[complete] A small Maniac play log

[Uscari]

I won't go further into this because I don't want to hijack gnip's thread, but I will comment on one thing:

 

55 minutes ago, Aircalipoor said:

It's when you don't turtle almost every map but utilize your units to the best to beat the enemies and complete the chapters more quickly, something the game rewards you and is more than often designed to be. Which is why I also disagree with forging overly much Handaxes (though they are occasionally superior, like in chaper 13). ORKOing with Handaxes becomes impossible later on. Forged Steel and Silver Weapons are more likely to ORKO due to the focus of player phase (killing enemies, retreating to Reyson, get four mounted units danced and repeat). Clash can be blitzed within few turns, Oscar/Kieran can even ORKO Paladins with forged Silver Weapons, which they couldn't do with Handaxes etc.

 

It's when you have to reset twice because you're not concentrating the battle xp where you get the most benefit, which isn't your prepromotes. "Using your units to the best" means wasting battle experience on overleveled characters who won't benefit much from the kills, rather than the unpromoted characters with better growths in the long haul. In maniac mode the bonus exp is pitiful compared to the battle exp you can get by turtling. You might be able to argue that Hardmode or lower encourages clearing maps quickly, but maniac mode does not. That's not to say bonus exp isn't useful, but in most maps it's better to route, kill everything, and take your time if you want optimal units, you get more experience out of it.

Having the might to ORKO means nothing if you can't retaliate in the first place because your opponent has 1-2 range while you don't. You can try to pummel through them on player phase but Clash has several siege tomes, a sleep staff priest, and several waves of paladins/wyverns, with almost all of them having 1-2 range weapons. They don't care about your silver weapons because they just attack from 2 range. Forged silver weapons should be used sparingly at critical moments, forged handaxes do most of the work because they actually accomplish something on enemy phase, unlike 1 range weapons.

Sure it's possible to blitz Clash, but it's highly risky, with a far lower success rate than turtling. I'll be curious to see how gnip approaches Clash.

[Aircalipoor]

You can play fast and semi-route and still maintain a bunch of regulary trained units, but going in-depth for this would require a lenghty answer and derail the topic.

I try to keep in on topic on forging handaxes vs steel/silver weapons in the mid-end game:
What is the point of retalation if it doesn't ORKO the enemy? The enemies are still alive and need to be killed in the player phase. So in the player phase they have to be killed and this is easier with forged steel/silver weapons than handaxes. 4x 12 Mt is less useful vs 2x16 Mt and especially 2x 21 Mt, if the enemies have high def. You can miss the 4HKO but succeed at 2HKO.

Spoiler

 

1 hour ago, Uscari said:

and several waves of paladins/wyverns, with almost all of them having 1-2 range weapons.

Here is the deal: Go north to deal with the paladins, and northwest with your main group to deal with the warriors and sages. The side group can play with the western enemies so that they don't distract your main group (Ike, Paladins, Flyers, Reyson, 1 Rescue Mage)

The first wave (northeast) has many 1-range Paladins. You can ORKO a bunch of them even in enemy phase if you position like a Paladin with forged Silver Weapon in front of them.

Sages use seize and staves, so neither 1-range nor 1-2 range help much.

Only two of the five Warriors have 1-2 range.

The three Wyvern Lords don't have 1-2 range.

The seven Paladins near Bertram have more 1-2 range IIRC, but you don't have to beat them at this point, since your group is below them and needs to survive one enemy phase. Then they are scattered and its extremely unlikely that more than one block the path to Bertram. Beat Bertram with two mounted units and seize with Ike (Reyson and Rescue).

If you blitz, you won't face the reinforcements, so you don't have to fight 29 additional enemies if you finish the chapter early and only like half of the initial 68.

 

Edited May 25, 2023 by Aircalipoor

[ping]

RE: Mages - maybe this is less impactful with Maniac money being much tighter, it is rather expensive, but it's always worth remembering that a +5 Might Thunder tome is on par with the strongest tomes in the game. Same stats (and even +5 Crit) on Bolganone, -1 Might on Thoron, +3 Might on Tornado. And even if Soren doesn't proc Strength a single time, he'll only be weighed down by a single points from it after promotion, which means that he does keep up with Tormod and Calill's Speed and of course, he handily beats everybody in Magic.

9 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

It's perhaps weird to see this, but it wasn't always this way. Cecilia in Binding had 235 growths while Lugh and Lilina had 270.

Karel: "Am I a joke to you?"
Not meant as an actual repudiation of your point, of course

9 hours ago, Uscari said:

Going left and managing to grab the killer lance before thieves can get to it is impressive, that does sound like a very tight strat, with a lot of enemies to chew through in just 8 turns.

This is not a problem, actually, since both thieves will first go towards the closest villages. As long as you don't visit them both on turn 1-2, it's not difficult to kill them before they even get into the boss's range.

6 hours ago, Aircalipoor said:

Pretty good, considering how many side-objectives this map has. It's the best designed map of FE9, considering how many paths you can take (west, northwest, north, northeast) and what you have to watch out for (recruiting Zihark, the Vigilantes, staves, the villages). Its one of these chapters that you have to low turn to play  it right because stalling is to your detriment (thieves plundering villages, Jill, Black Knight). I always need to reset and experiment on this map to optimize it.

Yeah, I think I agree that this is the best map in the game. Easy to beat, but not trivial to fulfil all the side objectives in. You could hold it against it that the ol' death ball strategy of just pushing your entire group through a single path might be more effective than it maybe should be, but at least if you do it based on my approach, you still have to split your troops to get to the Arrive point and recruit Zihark from the north so that you don't aggro the sword vigilantes around him.

[Aircalipoor]

Forged tomes, while unconventional, are totally viable. Maniac Mode encourages you to get creative with your money and forges to optimize your individual units because the enemies are so bulky and force you to adapt. Hard Mode is just Javelin/Handaxes to ORKO, eg.g Tanith can ORKO almost everything in her starting chapter.

 

Other forges I do once in a while:

A 110 Hit iron Bow for Astrid with some Might, so that she could be trained better. It depends how quickly she catches up and it can be redundant but if you slow down to train her, may make it less frustrating (60-80 hit rates with regurlar Iron Bow can suck). Could also be done with a Steel Bow for more Mt, but less hit and more money.

Ike, Mia, Zihark, Makalov etc. don't mind a Steel Sword with reduced weight and more mt and hit, though this reaches 10k vs the 4-6k that Steel Lance/Axe and Javelin/Handaxe do. I did one early for Mia in chapter 8 and had to sell my elixir and other stuff for it.

 

edit: Here a small forge list:

16 Mt, 90 Hit Steel Axe: 4689

12 Mt, 80 Hit Handaxe: 6102

15 Mt, 95 Hit Steel Lance: 6417

11 Mt, 85 Hit Javelin: 8920

13 Mt, 100 Hit Steel Sword: 9164, Weight adds 700, 700, 800, 800 and 900.

110 Hit Iron Bow costs 2361, but Mt adds 1000, 1100, 1300, 1400 and 1600 for up to 8746

9 Mt 110 Hit Thunder costs 15441 and is the cheapest tome, the others are not worth it. 25 Hit and -2 Wt is quite cheap (3254), but Mt is expensive. 1700, 2100, 2400, 2800 and 3200 for up to 12878 (15441 for Hit and Wt). Kind of questionable for one mage, but a 7 Mt, 100 Hit and 2 Wt Thunder costs 8247, which is more feasible.

Edited May 25, 2023 by Aircalipoor

[Vicious Sal]

Forged slims lance and forged thunder are the two best forges in the game hands down. Just forge max Mt and -6 crit and you're golden

 

[ping]

6 hours ago, Vicious Sal said:

Forged slims lance and forged thunder are the two best forges in the game hands down. Just forge max Mt and -6 crit and you're golden

Eh, I'm not above a little bug abusing (GBA desert item trick, yo), but 100% crit rates feel wrong to me. I know it comes with some limitations, like the low Might on Slim Lances, but I'd still rather not.

Chapter 12:

Spoiler

BEXP: None, nobody was super close to a level-up
Dracoshield to Marcia (14 -> 16 Def)
Forge: Hand Axe with 12 Might (+5), 70 Hit (+15) -- 5172 gold

I killed a lot of birds. *roll credits*

This is just not a very interesting map. I guess it's worth mentioning that not all kills went to the character I intended; thanks to one or two crits, two Adapt procs from Soren, and a few misses, as well. Marcia collected the most kills (and 369 XP in total), which should surprise absolutely nobody - she two-shot Ravens with the +3 Steel Lance I forged earlier, so even though she didn't double until she got her last level-up, she cleared house very effecively, although not with perfect accuracy.

I finished the map on turn 9, which is the perfect BEXP spot, but not ideal for the purpose of maxing total XP, I'm sure. But this map is rather boring, so I didn't want to drag it out longer. I just hope I didn't miss any valuable stat boosters this way.

The Team:

	Lv	  HP  Str Mag Skl Spd Lck Def Res
Ike	19.13	  39   15   5  17  16  15  14   8  (+7 HP)
Titania */7.52	  38   13   7  15  17  15  15  10
Kieran	15.55	  31   11   2  12  12   8  12   2
Oscar	11.88	  31    9   3   9   9   9  12   2

Marcia	19.99	  27   15   5  16  19  12  16   9  (+2 Def)
Boyd	20.09	  40*  19   1  16  17  11  10   4
Soren	15.02	  30    0  16  17  12   8   6  18
Rhys	13.48	  23    1  14  11   9  11   4  20*

Mordy	2.35	  base
Lethe	3.63	  base
Jill	8.39	  base

Kieran without a Str or Spd proc thus far - guess I was due for some negative RNG karma.

Edited May 25, 2023 by gnip

[Aircalipoor]

2 hours ago, gnip said:

I just hope I didn't miss any valuable stat boosters this way.

Armscroll, Seraph Robe and Secret Book. Its possible that you missed the latter, since on turn 13 the final ones with one statbooster appear.

Yeah, this map is just some clunky exp of one enemy type.

Kieran is worrysome, but Super Marcia carries you through the game. Still the best unit aside from Titanias early game contributions, flying is still supreme. She may want to double the chapter 17 Falcon Knights with their 19-21 Spd, so don't hesitate to use her to crush Ravens and clean some sections in other chapters with forged Javelins.

Too bad that Boyds Def didn't improve, but he is still solid. Maybe he won't be as amazing in the next chapter as he could be (lot's of swordusers and mages to to take advantage of his low defense stats), but still good.

[Uscari]

Your marcia is pretty damn good for this stage of the game. When promoted, she'll come in very handy on the next chapter, and help you secure the loot on the enemy ship and keep the crows off your back. I recommend giving her some chest keys and having her swing to the left side of the ship and fight the crows through that narrow choke (they will aggro marcia if you fly her all the way left on the first turn, rather than target the ship). With a forged lance she can 1-round them and proceed to the planks/ships to support your other units or grab the treasure herself. Her defense will be 18, so most of the archers won't be much of a threat to her even with double effectiveness.

I would have given Boyd the dracoshield, but now that you've committed to Marcia, you'll just have to feed her forges to get the most use out of her. No sense in wasting a unit that pulls magic and physical enemies alike without getting in too much danger. 

You definitely would have gotten more total exp by fighting all the crows rather than ending the map early, especially if you let your weaker units (Kieran, Jill) fight them. The only notable loot from reinforcements on this map in Maniac Mode is an Arms Scroll, which is 4k and could be useful for allowing one of your mages to use siege tomes, but it's not as important as stat boosters. Not the end of the world.

[Shadow Mir]

On 5/24/2023 at 9:04 PM, Uscari said:

Having the might to ORKO means nothing if you can't retaliate in the first place because your opponent has 1-2 range while you don't. You can try to pummel through them on player phase but Clash has several siege tomes, a sleep staff priest, and several waves of paladins/wyverns, with almost all of them having 1-2 range weapons. They don't care about your silver weapons because they just attack from 2 range. Forged silver weapons should be used sparingly at critical moments, forged handaxes do most of the work because they actually accomplish something on enemy phase, unlike 1 range weapons.

On the flipside, I'd say having 1-2 means little if you cannot reliably kill what you're luring in. Look at Binding Blade (yeah, this is the PoR forum, but still). Expecting everything to die to hand axes and javelins will only get you so far.

[ping]

Chapter 13:

Spoiler

• Support: Rhys/Titania (B)
• BEXP: Marcia (19.99->20, 1 BEXP) - HP, Str, Skl, Spd
• BEXP: Jill (8.39->14, 597 BEXP) - +4 HP, +3 Str, +1 Skl, +5 Spd, +5 Def, +2 Res
  • 12 BEXP remaining.
• Marcia: Seraph Robe (HP 28 -> 35)
• Forge: Steel Lance with 15 (+5) Might and 85 (+15) Hit

You'll notice that I didn't use a Speedwing on Jill just yet, because her BEXP levels were so Spd-heavy. It's quite possible that she'll get one anyway, especially since we got a second one on this map (which I forgot about).

The map honestly plays fairly similarly to its Hard version. You can still secure the middle boat pretty quickly, even though there's a few more enemies, then you push across the bridges to the third boat, go full Dimitri on the Beorc, and finally try to kill the ravens, preferably with somebody who can use the experience. It all went a bit slower than on Hard - two ravens managed to grab a chest before I could kill them, on Hard this generally doesn't happen - but I still managed to get almost everything out the map, i.e. all treasure and every kill except for one member of the last raven reinforcement group.

I have to say that this map has one of the more useful Green Unit groups, because the enemies will happily target them over most of your units, which does help greatly to make the first few enemy phases more safe. I still had to restart the map once, but that was because Kieran got crit by one of the stationary Halbadiers. Ike got crit on the same attempt by the Killing Edge guy, but he managed to survive that(and another one or two enemies, iirc). In the successful run, only one greenie survived, thanks to Lethe rescuing him when her gauge got low. I wanted to rescue a second one with Gatrie, but he suicided into another stationary Halbadier befor i was able to.

	Lv	  HP  Str Mag Skl Spd Lck Def Res
Ike	19.77	  39   15   5  17  16  15  14   8   (+7 HP)
Titania */8.33	  39   13   7  19  18  15  15  11
Kieran  17.89	  31   12   2  12  13  10  14   2

Marcia	21/2.71	  39   19   7  19  22  12  18  13   (+7 HP, +2 Def)
Jill	17.11	  31   16   0  13  15   6  16   6

Boyd	21/1.92	  46   21   2  18  18  11  12   6
Soren	17.65	  32    0  16  19  12   9   6  20*
Rhys

Volke	11.10	  26   13   0  14  13   8   7   3
Sothe	1.00	  base
Lethe	3.82	  base
Mordy	2.54	  base

Astrid	3.08	  20    7   2   8   8   3   5   4
Gatrie	14.05	  34   14   0   8   5   6  18   1
Gatrie	13.72	  33   14   0   8   5   6  17   1	<-- at the start of the map

I have a couple of stat boosters that I need to consider..:

• An Energy Drop, which I'm tempted to give to Titania. It would allow her to use Steel Axes without Spd loss. Her damage output has started to fall behind a bit (although Boyd and then Kieran grabbing all the forges played no small role in that), but her other stats are still top tier. Only Marcia beat her durability, and that only thanks to the stat boosters. The other option would be Astrid, if I choose to keep her around.
• Two Speedwings. I'm half-tempted to give one of them to Kieran, especially if I do end up using Astrid. If Kieran can consistently keep the Knight Ward equipped when leveling up, it should help him catch up relatively quickly, but if Astrid wears it during the chapters, it might be a bit shaky. Soren kinda looks like good candidate, but it's likely that he'll spend most of his time as a Sage staffbotting, which means it's unlikely that I would regret throwing one at Jill.
• One Secret Book, which is likely going to end up being forge money.
• Two Arms Scrolls, which also might just end up being sold. I don't tend to use siege tomes very often, Mist isn't on the team with her Sonic Sword shenanigans, and I don't think the weapon ranks are terribly important anywhere else.
• Not stat boosters, but I also still have the two Master Seals that you get up to this point of the game. I think I might get Soren to Lv.18 next map and then use one on him, so that he can start training his staff rank early, the other one I'll probably just sell.

And I also might want to consider what characters I might add to the roster. PoR generally stays around 11-13 deployment slots, with the prominent exception of Clash!, so it's not super worthwhile to add too many. Right now, characters I have been using that are likely to stick around are...

• Ike (lol), Marcia, Jill, Kieran, Boyd, Soren, Rhys. Titania should be viable as a flunkie, Mordecai might stay on the team as a Smite bot.

That's already nine character, incuding Titania and Mordy, which means that there's only really space for four more. Reyson is most certainly going to be one of them, Tanith another. I'm tempted to say that I don't really need more growth units? As I said, I'm considering using Astrid, but it might be just as well to fill the remaining slots with low-investment units. Stefan, at least for a while, Haar (who I might want to save a Speedwing for, actually), Calill, Geoffrey are all perfectly capable when they join and remain viable until endgame.

 

Edited May 26, 2023 by gnip

[Aircalipoor]

16 minutes ago, gnip said:

I have to say that this map has one of the more useful Green Unit groups, because the enemies will happily target them over most of your units, which does help greatly to make the first few enemy phases more safe.

All NPCs could be killed in the very first enemy phase, but I suppose if Marcia, Titania and maybe Kieran and Jill block and provoke accordingly, the NPCs could make it.

Securing the middle ship is a bit of a hassle, but if the first two turns are proper its mostly over. The enemy ship isn't aggroing much and Ravens are easy once you understand how their AI works.

Jill is doing well, above average stats and possibly rigged level ups could make her to that best unit which isn' the case on fixed mode or with average stats. 27 in all main stats is excellent in endgame (if it happens).

Kieran only has 12 Strenght? Man, you dropped Oscar because he was allegedly slightly off, now his partner isn't doing much better.

 

Energy Drop: I would wait and see how Astrid turns out. Her growth is wonky in HP, Str and Def. Titania is unlikely to ORKO the tougher stuff even with 15 Str. and you have enough other units that soon surpass her and take over. She acts as a filler. There are also other units that could want it, like Kieran, maybe Tanith (or Soren lol). Though getting a penality from Steel Axes this late is embaressing, maybe rig a good level on her once.

Speedwings: Kieran and Jill are good choices. Maybe Soren if he gets good level-ups and if Jill keeps getting Spd.

Only sell the Armscrolls if you have no money. The early game tends to have more money issues than the mid- and endgame. They are good to bring a unit to A rank for Silver Weapons (or for your mage). Jill can be a bit troubling juggling both lances and axes.

I almost always sell the master seals unless I want a 10/1 Mist or if Rhys takes too long (promotion barely changes him). I'd rather bexp Soren to 21 (may also rig for mag and spd lol).

 

Unless you are in a rush, training Astrid is feasible in chapter 13-17, she catches up quickly. She is unreliable in her growth and can turn out bad, so its abit of a gamble.

I have a bias for Makalov, he can become the best paladin statwise, but he does have a bad start, only a meh Astrid support and he wants weapon scrolls later on because he doesn't want to be stuck with Swords (B rank for Brave Sword is a neat niche). Ultimately, you are currently training enough units and can spare him.

Stefan is wonky, since swords suck, he has low movements and his defense quickly gets frail, especially with his luck. His skill sucks, he has no crit bonus, his S-Weapon doesn't have much uses.

Calill is not someone you need if you have a good Soren. Just chapter 22.

Geoffrey can work if he gets some BEXP levels to rig his str/spd/def. He is bulky, but his offense is questionable. Also, he has poor availability. He has move issues in 25 and 27 allows only few units. Mostly just a filler for 26.

Haar can work as a shield to distract enemies, but doubling is out of the picture, unless you give him BOTH speedwings and further rig it. He also needs a weapon scroll since he can't use silver weapons. And even his strenght is merely average at this point.

 

Soren-A-Ike-B-Titania-A-Rhys-B-Kieran-A-Marcia-B-Tanith-A-Reyson and Boyd, Jill and Astrid seems good.

 

 

[ping]

Yeah, I'm not under the impression that the lategame prepromotes are as good as a trained growth unit, especially with my tendency to rig BEXP levels. The thought process is more that I might not have to bother training up more characters if there's lategame alternatives that are at least OK. But right now I'm leaning towards using both Astrid and Makalov, since they do give each other decent support bonuses, in particular +5 Avo per support level.

The overall support chain would probably look something like this:

Ike-A-Soren
|B|
Reyson-A-Tanith-B-Marcia-A-Kieran-B-Rhys-B-Titania-A-Boyd

Astrid-A-Makalov

Jill supporting Lethe and, if I happen to field him, Haar.

I was considering using Lethe long-term, if primarily as a shove bot, to use her supports with Ike and Jill, but I don't think she'll be worth the deployment slot with Mordecai and eventually Muarim being much better shovers/smiters than her.

12 hours ago, Aircalipoor said:

Kieran only has 12 Strenght? Man, you dropped Oscar because he was allegedly slightly off, now his partner isn't doing much better.

He's only had five level-ups, so it's not that dramatic yet, but I suppose I have been having bad luck with my horsies and their Str growths.

[Uscari]

I would seriously advise against using the energy drop on Titania, she already is on track to have pitiful strength by the end of the game, so investing something as useful as an energy drop on a unit on pace to have only a measly 20 strength by the end of the game is not worth it. I would advise benching Titania at this point, you've gotten all the use out of her that you can, and all the important loot has been retrieved, you don't really need her anymore and she just takes up a slot on your team that could go to growth units. By the end of the game she will be a complete liability.

A much better investment of your energy drop would be Calil when you get her. You've already used up your bonus experience on Jill so you're better off not trying to train Tormod, but Calil can be your siege tome queen and with an energy drop use them without being slowed down. I would give her a speed wing as well, and give her both spirit dusts. She'll put in a lot of work for you in the long haul.

Alternatively, you can give your energy drop to Oscar and start training him again, because he's arguably the best unit in the game. I would hold off on giving an energy drop to Kieran because he is likely to cap strength anyways, even with the sub-par levels he's been getting.

No need to give Kieran speedwing, just use the knight ward. Jill is a good candidate for the other speedwing, but I think Soren is not worth the speedwing because his utility will be staff and his support with Ike. If he doubles with wind, great, if not, he'll still be a useful unit.

Giving Soren a master seal now doesn't make much sense because he is already very close to promoting. The 5000g you get from it is worth more than having a staff bot a couple chapters early.

[ping]

Chapter 14:

Spoiler

• BEXP: Boyd (1.92->2; 12 BEXP) - Spd, Def
  • 0 BEXP remaining.
• Supports: Kieran/Rhys (C), Kieran/Marcia (C)
• Forge: Steel Bow with 14 (+5) Might, 85 (+15) Hit - 8795 gold    

Sold one Master Seal for the forge, still a Secret book, a second Master Seal, potentially two Arms Scrolls available to sell if necessary. Boyd's XP worked out too perfectly not to give him the last few remaining BEXP.

Makalov would like to offer his sincere gratitude to @Aircalipoor for convincing me not to use the Energy Drop on Titania just yet and ask if they want to go gambling later this evening. He also offers his scorn to yours truly because I apparently had GBAFE on the mind and thought that unpromoted cavalry had 7 points of movement.

Titania and the two flyers took the western path to recruit Makalov and secure the villages at the top left, which they did without much problems except for Makalov nearly bleeding out. He unfortunately didn't get any XP in - Titania chipped down a nearby bow knight for him, but Makalov joined with low biorhythm and didn't hit his attack, so Jill had to take the kill instead. Marcia then grabbed the villages while Jill headed towards the rest of the group. Titania and Makalov were too far away to do anything of value past this point - Titania threw a Hand Axe at a stray brigand, but that's all left to do in this area of the map.

The rest pushed upwards without too much issue. Mordecai and Zihark helped out as smite/shove bots (Zihark didn't even have a weapon equipped) and everybody tried to distribute kills to Soren, Kieran, or Astrid, which worked reasonably well. I took a bunch of rather unreliable shots with Astrid to preserve the forged Steel Bow (I'm stingy like that), but she was quite lucky with her attack rolls.

Both the boss and the two tigers move and I'm trying to remember if they do that on Hard, too. The boss attacks Boyd on turn 4 EP, but misses, which sets up an easy and timely boss kill.

This was not the boss kill, but I was tempted, to no small part because Kieran would've been able to grab the Knight Ward from Astrid for the resulting level-up. If I was better about using support bonuses, maybe I would've gone for it - Rhys is right there to provide a +5 hit bonus and 91% never misses, right?

Instead, Jill, aided by a Mordy Smite, throws an unforged Javelin with a 42 displayed hitrate and gets lucky. Had she missed, Boyd would've made his own, not entirely certain attempt, with Soren waiting as the emergency button. He has capped Skl and Res at Lv.18, which is enough for me to want to use my remaining Master Seal on him, so I didn't want to feed the XP to him.

Overall, pretty happy with the clear. Full BEXP, an I think Astrid got a kill every player phase.

 

The Team:

	Lv	  HP  Str Mag Skl Spd Lck Def Res
Ike	20.00	  39   16   5  17  17  16  15   9   (+7 HP)
Kieran	18.65	  32   13   2  13  14  10  14   2
Astrid	7.24	  20    9   3  10  11   5   7   4
Titania	*/8.56	  39   13   7  16  18  15  15  11

Marcia	21/2.87	  39   19   7  19  22  12  18  13   (+7 HP, +2 Def)
Jill	18.26	  31   17   0  13  15   7  16   6
Boyd	*/2.41	  46   21   2  18  19  11  13   6
Volke	11.47	  26   13   0  14  13   8   7   3

Soren	18.13	  32    0  17  20* 13   9   6  20*
Rhys	15.02	  23    1  16  11   9  11   5  20

Lethe	4.10	  36   13   4  11  13  15   9   7
Mordy	2.54	  base
Zihark	10.00	  base
Makalov 10.01	  base

The classic "promotion into hardly any combat at all" for Marcia. In my defense, Titania and Jill made do just fine without Marcia going on a rampage.

31 minutes ago, Uscari said:

I would seriously advise against using the energy drop on Titania, she already is on track to have pitiful strength by the end of the game, so investing something as useful as an energy drop on a unit on pace to have only a measly 20 strength by the end of the game is not worth it. I would advise benching Titania at this point, you've gotten all the use out of her that you can, and all the important loot has been retrieved, you don't really need her anymore and she just takes up a slot on your team that could go to growth units. By the end of the game she will be a complete liability.

No, I disagree with the advice to bench Titania. She's still quite good despite being behind her Str growth. 39 HP / 15 Def (and 11 Res, fwiw) is still better than what most other characters have, and will still be on par when the rest of the growth units promote. Offensively, she obviously doesn't one-round anything that isn't a mage anymore, but chipping down enemies for easier kills, especially when she's a very good candidate to tank hits on enemy phase, is good utility on its own, and she doesn't even need a forge to do that.

42 minutes ago, Uscari said:

Giving Soren a master seal now doesn't make much sense because he is already very close to promoting. The 5000g you get from it is worth more than having a staff bot a couple chapters early.

It's not just about the heal botting, it's also about a head start for his staff rank training. Getting to D in his secondary tome ranks also means that I might be able to get at least one of them to C without an Arms Scroll, what with the El- weapons raising your rank much more quickly (...assuming he doubles with them). Plus, if I add Astrid and Makalov to the To Train list, I wouldn't mind crossing off Soren early, with him being able to gain XP through healing. Bonus points for the immediate power boost (effective +4 Spd!) that he can use in the desert chapter, although I haven't checked the double / not-being-doubled thresholds for that map yet.

[Aircalipoor]

1 hour ago, Uscari said:

I would advise benching Titania at this point, you've gotten all the use out of her that you can, and all the important loot has been retrieved, you don't really need her anymore and she just takes up a slot on your team that could go to growth units.

He has enough slots to deploy her and she is better than Lethe/Mordecai/Muarim.

I don't get your Siege Tomes strategy. Aren't you only getting 3 tomes? Thats 15 attacks for the entire game and they have hit issues. Stealing additional seems extremely tedious. Volke needs to be deployed and he must reach the targets, who are afar, protected and eager to use them on your way to them. Is 15 Spd even good enough? Sages can have a bit of speed.

 

 

[Uscari]

1 minute ago, Aircalipoor said:

He has enough slots to deploy her and she is better than Lethe/Mordecai/Muarim.

I don't get your Siege Tomes strategy. Aren't you only getting 3 tomes? Thats 15 attacks for the entire game and they have hit issues. Stealing additional seems extremely tedious. Volke needs to be deployed and he must reach the targets, who are afar, protected and eager to use them on your way to them. Is 15 Spd even good enough? Sages can have a bit of speed.

 

 

She is better than Lethe no doubt about that, should bench Lethe as well. Mordecai though is a smite bot and won't steal exp, also a good packmule. Muarim probably isn't worth using either despite his impressive stats due to being locked to 1-range, but infinite weapon uses via claws could be a neat utility, can eventually replace Mordecai as the smite bot as well. 

You get 4 from drops/chests/recruits in Maniac mode. You get Bolting from chapter 16 chest on the upper left, Meteor from Calil when she joins, Bolting from an enemy sage on chapter 22, Blizzard from enemy sage on chapter 23.

However, you can steal like 6-7 more of them. In chapter 21 in the chest room at the top there is a meteor sage you can steal from as soon as you open the door, don't even need to inflict a status effect. In chapter 25, there are 5-6 blizzard sages you can steal from by using Soren to silence/sleep. Volke can steal all the siege tomes if you feed him kills and get him to 20 prior to promotion, he'll have around 21 speed which should be enough.

So yeah, you can have up to like 10 siege tomes in Maniac Mode, 50 uses. More than enough reason to train a siege tome mage to take out dangerous enemies you don't want to deal with, primarily other siege tome mages. Sure it's tedious to steal them but it improves your chances of success.

[Shadow Mir]

3 hours ago, Uscari said:

She is better than Lethe no doubt about that, should bench Lethe as well. Mordecai though is a smite bot and won't steal exp, also a good packmule. Muarim probably isn't worth using either despite his impressive stats due to being locked to 1-range, but infinite weapon uses via claws could be a neat utility, can eventually replace Mordecai as the smite bot as well. 

You get 4 from drops/chests/recruits in Maniac mode. You get Bolting from chapter 16 chest on the upper left, Meteor from Calil when she joins, Bolting from an enemy sage on chapter 22, Blizzard from enemy sage on chapter 23.

However, you can steal like 6-7 more of them. In chapter 21 in the chest room at the top there is a meteor sage you can steal from as soon as you open the door, don't even need to inflict a status effect. In chapter 25, there are 5-6 blizzard sages you can steal from by using Soren to silence/sleep. Volke can steal all the siege tomes if you feed him kills and get him to 20 prior to promotion, he'll have around 21 speed which should be enough.

So yeah, you can have up to like 10 siege tomes in Maniac Mode, 50 uses. More than enough reason to train a siege tome mage to take out dangerous enemies you don't want to deal with, primarily other siege tome mages. Sure it's tedious to steal them but it improves your chances of success.

That's... kinda unreasonable and unrealistic, to be frank. How many of those do NOT have them equipped to start??? Also, you're assuming you steal them fresh... which is ALSO unrealistic. Third, the obvious flaw with relying on silence and sleep for this is that they can just... you know, miss since you're targeting high res units. Esp. Silence. And this is ignoring all the exp Volke needs.

Edited May 27, 2023 by Shadow Mir

[ping]

Lethe is still really good at this point. 26-27 Atk (she leveled up during the last map) and 15-16 Spd is quite good. Yes, Marcia and Boyd outclass her at this point, but Lethe easily has better combat than any unpromoted unit. I don't want to bench a good unit in favour of some growth unit that I likely won't have the deployment slots to use later anyway. She'll get the boot eventually, but I see no reason to rush. I'm training every unit I want to train, I don't need to make space for anybody. Hell, I fielded Zihark purely for Shove utility (...and yes, I could've tried to level up Oscar instead, but I don't wanna) because I'm looking to use units yet to be recruited.

[Uscari]

2 hours ago, gnip said:

Lethe is still really good at this point. 26-27 Atk (she leveled up during the last map) and 15-16 Spd is quite good. Yes, Marcia and Boyd outclass her at this point, but Lethe easily has better combat than any unpromoted unit. I don't want to bench a good unit in favour of some growth unit that I likely won't have the deployment slots to use later anyway. She'll get the boot eventually, but I see no reason to rush. I'm training every unit I want to train, I don't need to make space for anybody. Hell, I fielded Zihark purely for Shove utility (...and yes, I could've tried to level up Oscar instead, but I don't wanna) because I'm looking to use units yet to be recruited.

Ideally all of your team should be comprised of growth units by the end. Your prepromotes and laguz are generally just there to secure loot, bonus experience, and shepard your growth units to replace them. Once your team is strong enough that your growth units can protect your weaker growth units, prepromotes and laguz stop serving any purpose, you're just syphoning experience that ultimately won't get any use out of.

In my playthroughs, there is about enough room for 8-9 main units, with a couple of slots reserved for utility units (smite, thief, dancer, reinforce). Those 8-9 units should ultimately be all units with good endgame stats, you'll need them to get through the last chapters. 

I mean ultimately you should use whatever units you enjoy using, it's your playthrough, but I'm just saying from a success rate standpoint, you'll make the endgame much easier for yourself if you concentrate experience and resources on the units you will use at the end, rather than in the units that don't need help now and will fall off in the future.

3 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

That's... kinda unreasonable and unrealistic, to be frank. How many of those do NOT have them equipped to start??? Also, you're assuming you steal them fresh... which is ALSO unrealistic. Third, the obvious flaw with relying on silence and sleep for this is that they can just... you know, miss since you're targeting high res units. Esp. Silence. And this is ignoring all the exp Volke needs.

Pretty much all of them, don't have their siege tome equipped, and instead have a standard tome equipped. The ones that have a siege tome equipped can be slept and won't equip anything. Your staves could miss but this guy is using Soren, who has high magic and skill growth rates, which improves the chance of them hitting. He'll be overleveled compared to the rest of the team due to healing experience being better than battle experience, so he'll have 80-90% chance of succeeding with staves even against enemy sages. Even if you do miss 1-2 procs, you'll still have 40 uses of siege tomes, which I promise makes a big difference in the hardest maps of the game. It solves so many problems to use high-might magic attacks against units from well outside of their range.

[Vicious Sal]

5 hours ago, Uscari said:

Ideally all of your team should be comprised of growth units by the end. Your prepromotes and laguz are generally just there to secure loot, bonus experience, and shepard your growth units to replace them. Once your team is strong enough that your growth units can protect your weaker growth units, prepromotes and laguz stop serving any purpose, you're just syphoning experience that ultimately won't get any use out of.

In my playthroughs, there is about enough room for 8-9 main units, with a couple of slots reserved for utility units (smite, thief, dancer, reinforce). Those 8-9 units should ultimately be all units with good endgame stats, you'll need them to get through the last chapters. 

I mean ultimately you should use whatever units you enjoy using, it's your playthrough, but I'm just saying from a success rate standpoint, you'll make the endgame much easier for yourself if you concentrate experience and resources on the units you will use at the end, rather than in the units that don't need help now and will fall off in the future.

Pretty much all of them, don't have their siege tome equipped, and instead have a standard tome equipped. The ones that have a siege tome equipped can be slept and won't equip anything. Your staves could miss but this guy is using Soren, who has high magic and skill growth rates, which improves the chance of them hitting. He'll be overleveled compared to the rest of the team due to healing experience being better than battle experience, so he'll have 80-90% chance of succeeding with staves even against enemy sages. Even if you do miss 1-2 procs, you'll still have 40 uses of siege tomes, which I promise makes a big difference in the hardest maps of the game. It solves so many problems to use high-might magic attacks against units from well outside of their range.

Playing the way you like is fine but 'working from a succes rate' standpoint while you're playing as far from efficient as physically possible is just not helping your case. 

You're literally arguing 'handicap yourself for 95% of the game for a marginally better chance of succes during the 5%' 

Maniac has been completed with 0% growths in 149 turns. That's completing the entire game in around the same amount of turns as you said you took for clash alone. And I can assure you Titania is worth more there than any growth unit ever would be. 

We've come a long way since the early 2000's, where people favoured growths over bases and Nino over Pent, but by now we've learned that Bases > Growths.  A 20% growth rate advantage is at max 7,6 points worth of magic, but that is only if both units start at lvI 1 T1. That is not realistic and still not the whole picture because the lower Mag growth unit often gets close to cap anyway on average, so the end result won't be 7,6 mag difference either. I highly recommend some of those maniac mode playthroughs on YT, the commentary often has valuable insights regarding their unit choice and what makes a unit good (for any kind of playthrough, LTC or otherwise)

[Aircalipoor]

Since most of the optional long range tomes are only available for chapter 26, 27, 28 and Finale it's not worth it. Using the first 4 is occasionally good.

Decent LTC runs are lacking, since the two good ones involve crit bug and rigged stats. The 0% has poor Titania in chapter 1-7, due to not gaining any stats (which can make a difference in chapter 5-7), while the rigged one has a terrific way above average stats Titania.

A lot of strategies can still apply without crit bug (decent Marcia 2-3 turning a bunch of chapters even without a Slim Lance) but other ones should show some alternatives. Fixed mode (without BEXP manipulation) and no crit bug would be interesting, I'm half interested to do it myself but aside from lacking recording tools I'm not as skilled. Maybe some rough scrub guide to finish the maps relatively quickly to fullfill sideobjectives and full BEXP could show insights in characters usefullness.

Edited May 28, 2023 by Aircalipoor

[Uscari]

So I just want to clarify something, is this run mentioned below:

7 hours ago, Vicious Sal said:

Maniac has been completed with 0% growths in 149 turns.

using the things listed here:

6 hours ago, Aircalipoor said:

Decent LTC runs are lacking, since the two good ones involve crit bug and rigged stats.

If the run involves either rigged level ups or crit bug, I'd consider it an invalid run, on account of cheating.

[Aircalipoor]

Nah, its only cheating if it pretends to be otherwise. The runs have clear rules and show whats possible under specific rules and restrictions

Whats most important is how insightful the strategies used there are and many can be applied to other runs, making them very informative. Until chapter 8, forged weapons aren't a thing. Lategame 0% chapters can be comparable to ones with normal growths, instead of a crit forge they may have better offensive stats and a different weapon. Not always, certainly.

Hence my wish to have more maniac runs so that we have a better understanding of the game and a tighter consens of what is good, what works and what is recommended.

 

[Uscari]

22 minutes ago, Aircalipoor said:

Nah, its only cheating if it pretends to be otherwise. The runs have clear rules and show whats possible under specific rules and restrictions

Whats most important is how insightful the strategies used there are and many can be applied to other runs, making them very informative. Until chapter 8, forged weapons aren't a thing. Lategame 0% chapters can be comparable to ones with normal growths, instead of a crit forge they may have better offensive stats and a different weapon. Not always, certainly.

Hence my wish to have more maniac runs so that we have a better understanding of the game and a tighter consens of what is good, what works and what is recommended.

 

I get your point about rules and restrictions, maybe cheating was a harsh word.

I think from a balance and difficulty evaluation standpoint, it makes sense to play the game the way the developers intended, and not abuse exploits/glitches. I don't think it's valid to say "This difficulty is easy because I can use this glitch/exploit to beat it" when it's clear that the difficulty was built around what tools the developers intended to be available to the player.

[Aircalipoor]

please delete

Edited May 28, 2023 by Aircalipoor