean to use another Rescue on Merrin to get the kill) but it does happen, and now Soren emerges into the main area. The remaining wyverns avoid the Dragon Vein ice completely and head towards the center - I can't really protect my units from them with terrain in the way. So it's time to finish the map. I let units get kills/chip if they can, before bringing Chloe back for another Goddess Dance. Soren still has Bolting equipped, so he can't counter my attacks, making him the weakest boss I've faced so far. I have enough damage output to even kill two of the enemies in his guard, before Kagetsu and Ike get the kill. What worked: Generally, Byleth on mages is my preferred choice because Thyrsus. But putting Goddess Dance on a flier has obvious benefits, and Luin was actually very helpful for Chloe to take a chunk out of a Wyvern Knight near the end of the map. Another choice for me to consider as the game goes on. What didn't work: I didn't use any crystals this map, but I used up all of the Rescue staff I got from Tiki's map, as well as another use of the Warp staff from Tiki's map. Time Crystals recharge every map, but staves do not and they generally cost money, so arguably I should have used crystals instead. Well, I guess no crystals means better play? Also, Yunaka would have been better served with an emblem (ideally Lyn) this map than the Claude ring, because she didn't get Alear as a portable terrain supply, and kept having to use a vulnerary when she levelled up. 3-range Killer Bow was still great though. That's something to bear in mind for future maps. Fun Fact: Will all the DLC paralogues just start with Tiki finding the bracelet because Alear can't? Also, despite Radiant Dawn being my favourite game, I only found out on this map that Soren's name in Japanese is Senerio - somehow this completely changes my image of him. I remember this map in Radiant Dawn pretty well... and it wasn't really significant to Soren, was it? I can't speak for whether Hector's/Camilla's maps were important to them, but Tiki's at least made sense from Mystery. I mean, in the first place Soren has more of a starring role in PoR, but if you wanted an RD map to represent him, surely it's one of the ones which directly turns on Soren's strategy, like when the mercenaries attack a fortress in the middle of the night, or when he gets Ike and co. to target the supply lines of the Begnion army. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
starbat Posted February 17, 2023 Share Posted February 17, 2023 5 hours ago, haarhaarhaar said: the two enemies closest to her have Revival Stones for some reason This is something kind of cool a few of the paralogue maps do, the random enemies near the boss with extra health bars are usually stand-ins for close allies/story-relevant characters. The bow knight and wyvern rider are Selena and Beruka respectively, I think. There are a few other examples of this for paralogues it doesn't seem you've gotten to just yet, so I'll refrain from mentioning. It's not just the DLC map though. Also congrats on the clears! 5 hours ago, haarhaarhaar said: I've been scumming for it since I got Byleth, but this is the first time I've even seen the Claude ring, and I could be paying a lot more than 5,000 frags for it if I let it go now. If it's of interest to you (although it can really only save you a bit of time save scumming for anyone else you want later) it looks like the ring RNG manipulation game has been refined a little recently. I'll spoiler it in case you don't want specifics, but it's strictly related to scumming for rings. Spoiler Apparently the seed you pull rings from isn't completely randomized at the start of every chapter, just...pushed ahead a few lines? If my understanding is correct? And the amount of rings it is pushed ahead seems to correlate to the number of enemies on the map you choose to save scum with. So if you go dump 50 pulls into getting Olwen, then reload and start a map with 48 enemies....back out and you have Olwen in 2 single pulls. I found out from this video, but I'm not 100% on if he was the first guy to find out it could be narrowed down more. Saves a ton of time as far as save scumming is concerned, since you can pull for all you've got and just roll it back after. If there must be gacha, at least we can cheat it easily Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
haarhaarhaar Posted February 17, 2023 Author Share Posted February 17, 2023 4 hours ago, starbat said: This is something kind of cool a few of the paralogue maps do, the random enemies near the boss with extra health bars are usually stand-ins for close allies/story-relevant characters. The bow knight and wyvern rider are Selena and Beruka respectively, I think. There are a few other examples of this for paralogues it doesn't seem you've gotten to just yet, so I'll refrain from mentioning. It's not just the DLC map though. Also congrats on the clears! Ohh that's interesting! Yeah this is the first time I've encountered normal enemies starting with Revival Stones, but I'll make sure to look out for them once I get cracking on the paralogues. 4 hours ago, starbat said: Apparently the seed you pull rings from isn't completely randomized at the start of every chapter, just...pushed ahead a few lines? If my understanding is correct? And the amount of rings it is pushed ahead seems to correlate to the number of enemies on the map you choose to save scum with. So if you go dump 50 pulls into getting Olwen, then reload and start a map with 48 enemies....back out and you have Olwen in 2 single pulls. I found out from this video, but I'm not 100% on if he was the first guy to find out it could be narrowed down more. Saves a ton of time as far as save scumming is concerned, since you can pull for all you've got and just roll it back after. If there must be gacha, at least we can cheat it easily I didn't know about all this, but I've actually been taking this approach anyway. When I first got Bond Rings, I save-scummed a bit and confirmed that the order of ring rarity doesn't change per Somniel visit. So for example, if you get a B-rank then two C-ranks, that order won't change no matter how many times you save-scum until you battle again and return to the Somniel, and it won't change even if you switch the emblems. So I could pull a B-C-C from Marth, or a B from Marth then C-C from Sigurd, and so on. At the time, I had yet to see an S-rank so I didn't know special abilities existed, and otherwise bond rings seemed irrelevant, so I left it there. When I started trying for the Claude ring, I figured I'd just spend all my fragments on hand to see how long it'd take to pull it from the gacha, or enough A-rings to meld up an S-ring, more out of curiosity than anything else, save-scumming away failures or any Pyrrhic successes. I tried for it every Somniel visit after a battle, and got Claude on my fifth attempt. For context, I had around 25,000 fragments when I first got Byleth, and on my fourth attempt had around 35,000 fragments, and I spent them all on the gacha before save-scumming it away. Until I actually picked it up, I hadn't seen a single Claude S-ring appear. Which leads me to believe that while the rarity order may be fixed, the actual characters that show up are not. After I beat the Soren map, I tried the bond rings again just to see if I could have pulled Claude sooner, but instead it took about 10,000 fragments for me to pull it again. So yeah, I'm not too sure what to make of the method. I don't have a lot riding on it though, so I'll be happy for more committed investigators to report the details. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
haarhaarhaar Posted March 8, 2023 Author Share Posted March 8, 2023 A lot of life stuff has been going on since my last log update, meaning I haven't managed to complete my write-up till now. On the plus side though, I've done more chapters than usual, and I have a couple extra sections as well. Glad to be back! Skirmish - Tea-Field Village Spoiler MVP: Merrin (+EdelDimiClaude) Turn Count: 4 Time Crystals: 0 Since I started recording skirmishes and there haven't been that many, I'm happy to keep writing these up. This was an actual golden skirmish this time, but with a flier icon. The map is Jean's paralogue map, which is pretty open for fliers to raid. And I'm still a bit scarred from that last skirmish, so I bring my A-team, who are all above the recommended level for this map. As it turned out, only the boss of this map was a flier, which is already a huge relief. We're starting in the literal tea fields for this skirmish, and enemies look like they'll attack on two fronts. I already know everyone is going to advance on me immediately, but I'm much better prepared for this reality compared to last time. I start by making a big dent on the enemies south of the starting position (near the mill and next-door house) as I occupy the thickets, and then letting everything else come to me. Inevitably, there's a turn of big risk where I'm about to be pincered on both sides, but the south side is quicker (and more threatening) than the north side. This time, I have Corrin and Camilla to deal with them. Ivy uses Camilla to provide some light group healing, while Alear+Corrin sets up the ice dragon vein to prevent too many units from attacking at once. Everybody engages (if they haven't already) on the following turn, mostly unloading on the south side while Goldmary+Tiki makes enemies on the north side talk to the hand. And then, there's only the north side to deal with - I have more than enough in the tank to finish off the remainder. What worked: Everybody was over-levelled, so it's hard to point to something specific. What didn't work: Maintaining 100% HP on Yunaka to keep Wind God (+1 bow range) active was a surprising chore. Fun Fact: The villagers we met in Jean's paralogue return with the exact same dialogue. I guess it's pretty forgivable though as they're in nearly the exact same scenario. Also, Framme is already begging for inclusion for the second time. Sorry Framme, but you should stick to the pool. Chapter 17 Spoiler MVP: Merrin (+nepo babies) Turn Count: 13 Time Crystals: 3 So, this is a big map. Story-wise and in terms of enemies. It's the first time we're actually supposed to fight all the Four Hounds, Veyle and a resurrected Hyacinth have decided to show (all with Emblems!), and there are dragons in the mix as well. The game has really upped the ante for this map, befitting the 'seriousness' of this massacre. In response, I'm... still fielding Clanne. Even if I wasn't disrespecting the story, I'm definitely disrespecting the gameplay with that choice. While the story may forgive me for it, the gameplay certainly won't, and defeating even my low expectations Clanne gets wiped in Turn 2. Let me explain - I sent a few units north to take down the nearby armours and prepare for Griss, while everybody else went after Marni. Once Griss got close, I retreated everybody except my mages outside of his range, so they could tank him before his Warp Ragnarok gets too close to anybody truly fragile. Or so I thought, and Warp Ragnarok deleted Clanne entirely, even with his mage's Res. On Res alone Clanne is near the top end of my army, but his HP is so poor that it didn't matter. One Time Crystal down, and I've barely done anything. Once Griss has had his one shot, though, he's an easy enough target. I leave a couple of units in the area to finish off the last enemies coming from that side, while I'm slowly baiting the enemies around Marni. The nearby wyrm is annoying on that front, and I waste turns trying to skirt its range (especially with flame terrain impeding easy access to it). In the end, I'm forced to charge it, engaging Merrin to do so. Her Failnaught is still one of the few options I have to reliably hurt them, so I was hoping not to engage so early with her. Between the first wyrm and the fire tiles, the units who fought Griss and his enemies are all injured, and I still haven't properly gotten to Marni's group. So I decide I may as well try to pull the second wyrm so that it doesn't interfere with the Marni fight (and so I can kill it before Merrin runs out of Failnaught use). But as it turns out, the movement of that wyrm procs every single enemy on this map. Which is insane. The Marni group is enough to tie up the units I've sent towards her, but now I've got a wyrm as well as Mauvier and his enemies on a group that can't handle that much heat, as well as everyone else around Veyle heading for me. I'm able to survive a turn of this, but the following turn Zephia can hit just about everyone in my army, meaning I'll definitely lose at least one unit. So, a rewind, with my lesson learnt - no skipping the order. Which means I'm going to have to take out Marni next. My mages and Merrin were mostly dealing with the Griss group, so I'm a bit underpowered for Marni herself and have to be careful. A Torrential Roar means her group don't pose an immediate threat, although the very line formation that allows Torrential Roar to land also prevents me from whaling on her with everyone. So I have to give her a turn to survive, but thankfully Mauvier's group don't come to help, and she is dispatched the following turn. So I bait the Mauvier group, which I want to do with Chloe - some wobbly hits and a Time Crystal later, I switch to Goldmary. Mauvier is probably the least threatening of the bosses on this map, and he saves me the trouble of entering the wyrm's range. But I still have to deal with the wyrm, now knowing it triggers everything on the map and can't be enemy-phased. Thankfully, I get lucky with a Merrin crit, just leaving everyone else to deal with. Zephia and the most advanced cavaliers are the immediate threat, and I don't want to take a hit from Zephia, so I run from her until she's within general range, and then take her out. Unfortunately, that also leaves Hyacinth and his group in range of my units, who I have to tank. That... goes surprisingly well, Kagetsu only taking 13 damage from Quadra Strike. I guess Leif is pretty bad even on the enemy. Now, it's pretty easy for me to unload on the bosses and nearby enemies. Ivy ends one of Hyacinth's health bars so I get that sweet pre-battle convo, while Panette finishes off his final bar with an All for One that dealt 0 damage on the actual attack. I Goddess Dance some of my bigger hitters to go after what remains of Veyle's health - I'm able to kill everything on the map except a lonely Qi Adept, and I don't even give Veyle the honour of dying to a targeted attack. She falls to the AoE of Ivy + Soren's Cataclysm. What worked: Great Knight Goldmary with Tiki is definitely a winning combo. Tiki's features synergise better with General, but getting her into the fight or better positioning for her breath weapon feels much more important. I'm still rolling the dice when Goldmary attacks normally, but she is a great tank. What didn't work: Mistakes in the battle aside, my support with Sommie dropped massively this chapter for no reason. I've never missed a petting/feeding, so I'm pretty sure I'm not the reason - does that just happen randomly? Fun Fact: I was wrong before about Kagetsu - his B support with Merrin reveals that he is from this continent, just a particularly secluded area of Solm called Pale Sands. And he's apparently a prince there? It's also pretty surreal that characters who give bond fragments in the post-battle explore keep their normal lines. No, Yunaka, the Firene massacre is not at all zappy. Story Corner: I think I have to ignore how much hay this game makes of our first War Crime™️, because this is the first time in-story the game has really treated war like, well, an atrocity. I mean, it comes up in supports a decent amount, but pillage and massacre is how wars are often waged (including the one between Brodia/Elusia as flagged in Diamant/Ivy's support) and it's weird that a war in which one side is predominantly mindless destructive zombies hasn't had more of this before now. Its treatment is pretty one-note, but at least this feels like an actual war. Anyway, the game follows all this up by fading out Zephia slapping Veyle. Seriously. We literally kill people/zombies every single level, using mostly child soldiers. You just described a mini-genocide. How is this the line you draw? Also, I know it's obviously for plot reasons, but Veyle could have thrown Marth and Sigurd together. Not complaining though - Sigurd is a great emblem to have back, and Leif on his own would have been a bit underwhelming. Chapter 18 Spoiler MVP: Jean Turn Count: 8 Time Crystals: 1 Lots of Somniel developments - we finally have infinite Master/Second Seals, although I won't go ham on reclassing just yet. The Hard difficulty on Wyvern Ride is out, and it's actually quite hard?! Like even after a few goes I can't get higher than an S-rank on it. Maybe I'll get better with practice, but at this rate it might be more optimal to just get the S++ on Normal. I finally get an S+ meal (from Bunet) - but it really isn't that impressive, maybe because the original meal wasn't that impressive. Out of interest I save-scum to see the other meals he can make, and Bunet also produces a G meal. Actually horrifying, I won't abide that. I also get the Olwen S ring (Dire Thunder) and the Marisa S ring (Lethality) for relatively cheap thanks to learning more about the ways to exploit the gacha. For now, I'll be testing them out on Jean and Yunaka respectively (I talk a bit more about how I feel about Dire Thunder on another thread). This map doesn't look that bad, although it seems clear that I'm going to be forced to defend the starting area. One issue is the number of entrances to our ship - I obviously can't cover all of them, so I shouldn't aggro enemies unnecessarily. Another is the thief near the northeast chest. I don't quite understand why there's a thief here and how they think they're going to escape a ship, but either way they'll have to be stopped. So I start by sending Yunaka, Goldmary and Alear towards that chest, Alear as a mobile terrain-bot while Yunaka and Goldmary alternate tanking. Everybody else bides their time, grouping up and avoiding the range of enemy magic cannons, as I watch how the enemy moves. Yunaka is more than able to handle the closest couple of enemies, although skirting the magic cannon on her side requires me to move quite slowly, and the thief starts to move away. Meanwhile, enemies approach from both sides, so I'm just going to have to bite the bullet and start fighting on the decks. My actual siege cannon seems pretty useless at the moment, but my magic cannon, Jean, with Dire Thunder is just about able to ORKO the armours on this map, so that allows me to focus more on the west side. As I'm congratulating myself for mostly dealing with the first wave, the fliers start to descend on the ship. It's a bit of an issue, as Merrin isn't quite able to ORKO the south wyvern with her Radiant Bow (I keep meaning to forge it up and always forget), and the north fliers do a number on the Kagetsu + Ike combo, who doesn't reply with nearly as much damage as I'd like. The Heroes on the west side also begin to advance, as does Lindon, so I've got to be really careful here. I shouldn't have sent Goldmary on a side mission, although her group do make fairly short work of the Berserkers by the chest. These Heroes are quite tanky, and their Triangle Adept ability combined with their base Spd means dealing with them on their phase is more fraught than usual. Irritatingly, Lindon takes part in the pile-on here, and both Kagetsu and Diamant are brought pretty close to death. Only some lucky work from Chloe and Panette saves me from using up a Time Crystal. On the plus side, Lindon is now close enough for Ivy to recruit him, which gives me enough numbers to clear out the enemies in this area and close down the mage using the magic cannon. It also gives license for Jean, Clanne and Seadall to come over and help clear the east ship, as the Alear group don't have enough in the action economy to stop the axe-wielders and the magic cannon. I'm pretty lucky that they do, because it's the turn before a bunch of fliers show up from the east. Movement-wise, they're skirting the edge of my units' range if that, and the thief is only two turns away from the escape point. Alear deals with a remaining axe-wielder, while I want Goldmary+Tiki to deal with two of the fliers using a dance. But I realise after the act it'd be much easier for me to dance Alear so she can shoot off a Torrential Roar, which can lock out the threat. So I rewind to pull that off instead, which relieves the pressure on the east side entirely, and allows me to kill the thief here as well. I finish off the fliers on the following turn, and aggro the last enemies on this ship just for fun. There's no way this lot are making it back to the other side to help with the boss now, so they may as well get some EXP. The Lindon group have already beaten the enemies in the southwest, and Abyme has made a move, so I send over Ivy to open the chest, and Yunaka to get a shot off on one of the remaining enemies. Everybody else goes to gang up on the boss - after a Goddess Dance from Chloe, I have enough damage output to beat her and then some. Unfortunately the enemy arrangement (on the deck stairs) means I can't quite rout the map, but I'm still happy. What worked: Sigurd made Clanne surprisingly usable! He had the movement to help out both sides, Momentum helped out his damage, and Canter kept him safe. I'm probably dropping Clanne for Lindon now, but this is giving me ideas. What didn't work: This map really reminded me that Hector is not a tank in the way that Ike or Tiki are. Ike and Tiki boost raw stats by a fixed amount when engaged, but Hector boosts stats by a percentage of the raw number. So Diamant, who has poor Res and decent Def, is not significantly improved in tanking with Hector compared to Ike. In fairness, Ike also has Laguz Friend, so he's straightforwardly tankier than Hector on most units and not a fair comparison. Still, Hector mostly doesn't match Tiki (boosts stats by 5), since before the late-game there are very few units whose Def and Res exceed 17 (where Hector draws parallel to Tiki assuming he isn't on an armoured/flying unit). At this point, only Ivy fits the bill (and even then just barely, although I'm now considering an Ivy/Hector build...). Hector has a lot of solid stuff going for him, and he'd shut out all physical damage if I put him on a General, but I'm still marking him down for this. Fun Fact: I am completely certain the boss Abyme is the same character model as the Chapter 3 boss - they have the same name and face. But in Chapter 3 she was an armoured unit, and in this chapter she's a Berserker. And it makes no story sense for her to be alive after Chapter 3. So my guess is the devs slipped up and used the same boss design twice. I haven't seen anything else like that so far. Story Corner: Slightly strange that Queen Eve had no idea about the death of King Morion till Alfred told her. A decent amount of time in-game seems to have passed since he died. Also, I like how Sombron's third eye moves independently of his other two eyes. I wasn't sure how I felt about the whole snake dragon design, but I feel like if there's anywhere to take a punt with designs, it's the dragons, so I'm not against it. Chapter 19 Spoiler MVP: Yunaka (+Lyn) Turn Count: 18 Time Crystals: 3 Somewhat surprisingly, Lindon is a mad scientist (think Hanneman from 3H) with so-so Mag and decent Spd, rather than the classic lategame true sage/magic cannon (ie Gotoh). Not ideal for the purposes of my army, but he's the best option that I have, so he's in for Clanne. And despite Ivy recruiting him, she doesn't get any support with Lindon, which is weird. My incomplete paralogues are weighing on me a lot, but I've delayed them for so long I may as well get all the paralogues first and then do them in one hit. Let's pray the game doesn't lock me out of them before that happens. This map brings back the absolutely terrible miasma terrain. At first I think there's no way I can deal with it all, but the game helpfully points out that the flame cannons west of my starting point can clear them as well. Their range is limited, so I still don't know how I'm going to take on Marni and Mauvier if I have to advance on them in the miasma, but that's future me's problem I guess. The more immediate issue is Saphir. Looking at her battle stats, there's no way she lasts for long, especially as a green unit - I refuse to have her be a Jade 2.0. I wish she'd arrived earlier, as I do quite like the look of her - we'll see if I can make use of her. Anyway, I put Diamant at the front of my army so he can recruit her straightaway, and I engage him with Ike because I don't trust the nearby cavaliers not to move, no matter how many times the game says it's fine. The other thing I do early is send Ivy to open the nearby house - Corrupted units can reach it pretty quickly and I don't want to risk it being destroyed. But it's a trap!! A bunch of axe-wielding enemies spring out. At first I think it's just a big fat L, but it turns out one of them is carrying a droppable Elixir. So that's how they're going to do this. I... really really like this! Like, if I stopped to think about it, the game warned me multiple times that there were no civilians here, and it'd make even less sense than usual for there to be townspeople cowering/unaware of the creatures outside. And it introduces an actual tradeoff where I can pick up a goodie but at a greater cost than usual - as if the Corrupted were actually doing the pillaging that everybody says they do. What a great mesh of story and gameplay. Still, I have to use a Rescue on Ivy and change my plan for Turn 1 - Kagetsu and Alear use the flame cannons to hit the immobile enemies and the axe-wielders respectively, while everyone advances, trying to maintain a formation. It also flags how difficult it's going to be to reach and open the second house in the northeast - that'll need some thinking over. This map has even more great synergy in store for me, as instead of getting involved directly, Mauvier sends a couple of nearby foes straight into my formation with his Micaiah-buffed Warp. Again, brilliant enemy play. Most enemy emblem usage has been limited to spamming engage weapons/attacks (even when normal weapons might be more optimal), and after Hortensia failed to use Goddess Dance in Ch 14 I just assumed enemy AI wouldn't do anything clever with their emblems. Not so - while it might have been smarter to let me advance on the miasma tiles I can't clear, this counts as using the element of surprise, and warns me that I have to be note-perfect with my positioning if I don't want to lose anyone. In actual fact, both Diamant and Saphir get hurt pretty badly - if Diamant hadn't engaged or Saphir had kept the Brave Axe equipped, they'd both be dead. But I'm through the enemy phase, and now I know what to expect. The axe users I released from their home have charged out but get stuck in flame tiles from previous cannon fire, so I have some time to deal with them and the central path. Kagetsu is basically confined to the central cannon for the next couple of turns, as there's plenty of enemies to target on the central path, and Mauvier keeps lobbing cavalry at me. Meanwhile, I'm baiting the axe users with Yunaka, switching units between the two fronts to ensure nobody is exposed unless they can handle a couple of attacks. The narrowness of the pier works against me a bit here, and a few unlucky misses in a row make me use a Time Crystal (nobody died, I just couldn't cover healing and damage-dealing for the following turn without somebody subsequently dying). I'm basically committed to outlasting Mauvier's foe-warping, as he shows no signs of moving yet and is still in miasma. Enemies on the north and south paths keep advancing - the Wolf Knights in the south are tricky, and I have to use Torrential Roar to immobilise them and nearby armours so I don't get overwhelmed. Eventually, we're out of Warps, and now enemies just start advancing naturally, including various reinforcements. Both the dragons start moving - the one in the north directly towards me, the south one towards Mauvier. I've cleared the normal enemies on the southern path and some enemies that advanced from the north path, so everyone is congregated around the central path and it feels a bit crowded. So now is probably the time to detach a group and try for the northwest house. First it means I have to blow through the north dragon - thankfully Jean with Thyrsus and Chloe with Lunar Brace (alongside some chip help from Kagetsu/Diamant) are able to do it by themselves. Lindon and Seadall go along for support. In the meanwhile Panette, Yunaka and Goldmary hold the central path (Alear/Ivy/Merrin providing mop-up and support for them). At this point, I resolve in advance to use a Time Crystal just to see whether it's possible for me to take on the northwest house aggressively. I advance the Chloe group, using Goddess Dance to make them push on quickly. It isn't great timing as more reinforcements have just arrived, but they reach the house and open it. As predicted, enemies spring forth, but they're all bulky axe-wielders again, and I don't have the damage output to beat them straightaway, or the defensive capacity to protect Jean, Lindon or even Diamant. So that's my fact-finding mission complete, and I'm another Time Crystal down. My next go at the house involves using a dance/Warp/Rescue combination to get Chloe to the house and away - but I haven't paid enough attention to the positioning, and Lindon can't reach with Rescue. Chloe could dodge the raw attacks coming her way, but I'm not sure she'll survive all the chain attacks, and not at all sure how I'd extricate her safely if she did survive. One more Time Crystal then, but I'm still struggling to position Lindon in a way that allows him to Rescue Chloe and keeps them both safe. The solution, I realise, is once again the flame cannons. After using Rescue, Lindon would have been in range of the closest axe user, but the flames from the flame cannon (which didn't actually damage anyone on this use) make sure both are protected. Even better, it makes the enemy AI try to send the axe users around the flames and a nearby house, which is a significant detour and allows me to pull back the entire group. I eventually kill these units once they approach my main army. Finally, Mauvier and Marni start making moves here. Moves is an understatement - everything else on the map starts to charge me. Not sure what has prompted this, but if they're going to come to me then it saves me from thinking about the miasma, so that's good enough. However, I'm basically funnelling them into a bottleneck, and it's a race against time to get to the bosses before the south wyrm gets in range of my units and starts blasting. All of the non-wyrm enemies pretty much arrive at once, including Mauvier and Marni. However, while Mauvier is on the front lines, Marni is not, and there are so many enemies around that I can't beat Marni this turn. So I have to just focus on Mauvier, and I clear out a couple of other Corrupted as well. Most of these enemies don't have ranged attacks, thankfully, but the wyrm does get in range this turn. Who misses altogether; the threat this turn actually comes from Marni, who shoots off Roy's Blazing Lion this turn. The damage is bad but not fatal - the bigger problem is that it blows away Alear's fog. I'm lucky that nobody else here has ranged attacks, and that Marni targeted Yunaka (so nobody else can hit her for the KO this turn), but that was very close. Now though, I can finish up this map. Marni's high defence means I have to leave the wyrm and a couple of other Corrupted behind, but that's finally map done. What worked: My front line for most of the map (Panette/Yunaka/Goldmary) could have been absolutely wrecked by chain attacks and/or mages, and fliers could have ripped apart my formation. Thankfully, basically none of those enemies showed up this map, and this trio did a stand-up job throughout. Also, even Bond Level 10 Eirika makes Chloe's dodge-tanking serviceable. I think she could have had a shot at dodgetanking all the enemies from the northwest house, although they could all pretty much OHKO her so I wasn't too comfortable with that option. What didn't work: Saying that it didn't work is a bit harsh, but I'm already seeing the limits of Dire Thunder on Lindon. No ORKOs (admittedly a high bar for a mage to clear) and his chip was good but not great. He still did a lot of good work generally, but he should probably start running Micaiah instead. Fun Fact: I was expecting something properly gay from Merrin/Chloe's A support, but it didn't go nearly as far as I was expecting. Which is far from the end of the world or anything, but it continues the general trend I'm seeing of only minor relationship progress from even A-rank supports. Oh well. Story Corner: Does this mean we're getting Mauvier as an ally, or is he going to die Camus-style? He was always less rude than the rest of the Four Hounds (point in favour of the Camus interpretation), but we now know his loyalty is to cheesy Veyle, not team Sombron more generally (point in favour of joining, since I'm sure Veyle will join), so I'm not sure. Chapter 20 Spoiler MVP: Yunaka Turn Count: 10 Time Crystals: 5 Saphir isn't bad, but I don't think she brings enough to the table to dislodge any of my physical units. For now, she's my potential Thief if I need a Thief - but I don't think I will call on her at all this run. Bit sad about that. Anyway, we've got another Fog of War map, although I don't really understand why this one's in darkness. Interestingly, each Fog of War map so far has come in intervals of seven story chapters (Chapter 6 is the 7th story chapter because of the Prologue). I notice from the map screen that Griss' Celica ability is different to what it was in Chapter 17 - it's Ragnarok before warping, rather than warping to cast Ragnarok. And immediately I discover I'm right to notice, as Griss uses it to teleport in the darkness. Well, my plan hasn't changed too much, as I dance Yunaka to kill the two enemies I can see on the right. She now has Speedtaker (as well as Lethality for this map) so early kills are important for her. To my surprise, she reveals Griss after she moves for her second attack. So actually, my plan does now have to change. There are chests and presumably a whole lot of enemies beyond Griss' position, so I can't imagine I can beat him entirely here. But that doesn't mean I can let him have a phase to attack. So I have to use Goddess Dance early to get enough units over to that side to take him on. I had originally wanted to clear the starting enemies on the left side as well, but I no longer have that leisure. Griss himself is not ridiculously tough, and after he uses his first Revival Stone he runs back to his starting position. Great, but I'm a bit overextended here, with no idea who's lurking, and very cautious of the Entrap user in the center of the map. I use Freeze on a Berserker that I can see, because I can't beat him at the moment without stepping into Entrap range, and I kill another Qi Adept nearby - the subsequent enemy phase has a couple of enemies attack, but is easy enough to tank. I can see enemies from the left coming up behind me, but I won't deal with them just yet. The Entrap user is really bothering me, so the following turn (after doing some clearing of enemies) I decide to see if I can spring the trap first. I engage Kagetsu with Ike, leave a Javelin on him, and put him on the edge of Entrap's range - he gets vacuumed up into the centre, and wiped very quickly. There are far more enemies than I was expecting in range. But I think this is still possibly a viable strat. Next, I retry Great Aether with Urvan, and change up positioning for everyone else, which works better - Merrin baits a couple of Wolf Knights away which keeps Kagetsu alive, although she's pretty wounded. However, it still isn't quite good enough, as the Great Knights around Kagetsu are mostly unharmed, and my army are too far away for most of them to help meaningfully. Another Crystal, to try Great Aether with Ike's Hammer, which does better damage on the Great Knights and has the added benefit of restoring Kagetsu to full health. This allows me to get Goldmary and Chloe forward, who can help Kagetsu clear out all the enemies that have congregated near him. I have Seadall engage with Camilla to make sure he can dance Goldmary+Tiki for an extra breath attack which proves crucial. I've still got a surviving paladin, but Alear's ice dragon vein allows me to protect my squishies/wounded units from him. Everyone else is busy advancing away from the chasing enemies or clearing out ones already in the light. I'm leaving Yunaka, Panette and Lindon to deal with the ones coming behind me. Just as I think I can take a breath, more Wolf Knights emerge from the darkness before Kagetsu, and the Yunaka group also get attacked by the starting enemies. Three of the Wolf Knights are arrayed just right for a danced Goldmary to wipe them out with two breath attacks, but I end up needing to warp over Ivy to get enough damage to beat the fourth one. Meanwhile, Yunaka and Panette take a bit of damage, but a standard crit from Yunaka and a lucky crit from Panette mean I'm in control there as well. During this run of play, two Thieves have emerged and made a beeline for the chests on either side - I didn't have the units to spare for either of them when they emerged, so my next task is to play catchup to make sure those thieves don't escape with my loot. I'm particularly worried about the northwest chests, as they're further away from my army, so all the units with Kagetsu head that way, while the Yunaka group head towards the central area to respond to anything emerging from the dark if necessary. If the thieves head to Griss' area to escape, I'll need to be pretty quick about getting to them. Which means I'm quite aggressive with the northwest area, and I quickly realise I hadn't cleared out nearly as many enemies as I had originally thought. I end up committing more units than planned to this area - only Yunaka and Panette are explicitly in reserve, and the thieves are rapidly progressing with chest-cracking. These enemies are all fairly bulky, so I burn a couple of turns in beating them (random darkness separating light areas doesn't help my cause). The northwest thief also turns back towards my units, rather than heading to Griss, meaning I can beat him here and recover some loot. However, this makes me realise that the other thief must have done the same thing, so I send off Yunaka and Panette to try and cut him off - they're too far over, the thief easily gets away, so I rewind to leave them better positioned. We go again, but before they can cut off the thief more bulky Swordmasters emerge from the darkness, who have high hit and can't be easily killed. I try to adjust to tank them, but doing so lets the thief slip away again. Time Crystal, and I push more aggressively to make the physical block... but I forget that Thieves get Pass, so it's completely futile, and Panette gets wiped for a Time Crystal. I'm getting annoyed at how wasteful I'm being, so I commit more actively, sending Ivy and Jean as well for cover. Yunaka, Panette and Ivy to get kills and chip on the Swordmasters, then Jean uses his second Goddess Dance (I wanted to save it for Griss but I have no choice) to allow me to find and kill the thief. Ivy then uses Soren's Assign Decoy on Panette to ensure that nobody dies this turn. It's an amazing ability that I just haven't really needed to try out before - I guess it's also an admission that I haven't controlled the enemy AI well enough, but I'll still take it. Finally, I'm through this turn, and it's time to take on Griss. My last few boss fights have taken roughly the same format, where Alear pops off Corrin's Torrential Roar and then whoever's around whales on the boss. This time is mostly no different, except for Griss' Unholy Stance, which means I can't attack freely, especially if a unit is wounded or Griss can counter. It's also got great synergy with his whole masochistic personality, so plus marks for that. It isn't, however, enough to save him from my whole army. Map clear! What worked: The usual suspects, I guess? Actually, maybe now's the time to show my appreciation for the Jean/Byleth combo, which has been consistently solid since I started using it. Thyrsus is great, at least some units benefit from Mag buffs, and obviously Goddess Dance. Jean actually does use arts here and there, so even the passive kit is helpful. What didn't work: Goldmary and Panette would have hugely appreciated Canter this map, and both have a ton of SP I just haven't spent yet. Fun Fact: Griss' face in the cutscene where Marni explains her incompetence is absolutely priceless, and does not change even as the conversation moves on. Really feeling that expression as the plot continues. Also, this is the second time the game has refused to show explicit violence (even though it's *just* a slap). I wonder if maybe they just couldn't animate one convincingly? Story Corner: I appreciate Ivy at least entertaining the possibility that the big reveal is actually Griss waging psychological warfare. This should be Alear's first response to an enemy providing information, instead of her anxiety spiral. How many times has a key enemy escaped from right in front of Alear, without them or the group doing anything to stop it? Whenever we fight the Four Hounds, Marni and Mauvier are first in the line of fire, and Zephia and Griss only show depending on how serious the battle is story-wise. This chapter, though, we saw only Griss as the boss, as the Four Hounds fully fracture. Maybe I'm reading too much into this, but perhaps the reason Marni and Mauvier have recurred as bosses more than Griss thus far is because they were less trusted by Zephia (and hence more expendable) even among the Hounds. Technically Zephia's right, as they did fail more, were trusted even less and so did more things likely to result in failure, and this self-perpetuating cycle leads to the rupture we see here, and in the opening cutscene to the next chapter. It'd be a nice coherent way of explaining things if it were true. It's over-egging it at this point to say that I called it (I bet every player over the age of 12 called it), but still... Alear's design was actually plot-relevant in the way that I predicted. Cry. Let's move on. I do like that they make a distinction between how Divine Emblems and Fell Emblems are summoned, and how this is reflected in their abilities. I don't actually remember (and haven't noted down) how Lumera summons Sigurd in Chapter 2, so maybe we saw her pray to summon Sigurd there - if we didn't, then what would the difference between prayer and invocation be? Chapter 21 Spoiler MVP: Yunaka (+Lyn) Turn Count: 24 Time Crystals: 4 I got 50,000G from the last map. Obviously, we love money, but this isn't much more than what we got in Ch 14. And it really brought home that I'd already spent 45,000G on donations beyond Level 2 so far, with very little to show for it. I had been warned that donations were a trap, but I got curious about Donation Level 5. I bought Level 4 in Brodia around Ch 17 because it boosted metals a lot, but when I finally got Level 5 here, it was the S-rank art. It's fine, but you get the A-rank art for free, which is only slightly worse on Mt - I shouldn't have to spend 85,000G more than I otherwise would for what is basically a side grade to a free thing. Not to mention I don't even have many Brodia maps left. I have no shame in save-scumming out of losing that 50,000G, but it's too late to recover the monies I already spent on getting to Level 4 Brodia and Level 3 Firene. SF has the info on all the donation levels anyway, so my lesson is: when I get curious, check online before sinking lots of resources in. Ah well. I also got a skirmish! I'm save-scumming for a good one as per usual, but the first two Gold Corrupted I get are both in Port Givre (Chapter 19). There's still all the miasma, but the starting position is the opposite side to the flame cannons. How on earth are you supposed to attempt that, even if you were overlevelled? It offers 3,000G, which is nice, and it seems the gold reward scales as the game goes on (my last skirmish gave me 1700G, which popped up when I did Hector's paralogue in between Chapters 15 and 16). I eventually got sick of save-scumming, so settled for a Silver Corrupted on Anna's paralogue map. A few units of mine definitely want more SP, so I'll be interested to see how much this skirmish will offer. I was tempted to commit to writing up this section of the log before I started this map, but I can finally get Mauvier, and odds are I get Marth as well, so I figured I may as well do this map and whatever follows first. The multiple battles warning shows up, but I'm pretty confident this won't be the endgame as I still don't have the Marth paralogue. Although I do have to ask why they wouldn't let Mauvier join straight after Chapter 20 when it's pretty much clear that he will join us - after all, they let Hortensia join that way. It just means I can't have a close look at him till after these maps, which is annoying as I already have ideas for him. Back to the map. A couple of wyrms nearby, but I'm pretty sure they're weaker than the ones in Chapter 16, with only 31 Def/Res here compared to 40 Def/Res in Ch 16. Am I just misremembering that? A bunch of armours directly north of the starting point, with cavalry lurking either side to swoop in. And of course, Veyle and her group on a huge avoid tile, with Zephia and Griss in between. We've seen lots of enemies with high Avo, but I think this is the first explicit dodge-tanking enemy build I've encountered in the story. It's still more impressive on the thief with Carnwenhan than it is on Veyle, but I'm going to struggle to land hits on them either way. Let's not get ahead of ourselves - Alear kicks off the party by chipping one of the north armours with her Levin Sword, before getting danced to launch a Torrential Roar on this entire group. Most of my other units then get to work killing those enemies (they're just far enough away that I can't beat all of them now though), or the two enemies just west of my starting point, who are close enough to threaten. Of course, this triggers the cavalry. The Bow Knights to the west split up, which means only two of them are immediate threats, while the cavalry move together and have to be dealt with. My original plan is to wipe most of them out with Tiki's breath, but I realise too late that the second breath attack can't get them all. And there's a better solution anyway - these enemies are arranged in a + formation, so I can just attack the center with Alear and seal their movement that way. I have to be careful not to stray into range of the wyrms' breath as I do it, but after that Time Crystal one side of the map safe. For the Bow Knights, I Assign Decoy on Kagetsu + Ike with Great Aether (Goldmary+Tiki would take less damage from those enemies, but also can't deal any damage back), which works well enough. As I'm cleaning up here, reinforcements start coming in from both sides. For now, it makes the most sense to choose one side and commit to it, so I go west. Thus begins what feels like an age of deadly ping-pong, as my units bounce from reinforcements to reinforcements. Often, there are awkward intervals of space between me and the approaching enemies, and I leave the wyrms alive for a while, meaning it's difficult to stop enemies coming from the east side before they make it to my army. Eventually, I have to fight the wyrms - I burn a Time Crystal on the first one to get Ivy to help from the other side of terrain, and it's a tight squeeze with reinforcements close to my position. The second wyrm gets close a bit before the last of the reinforcements, so I'm able to beat it under less pressure. Although the last few reinforcements do make me use a Time Crystal instead, as I forget that mystical foes also ignore my fog and manage to kill Yunaka. Next, it's Griss, who feels less threatening here without Celica equipped. He's easy enough to beat. I bait the third wyrm next, but he doesn't really bite, so I have Merrin wipe him out. Zephia next, and she's a bit tougher, both in terms of stats and because her group of fliers come with her. Soulblade is an interesting skill for her to use, but she doesn't get to attack any units for whom it'd be a game-changing difference. Still, she gives up the Caladbolg that turn, which is technically my first S-rank weapon. Exciting. There are some more flier reinforcements to beat, but my entire army is ready and waiting for them, no stress. Finally, we can head towards Veyle. First, I make some tentative overtures to the reinforcement wyrm in the northeast, but it doesn't decide to join me or accept its demise. So I move forwards a bit, and it takes the opportunity to miss Alear. Merrin, having just recharged, kills this one as well on the following turn. Now, I want Veyle to come to me and leave her terrain, so I pop off Yunaka's Astra Storm - but all that does is spawn reinforcements throughout the map, Veyle is healed to max, she doesn't move, and now I'm an Astra Storm down. Things are far from unsalvageable, but this feels like a waste, so I rewind it and plan a different course of attack. Well, I say different, but it's the usual move of sending forward units and refreshing them with Goddess Dance - except this time it's so they can actually reach Veyle in the first place. Again, Yunaka starts with her barrage. Alear and Seadall move independently of the others, so Alear can launch Torrential Roar on her, nerfing lots of her Avo. Lindon and Ivy (with Elsurge) combine to kill the Carnwenhan thief, and Merrin/Panette/Yunaka finish off the boss. Chloe can even kill a mage for the funs. I've left a few enemies in Veyle's group alive, but I've already spent too many turns on this map doing nothing to be bothered about them. What worked: Hahaha I guess Marni's axe. More seriously, I'm pleasantly happy with Mauvier's combat, which is pretty close to my army's. I didn't let him do anything too important, but even just taking a hit and doing solid chip are things previous recruits have struggled with on their joining map. What didn't work: I should have brought Sigurd this map. He would have helped massively with covering the various ways in which my army was pulled in the first part of the map. Same goes for Celica, who Lindon should have been using instead of Olwen. He did get crits on Dire Thunder he wouldn't have gotten from Celica and a better tome, but Celica has Seraphim, which would have definitely outdamaged Dire Thunder here. I think it's officially time to phase out Dire Thunder. Obviously, everything ended up fine and this is mostly hindsight talking though. Fun Fact: The reinforcement wyrms have an ability called Spirit Strike, that says a foe's engage meter is drained when unit lands an attack. This is incorrect - the effect occurs when the foe initiates the attack. So your engage meter can't be drained on Player Phase, but it will be drained even if the wyrm misses on Enemy Phase. Also, I finally understand now that here is where Lumera's palace was, in this island in the centre of the sea, not the Somniel. At least that explains events up to Chapter 3, although I still don't get what the Somniel is or why it exists separately to Lythos. Story Corner: Marni's about-turn is odd, because she seems basically happy with all the cruelty to normal people and openly despises soft Veyle up until this point, only to develop sudden sympathy for Veyle after hearing Veyle's backstory? Enough to turn on Zephia? Hmmm. I will say that her backstory is fairly effective at provoking sympathy for her, even if she's the most annoying of the Hounds now. Sombron doesn't even pretend to steal rings off fingers here, he just says he has them and then he has them. Did nobody consider that bringing all the rings to Sombron when his explicit goal is to get all the rings may not be wise? Alear's dark design is so, so much better. Wow. On the other hand, not a huge fan of Lumera's pseudo-bride costume. Is Alfred really the most relevant person to be in the cutscene where Alear dies? Maybe it's just because I don't use him, but I feel like he hasn't been story-relevant for a while. Chapter 22 Spoiler MVP: Yunaka (technically +Roy) Turn Count: 18 Time Crystals: 2 And I'm robbed of emblems, again. On the plus side, I did get Marth back, and I now have Veyle! Who is another Dragon unit - I hadn't thought about that before, but it'll definitely come in useful. Still, this map could be quite tough without emblems - I have solid Bond Rings to give most people, but I forget to give one to Mauvier. The immediate issue is that I'll need to split the party to deal with enemies from multiple routes. Yunaka, Merrin and Ivy go west - Merrin uses Flame Gambit to cut down enemy movement, while Yunaka and Ivy get to work. I also give them Lindon and Seadall just in case things go south. Everybody else goes east - Goldmary goes furthest to bait the nearest Royal Knight. I can also see enemies about to head down the central passageway that I need to prepare for. Immediately, those central enemies give me trouble, and I already have to use a Time Crystal, as Diamant is exposed to two mages that can combine to kill him on the following phase (and do). Covering the central and east passageways gives me a lot of trouble here, as I have to split up a group I intended to move together. The following turn, I'm able to kill off the mages (with Alear/Panette doing heavy lifting) and some of the cavalry on Goldmary's side, although her group need an extra Player Phase to finish the job. Next is the wyrm carrying a Speedwing, but before I can get to her fliers from the south approach - as well as reinforcements emerging from the starting point and thieves from each side directly in front of my units. The Alear and Goldmary groups are under significant threat. And the subsequent Player Phase goes really poorly, leaving two fliers out of three and the thief alive - lots of deaths ensue, and I have to rewind. The Alear group is still really struggling just to deal with their one flier, and in the end I have to leave Alear in range of the wyrm to finally down it. As for the Goldmary group, even with Tiki they're only able to completely beat one of the fliers this time. Which is untenable - the solution, however, comes from the other side. Even though there's multiple terrain obstacles between the Yunaka group and the other groups, Ivy can cross them, and Seadall can cross them when engaged. So I send them over, and Ivy uses Assign Decoy on Goldmary. Due to her positioning, she only draws one of the fliers, but the thief targets Diamant, who counters with a crit before he can die. Honestly, this was one of the roughest starts to a map I've had all run. Once the direct danger has been cleared, the Alear and Goldmary groups combine to take on the wyrm (finally) who deals out big hurt but does, eventually go down. This triggers the enemies in this central area, which is what I've been waiting for. The Yunaka group have been too strong for their side so far, and quickly overpowered enemies there. I feel like I've committed too many, or at least the wrong units, to this side, and Yunaka, Merrin and Lindon had spent several turns cooling their heels so that I don't aggro too many enemies at once, which is annoying. Now, though, with all those enemies moving, they can emerge and join the fight again. Just to be safe, I have the tankier units in the east (Goldmary and Panette) hold the line there, with an Obstruct on a neighbouring space and Assign Decoy on Goldmary again. Quite a few enemies amass here, but I now have enough units behind me to deal with them all. Before I can move forward, flier reinforcements emerge from either side of the map. They could have been as dangerous as earlier fliers, but regrouping means I'm actually alright. Merrin/Yunaka/Seadall/Lindon can beat the three from the west (I wouldn't have needed Lindon if I had actually forged up that Radiant Bow) and everyone else can kill the ones in the east. Finally, we're onto the south half of the map, which becomes notably easier. Yunaka starts us off with some prime positioning and a charmed enemy phase, where she baited all the enemies in the southwest, killing the ones that attacked her (thanks to Claude's ring) and dodging all their attacks without a terrain boost. With everyone regrouped, the remaining enemies, including reinforcements and a wyrm, are more than beatable. After this, it's a procession against the remaining enemies - the Brionac wielder can't even get an attack off. I rout the map before speaking to all the emblems, and there isn't even a secret boss (which I was half-expecting, tbh). Yunaka picked up Roy to end the map, so now Roy is also registered by the game as the MVP. Some emblems have it easy, I guess. What worked: This ties into my point below, but the DLC emblems were crucial. I still haven't gotten the most out of Hector, and Diamant just isn't the right unit for him, but all my other units used their DLC emblems to great effect. Particularly important was Soar on Seadall and Assign Decoy on Ivy, which basically saved my run of this map (I praise Tiki and the Fodlan crew enough already). It's nice to have Marth back as well - he really is good on Alear. What didn't work: Last time we got warned of multiple battles in a row (Ch. 10-11), we got our emblems stripped from us after a big boss battle. I complained bitterly how I didn't aggressively pick up skills/use engravings before then. I even flagged to myself a couple of chapters ago that I hadn't done that for a while. But I still didn't do it in prep for Chapter 21. I had several engravings free or on sub-optimal weapons, and lots of units begging to learn skills that they had the SP for, but I just didn't learn my lesson. While the emblems weren't gone for nearly as long, it was still an unnecessary error on my part. If it weren't for the DLC emblems, I would have definitely needed a reset for this map. Very sloppy from me. Fun Fact: I was going to say this last map, but what's with all these zombies sporting S-rank weaponry? I'll buy that there are a ton of corpses lying around Lythos for a second, but it's surely ridiculous that some of them are carrying unique and peerless weapons. Meteor exists in this game! I haven't seen any option to forge one though - I really hope we get a copy somewhere. Bolting is nice, but its hit rates are bad and it's locked to Soren's Engage, so I'd like a siege tome I can use without those limitations. Also, I encountered some more new enemy skills here. Void Curse sucks. Not sure why preventing EXP gain from reinforcements was necessary. And while I didn't note its exact name, one of the Martial Masters had an ability where they blow up if they drop below 50% health, which would be dangerous if it wasn't so generally easy to kill those kinds of enemies. Story Corner: Can I even be bothered to weigh in on how Alear gets resurrected twice? TWICE? I don't even understand how the first resurrection even happened... nope, I'm not doing this. All I'll say is: imagine Jesus resurrected on Easter Sunday, then died again on the Monday and came back the following Wednesday. Even the apostles would think he's taking the piss. Anyway, with slightly different story beats, we could have had Emblem Alear this chapter instead. This story battle felt a bit superfluous, if I'm being honest. Now I have all the emblems, I'm going to start pivoting my units into their final builds. If people have any suggestions for my units I'm all ears - I can already foresee choices which I'm not sure about (see below): Who gets Byleth? Spoiler Even after using Byleth for a while, I'm still not totally sure who he should go on. Here are my options: a) Alear Alear won't waste any of Byleth's kit (although it's far from optimal combat-wise), gets super Instruct, and the most powerful version of Goddess Dance. Problem is, more emblems are competing for Alear than anybody (there are at least three excluding Byleth that I could give her fruitfully). Putting aside whether Alear is the best user of Byleth, I'm concerned that Byleth isn't the best emblem for Alear. b) Veyle Would really appreciate Divine Pulse, and also gets super Instruct/Goddess Dance. But Divine Pulse is quite cheap, and again there's high competition Emblem-wise for her. I'm currently leaning towards Corrin on Veyle, but I've only just started using her so that may change after play-testing. c) A Mystical unit Of Byleth's engage weapons, I think Thyrsus is the best, and is super-useful in chipping wyrms/bosses/foes with 3-range. In fact, Byleth's probably spent more time on High Priest Jean than anyone else thus far, which has worked pretty well. But my endgame reshuffle plan so far will leave me without a High Priest or Sage, so if I want to keep Byleth on one of those I'd have to change those plans (or reintroduce Celine, which is surely a bad idea). Not sure if Thyrsus is worth that. d) Hortensia I do think flying Goddess Dance is a bit better than dragon Goddess Dance, even though Res+5 is pretty niche. And in hindsight, Hortensia is probably the premier staff-bot in the game. However, I slept on her very hard when she showed up, and haven't used her since join. Not least because of her terrible design/personality, which irritates me enough that she now wears the DLC plushie outfit so I don't have to see her around the Somniel. Anyway, I have spare Master Seals and so many paralogues to do, so I'm not worried about catching her up in investment. What I am worried about is that having her on top of multiple other staff bots would be overkill (after the reshuffle, I should have 3 or 4 units with staff access), and maybe her slot should go to someone with better combat. e) Griffin Knight Lindon Oddball choice, but I do like oddball choices. Similar benefits to Hortensia, except he sacrifices some staff optimisation for better combat and the chance at a decent enemy phase with the Levin Sword and some avo/crit boosting. But unlike most of the options above, he can't hit from three spaces, and there's no guarantee that his combat/dodge-tanking keeps up. f) Somebody else? I haven't tried Byleth on a covert unit, for example, and that could work quite well. Not sure what combo could displace all the options above, but I'm open to trying out other stuff since I have so many paralogues to do. Yunaka's Six Rings Spoiler Yunaka (currently a crit-build Sniper) has been rotating through a bunch of different rings because I don't know what's best for her. I don't think all the choices are equal, but I've narrowed them down to the ones below. a) Claude S (Wind God) +1 range to all bows is extremely good, obviously. But Yunaka has been getting at least a level per map for a while now, meaning she inevitably drops below 100% HP, and it's not always possible to restore her health efficiently. It sounds like a minor nitpick, but introduces some unreliability, especially since Yunaka is a crit-build with an enemy phase, and I can't always predict when she will level up. It also slows down SP generation. b) Marisa S (Lethality) Lethality is a bit stronger than in previous games, thanks to its flat 30% trigger on a crit. Before, pretty much nobody cared about Lethality, it was just a lucky boost that was rarely clutch, if ever. I mean, it's still that, but I can count on it activating at least 2-3 times a map, thanks to Yunaka's really high crit rates and strong enemy phase. I normally wouldn't consider something so chance-y, but Yunaka is unlikely to get Lunar Brace anytime soon, making this an unreliable way to deal with high-bulk enemies that nobody is ORKOing. And the usual caveats about Bond Rings also apply. c) Eirika If I can't inherit Lunar Brace anytime soon, I can at least give it to Yunaka via the emblem. However, the rest of Eirika's kit is wasted on her, most units want Lunar Brace, and others can make better use of Eirika overall. d) Lyn Yunaka has already inherited Speedtaker, which is one of Lyn's big sells. But Astra Storm and Call Doubles are both really good tools in certain scenarios, which Yunaka makes better use of than anybody else in my army. Again, there's competition for Lyn, but Yunaka's case for Lyn is quite solid. e) Leif I'd equip Leif to make use of his Build boost and pivot Yunaka's build slightly. Instead of her current Killer Bow+5 with Corrin's engraving, she'd be using a Brave Bow+5 with Camilla's engraving. Which is a sacrifice of 40 crit for an increase of 1-2 attacks (depending on enemy Spd), trading off some reliability for higher average damage. There's no competition for Leif, but it also wouldn't be too hard for me to save up for Bld+4/Spd+4 and run another ring instead. f) Sigurd Sigurd would just do what Sigurd does for everyone. The better the unit equipping Sigurd is, the better the results on Sigurd himself. Since Yunaka is one such unit for me, she'd also use him quite well. There's no explicit synergy though (Thief Yunaka is definitely a better match for Sigurd) and again, lots of competition for Sigurd. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ulurujamman Posted March 9, 2023 Share Posted March 9, 2023 Two factors clinch Byleth on b) for me. Firstly, you get the improved Goddess Dance/Instruct with +3 to all attributes, which is unquestionably better than all the other permutations of that skill (with the possible exception of +5 speed on covert units, but I'm not personally convinced). Secondly, Goddess Dance gives a huge EXP boost to whoever uses it, and in particular when a low level character uses it on high level characters. Since b) needs some work when you get them, this can help them become viable in their own right. But in any case, after 2 maddening playthroughs I wouldn't seriously consider putting Byleth or Corrin on anyone other than a) or b). Good luck on the final chapters; I strongly suggest warp skipping 25, it's the worst map in the game by far. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
haarhaarhaar Posted March 14, 2023 Author Share Posted March 14, 2023 On 3/9/2023 at 1:46 AM, ulurujamman said: Two factors clinch Byleth on b) for me. Firstly, you get the improved Goddess Dance/Instruct with +3 to all attributes, which is unquestionably better than all the other permutations of that skill (with the possible exception of +5 speed on covert units, but I'm not personally convinced). Secondly, Goddess Dance gives a huge EXP boost to whoever uses it, and in particular when a low level character uses it on high level characters. Since b) needs some work when you get them, this can help them become viable in their own right. But in any case, after 2 maddening playthroughs I wouldn't seriously consider putting Byleth or Corrin on anyone other than a) or b). Thanks for the advice! I think you're right, will be swapping Byleth and Corrin between those two characters and seeing which combinations I prefer. On 3/9/2023 at 1:46 AM, ulurujamman said: Good luck on the final chapters; I strongly suggest warp skipping 25, it's the worst map in the game by far. This is good to know! I haven't really been abusing staves as much as I could thus far, so I'll be happy to give that a go. Almost immediately after I put up last week's log, I found out about Wave 3, which has changed things up for me again. Not least, I think I'll have lots more SP than I was expecting, so I'll be able to put some high-cost builds into practice. Yunaka will be keeping Wind God, because I can get her Lunar Brace. And below I've got my writeup of the new DLC levels, as well as finally cracking on with the paralogues I've been ignoring. Divine Paralogue 5 (Veronica) Spoiler MVP: Yunaka Turn Count: 23 Time Crystals: 2 So 1.3.0 comes with some free stuff, ie the Ancient Well, which coughs up an extra axe and lance when you open it up. Both are brilliant weapons - I could see a Griffin Knight built around this lance and Eirika, while the axe forges up even better than knives in this game, as well as having innate crit. We've also got the final two emblems, so I'm going to delay the full-scale revamp of my team I was planning last week to have a look at these emblems first. Instead, I'm going to be moving people around in stages. First, Chloe and Jean are going to reclass, as both of them have now hit Lv 20. Chloe is going into Mage Knight, running Sigurd - I'm hoping she does for me now what Clanne was doing in the first half of the game, but better. And Jean is finally going to live out his Rock Lee fantasy by reclassing into Martial Master, running Lyn and Flashing-Fist Art+5. Martial Master has relatively low Dex/Spd, but I'm hoping Lyn and the weapon itself will compensate to make an arts user who can actually fight by themselves. I liked gauntlets in 3H (and the idea of Strike, its spiritual predecessor, even though you'd never seriously consider building around that), and while Arts have been nerfed a bit here, I still want to give them a go. I played Heroes for a little while, but I paid zero attention to the story in that game, so I don't know much about Veronica. Still, it feels like giving her (and the player via her) the ability to summon other units is out of place, even among all the slightly weird decisions that have been made about which emblem gets what. Although it does make for a fun dynamic setting up the reason why her and Alear have to fight - it's perhaps the most convincing reason of all the paralogues I've seen so far, DLC or not. It's always left a slightly sour taste in my mouth that the emblem maps have you get into fights with permadeath, for stakes that shouldn't require it. There's a difference between taking a fight seriously and killing your ally, potentially someone the emblem has bonded with, for no good reason. But at least in this specific level, you could argue Veronica is acquiring them - even though she doesn't give them back if she's defeated. Anyway, her map looks a bit scary, because you're split into two groups of four. You could probably regroup after a few turns (or even quicker if you have a lot of fliers/are running Micaiah) but this is a chance for me to test out my new builds, so I'm going to attempt this map head-on and see how far I get. Alear, Chloe, Jean and Yunaka are on one side, while Panette, Goldmary, Merrin and Veyle are on the other. Although I'm not particularly aggressive on my first turn, lots of enemies move forwards, most heading towards Alear's side. Both groups have their hands full, although Alear's team is plainly struggling a little more than Veyle's. To be fair, that first enemy phase requires both sides to leave nearby enemies alive, it's just that the Veyle group have fewer enemies to beat before they can breathe. What also helps is that Goldmary is running Tiki, who heals on a Wait action - meaning she can sit and tank pretty much every turn without bogging down the action economy. Even with Alear using Dragon Vein fairly aggressively, there's a solid couple of turns of pressure on her side. I eventually have to cede their starting bridge due to the sheer variety of enemies (Mystical to land hits in the fog, arts/axe users with dangerous damage output, Thieves with covert/Pass, snipers etc), not all of whom I can kill thanks to the lack of space. It's a real shame Jean can't meaningfully contribute to a fight from two spaces - perhaps he should have had Camilla for this map instead. There's one turn where I end up covering the enemy Thief with fog as well, just to ensure other enemies can't get through. However, once I'm able to kill the last mage, Yunaka's dodge tanking returns, and I'm able to take back control again. Veyle's group is already at the second bridge, which is where I make my first mistake - after checking some combat windows, I leave Carnwenhan equipped on Panette, which brings her Avo down enough for enemies to land hits and kill her. I hate these kinds of things, because they're so avoidable and I should know better by now. A Time Crystal later, I've pushed through bridge two, and they're approaching the east island with the panel. The east island doesn't look too heavily defended, so I feel comfortable engaging Tiki and Byleth for these enemies, who I have to bait a bit aggressively in order to clear. It's as I'm happily clearing these enemies that Veronica reveals she's going to keep summoning reinforcements. Honestly, I was wondering when they were going to show, and these are probably the least annoying reinforcements in any of the DLC paralogues so far, because I can see that their trigger is defined. Alear's group are only just moving out now, but their way forwards is a bit clearer, so they can push up quickly. Now that I know they'll get a wave of reinforcements on clearing their island, I can plan accordingly. Which just involves them moving together as a group, Chloe at the back so she can charge up Momentum. Jean does have an enemy phase with the fog on his side, so it's not very hard to clear these enemies either. Finally, the islands all come together, and I can take on Veronica herself, and her guard, including the new class, Mage Cannoneer. Which, to be honest, is not very threatening, because of its abysmal hit, although it's tough enough to withstand a couple of attacks as well. I make another silly mistake here, messing up the positioning for my second Goddess Dance, which I rewind. This was even worse, because it ended up being a waste of a crystal - even with the dance, I couldn't get enough units close to Veronica (and through her nearby enemies) to kill her this turn, which was basically the same outcome as before. But, Alear + Corrin had frozen her, so she wasn't able to do much damage. My plan was to clean up the reinforcements she summoned for the EXP, as well as kill Veronica, but Panette, who was supposed to just chip Veronica, ended up crit-killing her outright and depriving me of that opportunity. Which is hardly a tough problem to have. What worked: Pretty much everybody in my party, even my def-tank Goldmary, was dodging attacks left, right and center. In Goldmary's case at least, I had budgeted for those attacks, so it was more pleasant windfall than lucky survival. But I was generally pleased to see most of my top units hold their own on Player Phase and Enemy Phase. It at least proves they're all viable going forwards. What didn't work: The fishing minigame absolutely handed my butt to me today. It took about 45 minutes to catch ten fish that give 1000 bond frags each, which is an atrocious waste of my real time. I think I went a bit insane. I've also realised that this might be the reason why I haven't had a max bond with Sommie for a while - over the fishing session, Sommie's bonus damage to fish HP decreased, so maybe each failed fishing attempt harms my bond. If that's true, at least I have some answers, and can go about fixing things (ie not sucking at fishing so much). Fun Fact: One of the first proper chuckles I've had from this game is from how every Lindon interaction seems to be him throwing around thunder in random scenarios. Wanna get a good night's sleep? Let Lindon scorch the hair of a literal god. Wanna make popcorn? Not just any heat will do, you have to toss up the kernels and land an Elthunder. Other units are objectively better than him in almost anything he'd want to do, but he's making my endgame team on favouritism alone. Also, it seems like Lineage affects Bond SP? At least, units that got 5 SP in a normal Arena battle got 6 SP (ie a 20% increase, as written in the ability) when Lineage was equipped. If that's true, then I guess it's really been adding up for the units that have Lineage equipped - and I probably should have given it to more people. Divine Paralogue 6 (Chrom/Robin) Spoiler MVP: Yunaka Turn Count: 13 Time Crystals: 2 So the Ancient Well is officially solving all my SP needs. I can't keep donating at a 5-star level, but if I'm getting 1600SP per donation I'll do it for as long as possible. However, I haven't yet found a way to change the RNG on these - I don't know how reliable the returns will be and I'd like to know I have the option to change things, if nothing else. Meanwhile, Merrin hits her Lv 20 cap as well, so reclasses back into Warrior. She could do basically any physical class at this point, but because all my backups have Dual Assist, they're basically confined to being backup classes, and Warrior has been really good to her. Veronica looks quite interesting - Ivy seems like the obvious choice for her, and the novelty factor alone would put her above Celica in the pecking order. Her engraving debuffs Hit, which immediately makes it quite niche, but I think I know what to do with it. We'll hold off until I get Chrom's before I make a decision though. The map gimmick here is the three crystals that govern the barrier separating Chrom/Robin from my units. I have a look at them, and they're actually quite beefy. Only the units that brought strong smash weapons are capable of breaking them by themselves. I guess my strategy here will just be to rout this part of the map, and then send those units to break the crystals at once, leaving them out of the boss fight. Which is annoying, because they'll be Goldmary, Panette, and Kagetsu, who are often involved in my boss fights. I'm jumping the gun though - on Turn 1, Chloe and Jean occupy avo-boosting terrain to bait the nearby sets of three enemies, while everyone else waits to spring on them. Jean takes damage from the chain attacks from the eastern berserkers, but he'll live - Yunaka and Kagetsu help him take them down the following turn. Chloe's looking quite solid, but the cavalry on her side are very bulky, and need a concerted effort from the rest of my army to go down. I then bait the armours/mages directly north of the starting position, who don't really take the bait in the way I expect, refusing to attack my units head-on but advancing nonetheless. They're arranged a bit awkwardly for a Torrential Roar - and it turns out I have a different set of candidates for that anyway, as the first set of reinforcements arrive from behind. I'm not able to kill everything this turn, because I don't have enough magical/penetrating damage for the armours, and the reinforcement paladins are again very bulky. But I am able to mitigate the ones that survive with various Mv-sealing effects (Alear with Corrin, Veyle with Anima Focus), and the next couple of turns are spent dealing with further reinforcements and cleaning up those nearby enemies. In the meanwhile, the enemies on both sides, including other reinforcements, are heading towards me, so I deploy Chloe and Yunaka on either side to focus their aggro. Which half-works and half-doesn't. Yunaka is able to take chunks out of a couple of fliers even with the Mini Bow equipped, but Chloe gets hit twice (by a 20 and 6 displayed hit rate respectively). Even then, it's only because enemy archers inflicted Seal Def even with their misses that she went down, which was very annoying. It's fixable, though, by withdrawing everyone from engaging enemies on that side so I can finish clearing the other. Finally we seem to be free of reinforcements, so now I can actually turn to tearing down the barrier. Enemies have been amassing behind it for a little while now, so let's hope I have enough space to pile on the pain against both our bosses. Kagetsu breaks the central crystal, Goldmary the west, and Panette the east. Which is, literally, the signal for the floodgates to open. A ton of water terrain, decreasing avo and adding Mv cost, descends on the map, and reinforcements flood in from every corner. And Chrom charges, while Robin stays back. Great - I'm going to have to last at least two turns to finish this. I have a go at Chrom, who is surprisingly tough - while I'm able to beat him, I'm concerned that I can't prevent nearby enemies from killing my units on the following turn. So I rewind, and move Panette and Goldmary first. Part of the logic is that this will reload the RNG for things like crits and chain attacks, but I also want Panette to get close enough to my main army that she could potentially proc Dual Assist and add poison into the mix. Which works out better than I had hoped, because it also makes me examine my main army positioning a little more closely. By getting the damage boost from neighbouring Alear, Kagetsu can now ORKO Chrom with Lodestar Rush, which is a nice surprise, and frees up Chloe to kill the closest mobile enemy, leaving only a Meteor mage in threat range and allowing me to bait Robin safely. Robin turns out to be no threat at all compared to Chrom, but Goldmary gets severely bullied on the west side of the map - I don't think she can hang on another turn even if I wanted to. I send Chloe over to see if she can pick up an Elixir from one of the enemies near Goldmary, but even with Momentum she's just 1 damage short. Irritatingly, the enemy she kills this turn instead gives her the level-up she needed to get the Elixir - if I'd done the previous turn slightly differently I could have achieved that. I still have gas in the tank to spare to kill the enemies around Robin, and it isn't long before Robin falls as well What worked: From the sound of Chrom and Robin's dialogue, the water attack and reinforcements would have triggered once I'd sent any units too far left and right. The reinforcement wolves in particular looked quite nasty. If I had split the party at the start of the map, which I was seriously considering, I probably would have been completely screwed. Also, it's the first time I've actually used the enhanced Houses Unite+ (while the 3H emblem is next to Byleth) - and boy is that broken. I was already convinced this was one of the best emblems before I knew about this, and now I'm just wondering how many maps I could have made easier with the knowledge that I could move again after popping off the engage attack. What didn't work: I held off on picking up Lunar Brace for Yunaka and Jean, figuring I could at least see what Chrom/Robin had to offer first, but it meant that I had two fewer units who could hurt high-Def enemies on this map, and that limited my options quite a lot. Fun Fact: So is it an actual plot point that Alear can't find the DLC emblems by herself, and has to have Tiki point them out? Because that's how it's happened every time. Also, I don't remember this map from Awakening - was it a xenologue or something? It's been a while since I played it to be fair, but this didn't feel familiar at all. Skirmish - Bandits' Hideout Spoiler MVP: Panette (+Lucina) Turn Count: 6 Time Crystals: 2 So, the Brute Force ability turns crits into x4 base damage, instead of x3 as normal. I wish I'd had access to this before I got Speedtaker for Yunaka, because I'm beginning to think Speedtaker for her is overkill - and lots of my units want Speedtaker and are close to getting it, meaning the competition for getting kills will become a bit intense. Generally, Chrom/Robin looks amazing, and could go on any of my units fruitfully. For now, though, they'll be on Diamant, who needs a good emblem to compensate for being the member of my team I'm least excited about. Now that I've done all the DLC paralogues (and I'm expecting to be finished with this run before Wave 4, although I said that about Wave 2 as well) I decide to do some wider army organising. Lindon goes into Griffon Knight - I want him to run Micaiah and use a Levin Sword for half-decent combat. Like I said before, I'm using him even though I know there's better units for this niche, and I'm hoping his combat will prove me right. Mauvier goes into Wyvern Knight, running Ike - I think this will be a winning combo, especially with some of the skills that are now within reach for him, and he can switch between magical and physical weapons for consistent damage-dealing. He immediately hits the Res cap for the class - and he's not the only one to start hitting caps. Alear has capped Build, Chloe has capped HP and Dex (and is probably about to cap Spd) and Jean has also capped Spd/Dex. I wasn't expecting that to happen already, but we'll see how much it matters. I forge up lots of weapons, blowing through over half my current total resources, and do a big shuffle of the engravings. Even with the DLC, I could do with a couple more engravings, in particular for boosting Hit, but I get to a place I'm basically happy with. As I thought I would, I put Veronica's engraving on Elsurge, which I think is best-suited to handle its shortcomings. Most other engravings go to the usual suspects (high-crit weapons, braves/engage attack weapons, Thoron). I used to have Celica's engraving on Noatun, which I had traded around a lot, but now it mostly goes on Goldmary, who has high luck via Tiki, so I'm moving that engraving onto Seadall's Shielding Art. Seadall isn't taking attacks in the first place, but since he always runs the Shielding Art just in case, there's no harm in making him safer. Which brings us to this skirmish map. I wanted a place to try out some of this stuff right now, but if I do the paralogues in order it might take me a while before I get to a challenging fight. So we come to the Silver Corrupted skirmish that appeared a couple of story chapters ago, but which I'm already over-levelled for. Still, I figure the disparity shouldn't be too bad, and I'm curious to see how much SP those enemies drop. I get my answer almost immediately - not much. At least, compared to all the SP books the well has thrown at me. I clear out the enemies in the area that once contained the boss of Anna's paralogue, but I get cocky and decide to see if I can hold the south area, with the open chests. Which makes this map way more challenging than it needed to be, and is directly responsible for both crystals I use here. Mauvier is single-handedly dealing with one side of the map, entertaining the boss and some cavalry. But the other side causes me no end of trouble - Diamant misses, and takes damage from a Martial Master, while Panette has to cover him from multiple enemies. Nobody who supports Panette is in this corner of the map, meaning her dodge-tanking isn't as good as usual, and I pay for that with two Time Crystals (the first to save Panette from getting overwhelmed, the second to save Diamant from a Thief with Pass). An Obstruct eventually saves the day, and the following turn I'm being attacked on three fronts. Luckily, Lindon is here to Freeze a couple of enemies with Micaiah, while Veyle is running Corrin and can provide terrain support. I can slowly chip away at all these enemies for an eventual win, but it was nowhere near as comfortable as I was expecting going in. To make matters worse, even these units, my lowest-levelled of people I'm actually raising, got negligible amounts of EXP from this map. Materially speaking, this was a deeply unrewarding map - if I even get another skirmish, I'll save-scum for a golden one. What worked: I'm mostly happy with the builds I did try out. I haven't used Veronica yet, but Chrom/Robin on a backup (even Diamant) is quite good. Wyvern Knight Mauvier + Ike was a really successful combo. Micaiah is the premier support emblem, so I'm happy to re-establish her in my army as well. Ideally, Lindon needs a bit more crit and more avo on the combat side - but I don't think I can give him meaningful amounts of both at once, especially since he also wants to run Canter. I think I'll have to double down on either crit or avo, but he's still decent as things stand. What didn't work: Diamant's Tomahawk just doesn't hit enemies very reliably - but I'm not sure who could, or should, give up their hit engraving to save it. Diamant will eventually have two engraved weapons (Revanche and Georgios, coming up next story map) - giving him a third feels a bit unfair. Fun Fact: For the first time I can remember, the two allies I dine with (Panette and Goldmary) speak to each other instead of commenting on the food. This was an A-rank meal - I've had A-rank meals and above before, but this hasn't happened. Is it just RNG, or did I accidentally fulfil a condition for this? Paralogue 4 (Lyn) Spoiler MVP: Chloe (+Sigurd) Turn Count: 6 Time Crystals: 0 Yunaka has hit level 20, so reclasses to Sniper again. I consider sending her into Thief again, but I'm quite attached to Sniper Yunaka, and I don't think she'd get kills as easily, so she's staying in Sniper. She also mentions her real name is Larimar in her Citrinne support. Which is the most un-Yunaka name I could think of. With the tonal inconsistency of this game, I wouldn't be surprised if that's a joke, although it's delivered so seriously I feel bad for even saying that. Even my lowest-level deployed unit is about 15 levels above the recommended level for this map, so I'm not expecting a challenge. The degree to which I'm not challenged surprises even me, as most of my units can just trundle forwards without consequences. Yunaka does take a bit of damage, and Mauvier needed Great Aether to ensure he stayed alive after being thrown into a mass of Bow Knights - but the fact they even survived at all says a lot about the overwhelming level gap. The Bow Knights generally act quite aggressively, so I can see how difficult this map could have been. But it's no trouble to kill every treasure-bearing enemy on the map - I need the money, and the post-explore resources too. Nobody puts up a concerted fight on the way to Lyn, and Lyn does basically nothing at all. I even left her alive for a turn, but no counterattack or anything. I'm not really complaining though - that was a nice easy clear after quite a few demanding battles, and I don't really expect oases like this on Maddening. What worked: I was so over-levelled that it'd be unfair to say anything I did worked. I think I would have really struggled with this map even if I had done it around Ch 15 or so. What didn't work: With this being generally so easy, I spaced on Yunaka being not invincible without terrain backing her up and nearly paid for it. An unnecessary moment of carelessness, which I would have been punished for anywhere else. Fun Fact: Lyn didn't move or use Astra Storm this entire map. I'm pretty sure she would have been able to do more than 0 damage at higher than 0 hit to my army, so I don't understand what happened. Also, Mauvier revealed that he is originally from Firene, although the game doesn't treat him as such for the purposes of meals etc. I understand why that might be the case for Veyle, but it's strange that Mauvier gets this treatment as well. I suppose it's like how Clanne and Framme aren't actually from Lythos, but they are because they belong to the associated faction? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joeygreedy Posted March 16, 2023 Share Posted March 16, 2023 On 3/14/2023 at 2:07 PM, haarhaarhaar said: Fun Fact: So is it an actual plot point that Alear can't find the DLC emblems by herself, and has to have Tiki point them out? Because that's how it's happened every time. Also, I don't remember this map from Awakening - was it a xenologue or something? It's been a while since I played it to be fair, but this didn't feel familiar at all. This is the prologue and the... 3rd to last? Map, where you fight Validar. It's both the premonition and the map 2 missions before Endgame where you finally beat Validar and Robin pretends to murder Chrom. Also, neat writeup, it's always funny seeing people's reactions to the story's most absurd moments. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DefyingFates Posted March 19, 2023 Share Posted March 19, 2023 On 3/14/2023 at 6:07 AM, haarhaarhaar said: Fun Fact: One of the first proper chuckles I've had from this game is from how every Lindon interaction seems to be him throwing around thunder in random scenarios. Wanna get a good night's sleep? Let Lindon scorch the hair of a literal god. Wanna make popcorn? Not just any heat will do, you have to toss up the kernels and land an Elthunder. Other units are objectively better than him in almost anything he'd want to do, but he's making my endgame team on favouritism alone. I don't know how many supports you've seen, but while a bunch of them are Lindon being the team's goofy uncle/ grandpa, he has a bunch that are surprisingly heartfelt that won me over when I started collecting them. I'd love to know what you think of them if/ when you see them! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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