Maniac Mode Endgame Strats

[Uscari]

Most people I have heard from have said that Clash is the hardest level in Maniac Mode, but after completing two Ironman runs of Maniac Mode I found the final chapter to be harder.

I can reliably turtle in a corner during Clash and outlast the reinforcements. It's difficult but with a good armored knight and provoke most of the damage gets concentrated on them, and if I invest in my canto units I can take out a fair number of enemies on player phase. It does go through a lot of weapon uses but if you bring like 12 forged handaxes and some standard weaponry you can power through it.

I can't say the same for Endgame. It's a smaller map and they send more units to you in a smaller period of time, and your team starts out in the middle of the map, rather than next to a corner. By the time you migrate to a corner and get your formation going, you have 15+ Paladins/Wyvern Lords harrassing you. The biggest reason you can't turtle though is that Ashnard starts moving on turn 9 and he kills your weakest units one-by-one.

So you have to play aggressively, and forge a path for Ike to fight Ashnard one-on-one, otherwise he'll go after your healer/dancer to make it much harder. I'll just share a few things that I found helpful:

1. Giving Ike Resolve + Savior - Most players think Wrath + Resolve is the best, but to me it's overkill. You already 1-round most enemies as Ike with just Resolve by having the increased strength, the crit is excessive. Savior is actually much better because it allows Ike to carry Soren and enjoy Soren's very useful support bonuses without putting him in danger. Ike's A support with Soren grants him an addition 22 avoid. If you stack that with resolve-boosted speed, his relatively high luck, and a bush, you're looking at over 130 avoid. It's enough that viritually no axe wielding enemy or siege tome can hit you, and everything else has a 5-10% chance to hit. The only exceptions really are Dragons, Bryce, and Ashnard.

It might be possible to increase his avoid even further by pairing with Oscar, but I find enemy units just end up targeting Oscar instead. Perhaps giving Ike Provoke on top of Resolve and Savior can fix this problem and give Ike 150+ avoid from both supports.

2. Using Tormod - Tormod is difficult to train due to his late join time and low level, but has the highest attack speed of any mage in the game using heavy tomes by a pretty fair margin, with the notable exception of Calil, who has 2 less movement, no support with Reyson, and no ability to use staves. Tormod has arguably the highest endgame potential of any unit that isn't Ike due to his stellar stat spread. Investing strength, speed, and magic stat boosters allows him to potentially 1-round Dragon's with Rexbolt and/or Bolting. Dragon's are highly accurate, tanky, and deal high damage, so they are a priority to take out on this map. Tormod is great to sniping the most dangerous enemies that threaten to break through Ike's incredible avoid. He also can heal Ike after all the major enemies are taken out and it's just Ike vs Ashnard. I like to give him both the boots and the knight-ring to take full advantage of his mobility and utility. His double fire support with Reyson also noticeably increases his chances of one-rounding tough enemies with Rexbolt/Bolting.

3. Going west side, Ike goes north, the rest of the team holds the right flank - Ike by himself can severely cripple both the paladins and wyvern lords on the left side just by having 28 speed and ragnell. Putting anyone else next to him up there only makes the process slower, because they don't do as much damage as Ike does. The rest of team is best just forming a wall between the south-west garden and the southern border of the map. I think it's better to go left because the right side has foot units that are slower than cavalry, so it will take longer for them to reach your team while you get everyone in position. Also, the right side has some really dangerous enemies, like a Deadeye Archer, 3 Astra sword masters including a runesword, and several Generals with the Guard skill. You need to give time for your team, and Tormod specifically to prepare to face that onslaught, otherwise they get overrun and put your healer/dancer in danger.

So yeah, those are some tips and advice I have from beating this gamemode twice in an ironman. Overall I really enjoyed Maniac Mode, not so much because the individual battles were engaging, but because the resource management and overall process of waging the war was enjoyable. I really felt like I was making strategic investments in my units/weaponry in a way that felt like being a general. Watching that strategy pay off on the battle field was fun even if it was slow at times. I also kind of enjoy turtle strats and Maniac Mode seems to encourage turtling for a lot of the game, since bonus experience is negligible and there are so many enemies that the battle exp is worth more.

[Aircalipoor]

On 5/4/2023 at 12:30 PM, Uscari said:

Most people I have heard from have said that Clash is the hardest level in Maniac Mode, but after completing two Ironman runs of Maniac Mode I found the final chapter to be harder.

Most people don't play Ironman, since it is a restrictive run that forbids extremely useful tools. Finale is easy if you have a decent Resolve/Wrath Ike to Rescue/Dance/Drop to Ashnard and kill him within 2 rounds. Sure the chances aren't 100, but reseting a few times for one long enemy phase doesn't take too long. Not that you wouldn't know that, but your assumption of ironman being a given goes against the common, sensible approaches of how to play and beat the game.

[Shadow Mir]

The obvious flaw with this is you're talking ironman, which is a restrictive and uncommon way to play the game. And if you're talking ironman, there's no guarantee a strategy that requires very specific units, which 1 and 2 are, will even be viable. 

Edited May 6, 2023 by Shadow Mir

[Uscari]

5 hours ago, Aircalipoor said:

Most people don't play Ironman, since it is a restrictive run that forbids extremely useful tools. Finale is easy if you have a decent Resolve/Wrath Ike to Rescue/Dance/Drop to Ashnard and kill him within 2 rounds. Sure the chances aren't 100, but reseting a few times for one long enemy phase doesn't take too long. Not that you wouldn't know that, but your assumption of ironman being a given goes against the common, sensible approaches of how to play and beat the game.

Well, basing my strategy off an Ironman run really translates to how to complete stages reliably while losing the least number of units possible. Those metrics I would think would define most people's strategy, regardless of whether they do an Ironman or not.

I will concede what is reliable or the least risky strategy is probably very different from what is the fastest strategy. I don't doubt that Wrath + Resolve is faster if you are willing to risk losing a few times and resetting before you win.

I suppose it's up to the people reading whether they are interested in strategies that allow you to win more reliably vs strategies that allow you to win faster. I'm sharing what seems more reliable.

 

2 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

The obvious flaw with this is you're talking ironman, which is a restrictive and uncommon way to play the game. And if you're talking ironman, there's no guarantee a strategy that requires very specific units, which 1 and 2 are, will even be viable. 

Well using Ike and Soren isn't altogether very obscure. Ike is the lord of the game and a forced deploy in every single chapter, as well as one of very few units that can damage the final boss. You'll almost always need to invest experience and skills in Ike to have an optimal team because he is guaranteed to be on your team.

With Soren, the beauty of this strat is that in theory you don't even have to invest experience in Soren to make it work. You just have to put him in the same chapter as Ike for 19 chapters. Although, I highly reccomend using Soren due to his excellent stat spread, focusing on skill, magic, and speed, basically all of the relevant sage stats. He is also well designed for using status staves and comes with Adept so I consider him a very strong combat unit before you get Tormod.

Speaking of Tormod, admittedly it can be a little risky running him because if you're playing in random mode, there is no guarantee that his strength or speed will be high enough to double Dragons with Bolting or Rexbolt, but he is more likely than any other mage to do so, and stat boosters are there to compensate for being stat screwed.

There is no guarantee that any particular unit will be as good as you need them to be for your strats, but running an Ironman forces you to pick the most reliable units that are most likely to be good even if they have some stat screwage. Oscar and Kieran are good examples because even if they get below average level-ups, they both still get canto, still get a stellar earth-wind support, still have access to the Sol mastery skill, and both still have access to the Knight-Ward to practically guarantee good speed.

[Shadow Mir]

8 hours ago, Uscari said:

Well using Ike and Soren isn't altogether very obscure. Ike is the lord of the game and a forced deploy in every single chapter, as well as one of very few units that can damage the final boss. You'll almost always need to invest experience and skills in Ike to have an optimal team because he is guaranteed to be on your team.

With Soren, the beauty of this strat is that in theory you don't even have to invest experience in Soren to make it work. You just have to put him in the same chapter as Ike for 19 chapters. Although, I highly reccomend using Soren due to his excellent stat spread, focusing on skill, magic, and speed, basically all of the relevant sage stats. He is also well designed for using status staves and comes with Adept so I consider him a very strong combat unit before you get Tormod.

Speaking of Tormod, admittedly it can be a little risky running him because if you're playing in random mode, there is no guarantee that his strength or speed will be high enough to double Dragons with Bolting or Rexbolt, but he is more likely than any other mage to do so, and stat boosters are there to compensate for being stat screwed.

There is no guarantee that any particular unit will be as good as you need them to be for your strats, but running an Ironman forces you to pick the most reliable units that are most likely to be good even if they have some stat screwage. Oscar and Kieran are good examples because even if they get below average level-ups, they both still get canto, still get a stellar earth-wind support, still have access to the Sol mastery skill, and both still have access to the Knight-Ward to practically guarantee good speed.

Ike isn't the issue. Soren is. What if I'm not using him? Then your first strategy is off the table (as if I'm going to field someone who I have no intention of using for 19 chapters, which is how many chapters Soren needs to see use for to get to A), and persisting with it anyway is only shooting myself in the foot. It doesn't help that Ike/Soren is one of the slowest supports to max out. To put things into perspective, it takes less time for Ike/Oscar to hit A than it does for Ike/Soren to get to B.

On Tormod: I'd say the real issue is his coming underleveled. There's only so much BEXP to go around after all...

Edited May 7, 2023 by Shadow Mir

[Uscari]

9 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Ike isn't the issue. Soren is. What if I'm not using him? Then your first strategy is off the table (as if I'm going to field someone who I have no intention of using for 19 chapters, which is how many chapters Soren needs to see use for to get to A), and persisting with it anyway is only shooting myself in the foot. It doesn't help that Ike/Soren is one of the slowest supports to max out. To put things into perspective, it takes less time for Ike/Oscar to hit A than it does for Ike/Soren to get to B.

On Tormod: I'd say the real issue is his coming underleveled. There's only so much BEXP to go around after all...

 

I guess to me it's not much to bring someone on the field just for the purpose of building supports because I tend to use smaller team sizes (8 or 9 max). I highly recommend running Soren because I pretty much use him as my dedicated healer after he promotes (I don't think Fortify or Ashera Staff are really that important), but I guess if you tend to use bigger teams and don't want to use Soren then the support strategy can't be done.

Yeah leveling Tormod is a challenge, coming in at Level 7 on Chapter 16 is really bad when most of your units are about to promote. What I found most effective was using Titania in the early chapters to clear quickly and get enough bonus xp to give Tormod 5-6 levels. I use the prison chapter to farm battle exp for Oscar and Soren because it's very easy to cheese that chapter by hunkering down in Sephiran's cell to fight enemies one at a time. Getting Tormod to level 12 generally makes him fast enough not to get doubled and gets his magic to a point where he can finish off enemies reliably.

I prefer going for the bonus xp early in case I need to reset a lot. You can try to stealth the prison chapter but I personally think the battle exp is better.

Leveling Tormod is tough but I think worth it by the endgame. 8 movement (10 with boots), ability to use staffs, highest attack speed in the game when using siege tomes, double fire support with your dancer all makes for a fantastic unit if you invest the exp/stat boosters.

I agree though that it is an issue and I did have to reset many times because I was prepping my resources to invest in Tormod.

[Vicious Sal]

What do you mean with having to reset. If you're playing an Ironman, that is what you tend to not do.

[Shadow Mir]

15 hours ago, Uscari said:

I guess to me it's not much to bring someone on the field just for the purpose of building supports because I tend to use smaller team sizes (8 or 9 max). I highly recommend running Soren because I pretty much use him as my dedicated healer after he promotes (I don't think Fortify or Ashera Staff are really that important), but I guess if you tend to use bigger teams and don't want to use Soren then the support strategy can't be done.

It's even dumber if you use smaller teams, honestly; you're already making things harder for yourself, now you want to cripple yourself even further? Also, Soren is a borderline hate sink personality wise, so that doesn't help his case any. Nor does it that he specializes in wind magic... which sucks really really hard in this game.

15 hours ago, Uscari said:

Yeah leveling Tormod is a challenge, coming in at Level 7 on Chapter 16 is really bad when most of your units are about to promote. What I found most effective was using Titania in the early chapters to clear quickly and get enough bonus xp to give Tormod 5-6 levels. I use the prison chapter to farm battle exp for Oscar and Soren because it's very easy to cheese that chapter by hunkering down in Sephiran's cell to fight enemies one at a time. Getting Tormod to level 12 generally makes him fast enough not to get doubled and gets his magic to a point where he can finish off enemies reliably.

I prefer going for the bonus xp early in case I need to reset a lot. You can try to stealth the prison chapter but I personally think the battle exp is better.

Leveling Tormod is tough but I think worth it by the endgame. 8 movement (10 with boots), ability to use staffs, highest attack speed in the game when using siege tomes, double fire support with your dancer all makes for a fantastic unit if you invest the exp/stat boosters.

I agree though that it is an issue and I did have to reset many times because I was prepping my resources to invest in Tormod.

The other issue is that Tormod is a *very* high investment unit... with returns that fail to justify the work imho. His situation is like Marisa all over again, honestly; underleved with inappropriate bases for his join time. Coming in at chapter 16 (which, as you say, is where my other units are closing in on promotion) at level 7 alone is enough to make him a tough sell, but having lousy bases for his jointime doesn't help. Oh, and he starts at E thunder. Sure, BEXP helps... but I could just as easily give that to anybody else.

Also, aren't you NOT supposed to reset in an ironman?

Edited May 8, 2023 by Shadow Mir

[Uscari]

10 hours ago, Vicious Sal said:

What do you mean with having to reset. If you're playing an Ironman, that is what you tend to not do.

 

9 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

 

Also, aren't you NOT supposed to reset in an ironman?

 

When I said "reset" I meant restart the entire playthrough back to the start. (Delete current save file, start new save file)

 

9 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

It's even dumber if you use smaller teams, honestly; you're already making things harder for yourself, now you want to cripple yourself even further? Also, Soren is a borderline hate sink personality wise, so that doesn't help his case any. Nor does it that he specializes in wind magic... which sucks really really hard in this game.

The other issue is that Tormod is a *very* high investment unit... with returns that fail to justify the work imho. His situation is like Marisa all over again, honestly; underleved with inappropriate bases for his join time. Coming in at chapter 16 (which, as you say, is where my other units are closing in on promotion) at level 7 alone is enough to make him a tough sell, but having lousy bases for his jointime doesn't help. Oh, and he starts at E thunder. Sure, BEXP helps... but I could just as easily give that to anybody else.

Actually, I find that having a smaller team is generally better than having a bigger team because you can concentrate more exp on your best units and have them overleveled compared to your enemies throughout most of the game. I find 8-9 units is the optimal team size because there just enough xp in the game to cap all them to 20/20. Going beyond that many syphons experience from your best units and makes them weaker. I find it better to have a few really good units than a bunch of mediocre units. It also gives more room for utility/support units [Volke, Reyson, Tanith (Reinforce), Mordecai (Smite), etc]

I actually think Tormod has quite good bases for his starting level. Compared to Soren at level 7 he has +2 strength, +1 magic,+2 defense and +2 luck. He does have -1 speed, but his superior strength generally compensates for that. The rest of his stats where he is worse, Res and Skill, are pretty unimportant when training an underleveled unit.

Having said that I actually think Wind Magic is pretty good. Sure it has low might, but even Elwind with double effectiveness is a wyvern killer, and it weighs very little.

I'd say fire magic is the worst in this game.

[Shadow Mir]

3 hours ago, Uscari said:

Having said that I actually think Wind Magic is pretty good. Sure it has low might, but even Elwind with double effectiveness is a wyvern killer, and it weighs very little.

I'd say fire magic is the worst in this game.

bruh
How can you say that when wind magic is barely any better than thunder magic WHEN IT'S HITTING A WEAKNESS? FYI, effective Elwind is only 1 might stronger than Elthunder. That's laughable. 

3 hours ago, Uscari said:

Actually, I find that having a smaller team is generally better than having a bigger team because you can concentrate more exp on your best units and have them overleveled compared to your enemies throughout most of the game. I find 8-9 units is the optimal team size because there just enough xp in the game to cap all them to 20/20. Going beyond that many syphons experience from your best units and makes them weaker. I find it better to have a few really good units than a bunch of mediocre units. It also gives more room for utility/support units [Volke, Reyson, Tanith (Reinforce), Mordecai (Smite), etc]

That depends on the game. Try that in Fates or Three Houses OR Engage, and you're likely making the game harder instead. Also, I'm not a fan of low-manning in general. What's more, I don't see the importance of getting to 20/20 unless you're aiming to transfer data to RD.

3 hours ago, Uscari said:

I actually think Tormod has quite good bases for his starting level. Compared to Soren at level 7 he has +2 strength, +1 magic,+2 defense and +2 luck. He does have -1 speed, but his superior strength generally compensates for that. The rest of his stats where he is worse, Res and Skill, are pretty unimportant when training an underleveled unit.

It's not just Soren he's competing with... there's also Ilyana. And his bases are not much better than hers. Yeah... That's further damaging Tormod's case for use (which is already very flimsy). And that's ignoring the part where they've long had a head start.

Edited May 8, 2023 by Shadow Mir

[Uscari]

 

2 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

bruh
How can you say that when wind magic is barely any better than thunder magic WHEN IT'S HITTING A WEAKNESS? FYI, effective Elwind is only 1 might stronger than Elthunder. That's laughable. 

Yeah but it's lighter and more accurate than Elthunder. I do admit that thunder is better than wind overall, but I think wind fills a useful niche as a low-investment training magic and a competent counter against flying units, which are the most dangerous enemies in the game.

Fire meanwhile has most of the weaknesses of thunder without the benefits. It doesn't deal with important enemies like dragons or flying units and it doesn't have the extra crit. Beast laguz are easy to deal with due to no canto, locked to 1 range, no flight, limited weaponry.

2 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

That depends on the game. Try that in Fates or Three Houses OR Engage, and you're likely making the game harder instead. Also, I'm not a fan of low-manning in general. What's more, I don't see the importance of getting to 20/20 unless you're aiming to transfer data to RD.

I can't speak for other games. Path of Radiance is my first ever Fire Emblem game. I look forward to trying Radiant Dawn, I'll move to Three Houses and Engage after that. Not sure if I'll do the pre-NA or handheld releases.

2 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

It's not just Soren he's competing with... there's also Ilyana. And his bases are not much better than hers. Yeah... That's further damaging Tormod's case for use (which is already very flimsy). And that's ignoring the part where they've long had a head start.

The problem with Illyana is that on average her speed is like 4 points lower than Soren or Tormod. She has great strength but she'll hardly double anything without significant investment.

Having said that, I do think Illyana's supports can be quite powerful. Combining her with Gatrie and Mordecai can make them into formidable brick walls which I find useful in Maniac Mode. 

I think Tormod's biggest competition is Calil, who has pretty much identical attack speed and magic, but has excellent weapon ranks and far more reasonable level for her join time. She even has 2 double attack-boosting supports. She's arguably the best pre-promote in the game aside from Tanith. The problem is she doesn't have 2+ movement, access to staves, or a support with Reyson, who I consider pretty much the most important unit in the game. I guess it depends on how much easier the early game gets when you don't need to invest resources in Tormod and instead use Calil for similar utility.

[Shadow Mir]

9 hours ago, Uscari said:

Yeah but it's lighter and more accurate than Elthunder. I do admit that thunder is better than wind overall, but I think wind fills a useful niche as a low-investment training magic and a competent counter against flying units, which are the most dangerous enemies in the game.

Fire meanwhile has most of the weaknesses of thunder without the benefits. It doesn't deal with important enemies like dragons or flying units and it doesn't have the extra crit. Beast laguz are easy to deal with due to no canto, locked to 1 range, no flight, limited weaponry.

That would hold water were it not for the fact that wyvern riders - the only notable flying units - have garbage resistance (also, you don't see very many of them until you get into Daein). Between that and double effectiveness, wind magic's supposedly being a "competent counter to flying units" fails to manifest in practice because of garbage might. It's only particularly useful if your name is Soren, thanks to his nonexistent strength that pretty much forces him to use Wind or Elwind to minimize AS penalties. 

9 hours ago, Uscari said:

I can't speak for other games. Path of Radiance is my first ever Fire Emblem game. I look forward to trying Radiant Dawn, I'll move to Three Houses and Engage after that. Not sure if I'll do the pre-NA or handheld releases.

So... is that the only FE game you've played?

9 hours ago, Uscari said:

The problem with Illyana is that on average her speed is like 4 points lower than Soren or Tormod. She has great strength but she'll hardly double anything without significant investment.

Having said that, I do think Illyana's supports can be quite powerful. Combining her with Gatrie and Mordecai can make them into formidable brick walls which I find useful in Maniac Mode. 

Sure, but she comes much earlier than Tormod, and can use stuff other than wind without having her speed crippled.

9 hours ago, Uscari said:

I think Tormod's biggest competition is Calil, who has pretty much identical attack speed and magic, but has excellent weapon ranks and far more reasonable level for her join time. She even has 2 double attack-boosting supports. She's arguably the best pre-promote in the game aside from Tanith. The problem is she doesn't have 2+ movement, access to staves, or a support with Reyson, who I consider pretty much the most important unit in the game. I guess it depends on how much easier the early game gets when you don't need to invest resources in Tormod and instead use Calil for similar utility.

I already said Tormod is a hard sell even compared to the other mages all thanks to being underleveled, and you bring up yet ANOTHER competitor, and thus more reasons to not bother with him. Not having staves hurts, but it doesn't hurt as much as being egregiously underleveled when most of my other units are closing in on promotion, with almost nothing of note to make up for it.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

21 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

It's not just Soren he's competing with... there's also Ilyana. And his bases are not much better than hers. Yeah... That's further damaging Tormod's case for use (which is already very flimsy). And that's ignoring the part where they've long had a head start.

7 move go brrr though. That's something no amount of BEXP or boosters (aside from the hotly-contested Boots) can replicate for either of your other Mages. Like it or not, Torgod's got a niche.

Do I think Tormod is very good? No, but I also don't think he's dramatically worse than either of your other Mages (outside of, I suppose, an early-promoted Soren). He's still a lot of hecking fun to use, though.

[Uscari]

13 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

That would hold water were it not for the fact that wyvern riders - the only notable flying units - have garbage resistance (also, you don't see very many of them until you get into Daein). Between that and double effectiveness, wind magic's supposedly being a "competent counter to flying units" fails to manifest in practice because of garbage might. It's only particularly useful if your name is Soren, thanks to his nonexistent strength that pretty much forces him to use Wind or Elwind to minimize AS penalties. 

So... is that the only FE game you've played?

Sure, but she comes much earlier than Tormod, and can use stuff other than wind without having her speed crippled.

I already said Tormod is a hard sell even compared to the other mages all thanks to being underleveled, and you bring up yet ANOTHER competitor, and thus more reasons to not bother with him. Not having staves hurts, but it doesn't hurt as much as being egregiously underleveled when most of my other units are closing in on promotion, with almost nothing of note to make up for it.

It's worth it that wind is mostly only good on Soren because Soren is arguably the best mage overall anyhow. His superior magic growths compensate for the low might, he comes with Adept which is one of the best non-mastery skills in the game, he has a great support with Ike, and he comes pretty much right at the start. His only weakness really is that he slips in the end game due to strength limitations, which is why Tormod is great.

Yeah, PoR is the only FE game I've played. What a great introduction to the series though, I love this game, among my top 3 gamecube games.

Illyana's speed is crippled with or without heavy tomes due to her poor speed growths.

I find the difficulty spike in Maniac mode is towards the endgame (Chapters 23-Final), so I can forgive having to babysit Tormod through Chapter 16-22. Having said that I do agree Calill is a viable alternative.

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

7 move go brrr though. That's something no amount of BEXP or boosters (aside from the hotly-contested Boots) can replicate for either of your other Mages. Like it or not, Torgod's got a niche.

Do I think Tormod is very good? No, but I also don't think he's dramatically worse than either of your other Mages (outside of, I suppose, an early-promoted Soren). He's still a lot of hecking fun to use, though.

What makes his move so good is that he has so much use with that. What other unit can cap at 10 movement, 1-round paladins/wyverns/dragons, snipe siege tome sages across the map, and heal allies across the map? I like to give Tormod both the boots and the knight ring. I have him venture out up to 5 spaces to do w/e he wants, then return to Reyson who can bless him with another turn. It's amazing how many problems you can solve in Maniac Mode when you have a unit that can go out, double with siege tomes, return, go out again, and be totally safe.

Tormod requires steep investment but his growth potential is staggering. He's like my secret weapon.

*Edit* - I meant 10 movement, not 10 speed lol.

Edited May 9, 2023 by Uscari

[Shadow Mir]

On 5/9/2023 at 12:07 PM, Uscari said:

It's worth it that wind is mostly only good on Soren because Soren is arguably the best mage overall anyhow. His superior magic growths compensate for the low might, he comes with Adept which is one of the best non-mastery skills in the game, he has a great support with Ike, and he comes pretty much right at the start. His only weakness really is that he slips in the end game due to strength limitations, which is why Tormod is great.

Even if Soren is the best mage in the game - something I do NOT buy into, by the way - that doesn't change the fact that wind magic is hot garbage. The supposed ultimate wind tome has a grand total of - drumroll please - 6 might. That's utterly abysmal. As a result, getting to A rank in wind magic is a lot of work for very little reward (let's just say there's a REASON why Marcia is considered the best unit in the game - or close to it, at the very least). It doesn't help matters that the long-range wind magic is not gotten until rather late in the game. Coincidentally, the double effectiveness thing also makes anti-armor and anti-cavalry weapons nearly useless (notably apparent with the Armorslayer, Hammer and Poleax, all of which you get early on); their weights being severely jacked up from the GBA games doesn't help, nor does the fact that some of them have poor might (the Regal Sword dodges this because unlike the others mentioned, it doesn't murder your AS, but it still suffers from the 2x modifier).

RE: Adept, it's nice when it happens, but I wouldn't count on it, honestly.

On 5/9/2023 at 12:07 PM, Uscari said:

Yeah, PoR is the only FE game I've played. What a great introduction to the series though, I love this game, among my top 3 gamecube games.

Fair enough. When you do play Radiant Dawn, let's just say that it'll deconstruct some of the stuff you took for granted in this game.

On 5/9/2023 at 12:07 PM, Uscari said:

I find the difficulty spike in Maniac mode is towards the endgame (Chapters 23-Final), so I can forgive having to babysit Tormod through Chapter 16-22. Having said that I do agree Calill is a viable alternative.

I'm still kinda skeptical, though. 

On 5/9/2023 at 12:07 PM, Uscari said:

What makes his move so good is that he has so much use with that. What other unit can cap at 10 movement, 1-round paladins/wyverns/dragons, snipe siege tome sages across the map, and heal allies across the map? I like to give Tormod both the boots and the knight ring. I have him venture out up to 5 spaces to do w/e he wants, then return to Reyson who can bless him with another turn. It's amazing how many problems you can solve in Maniac Mode when you have a unit that can go out, double with siege tomes, return, go out again, and be totally safe.

See above. Long story short, you're trying to convince me based squarely on your own guesswork, and nothing else. If even Soren can't ORKO dragons (which he cannot because he's too slow to double them - and also because dragons are uber bulky mofos), there's no way in the seven hells Tormod is gonna come close (by the way, Tormod can't double them either). Tormod also struggles to double paladins.

On 5/8/2023 at 4:11 PM, Uscari said:

The problem with Illyana is that on average her speed is like 4 points lower than Soren or Tormod. She has great strength but she'll hardly double anything without significant investment.

This is at 20/20, which is something I generally don't see happening, and thus don't take into account.

On 5/9/2023 at 12:07 PM, Uscari said:

Tormod requires steep investment but his growth potential is staggering. He's like my secret weapon.

The only part I agree with you on is the "steep investment" part, to be frank. I generally think that the more babying a unit needs, the less likely it is to actually be worth it. Astrid is one of the few exceptions because she has Paragon, and also because she is in one of the best classes in the game. It helps that her "competition" (namely, Rolf and Shinon) are some of the worst units in the game.

Edited May 11, 2023 by Shadow Mir

[Dark Holy Elf]

Tormod is pretty cleanly better than other mages with investment. I dunno if that investment is "worth it" or not but I don't think he's a bad unit or should be dismissed outright.

Personally, I think whether you consider Soren, Tormod, or Calill the best PoR mage will depend on what you prioritize. Tormod has the highest ceiling, but requires the most investment. Calill requires the least investment (has all the tome ranks she needs at base), but can't use staves. Soren's in the middle: Calill's move, Tormod's staves, and requires a moderate amount of investment to get past his weak earlygame.

I don't value staves that much so I tend to side with Calill but I think there's a reasonable case to be made for any of them.

[Aircalipoor]

Tormods main issue is that he has less time to build up his staff rank (15 times Barrier and 4 times Mend at least). Soren and Ilyana can be promoted in chapter 16 or 17. They get Physics quite soon if they train their ranks in chapter 17. Tormod is unpromoted in chapter 16/17. He can catch up there level-wise, but not regarding his staff rank. He's always behind if one wants a user of Physics, Sleep and Rescue.

He's too low leveled in Thunder for Bolting and Thoron, I'd level him in Wind. Using it 30 times and a weapon scroll gives him A-rank, he can ORKO Wyvern Lords in chapter 24 that way.

He has good supports with Reyson and Calill, which can help.

 

I agree that there isn't a clear best mage in the game, no one stands out and everyone offers something else. Rhys is a safe healer (his offense is sadly shitty and frustratingly almost good but ultimately a few stat points short of doubling or 2HKOing even knights and generals), Mist has canto and its funny to ORKO Wyvern Lords with the Wind Sword if one gives her spirits and weapon scrolls. Soren needs to be trained the entire game and his start is bad, but Mag/Spd is top and potential Ike support and Adept doesn't hurt. Ilyana needs a Speedwing and she can compensate for her lower Mag by using heavy thunder tomes with no penality. Calill is a good filler mage, but has no staves. Even Bastian can be useful in 26 for long range tomes or chipping a Wyvern Lord with Tornado.