Efficient Playthrough Log

[Narga_Rocks]

Are you really that surprised?

You have a point.

So, 186 base hit, with at least a B with some random person so that's 191. Ok, hit is not as bad as I thought it'd be. Just a braver is more dependent on Blood Tide than White Pool.

33 x 2 = 66.

66 + 25 = 91.

91 + 80 = 171.

She could strap on Parity and have 61 hit against the auras since they lose their stars, too. That's not all that great, though, especially considering what Mia + Base Tibarn can do with your two parities.

171 + 15 = 186. Give her a B with Nailah for 196. 61 hit + tides. Two tides makes 81 listed. It's not bad, but she may not always hit twice. 92.97. .9297²~= 86.4%

So approximately 1 in 7 attack attempts she'll miss at least one hit. The other 6 of 7 she'll hit twice. So assume a two round of 4-E-5 where she doesn't get vigored and she has a ~74.7% chance of not missing (aka chance of hitting 4 out of 4). But then there is bio to screw that up. Still, approximately 3 out of 4 playthroughs will see her not miss.

[Interceptor]

Chapter 3-11:

Battle prep: I have over 41k BEXP now that CRK/GMs have combined, and I intend to use it. It's time to put my foot on the accelerator, and level up my guys for Part 4.

- Ike is a slam dunk here, I BEXP him to max level, and cap his SPD at 30.

- Shinon is never going to have a better time to get +STR than right now, so I BEXP him to 20 as well, to get his STR to 26 (one shy of cap, but that's the best that can be hoped for under the circumstances). I will let him promote normally.

- Nephenee is only 2 STR away from her cap now, and only four stats remain. I BEXP her to 15, which brings her STR to cap, and DEF to 22. Good enough. I toss a Crown on her for promotion.

- Mia has several stats capped now, but the only ones left to go are ones that I don't care much about (MAG, LCK, DEF, RES) as much as I care about her getting to Trueblade. She gets one last shot in the arm to 18, for a +LCK/DEf/RES level, and then I use my second Crown on her.

I have 20,841 BEXP left at this point, I've spent basically half of it getting people to fighting form. I suspect that it was well-spent, though. As far as other things are concerned, ShinonxNephenee is upgraded to A rank, and UlkixJanaff establish C. I buy another pair of grasses for the hawks. Pass + Savior goes to Haar, Paragons go to Nephenee/Shinon, Titania gets Imbue, and Mia trades Cancel for Daunt.

Strategy here is simple: beast Haar across the stage with Ike in tow, as everyone else uses the enemies here for self-improvement. Ike can ORKO the boss with a Brave Sword, so that is what he shall do. Pure Water will help on mages.

Well, that was the plan anyway, but because of a Shine Barrier, Haar was short by one tile, and then he ran into a problem with an Elthunder mage and had to retreat instead of dropping Ike. So by the time Ike killed the boss, everyone had almost caught up. Oh well, at least all of the enemies died in the process.

Turns (chapter/total): 8/213

BEXP (chapter/current): 5273/26,114

Funds: 50,002

Unit    Lvl    HP ST MG SK SP LK DF RS  Support

Ike     20.00  50 27 3  30 30 17 26 8   A Mia
Titania  2.10  45 30 14 28 28 20 25 20  A Mist
Mist     6.59  30 10 15 17 18 20 8  18  A Titania
Shinon   1.28  49 28 14 32 28 17 26 20  A Nephenee
Mia      1.69  44 26 10 32 32 22 20 15  A Ike
Neph     3.02  51 29 13 29 31 24 25 22  A Shinon
Haar     5.47  53 32 6  31 27 17 31 12  C Heather

All of my non-Ike combatants are promoted, now. Notice how Neph has gone from last place to WTF: what a difference a BEXP dump, Crown and Paragon makes. This group should be well-positioned to take on Part 4 now, 3-Endgame is just going to be a mission to grab the Rescue staff while I'm thinking about it, and last-minute forging.

Edited March 22, 2010 by Interceptor

[Narga_Rocks]

Unit    Lvl    HP ST MG SK SP LK DF RS  Support

Ike     20.00  50 27 3  30 30 17 26 8   A Mia
Titania  2.10  45 30 14 28 28 20 25 20  A Mist
Mist     6.59  30 10 15 17 18 20 8  18  A Titania
Shinon   1.28  49 28 14 32 28 17 26 20  A Nephenee
Mia      1.69  44 26 10 32 32 22 20 15  A Ike
Neph     3.02  51 29 13 29 31 24 25 22  A Shinon
Haar     5.47  53 32 6  31 27 17 31 12  C Heather

All of my non-Ike combatants are promoted, now. Notice how Neph has gone from last place to WTF: what a difference a BEXP dump, Crown and Paragon makes. This group should be well-positioned to take on Part 4 now, 3-Endgame is just going to be a mission to grab the Rescue staff while I'm thinking about it, and last-minute forging.

Well, Haar is probably not going to be so great for 4-3 it looks like. Needs 28 spd for the slowest halb, 29 for the slowest sniper, and 30 for the slowest warrior. I suppose he can still fly around with his durability and 2 round stuff, though, which should help speed the rout. Of course, with Jill already looking at 27 spd for the moment she promotes, things could be funny for her since she'll have enough maps to hit that 31 spd, probably. I'm not sure if you have the units to not need Haar for a quick 4-3, though.

Oh, and I assume the LEA are going to be sacrificed in 4-4?

[Mekkah]

Well, Haar is probably not going to be so great for 4-3 it looks like. Needs 28 spd for the slowest halb, 29 for the slowest sniper, and 30 for the slowest warrior. I suppose he can still fly around with his durability and 2 round stuff, though, which should help speed the rout. Of course, with Jill already looking at 27 spd for the moment she promotes, things could be funny for her since she'll have enough maps to hit that 31 spd, probably. I'm not sure if you have the units to not need Haar for a quick 4-3, though.

Well, Int said Danved got the Speedwing Halberdier in 3-9, and I can't find anything saying he hasn't used it yet, so he might still be sitting on that?

[Narga_Rocks]

Well, Int said Danved got the Speedwing Halberdier in 3-9, and I can't find anything saying he hasn't used it yet, so he might still be sitting on that?

I guess it depends on what happens with Nolan's speed. If Nolan doesn't need it (he may not), then Haar has 29 speed and while that doesn't double warriors, he could proc in 4-P to get 30 AS and double a lot. Not the 27 spd enemies, but still a lot of 4-3.

Of course, presumably he'll be trying to do as much in 4-P with Nolan and Jill as possible, so Haar may not get a bunch of levels in 4-P. Not sure how helpful 29 AS in 4-3 is. Gets wyverns. 6 out of 10 halbs. Misses all 14 warriors. Gets 1 out of 8 snipers. Gets 8 sages/generals/bishops, but gets the bishops without a wing. The only reinforcements it gets are the wind sage he'll probably not meet, the two dragonmasters, and a bishop. The bishop won't even appear if he manages a 9-turn.

Now, a speed proc on top of that wing gets an additional 19 enemies, or up to 22 since some snipers say 26.5.

I suppose that since 27 spd misses a bunch of wyverns and the generals and sages and the 6 halbs it could still be worth winging Haar.

[Interceptor]

Well, Haar is probably not going to be so great for 4-3 it looks like. Needs 28 spd for the slowest halb, 29 for the slowest sniper, and 30 for the slowest warrior. I suppose he can still fly around with his durability and 2 round stuff, though, which should help speed the rout. Of course, with Jill already looking at 27 spd for the moment she promotes, things could be funny for her since she'll have enough maps to hit that 31 spd, probably. I'm not sure if you have the units to not need Haar for a quick 4-3, though.

This is true, Haar's looking at some trouble, though I am glad that I promoted him so early, because having 27 AS at this point means he can possibly dig out of the hole. At any rate, even if he is 2RKO'ing in 4-3, I can put my finger on the scale a little bit by giving him a Brave, Killer, or forge with crit. If crits, Stuns, or gets the STR needed to make Brave a ORKO, the enemy is just as dead as if he had the AS in the first place. I think that I can reasonably make him about 40% ORKO in the worst scenario; that's better than nothing, and he's still 2RKO'ing when he fails.

Fortunately, in this chapter I will have Nolan, Jill, Naesala, Skrimir, Ulki, Janaff, and Haar as my primary asskickers, with units like Volug, Sigrun, Manith, Sothe, and Sanaki as second-string fighters who can combo together for kills, PLUS the ally Beyonce Knowles... so to be honest, I don't think that a failed Haar will cost me more than say, a turn. Ten of those units above ignore the terrain, after all.

Oh, and I assume the LEA are going to be sacrificed in 4-4?

Most likely, yes. Draining the Sleep staff is probably amongst the most useful things that they can do.

I guess it depends on what happens with Nolan's speed. If Nolan doesn't need it (he may not), then Haar has 29 speed and while that doesn't double warriors, he could proc in 4-P to get 30 AS and double a lot. Not the 27 spd enemies, but still a lot of 4-3.

Indeed, I could use the Speedwing, but that depends entirely on Nolan as you said. And Nolan's a sticky wicket. I did a dry run of 3-12 and 3-13, and it presents some... challenges. Here's the situation:

3-12: Nolan gets bad EXP on the enemies here, even with Paragon, since a lot of them are tier 1 or low tier 2. He also takes significant damage without Tarvos, though with two full-time healers and a barely-used Physic it's not a huge problem. The fastest clear here is to BEXP Jill to 18 (not enough for any more than that...), Crown her, and then fly her down into the mass of enemies and bulldog with a Steel Axe. Since she has like infinity durability and good STR, she's ORKO on basically everything (with a Poleax she is ORKO on LITERALLY everything) and never dies. Problem is, this hurts Nolan's CEXP gains even more.

3-13: Hahaha. Haha. Ha. I over-did it a little bit with Ike, he's completely unkillable, even without Ragnell. Laura is hilariously underleveled and cannot reach him with Sleep unless she's almost kissing him on the bottom floor. My only hope for a clear that doesn't take 12(13) turns is to Crownoneo and hope for a hit and a Luna proc, but since I am explicitly not RNG-abusing in this playthroughI will have to slug it out the hard way. I am not sure whether I will Beastfoe + Nolan like in 3-6, or whether I will Paragon + two enemy facings like I did for Jill, but one of those things is better than the other for getting to Reaver, and I'll do whichever that one is.

So that's what I'm looking at. 3-12 is a joke, Ike is Jesus, and 3-13 is my last, best hope of making Nolan viable for Endgame.

[Narga_Rocks]

Yeah, an average level 6 Laura has 11 magic. Assuming yours has at least 10, that gives 5 range, which is quite sad. Also, even if you can clear out enough laguz to make doing that safe, I wonder what her success rate would be. I forget the formula, but with Ike's 8 res I'm sure she'd be under 70% anyway. Also I think skill of the staff user plays a part, and she'd only have like 6 skill. I'm pretty sure the formula involves 2 stats from the staff user ((x * magic ) + (1 * something) - (y * enemy res), I think, and I think x is one bigger than y).

If you pull it off, though, he has just 15 avo.

50 hp and 26 def is still tough to bring down, of course, especially since there is no way your Volug will reach 17x2 speed in time (or ever, given your playthrough set up) and your other units won't be getting to 34 speed either. Even 31 str Jill with a silver poleax has 49 mt and thus 3HKOs, or 3 turns if she doesn't stun. Good news is that if Ragnell was left equipped (hope not) 18 damage still 3HKOs just as well as 23 damage. Unfortunately, this time your Jill doesn't have as much str. Even if she procs on her bexp, 28 str means 39 with brave axe and 46 with silver poleax. So Ragnell prevents the 3HKO with the poleax and prevents the 4HKO with the brave.

She has str tied with skl for 3rd best growth at the moment, as well, behind luck and hp. Do you have any ashera icons? If so, you could cap her luck and then probably get hp+str+skl.

xx/18/1 Jill like that

52 hp, 28 str, 25 skill, 27 spd, 30 luck, 27 def, 14 res

50 + 30 + 80 = 160 hit with brave axe, so missing a sleeping Ike isn't an issue, even with bio.

60 + 17 + 15 = 92 avo when not asleep, so 68 listed = 79.84%. Chance of hitting 4 times in a row = ~40.6%.

But, each hit comes with a 25% chance to stun and she only needs 1 normal hit after a stun. So the chance of killing Ike in 4 swings is significantly higher, especially if masteries are rolled before hit and non-Astra/Aether masteries don't miss.

And of course Ike auto-equips Ragnell in certain circumstances and thus it would turn 39 mt from a 13 damage per hit 4HKO to an 8 damage per hit 7HKO. Yeesh.

Are you absolutely certain you need a tier 3 Jill in 3-12? If she can pull off a level there somehow and get within striking distance of level 19, then you could perhaps bexp her up to level 20. I'm sure she'd need to kill as many promoted enemies as you can find and to get to level 18.9 she needs 1.77 levels off of low level promoted enemies. Not likely, I realize, but if she does kill most of them with paragon equipped...(definitely give paragon to Nolan in 3-13)

I don't suppose you have the bexp to get Laura to level 10 and a seal leftover to get her to 10/1?

.68*600 + 700 + 800 + 900 = 2808 bexp to get Laura to level 10. Seal her. She'll probably get mag on each level and on promotion. +5 magic to whatever she has. If she has 11, that makes 16 and 8 range.

(another edit)

If you don't spend a drop in 3-12 you'll have 7883 for 3-13.

Laura takes 2808, so 5075.

Level 20/19 Jill needs 3900 to get to 20/20.

1175.

1175/3800 = ~30

So if you get Jill to level 18.7 by the end of 3-12, you have just enough to get Laura promoted and Jill to 20/20. Nolan gets a bit screwed over, but he can use bexp in 4-P when you have more and he's capped more (hopefully).

Edited March 16, 2010 by Narga_Rocks

[Interceptor]

Ike has Ragnell equipped for 3-13, but even if I re-did 3-11 to end with a bronze sword (which is fine, 3-11 is not hard), the numbers are too close and the cost is pretty high for a low-turn 3-13 clear. It's not guaranteed, first of all, and secondly skipping 3-13 is guaranteeing that Nolan is not going to be in shape for Part 4. If he's going to be any good at all, I need to get most of his levels in tier 2 and then Crown him at the end of it.

I doubt that promoted Jill is required for 3-12, though it will be tighter since I lose 3 DEF and 5 HP, and now she'll have to use an inaccurate weapon to maintain ORKOs. She will probably also have to spend her Player Phases healing herself. At least she doubles reliably in tier 2, still. I may do that just for shits and giggles, since her CEXP gain in tier 3 is terrible, and Stun is not all that helpful in 3-12 since she ORKOs anyway. This will make things tighter for Nolan in 3-13, of course, but Jill's a;ready demonstrated that you can use Paragon on laguz to get to 20/17 from 20/1, and Nolan is already more than halfway there.

It's a lost cause, I think. I just assumed in the back of my head that I'd be playing out 3-13, not remembering that a boss kill will shave mondo turns. My single-minded focus on making Ike awesome has sort of curtailed my chances of clearing 3-13 in any way other than hanging on until the end. Hoist with my own petard.

EDIT: no Seal for Laura, I got exactly as many as I needed and no more.

Edited March 16, 2010 by Interceptor

[Narga_Rocks]

Ike has Ragnell equipped for 3-13, but even if I re-did 3-11 to end with a bronze sword (which is fine, 3-11 is not hard), the numbers are too close and the cost is pretty high for a low-turn 3-13 clear. It's not guaranteed, first of all, and secondly skipping 3-13 is guaranteeing that Nolan is not going to be in shape for Part 4. If he's going to be any good at all, I need to get most of his levels in tier 2 and then Crown him at the end of it.

I doubt that promoted Jill is required for 3-12, though it will be tighter since I lose 3 DEF and 5 HP, and now she'll have to use an inaccurate weapon to maintain ORKOs. She will probably also have to spend her Player Phases healing herself. At least she doubles reliably in tier 2, still. I may do that just for shits and giggles, since her CEXP gain in tier 3 is terrible, and Stun is not all that helpful in 3-12 since she ORKOs anyway. This will make things tighter for Nolan in 3-13, of course, but Jill's a;ready demonstrated that you can use Paragon on laguz to get to 20/17 from 20/1, and Nolan is already more than halfway there.

It's a lost cause, I think. I just assumed in the back of my head that I'd be playing out 3-13, not remembering that a boss kill will shave mondo turns. My single-minded focus on making Ike awesome has sort of curtailed my chances of clearing 3-13 in any way other than hanging on until the end. Hoist with my own petard.

EDIT: no Seal for Laura, I got exactly as many as I needed and no more.

Well, Laura can still get +4 magic (or at least +3 anyway) out of that bexp to level 10. Too bad you only got, 3? I'm guessing 3 anyway. One for Jill, one for Nolan, one for Ilyana.

Still, depending on her mag that is 7 range instead of 5. Enough that she can probably reach him if she just steps down from the ledge. Need someone to pick her up, of course, if there are laguz left nearby.

I remember 3-13 being tough to clear out the laguz, though. Basically, I'm not suggesting you can pull off a 3 turn or anything. But if you can clear out most of the laguz by turn 7 or something and then put Ike to sleep, Jill could probably attempt to butcher him. Also I assume Soren is near base level, but even so it could be worth sticking him with wind in the 3-11 base to prevent him using something better. He is adjacent to Ike, after all, and will attack Jill on the ensuing enemy phase after she attacks Ike (if she doesn't stun + normal hit to kill an Ike with a bronze sword). It's not a 5 turn or anything nice like that, but a 9 turn (for example) is still 4 better than a 13 turn. The idea is to kill enough laguz such that Jill and Nolan (if he's down there) will actually survive enemy phase. Probably need two bronze axes and stick Nolan adjacent to Jill. Jill goes first, attacks sleeping Ike, and Nolan comes along and trades out her brave axe for a bronze axe so that she doesn't kill laguz without a stun proc. If they are adjacent it reduces their facings. Jill faces two laguz + Soren, and Nolan faces three laguz. If you reduce the number of enemy tigers to prevent Nolan from facing three tigers it should work. Jill may need pure water (+6, because she uses it one turn before attacking Ike) to survive two tigers + Soren. Also, beastfoe on Nolan with bronze axe shouldn't kill anything, and it may even prevent some things from attacking him. Also, Volug could maybe be there to help out. Too bad he can't have a pocket Aran like Titania has a pocket Mist. If only there were two saviours earlier.

Also, you are buying the 3-12 physic, right?

(Oh, Nolan could stand adjacent to Soren, trade out the brave axe, and then use a pure water of his own. Then he's facing Soren + 2 laguz, which is certainly superior to 3 laguz, especially since base Soren with 4 mt wind tome has 27 mt. You could even forge him a 1mt wind tome for this battle alone. 24 mt. Nolan has 13 res? so 20 means 4 damage. That's neat. Then Jill and Nolan only face 4 damage from Soren (she has 14 + 6, he has 13 + 7) and two laguz (unless Jill procs Stun).

Edited March 16, 2010 by Narga_Rocks

[Interceptor]

Jill is pretty beastly defensively once she promotes. If she's near Nolan, she has effective 28 DEF in base tier 3, meaning that things like cats are almost tinking her. The manliest ones do a whole 3 damage. Tigers are the only ones that really hurt, and even still the 41mt versions are doing 13 damage to 51 HP, which is a 4HKO that turns into a 5HKO within a couple of levels. I can give her Beastfoe and safely have her face a helluva lot of Enemy Phase. The only reason I would decline to do so is not for survival, but just so that Nolan has some things to kill.

I am definitely picking up the Physic in 3-13, DB has a ton of money after the 10k from Pelleas.

Speaking of which: promoted Jill has 21mt with a Demon Card. That'll deal 13 damage a shot to Ike, no counters, for a 4HKO.

[Narga_Rocks]

Jill is pretty beastly defensively once she promotes. If she's near Nolan, she has effective 28 DEF in base tier 3, meaning that things like cats are almost tinking her. The manliest ones do a whole 3 damage. Tigers are the only ones that really hurt, and even still the 41mt versions are doing 13 damage to 51 HP, which is a 4HKO that turns into a 5HKO within a couple of levels. I can give her Beastfoe and safely have her face a helluva lot of Enemy Phase. The only reason I would decline to do so is not for survival, but just so that Nolan has some things to kill.

I am definitely picking up the Physic in 3-13, DB has a ton of money after the 10k from Pelleas.

Speaking of which: promoted Jill has 21mt with a Demon Card. That'll deal 13 damage a shot to Ike, no counters, for a 4HKO.

I don't remember if Ike moves for a while. I've always put him to sleep, so he never has a chance. I know he'll probably move when the GMs start moving on turn 11, but if you get down there on turn 7 and abuse canto to let Jill attack with a Demon card and get out of Ragnell's range (if Ike doesn't move), will he go after her? If not, then I suppose that could work. Those things have 100 hit, right? 24 skill and 29 luck is 177 hit against his 92 avo. 85 listed is 95.65% true, so ~83.7% chance of killing him in 4 hits. Takes 4 rounds, but oh well. Bio can mess with that, or bio can push that chance to win in 4 rounds over 90%.

Anyway, good news is that she can take one shot from Ike. Even two, I guess. He "only" has 45 mt. It just screws with things if she runs away and he follows and tigers are still present, since that will be a 3HKO between Ike and the tigers, perhaps, and Ike attacks from 2 range so he won't get in their way.

[Interceptor]

Well, if Ike DOES move, that's a problem that solves itself, since he'll move right into Laura's Sleep Staff range, and I can just mob him. But, I think he stays put until Turn 11. Also, even with Ragnell in play, Jill can do damage to him on counter with a melee weapon which, under the right circumstances, can cut this effort down to a three-round deal.

I've got my work cut out for me on this one, clearly. It seems like what's going to happen is I will gradually whittle Ike's HP down (going to have to take away his heals at the end of 3-11), while simultaneously trying to train Nolan enough to make Part 4 viable.

Ahh, Fire Emblem is good fun.

EDIT: I guess this magic card shenanigans gives us an explanation for 1) Fiona's existence, and 2) why there's a Spirit Dust for sale in 1-5.

Edited March 16, 2010 by Interceptor

[grandjackal]

EDIT: I guess this magic card shenanigans gives us an explanation for 1) Fiona's existence, and 2) why there's a Spirit Dust for sale in 1-5.

I looked into it a good while ago, I highly doubt it helps her much at all. Even if she got the dust, she'd need something with a lot more pepper than Spectre cards, as she'd only be doing 6-10 damage. Granted the fact she avoids counters is probably making it a crapload easier to train her, but the problem is you don't get cards until 1-F witht he Daemons, 5 cards that overall could be sold for good cash.

If you do get some Reaper cards, it would help a bit more. 9-13 damage is quite a bit easier to work with when it comes to training her (and she wouldn't be ass useless either, it's at least decent chip). Problem is, I can't find anything that says you get any cards before 1-F.

That is, unless it's buyable in hard mode shops in like Bargains or something, which case someone really ought to get data on chapter shops for Hard Mode because it only has data for Normal.

That is, unless you meant just for destroying Ike in 3-13, which since he's moving, chances are you're already close to the chapter just ending naturally, so it seems...Stupid, and if that's the case, the 1-5 spirit dust just for that?

Granted you'd have plenty of money for it by then, but I think buying it just to have Fiona give Ike a meaner paper cut with cards...

[Interceptor]

I just meant for killing Ike in 3-13. Fiona's base MAG is good enough such that even if you promoted her early a couple of times, she'd hit Ike pretty hard compared to someone like Jill, and with Canto she'd never have to face an attack from him.

And it was a joke. I am not on a mission to make Fiona worth something, I was just pointing out that something that seemed ridiculous in the past (8,000 for +2 MAG in 1-5) suddenly makes sense in light of the problem that I am currently facing.

EDIT: also, I could get Nolan in on this. He only has 17mt, but that hurts Ike for 9 damage. Since the card can be easily traded, I could use it as a finisher. Heck, if Nolan promotes at some point, he gets +4 damage.

Edited March 16, 2010 by Interceptor

[Narga_Rocks]

I just meant for killing Ike in 3-13. Fiona's base MAG is good enough such that even if you promoted her early a couple of times, she'd hit Ike pretty hard compared to someone like Jill, and with Canto she'd never have to face an attack from him.

And it was a joke. I am not on a mission to make Fiona worth something, I was just pointing out that something that seemed ridiculous in the past (8,000 for +2 MAG in 1-5) suddenly makes sense in light of the problem that I am currently facing.

EDIT: also, I could get Nolan in on this. He only has 17mt, but that hurts Ike for 9 damage. Since the card can be easily traded, I could use it as a finisher. Heck, if Nolan promotes at some point, he gets +4 damage.

Currently Nolan only has 169 hit, so Ike's 92 avo could cause problems. I suppose you could give one of these characters parity for a +15 hit. That would be good, except I don't think Parity works with cards, just the weapon attacks. Jill's brave axe suddenly became more accurate (if she is promoted 10 + 25(stun) = 35, so she gets 10 for Parity and 15 for another skill). 24 *2+ 29 + 80 = 157 vs. Ike's 77 avo. 80 listed is considerably better than 65 listed. It also has nearly the same accuracy as her card uses.

92.2% vs. 95.65%.

But that doesn't really matter if he isn't sleeping, and if he is sleeping it doesn't matter anyway since she wouldn't miss period.

Um, when does he equip Ragnell (if you were to end 3-11 with something else equipped)? When someone gets in range, or when he actually attacks something? She could get two brave shots in with Parity before he equips Ragnell, and if he has bronze he'll do piddling damage in return if he hits. Then on the counter she drops to 65 listed hit and does 5 less damage per successful hit, but at least that player phase damage of two brave hits will cut down the number of daemon card uses needed and perhaps let you two turn the thing.

24 damage from the brave, unless she gets some str in 3-12 or with bexp. 26 remaining. 13 damage with daemon. 13 remaining.

If everyone hits, then:

Nolan: daemon card: 9 damage

Jill: Brave Axe: 12x2 damage

Nolan: daemon card: 9 damage

Jill: daemon card: 13 damage.

Unfortunately, doing this will likely cause Ike to attack Nolan on enemy phase. If he attacks Jill instead, at least she'll probably hit at least once which would allow one of Nolan's daemon card hits to miss and still kill Ike. If Jill procs str it makes things easier, too. Actually, two points of str gives her 14x2 with brave, so Ike has only 22 hp remaining and 13 + 9 kills him, avoiding the need for Nolan to start with a daemon card, or it allows him to miss once. Jill still needs to never miss. Oh, and if she is doing 14 damage against bronze and 9 damage against Ragnell, this also means that Nolan probably doesn't need to attack at all on the first phase.

14 x 2 = 28. (no stun because of parity)

9 x 2 (counter) = 18. (possibility of stun)

Nolan: 9 damage.

Jill: 13 damage.

Total = 68

Can miss 2 of the 3 attempts at 9 damage, or one of the higher numbers and none of the others. Still, that should push your kill rate pretty high. Volug's 36 mt does 5 damage to Ike. I assume 36, anyway, since if he is at base he has 11 x 2 + 14 = 36 mt. He has S strike, right? 5 damage against Ike's Ragnell on the second phase of the attack plan should allow for a miss of a 14/13 damage attack and one 9 damage hit. Of course, poor base Volug has 12 x 4 + 13 + 95 = 156 hit. Less even than Nolan's card use, but more at least than Nolan's brave use. Also, Volug has 4 magic transformed, so 161 hit (less than Nolan again) for 8 damage with the same card. Better than his physicals, at least. And prevents doubling on the counter (prevents a counter at all) if Volug is still at 26 speed.

Downside of Parity use is that it prevents any chance of stun on the first two swings. Not sure what the Expected Value of damage is and don't feel like calculating. Basically, chance of hitting combined with chance to stun/not stun for expected damage of the first hit, same for second, and compare to when she can't stun but has higher accuracy. The second is more reliable and probably has a much smaller variance. The first probably has a higher expected value but also a much bigger variance.

And Jill's 29 luck completely prevents Ike-crits. 25 crit max at 30 skill with Ragnell and standing next to Soren (glad for once it isn't a +10) so she can't be critted. Unfortunately, Nolan can be, so all the more reason to not have him attack on an earlier turn.

Edited March 16, 2010 by Narga_Rocks

[grandjackal]

I noticed Stun was factored into your calculations. Problem with that.

Ike has Nihil. I don't think Interceptor removed it.

[Ether]

Ike only gets Nihil post promotion,GJ.

[Narga_Rocks]

Also stun was a side-note, rather than the main part of the calculations. But yeah, unless he took Nihil off of Calill and stuck it on Ike before 3-11 for some reason, Ike doesn't have Nihil. (Interceptor didn't show Nihil in the list of items moving from the DB to the GMs via Ilyana, so Calill's is the only one Ike could have)

[Interceptor]

All that Ike has on him is Shade, the rest of the goodies are on other people.

[Anouleth]

Why would you move Nihil over anyway? It's worthless before Endgame, since nothing you fight has any skills. Well, Laverton has Cancel, Ludveck has Vantage, and Izuka has Flare, but it's not really worth the capacity compared to other skills.

(It's a shame that so few enemies in this game have skills. FE9 Swordmasters could have Adept or Astra, and almost every boss in the game had some kind of skill, so why couldn't they do it again?)

[Narga_Rocks]

Why would you move Nihil over anyway? It's worthless before Endgame, since nothing you fight has any skills. Well, Laverton has Cancel, Ludveck has Vantage, and Izuka has Flare, but it's not really worth the capacity compared to other skills.

(It's a shame that so few enemies in this game have skills. FE9 Swordmasters could have Adept or Astra, and almost every boss in the game had some kind of skill, so why couldn't they do it again?)

I wasn't saying to actually do it.

And yeah, at a minimum every single part 4 boss should have been tier 3 rather than pseudo tier 3. And they could have dumped a bunch of random stuff like cancel and adept and wrath on various part 3 bosses. Of course, unless you use Ilyana to carry over Nolan's nihil (in scroll form, since 20 cap stops her from taking two >= 10 cap skills) or you have her bring Parity from 1-E you wouldn't have a way of blocking any of those skills until 3-11. They could move parity from a chest in 1-E to an enemy in 3-P or 3-1 (Parity in red so it drops). Or make Heather necessary to steal it in 3-2.

[Interceptor]

Well, I did a quick dry run tonight on 3-12 and 3-13, it went pretty well. Chapter 3-12 went so well, in fact, that I may keep the results even though Zihark (stupidly) died, because after using 3-12's BEXP in 3-13, I got Jill to level 20 and Nolan to level 14. Some things I've learned about 3-13:

• Promoted Jill definitely 4HKOs Ike at high hit rates with a Daemon card. Does 13 damage a pop.
  
• The card doesn't adjust her equipped weapon, so she can hit and run while using a serious weapon for the laguz.
  
• Ike does not move, does not counter-attack, does not change his equipped weapon when being attacked by a Card (he is holding a Wind Edge).
  
• He doesn't appear to heal himself if he has no item to do it with (even if a laguz is next to him with a vulnerary).
  
• Jill is awesome.
  

I wound up getting a 6-turn clear on my first run. Hit rates varied because of bio, but I got three good card hits in on Ike, which, brought him down to 11 HP, and then I finished him off with Brave Axe (2x14 damage, 71% listed, good odds. Card was 91% listed, as well). Can't save this run, because Nolan died on Turn 4 (I got greedy, and with less than full health he got attacked by 2 tigers and 2 cats in a row... no dodges meant Nolan = dead).

But, as a proof of the viability of a theory, it was a Great Success<tm>. I can absolutely shave up to 7 turns off the clear time in this chapter, and as long as I don't go too balls-out with Nolan and make sure to use Tarvos liberally (18 uses left), I can most likely get him to a decent level.

So I'll do a real run later this week, or this weekend.

[Narga_Rocks]

Well, I did a quick dry run tonight on 3-12 and 3-13, it went pretty well. Chapter 3-12 went so well, in fact, that I may keep the results even though Zihark (stupidly) died, because after using 3-12's BEXP in 3-13, I got Jill to level 20 and Nolan to level 14. Some things I've learned about 3-13:

• Promoted Jill definitely 4HKOs Ike at high hit rates with a Daemon card. Does 13 damage a pop.
  
• The card doesn't adjust her equipped weapon, so she can hit and run while using a serious weapon for the laguz.
  
• Ike does not move, does not counter-attack, does not change his equipped weapon when being attacked by a Card (he is holding a Wind Edge).
  
• He doesn't appear to heal himself if he has no item to do it with (even if a laguz is next to him with a vulnerary).
  
• Jill is awesome.
  

I wound up getting a 6-turn clear on my first run. Hit rates varied because of bio, but I got three good card hits in on Ike, which, brought him down to 11 HP, and then I finished him off with Brave Axe (2x14 damage, 71% listed, good odds. Card was 91% listed, as well). Can't save this run, because Nolan died on Turn 4 (I got greedy, and with less than full health he got attacked by 2 tigers and 2 cats in a row... no dodges meant Nolan = dead).

But, as a proof of the viability of a theory, it was a Great Success<tm>. I can absolutely shave up to 7 turns off the clear time in this chapter, and as long as I don't go too balls-out with Nolan and make sure to use Tarvos liberally (18 uses left), I can most likely get him to a decent level.

So I'll do a real run later this week, or this weekend.

Why not 86% with Parity? Does she have something better? (there are a fair number of skills available here, I'll admit.)

Did you lose Adept with Zihark or did you move it elsewhere?

I know your Jill is blessed in certain areas, but are you okay with Jill as high as she is now? Like, above Mordy? (I'd ask about Oscar, but I think you are about as impressed by him in RD as I am. Which is to say, not very much.)

[Interceptor]

Why not 86% with Parity? Does she have something better? (there are a fair number of skills available here, I'll admit.)

I had her rocking Vantage + Beastfoe, for durability purposes. My logic here is that I'm OK if a miss costs me an extra turn, since that just means an extra turn of CEXP for both Jill and Nolan.

Parity doesn't work with cards anyway, so the only way for me to consistently make use of it would be to combine it with her Brave Axe. That's a valid tactic, but it means I have to attack him at 1-range, take a 33mt counter, and have the thing equipped on Enemy Phase. Tigers take two Brave hits to go down even with Beastfoe, which annoys me. I just hate wasting uses on it, the thing is at like 36/40 or something.

Did you lose Adept with Zihark or did you move it elsewhere?

Jill was using Adept at the time. All that I lost was an Iron Sword, a 6/8 Vulnerary, and Ilyana's bishie. It was kind of sudden, actually, I had him as an emergency wall on the ramp to protect Laura (can't trust the yellow units to not move) with no 1-range facings, but one of the enemy Snipers landed a crit on him.

I know your Jill is blessed in certain areas, but are you okay with Jill as high as she is now? Like, above Mordy? (I'd ask about Oscar, but I think you are about as impressed by him in RD as I am. Which is to say, not very much.)

As in, on the tier list? I am not sure. I'd have to say that I've possibly found a strategy that's faster for efficient play than the Easy Button<tm> clear, though. Chapter 3-6 did not go any slower than a BK + Sothe clear (which also takes about 13 turns), 3-12 is perhaps a couple turns faster, and 3-13 is demonstrably up to 6-7 turns faster, depending how you count.

On the other end of the scale, we have the turns wasted in Part 1 from training Nolan and Jill. I six-turned both 1-6-1 and 1-6-2, and in the second scenario there is ample room to argue that I could have gone 3-4 turns faster if I really wanted to. There is absolutely no savings to be found in 1-7 by cutting training, six turns is as fast as you can reasonably go. Jill is not even present in 1-8, and regardless a 5-turn clear is very fast. The last chapter would be Endgame, and I think it's obvious that 10 turns is not the fastest clear, though in Hard Mode I am pretty skeptical about safely shaving off more than 2-3 turns or so. At any rate, Jill and Nolan were hardly involved in my strategy, as Volug/Sothe/BK/Nailah were tasked with getting Micaiah to the Seize square.

And then there is the issue of resources and stats. In order to pull this off, I need to keep Paragon with the DB, and dump the Drop/Draco and two Robes into people. I'm going to go ahead and say that none of the stat boosters matter much, since the GMs have two of each of Draco/Drop available to them, and a Robe of their own that not many people get use out of. Paragon is probably significant, however, since I'd theorize that I can get an extra GM to Part 4 with it (suppose, for instance, that Gatrie has Paragon in 3-2 and 3-3). The other skills, like Adept and Resolve, don't matter (I did not use them seriously and would not have missed them in the DB). On the positive side, the GMs can have Savior in this scenario, which I made adequate use of.

I don't think that my DEF-blessed Jill is problematic for this situation since I never actually used the second Robe (it's still in my convoy). Certainly, Jill with +14 HP over her averages, has sufficient durability to handle herself in 3-6. Suppose that she was 20/1, with two Robes, and a C support with anyone: that's 43 HP and 18 effective DEF. She is already being 3HKO'ed by 39mt tigers at this point, and Paragon nearly guarantees that fairly rapidly her durability threshold will reach 3HKO on the 41mt tigers, not to mention 4HKO on cats. This also has the side-effect of capping her HP in tier 2, giving her better prospects for BEXP abuse at 20/15+.

So, to sum up, I don't know what it does for her tier position, if anything. It's a complicated yarnball, to be sure.

[Narga_Rocks]

Jill was using Adept at the time. All that I lost was an Iron Sword, a 6/8 Vulnerary, and Ilyana's bishie. It was kind of sudden, actually, I had him as an emergency wall on the ramp to protect Laura (can't trust the yellow units to not move) with no 1-range facings, but one of the enemy Snipers landed a crit on him.

I really don't like enemies with high crit. It's annoying. I still remember back when I did 4-4 HM the tigers seemed to make it their mission to die from Sniper crits. So I finally beat it by not letting them have much in the way of enemy phase exposure and never let them see crit against. Probably for the best anyway since I don't think I would've pulled off 10 turns in either of the attempts in which either Mordy or Muarim died just based off how the rest was going.