Eltosian Kadath

I seem to remember they will reveal that Valla once had close ties with Hoshido, the magic throne even being a gift from Valla to Hoshido, so I think it was known that she was a Valla noblewoman. Although the Valla curse just makes everything incredibly dumb... Possibly, although I would assume a more generic Ninja clans than Mokushu in particular, as there at least were other ninja kingdoms at one point (there might still be, but Fates lack of world building leaves that open to debate)

Three things (kinda four) jump out to me, first is the lack of anyone with shelter (the level 10 skill of cavaliers, and acts similarly to the old rescue command, which has a lot of very useful properties...), second is the absences of the defensive support skills that are normally on the troubadour line (demoiselle/gentilholme and inspiration, although at least you have defense rally, and while Izana's peacebringer, and Azura's voice of peace skill might be used to compensate for this lack both of them needing the enemy to be within two spaces of them to function makes them incredibly harder to use...), the terrible Corrin (which I was kinda expecting...but oof), and the kinda is the lack of lunge (the level 10 wyvern rider skill although most people don't appreciate that skill in the players hands despite how lifesaving having that option can be...). Also all of your slightly tanky units either have a weapon weakness, or can't support (which locks them out of a bit higher defense with pair-up buffs, and one of the only defensive support skills you have in Kabbage's personal skill), which looks like the big part of your problem with the Berserker+General room...funnily enough if you had another generic Hero like Roland you could have used the cheesy way of dealing with the Berserker half of that room with double axe-breaker dodge tanking...

Not quite what I meant there, as I get through most of my runs without royals (well baring Elise, because I like how her personal skill, and stat spread, plays). It just sounds like you have such a strange team of units, and keep running into walls in the endgame, which most teams have the tools to deal with.

Its called Before Awakening, and its just a map referencing Awakening. I only mention it as it can be used to serve the same function as castle battles might in a Conquest run (and the random grind maps made them mostly redundant in Birthright/Revelations), which makes it a bit of future proofing...

The usual strat is to pairup everyone in the hallway with units that synergize with each other where if one side has a problem with one of the enemies they are entrapped with, you can switch sides to deal with it. Alternatively you can have the people in the hallway enter the corridors, as they don't target people that are in the side rooms. OK, in case this is necessary I will mention a detail I noticed about the area they wont target, it extends all the way into the thin entryways to the rooms in the southern ones, so that the units that start in the south can enter them if you desperately need that, but you need to be fully in the room in the northern ones where your army starts, so don't retreat from there... Are you talking about the guys that march down with the corridor that have the spendthrift skill? Usually I avoid them by using the stairways at the back of all the rooms; they open up when you kill all of the units in whichever room it is, and you might need to bait them down a bit to give you the time you need to deal with Garon. I took them down once in a Hard run, the trick is finding a way to tank them until they run out of gold to use that spendthrift skill. If you mean Garon and his dragon skin skill, usually Corrin's personal sword helps a lot as its isn't as penalized as other weapons, but that isn't an option for you...I think you are just going to have to deal with it the hard way, just powering through him with the best units you have... Sorry I wasn't around to share advise while you were playing through it, as it sounds like the team you ended up with made the endgame a lot harder on you than it had to be.

Honestly I don't think the death of the servers will have a massive impact on your basic runs, other than making it optimal to have more down-time between maps (assuming you had the game at some point before they shut-off to download the free DLC map). The rate at which you get the gems and food will be slower, and you will have to rely more on gem trade, the arena, and random drops, but the big cost items for those resources are accessories, which are predominately for sillyness or online battles, or in making a time based RNG system of who is at what location more reliable, and recruiting captured unit the fast way (so once again taking a longer break to recruit them the slow way would be the way to replace it). As long as you download the free map once you could use that in place of castle battles for the DV and relationship grinding you might want to do on Conquest. The biggest shift would be on runs where you want to mess around with a lot class changing early (as visiting a castle with a level 3 shop lets you buy more than the limits supply available before you unlock one...), or wear a bunch of goofy accessories on everyone, or messing around with skill buy, or trying something goofy like an all capture run, or deciding to use the opposite empire's functionally equivalent basic weapons. Really its the silly runs, or goofy challenge runs that would have issues with the server death; heck I haven't even mentioned things like a Corrin quest style run, or bond unit run, and I am sure I could think of a few more silly online reliant runs if I really tried... Only three more of the twelve are mentioned (none of which are named); Kilma mentions the Ice dragon when you use the Dragon Vein on Conquest chapter 8, the support between Azama and Rinkah reveal that the Fire Tribe worship a dragon they call the Fire God, and its stated in Izana'a unit roster he is descended from a Divine Dragon. Seeing as the Ice Tribe, and Fire Tribe are associated with elemental dragons, there is the presumption that one of the twelve is a Wind Dragon for the wind tribe too, but they aren't actually mentioned, and even adding that one in, that leaves 3 dragons unaccounted for... My vague understanding of it is that it has something to do with sharing accessories, but I am uncertain of the details (and was surprised when two of them resulted from the same pairing...) I wonder if they avoided stating Corrin is a bastard due to the negative association with that word in the west, as that is the logical conclusion (assuming monogamous marriage customs) with Corrin having both older and younger siblings that have the same mother (as seems to be the case with his Hoshidan "siblings"...)

All this age talk is just making me feel incredibly old... You are way too young to be acting like you will be forever alone (unless these are all cute jokes about being aromantic/asexual...).

My way of dealing with it is to look at the weapon might, and add the strength/magic to it when the bonuses aren't there, so I don't have to look the bonuses up. Now that is an interesting detail I have never noticed... This is extra weird, seeing as I have literally gotten two of them with your character...

You can also reach a high enough tolerance tech level in you capital to get that Status of Women laws to Full as well.

Fun fact, by blockinig a path south of where a Hoshidan Master Ninja reinforcement spawns, you can see it move adjacent to Xander without attacking him (or him attacking it...) Improving over the Taguel is a fairly low bar... I am rather annoyed by Ryoma acting like these invisible Valla enemies sound ridiculous...after he FOUGHT ONE in the chapter 5... I find Soleil's paralogue is too fast pace (if you are trying to save ALL of the green units) to really have fun with it, so I rather appreciated this chance to really play around with it. I am glad I am not the only one that found this exchange so ridiculous. Ryoma also is missing talks with Takumi and Sakura (although he does have one with his retainers, which is a nice touch).

That is about right for a lategame Nyx...although if you had gotten all three of the spirit dusts available you might have hit her cap... Odin is good, but he isn't a traditional mage. Odin ends up being the best Nos-tanker in Fates due to his weird stat spread, and the skills available to him. To be fair to Kaze's personal, in Birthright and Revelation there is an incredibly cheesy lategame build where his daughter can reach >70% proc rate on that skill with her personal... Supports raise the stat gains from defense stance (https://serenesforest.net/fire-emblem-fates/nohrian-characters/pair-up-stats/ https://serenesforest.net/fire-emblem-fates/nohrian-classes/pair-up-stats/ ), and the gains to calculated stats when adjacent (meaning Accuracy, Avoid, Crit, and Crit Avoid) ( https://serenesforest.net/fire-emblem-fates/nohrian-characters/supports/support-bonus/).

Or implied sexy times...

That isn't even close to true. With anyone that has even the lowest level support with her/him (and its especially easy to grow her/his support thanks to My Castle features...) she/he then gives everyone that attack stances with her (or is using her/him in defense stance) deals +2 damage per hit, and takes 2 less damage when attacked, plus an extra 10 hit. Her personal is great (especially the 2 damage reduction), but it doesn't work with generics that can't support with anyone... You can reach him with one use from around the stairs in the corner before the Mage and Maid (or Stoneborn and Faceless) room...

Oof, sorry you aren't enjoying it. I do wonder if you would have a better time with a less captured party, that gave you more of an edge with personal skills, and support bonuses to increase crit avoid, or reach higher bulk/damage thresholds... Yeah the spy shuriken is rarely worth the effort of getting it. Tight corridors have their advantages too, in that you can more easily wall off your team with a pair of defense stance units if you can't fully wipe out the enemy group (it takes a bit of work to pull that off in practice due to enemy two range options, and with how hard those Berserkers can hit). Entrapping and killing him before opening the doors is generally best... All of them commit to countering one range band (usually range 1, but some have the option for range 2 only), you can often use that to avoid counters with the right equipment.

Those traps are so annoying... I can still remember using the dragon vein to undo one, and in the very next action activate the same damn "trap" all over again...darn things are barely dangerous as well making the dragon veins feel even more useless... I actually kinds like the gimmick of this one, having to find some way to holdout before dawn the dragon veins arrive. There is this tension to having to hold out with these too small of teams as these monsters enemies start climbing onto the ships. Although as the strikeouts might be hinting I think it would have worked a bit better with a more horror elements to it... The way they rush through the threat to the Ice tribe having apparently been dealt with before this battle began, thanks to Flora talking them into hiding, makes this feel just plain strange. Why did she even join this fight to begin with if the threat was as mild as she acts like it is after the fact... Seeing how many things are echoed in the Birthright and Conquest stories it is kinda strange that Revelation doesn't follow suit. Its arguably for the better, as that echoing led to some dumb plot points in the other too, but it does feel kinda strange. Sorry to point out more story nitpicks, but I did a Revelation's LP, and they just keep coming to mind as I read through this... so expect me pointing out more dumb/weird Revelation story points in the future... for this entry its all chapter 12 stuff with First how strange it is that Camilla has completely forgotten about that whole discussion she had with Elise, and is now ready to kill her beloved Corrin/Dakota for the slime father. Second why Flora doesn't know about the Ice dragon that her father Kilma mentions in Conquest when you use the dragon vein, which is important to her clan...

I don't know, the elevator map is pretty bad too. I guess whether this map is better or worse than the elevator is down to how you view how this map makes you do it to yourself. It is entirely in your power to charge straight to the goal, but those stat boosters are an effective lure to torture yourself. Plus, like @Interdimensional Observer comments, the tedium is compounded by the need to save a combat units or dancer for what ever is in the snow, and if you find nothing, you are risking just the kinda deaths he described if you try using one, making it feel even more tedious... You can use range attacks to- Oh wow...that took a while to stumble upon...oof (should have used that shiny new Hayato brand snowblower 😛 ) This could be especially dumb if you reclassed Sakura to a combat class. Plus its kinda odd that he didn't use the Takumi he already kidnapped as his hostage... This reminds me that this chapter was one of the big places that revealed just how BS and contrived the curse is. Leo has this whole question about who the one manipulating Garon is, and everyone acts like the curse is what prevents him from saying Anankos...but we see very...very...very clearly at other points in Fate's story, that people can talk about that ceiling dragon without disintegrating to the curse.

Part of that was it was that I was only deploying 10 units...

The issue with the Berserkers and Generals was with their effective weapons, without defense stance I couldn't tank them long enough to really enemy phase the whole group of them, and they are close enough that if I player phased them, the other group would kill someone with their effective weapons. By approaching from the stoneborn/faceless side I could take advantage of the Berserkers higher move to draw them back far enough that the generals would then be too far back to kill any of the units that player phased the Berserkers. Plus there were a few tricks to making the stone born easier, first while they don't move before you open the door, they will attack, which let me strategically debuff some of them with dragon hex before opening the door. Second by using a lot of shelter and dancer combos I could open the door while pulling my army back, and leave a unit across the wall to distract most of the stoneborn from charging my army as a whole, that way I could clear out the faceless without having to worry about the stoneborn, and then deal with the stoneborn after that point. If you are curious for the nitty gritty details, in the spoiler tag below is an excerpt from a write-up I did of that run

Yeah, the mage and maid room is generally easier, although I did take the Stoneborn and faceless path on the Lunatic Run where I didn't allow any unit be attacked while in guard stance, mostly so I could have an easier time against the Berserkers and Generals that come after.

Good luck, as that one can get a bit intense at times His shuriken rank only matters on Normal mode, in Hard mode and above the chest always contains the Spy Shuriken. The English wiki's are missing that detail, and I had to dig up obscure reference to a Japanese site on this forum to find somewhere that mentions it...

Shadow of the Colossus really is a work of art. All the Team Ico games have that amazing aesthetic of an ancient and massive, but dead and reclaimed world, but Shadow of the Colossus really was the height of their games.. The shiny floor tiles causes all damage to be 1/4 of what it should (just be careful when you use the dragon vein to deactivate that effect...). You are going to have to take down the two bosses in time to kill Ryoma with someone else. A better Corrin makes taking Ryoma down in the duel a possibility, or gives you more time with a tankier Corrin... Let the miracles of makeup bring the cuteness out of you !

I will point out that you can avoid Hinata and his group if you have a flyer (plus messing with the enemies across the gap early also triggers some reinforcements early in a way I think makes them easier to handle). Also, if you had a Sorcerer at level 15, (that is something you need to focus on to get in time...) they would have bow-breaker which makes dealing with Takumi very reliable. Both the DSFE are really different games to the point that it is hard to clump complaints like this together (other than the artstyle/visuals). I have some solid complaints about both the gameplay, and story of Shadow Dragon, and I have seen complaints that other people have made about New Mystery from both gameplay and story as well. If you want more of a breakdown see spoiler tag ...chapter 25 is going to VERY interesting with your terrible Corrin... My heart goes out to all of you on here having health issues in this thread, and hope you all have a swift recovery. I wish there was more I could do to help...I may have been fortunate enough to have been fine so far, but my mother is going into surgery next week, which is a frightening prospect in these trying times. Yeah TMS:#FE takes a very different approach from most of the Shin Megami Tensei games (and Fire Emblem games for that matter...), both tonally and in the gameplay. It sucks that the Session System didn't grok with you, as it really is a central mechanic to the combat, that I ended up enjoying.

There are a few other places, like in chapter 8, where capturing the boss lets you interrogate them, and enter chapter 8x as a result, and there are a few time where capturing bosses leads to slight changes in the script, the most notable being if you capture Largo, where the ending changes from a discussion with Augustus about the worrying fact that Olwen is bringing news of their attack to the enemy, to a discussion with Dorias about the knightly honor shown by the commanders and knights of both sides of the conflict; plus almost every named enemy has a unique release quote about being spared...

If the Eternal Staircase is going over a mountain (or down and out of a valley) it would have an uphill and downhill section in each directions...but I think the occum's razor answer, that the writers didn't care enough to get the details right on all routes is more likely. This is such an infuriatingly dumb plot point. Even if they had some means of non-fatal combat, why would Corrin's crew use it against enemies they believe are Faceless? I find the maps gimmick annoying on both versions. So many turns of movement spent wasting time to compensate for a bad wind pattern, or wait on a good one... The only time I bothered bringing Rinkah into the late game was on a Female only Lunatic Birthright run, and she was a worse Oboro. Her only value was having the 2nd-3rd highest physical bulk of the Birthright women. The "glass canon" with health in 60s...in the low health environment of Fates....because apparently health is not a part of a character's bulk... If you know about it before hand you can go after that Ninja in particular to prevent it, but it is a really noticeable moment of bad map design in Revelation...this is really giving me flashbacks to my Lunatic Revelation PMU Lets Play I did on this site... Oh wow, you have never used the best mage of Fates, the legendary Ophelia? This could get interesting. Its really fun in Conquest, where the enemies can get really interesting skills on those generics. Also its kinda useless late into Revelations due to you not being able to capture Valla enemies... Thracia's capture mechanic is a non-lethal form of combat in FE games. I think it works rather well, with the halving of stats being a way to show how much harder it is to subdue an enemy trying to kill you, non-lethally. Another fun fact, the weapons used in the Path of Radiance prologue are called training weapons, and have the added feature of not being able to crit. On a related note, its kinda disappointed that the game doesn't have any extra dialogue if you deploy Gazak in Percy's paralogue, where Arthur is mistaken for Gazak due to their shared distinctive chin.

Oof, that is rough. Hopefully it goes better next time (and if you need advice on how to deal with a section of the map just ask...) I am not sure how useful Entrap would be on hard. Entrap tends to be most useful for Lunatic when the back stairs are blocked by enemies...