Jotari

Huh. Might do it some time just for fun. I've played through Shadow Dragon half a dozen times, but I don't think I've bothered to get the Falchion since my first.

Oh wow. Always knew you could revive Tiki, but I never considered giving her the Falchion and getting it back that way. I'd assume it would have automatically gone back to the Convoy. Hmm, still, you lose the Star Sphere to get the Falchion, and I think I'd rather keep that for infinite Divine Stone use.

Don't know what their motivation might be, but I believe they're capable of doing something like that if it suited them.

I do indeed seem to be conflating them, but that's more down to me only skimming the actual context here rather than not understanding the situation in Syria. But I think regardless of that, there is truth in what I say. I think the that this is either a false flag operation, or that retaliation was a planned and expected response are both real possibility.

I don't know like any of the details, but it seems using a poison attack to assassinate traitors or defectors would be a really inefficient plan. Not when you could just drone strike or something on them just as easily (once again, naive on the details, but I imagine a drone strike would be just as easy for an assassination as a gas attack in this particular context, correct me if I'm wrong). Not to mention using gas for the particular weapon of choice would undoubtedly get this exact reaction from the Western powers. I can't help but feel that who ever was behind it wanted this exact reaction. Assassinating people that fail you is certainly a thing, but so are false flag operations. Now I'm not saying it definitely was a false flag, just that I wouldn't put it past any of the powers involved to do basically anything if they thought it suited their needs.

Well it was an idea I suggested before the game was released and we all seen that cutscene. Still, I don't think that's a particularly impeding issue. We don't see the extent of the fight at all. Mila could have several priests rush in right afterwards (including a version of Cantors that summon enemies like you can with your units) with Rudolf summoning his generals. I want to see the Mila Faithful in action as a military force. There is beta elements to suggest they would appear as units at one point. Probably a more pressing issue is the fact that because they refused to give characters more than one weapon type, it's just plain weird that Rudolf is wielding a sword. He'd need to have some kind of unique class for it or just plain hack the game to ignore the rules. What we eventually got in the game also wouldn't serve the most interesting map, as it's just a straight walkway surrounded by a pond on either side. Definitely need fliers to make that interesting and Rigel doesn't have any fliers outside of their monster forces. But given that all we had in Gaiden was "Rudolf attacked the Temple and sealed Mila," there was more than enough leg room to create a really fun fanservicy chapter where you play as the bad guys in a way that makes sense.

Yeah, he's not that active in the present game, but he still is the most active. And when it comes to the backstory, he's the most active too, being the one who started the whole mess by releasing Medeus in the first place, killing Miloah, kidnapping Elice and Falchion. One of the only actual arcs in the game is centered around him, that being getting the Star and Life Orbs to get Starlight to defeat him. This is also what links Gotoh into the plot and makes up his main concern. I can understand how this all might still not be good enough for some people, as compared to more developed stories, it's still just a rather minor list of things, but Shadow Dragon is written pretty differently to most stories and I like it for that fact (Michelis does even less than Gharnef and I like him too, not a big fan of Medeus though). Not a big fan of him in the sequel though where he pulls a Hijacked By Bowser at the end and is just generally responsible for everything again even though he's kind of dead and wasn't even that necessary to bring back (couldn't the Dark Sphere just corrupt Hardin by itself? Or couldn't Eremiya just be evil all on her own?). Is fun to play as him in that side mission though. To Narcian's credit, he's just a lazy ass who has no reason to personally get his hands dirty when he could just delegate it to someone else (who at least once just delegates the task to someone else too). I find it to make the most sense for him since he doesn't have any grand ambitions that Roy is messing up for him, unlike Nergal and Gharnef.

I suddenly want to fight Mila's dragon form. Why oh why didn't IS plagiarize my idea and have Rudolf's assault on the temple as a DLC map!?

I liked Shadow Dragon Gharnef. Mainly because he was the only villain in the plot that was actually doing anything.

So are there just no requirements for the Gaidens? You just go to them every time? I assume Tiki still needs to be dead and the Falchion lost for the last one, otherwise it's just sort of weird.

Thinking on the matter of Roy's promotion and promotion item competition, I think it could be really cool if characters leveled up past 20 and promotion was just for the stat boosts and extra weapon type, like in Genealogy of Holy War (only with the standard 40 level cap). This would put Roy on the same footing as everyone else when it comes to exp gain, but would stay true to the spirit of the original game in keeping his promotion away for so long. Additionally, the competition for promotion items would remain, but characters wouldn't be stuck at level 20, just waiting for you to reach the right item. It would also make early promotion much more desirable as there would be no downside to it.

Constance had dispersed the shadow armour she decided to wear. Such a garb was only suited for battle. She followed the prince and the rest of his army to the docks and listened as the Wykian Baron described the situation. "I can prepare some meals and keep the place tidy," she offered when there was a lull in the conversation. She had already admitted to the prince that she'd never been on a ship before, making things hospitable was the least she could do.

Well Emmeryn died by falling on her head...Oh wait, she didn't. She got brain damaged and magically warped to an island where the characters stumbled on her without explanation and Robin proceeded to rape Chrom's disabled sister. Better example would be Ashera. You also have Female Grima I think? Though I always felt Grima was more male regardless as to what the Avatar's gender is. Not sure if the script supports that interpretation though.

Enemy Archers are also going to attack the unit they're likely to deal the most damage to, and given their large range, it means they're more than likely able to hit half your army. So they're more likely to target your mages than any of your Barons to begin with. I never said he can solo all of Birthright. I specifically said several end game maps.

FE5 throws a few Barons at you that just seem to be regular generals of the army without any noteable land ownership. Probably done purely to have mage armours. Though I suppose it could be an indication that loads of Grannvalian Generals have been given lands in Munster to rule over and are slowly performing a plantation.

Well like I said, I think Vantage should have 100% activation rate instead of being health dependent, as I don't think it's so good as to be broken if it did. But majorly increasing the chances of your unit surviving until player phase when you can heal them is something that's worth having in the game, unlike most of the skills you listed which might as well not exist (the Laguz reaction ones particularly irk me, I like the idea of giving Laguz some kind of distant offense with making it a direct attack, but making them proc based, and a really low proc base at that just means players are unlikely to ever even see it in action. Nice idea, but horribly executed). And yes, I maintain you absolutely can solo most endgame Birthright maps with Ryoma supported by Corrin, at least on Hard mode (never played Lunatic Birthright, would rather just play Conquest, or Echoes) and Vantage has a large part to do with that. No, it won't be a guaranteed solo every time you throw him at it, but the chances of success are good enough that it'll only take a handful of tries. And since it's literally just throwing him at the map and killing as many enemies as possible on enemy phase, skipping turns and animations means an attempt takes about two minutes if even.

I'm pretty sure you can. I remember reviving Midir at the very end of Chapter 5 when I'd let him die around Chapter 1 on my first playthrough. Could be a faulty memory, but I have no idea why I'd imagine something like that.

Ah, you're right about Aether being female only from DLC (that slipped my mind, I gave Ryoma Aether via Vanguard). Yes, it's all unreliable, but unreliable doesn't mean its useless. Otherwise you might as well relegate all skills with a proc rate to the slush pile, and hey, if that's your strategy then good for you. But RNG is a part of Fire Emblem. Lack of reliability is part of the game. You try to reduce that as much as you can, but unless you only ever use Iron Swords and nothing else 100% of the time, percentages being less than 100 is going to happen in the game. 50% of avoiding damage on all attacks is great, especially when Ryoma is such a fantastic dodge tank to begin with. If it avoided 100% of all attacks on enemy phase then it'd be the best skill there is. But failing that, even evading 30% of all damage is decent. Unreliable, yes, and yes, the more reliable a skill is the better (that's explicitly why I said the Fates version is better than the Radiant Dawn version), but avoiding such a large number of attacks is a far cry better than the likes of Sacred Stone's Sure strike or Radiant Dawn's Howl/Shriek etc.

I think Replicate is really good (possibly the best in Fates). Sure it increases your death rate, but it also allows you to field another unit and put in an extra attack each turn which is a massive boon. It's a bit higher risk, but some potentially much higher rewards. And even if you don't want to make that risk, you can just use the replica as Pair Up Bonus fodder (well actually you should use the replica as the attacker and the actual unit as the Pair Up fodder as the replica can't build supports). They also share the same inventory, so you can have a bit of fun warping items across the map for trading, especially if you replicate Corrin (and by extension, the convoy).

I think Life is suggesting people should do the complete opposite.

It still completely negates an attack. And as you said, Birthright has durability issues, you don't want to get hit by anything. And reliably blocking roughly a third of all attacks going his way is really good. Vantage just pushes the buffer to block the attack before the enemy strikes, rather than sitting with a full defense bar and waiting for the next round of combat (and thus potentially wasting four shields on the gauge by Ryoma doubling when the bars already full). Or, to list everything this way. -Ryoma has about 30% crit chance (thanks to high skill, class bonus and Bushido) -Ryoma has a 15% chance of activating Astra (roughly 30 skill divided by 2). If Astra activates it will fill the shield gauge regardless. -I've also given my Ryoma Aether (a DLC skill, but one you can get for free) further boosting his kill chance by another 15% plus a recover. -If the Shield Gauge is 4/5 of the way filled, he will immediately fill it before being attacked. Let's say the odds of this happening are 15% (it's one of five states the shield gauge can be in and any given time, knocking off 5% because a full shield guage is more likely than any other state due to only being expended when attacked). Given all of these factors, if Ryoma is attacked while under half health, add up all those percentages and you have a 57% chance of immediately negating any attack thrown at him (if my maths is right and assuming Aether and a Crit are powerful enough to kill the enemy, which with Ryoma is good bet). If you want to discount Aether because it takes extra effort, then the chances are still at 50%. So in other words, Vantage has a ~50% chance of negating any damage that comes at a paired up Ryoma when he's at less than 50% (and that's not even taking into account the chances of Ryoma simply killing a weakened enemy without a crit or proc). I, for one, think that's a pretty decent skill. EDIT: Just remembered the Dual Guard Gauge has six states including empty. So you might want to knock the chances of that occurring down to about 10%. Still, even if you ignore that altogether and any proc skills you might have on him, his Crit rate alone makes give Vantage decent utility.

To fanfiction.net! Wait, him getting killed in the Sataellaview episode which happens before anything else kind of puts a dampener in that. Unless Hardin didn't kill him and only landed a severe blow...He must have proced miracle, even though skills don't exist in Archanea.

You're thinking of Awakening, not Fates. Dual Guards are 100% reliable in Fates. They happen on every fifth time you're attacked/attack (which for Ryoma, is about every third time he's attacked). If you'd specified Awakening instead of Fates on your first comment, I probably wouldn't have bothered replying, but I do think Vantage is a useful skill to have on Ryoma.

I like this idea and don't actually find it that unlikely. Roy's Smash Bros. appearance is probably the place they'll take design ques from when it comes to building a model for him in a hypothetical remake.

Because Vantage does have a use. If you can kill the enemy before they have a chance to hit you, then you completely avoid any damage, or, if you're only one attack away from charging the Guard Stance bar (and with Ryoma doubling everything, he charges that bar really quickly), you also completely avoid damage that round. It's not the best skill in the world, in fact, I think it should be 100% activation ratio instead of half health (it was in Path of Radiance and it wasn't broken there), but it's a far cry from useless or actively damaging to the player like Gamble or something. Especially in Fates where it does a decent job of helping the durability issue you're complaining about. Now in Radiant Dawn, where its activation rate is based on Speed, I think it's pretty useless as it has no reliability (though I do keep it on Mia as she has it innate, and also give her Disarm, and once in a blue moon both of them activate at the same time and it's very satisfying to see the enemy unable to go through with the attack they initiated. It's usage is also bumped up once you get a Mastery Skill, but I still find the random activation to make it less useful in any tactical way).