General Horace

gotoh and athos warp like 30 people across the continent sure sety can blow people up with holsety, but that's about the extent of what he can do i don't know a whole lot about the tellius dudes since i've only played FE9, so my vote is with gotoh

Valkyrie only works at the home castle, so Claude would have to get back too.

valkyrie staff reverts one death in the survival rank, so if you killed her and revived her, there would be no consequence. Lex/Sylvia is better anyway.

Beowulf/Lachesis is a lot better for ranked runs, Delmud gets actual inheritence so he's a lot better out of the gate. Jamka/Aideen still gets the hero bow right? It's a been a while since I did that pairing. You can definately get the Life ring if you get rid of Eltshan early since that triggers his spawn. Sigurd really never needs the speed ring unless he's passing it to Celice honestly. Might be worth giving someone like Beowulf the Bargain ring so he can grab the elite ring whenever he wants it since he has pretty low starting gold and likely won't have it for chapter 3 either (maybe in 4) without the bank of Dew, and he kinda struggles with levels anyway since he joins later. If he parents Delmud and you feed Delmud a few chapter 6 villages, he can probably even use the elite ring in chapter 7 and promote for chapter 8, which is pretty nice considering the elite ring either just sits pointlessly on Celice or is in the shop for chapter 7 usually anyhow.. You did do Lex/Sylvia right? I forget.

If Alec gets the speed ring in the prologue he doubles the merc, and may (depending on speed procs) outspeed the Windmage. Noish can just keep fighting the windmage until he crits/the windmage misses once, he has pretty bad hit (the mage that is) Arena's don't have to be done at the start of the chapter, Noish can easily promote midway through chapter 3 and clear the arena. He definately should take some outside exp, since he is a unit that needs it to stay relevant. And yeah, Midir has no issues with offence because of Jamka's Killer Bow (which Midir should just take imo, he's really good with it, and its an instawin button in the arena). Alec definately has more issues than Midir in the getting levels department, I agree. Does Celice really need the hero sword? He's promoted in chapter 7 anyway, and he just ORKO's any enemy with any weapon at that point. Unless I'm going for low turns, I never have Sigurd pass it down, I usually give it to an Ayra kid or Delmud. You can get kills on it just as easily with other units, I had Holyn take it and kill all the Orgahil Pirates with it in chapter 3 (while he had the elite ring) while Sigurd was still hanging out back at Madino, and then I gave it to Beowulf who could get a kill or more per turn with it because it's insanely powerful in gen 1. Sigurd's probably close to capped anyway, and I had a crit Hero sword going into chapter 7, so Hannibal/Patty/whoever needed it could have it for the arena. The sleep sword only has 10 less hit than the generic swords (iron/steel/silver) and the same hit as the magic swords. Patty's skill is usually horrible though. I give her a speed ring so she always goes first in the arena, because her speed really isn't very good. It pretty much guarentees an arena clear unless there's a swordmaster or something, in which case she makes it pretty far regardless. Leen still has no issues because of prayer. Ethlin has little money issues, she has the bank of Cuan and can promote in chapter 2 which pretty much guarentees she can clear the arena. I also give her Aideen's Relive staff so she gains a lot more exp during the chapter. Dew has insane speed/luck and doesn't face WTD because of magic swords, and yeah that did include Charisma but not Leadership bonus. He was level 11/12 or something before he did this in the first place though, so that might have inflated his durabilty a bit. I didn't rig anything for the arena (unless you count having sylvia enter the arena with a HP total that would knock her directly into prayer range or something) or continuously entering with Patty until sleep happened on the first hit at 1 HP, and the arena clears were very comparable, and I had 1400 more exp than you did in gen 1, so again, I just don't see it as nescessary? Maybe if you had 1400 more exp than I did I'd deem it to be worth it, but it's the opposite. An outside opinion on the matter would be cool too.

Alec and Noish didn't even benefit from it, they finished at level 25, which is pretty low anyway. I never really understood why it was hard getting them to clear arena's anyway, (Alec I can see losing to like the hero lance guy in chapter 3, but if Noish is promoted you just need to keep entering with the hero sword until he crits, even at 1 HP) Fury can take the hero lance, its better for her to have it once Fin leaves anyway, and Fin doesn't do a whole lot in gen 1, so she can just take it at the start of Chapter 3. Beowulf I can see some case for, but again, the hero sword exists. Patty has the sleep sword, and there's a ridiculous amount of exp in gen 2, she doesn't need it either. Delmud certainly doesn't need it, his strength is ridiculous and he has A swords and inheritance, I know he never came remotely close to losing an arena battle on my file. Lachesis and Ethlin are staff users, they could probably cap level without entering the arena. The cross knights had 9 hit on Dew, and Aideen was in range to physic him, if he died, it was because he got hit by 3 9%'s on the same enemy phase. The cross knights also have more gold than generic enemies (I think it's 3000) so he makes a ton of cash to give to whoever at that point anyway. And again, this question:

you sit around farming kills for a really long time so that units that don't even have issues clearing the arena clear it? The ones that kind of have some issues like Alec and Noish were still your lowest levelled units by far, so I just think you sat around and wasted turns for nothing getting crit on the slim sword. Like the only unit it made a difference on is Dew, and he still can't clear the chapter 3 arena with the slim sword (very easily anyway) and he's honestly not very hard to level. I just wanna ask this, what did the slim sword allow you to do (or do better) with regards to AAAA ranking that I wasn't able to do on my run (or any other run)? also here's my gen 2 stuff:

a chapter 10 writeup wouldn't be bad, but I don't think the epilogue is nescessary, although the rankings screen would be cool too, unless you hardpatched your rom I'd be interested in what you'd do differently, because tbh, there's no real best way to AAAA rank in my opinion. Things like the slim sword just really don't seem very efficient.

sorry lol, Lana's tome was the one Arthur started with, then Arthur bought the Chapter 8 one. I'm pretty sure Azel passed down a wind tome, let me double check... EDIT: Yes, Azel passed the chapter 4 tome down to Arthur. Arthur sold it in chapter 7 so Lana could clear the Chapter 7 arena, and then Arthur just bought the Chapter 8 tome in the shop. It seems Arthur's tome he should start with gets replaced with the inherited one, and the Chapter 4/8 one becomes Arthur's 0 kill one.

dunno if im just misunderstanding, but two wind tomes... :

i can confirm that the chapter 8 wind tome still spawned on my file, so I think Psych is correct.

Nanna gets +5 speed at least which is pretty cool. I still always pass down the hero lance on fee anyway to have it a chapter earlier

Fin was a dad right? He loses his items in that case.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLF91E59E8C9043625 theres a playlist for an old outdated one that I plan to improve someday, i think 68-70 turn is what i'll aim for when I redo it, the old run is 84 turns. and here are some notes i found on a notepad doc that are really really lazy but if you can make some sense of them, go ahead. characters you'll need to use are seth/franz/vanessa/artur/kyle/forde/tana/saleh/gerik/tethys + filler more or less, I don't think you'll be about to get as good of a tc without using the above units.

i don't know if its actually worth spending time spamming end turn and spamming staves with saleh to actually get him to warp probably faster to suicide syrene or something

between eirika/ephraim/seth/syrene/cavaliers/gerik that's usually enough to kill most of the eggs don't think vanessa is actually that useful except for chapter 7 tbh

the only real horrendous part is crossing the desert, the rest of the chapter really only takes like, 12-15 turns I will give you the fact that crossing the desert with Celice is stupid

fe2 maps i don't think you can argue fe4's are worse in any way there are very few scenerios I can think of when I play when I don't face a significant group of enemies for 6 turns, with the exception of the start of chapter 7 (in which Leaf and co are still constantly facing enemies) and the stupid forest in chapter 1 i think everyone thinks is stupid. as for sylvia, there is a leg ring, a knight ring, staves and all sorts of things that help her keep up. speaking of staves you ignored that point along with the positioning units for the next phase of the chapter bit entirely which I think are pretty important points i'm fine with you disliking the game, but if you outright ignore easy ways to circumvent the problems your posing...

have you seen fe2's maps I wouldn't call it bad map design, its quite clearly designed to be a totally different idea from other FE games. If each castle you seized were an individual chapter, i'd totally agree with you. The backtracking is mitigated if you have a brain and use the dancer that restores 4 unit's turns and the multiple return rings along with the return and warp staff that all come before any backtracking occurs, it also doesn't take a whole lot of foresight in figuring out where the next castle you have to seize is, especially in chapter 2 where you have to go to the top left corner of the map, and the only two castles left are up the right side in a straight line. You could even leave some foot units behind to deal with the enemies that spawn there so they can get some exp before the mounts catch up! Is the extra second the game takes to display "Thracia Phase" really such a bother to you every turn that it ends up taking an eternity? I will admit the enemy phases are long if you dont fastforward (a feature nearly everyone who plays this game has) and there are options in the menu to speed up the enemy phases. The map animations are roughly the same speed as FE9's anyway, and fastforwarding on GC emulators isn't anywhere near as easy. I will say though, you are saying you don't like the maps and the waiting and whatever other critisism you have because you clearly dislike the game a lot, and for the same reasons I and others are defending it; personal bias.

people who think there's no staffwork in fe4 are totally nuts, but people are right, it's not for everybody that being said aside from like, Chapter 8? (Lilina's Chapter) which is pointlessly huge with only one path and the general nothingingness in a lot of the huge maps (like FE4) its really not too bad

the idea is that she's a low leveled unit that doesn't take forever to kill things and thus gains exp quickly, especially in said chapter kinda like if you deploy raven later on in FE7 if you haven't given him levels prior, his good stats in relation to his level help a lot EDIT: yeah what dondon said

I really didn't consider that, but at least the weapons aren't very important. I doubt I'd have even used the second wind tome that shows up in chapter 8, Arthur will be able to use Elwind by then and Lana can have his old Wind tome.

I would not fastforward the arena's and such but it really takes far to long for my liking, sadly enough. I'm just going for a generic AAAA run anyhow as kind of a basis of a normal one to compare yours to anyhow, since i'm not doing anything out of the ordinary like you are, just to compare them.

only the saves that you can use at the start of each turn ingame. I'm a fair way into gen2 as well, but I likely won't post it until i'm finished the run so everything is all in one post.

Lex's Money was maxed I'm really not gonna be missing two iron blades, a wind tome and a slim lance, the said characters who had them have issues getting money Tiltyu had relive since she needed it to hit level 30, and honestly Lana doesn't have too much of an issue with money, especially since Midir's money was capped, so she's starting with over 7000. But you're right, I could have stuck Relive on her, Aideen still had money to purchase it. I used fastforward on some enemy phases and all arenas.