Gryz

And then the next chapter they immediately leave Renais with no mention of who they left in charge! Heh.

Not Etzel. 0/10 No, but really, stupid Etzel takes a dump all over Wendell's face in this game. However! This doesn't mean Wendell suddenly can't do anything... despite Etzel being the superior option. Well, Wendell does at least exist before Etzel in 6x, 7, and 8 and is needed in 10 to hop on his Draco and give a verbal smackdown to Ellerean. Wendell could have been still a decent staffbot alongside Etzel... unfortunately this game is a lot less generous with deployment slots than Shadow Dragon and I couldn't really find the room on my team. Excalibur is still a key feature. Even with lower magic than Etzel, Wendell should still nail the Flying Dragons and Dracoknights throughout the game. I mean, base Wendell would miss chapter 19 Lunatic Dracos by like 6-7 damage, but Wendell can gain +1 from A-rank, magic from level-ups, and H1 enemies should have less HP. So in regards to Excalibur utility, at least Wendell and Etzel both seem equal in H1. Outclassed but definitely not worthless. Errr... ummm... lets say 7.5/10.

On a related note, apparently if Forde and Kyle are defeated in chapter 5x, they come back alive and playable in chapter 8. I never actually tried it though. Source: http://www.serenesforest.net/fe8/chapter_a.html (notes section for chapter 5x) And if they are defeated in chapter 8, I believe they are still alive as far as the story is concerned. They show up in Eirika's departure scene and the game script listed on this site doesn't list any alternative dialogue. Although not like it matters since they have no story presence after that.

But that trait is usually reserved for the big badass dudes like Ashnard. I don't think Monica quite meets up to those standards. Jokes aside, the thought of Ephraim taking Monica out back and putting her down like a rabid dog is truly chilling stuff.

Plotwise, he's an excellent candidate for the chapter 16 boss. The subplot of him spending all day locked up in the bedchambers banging his zombie wife Monica while Renais went to hell is both creepy and hilarious. Actually... did Ephraim really kill Monica? I am pretty sure his EXP doesn't increase after the story scene. Killing a level 1 Revenant should grant at least 1 exp. I mean, even Lyn gets 1 exp for her ballista dodge.

Wendell doesn't go to Staff C instantly when he swaps to Bishop, but he's only 8 staff uses from it.

Samto's speed is crap. 0 base? Bleh. I mean, 40 base growth ain't bad, but not when you start the race tripping over your own shoelaces.

Oh blah. Here comes the parade of C-rank sword units the game throws at us one after another. Here, I'll do everyone a favor and list the personal bases/growths together. Samto Lv HP Str Mag Skl Spd Luk Def Res 5 6 3 0 1 0 3 3 0 5 40 20 0 10 40 30 15 5 ------------------------------------------------------------- Caesar Lv HP Str Mag Skl Spd Luk Def Res 7 8 4 0 3 2 6 3 0 7 40 30 10 20 35 30 15 10 ------------------------------------------------------------- Radd Lv HP Str Mag Skl Spd Luk Def Res 5 6 2 0 1 2 1 1 0 5 40 40 0 25 35 50 15 10 ------------------------------------------------------------- Navarre Lv HP Str Mag Skl Spd Luk Def Res 8 7 6 0 7 5 7 4 0 8 50 35 0 30 40 70 15 10 ------------------------------------------------------------- Cain Lv HP Str Mag Skl Spd Luk Def Res 9 9 6 0 7 4 4 4 0 9 50 25 0 45 60 70 20 10 Navarre and Cain seem to be the only ones worth considering. Samto is well... bad. Unimpressive strength and speed do not make a good offensive combo. 2/10

Yeah, I beat that chapter in 8 turns. You just gotta run like mad through that central treasure room. Here are the notes I recorded as I did that chapter. Maybe you'll find them helpful. Maybe.

In FE11, Medeus isn't immune to anything except Geosphere damage.

Yeah, I mentioned that in a previous post. And by "easiest" I mean "without needing to rely on a crit"

I definitely prefer FE6's sidequest chapter map theme over the FE7 version.

Damn! Why is this old man so fast!? He has an amazing personal base speed of 8 - a greater base speed than every other character in the game except Nagi/Gotoh. You can instantly switch him to Swordmaster and he has 21 speed! That's even more than FE7 Karel for goodness's sake! So yeah, 12 speed as a Sage. While in H5 that only lets him double Armors and the slower Archers, I would imagine it would net a lot more in H2 - like all Archers, Cavaliers, and Ch 9 Pirates. And getting doubled with magic hurts quite a bit yo! This old geezer packs some serious heat in the form of Excalibur. Get the fuck out Merric! While I am not quite sure what the stats are of lategame H2 Pegasus/Dracos... I think it may be reasonable for him to be OHKOing despite his "inferior" magic stat compared to Merric. Like 6 magic + 2 A-rank + 39 effective might = 47 attack. H5 Chapter 22 Dracos apparently have 50 HP and 3 Res and Pegasus have 45 HP and 9 Res. But considering enemy Pegasus/Dracos have 90 HP growth and I believe H2 enemies have 9 less autolevels than H5 versions (since the autolevel trend for the hard difficulties seems to be 3-6-9-12-15) this roughly means 8 less HP for the enemies. So if these calcs are correct, he should OHKO. And if not, he's damn close and Spirit Dust competition ain't high! Oh, and he heals too! WITH 6 MOVE NO LESS! Ha ha! All those stinkin' Curate Matthis/Roshea/Vyland losers can only move 5 spaces. And Wendell joins early enough that he'll have no trouble building up that D-rank into Awesome-rank. And what's this? It's the Dracoknight class, baby! 15 AS with an Iron Lance/Javelin and 14 AS with a Steel Lance. All with 10 move and flight. Good gravy! Give me some of that good stuff! Just an incredible early-joining prepromote that can remain useful for the entire game and CAN see why kids love Cinnamon Toast Crunch! I don't even care that he tries to kill my units in chapter 5! 10/10 (9.0 with +1 bias)

Well, I guess one could kinda make the argument that Gharnef betrayed Jiol. Mr. Scary Sorcerer didn't exactly come rushing to Jiol's aid when Marth came knocking at his door. But I guess it's only implied Gharnef knew Jiol needed help and chose to do nothing. It's not like we get a scene where we see Gharnef open his e-mail inbox and go, "Nope. Delete."

It would probably also help to put an asterisk next to the activation description that points to something like: 25% chance against bosses. 0% chance against the final boss. Because I think the note at the top could be easily overlooked.

Yeah, rain-n-snow can be good for atmosphere. And removing the terrain penalties wouldn't be a problem considering there's already nightmare modules that can do it. Oh no... Imagine if the "cold damage" was set-up like poison and you had to watch every unit take a hit. The start of the enemy phase could take over a minute! Emulator speed up button activate! Also, it would be super LOL and anticlimactic if the chapter was won by a snowflake. Hector: "Dawson's plan may have been successful, if only he remembered to bring a sweater."

Having more chapters doesn't mean much if the unit is a complete failure in them. Kurth has... Night Tide. Eh, but it's at least something he can do without needing resources. Oh, and I guess he can block some 4-F-3 dragons if you're not super-blitzing the Dheg. Whee.

He exists to be a meme in the Japanese fanbase apparently. Well, unlike how IS treated Roshea, Vyland has been consistently bad throughout his various appearances in the series. Curate -> Sniper Bishop Better than his Paladin route, at least he doesn't have to fight to do stuff.

Criticaling with Audhulma is even less reliable. 10 crit from having 20 skill + 5 crit from S-rank - 11 luck on Riev = 4% crit chance. A 7.84% chance of criticaling within 2 attacks. Looks like the site's description of Silencer needs to be updated. Edit: Bloop. I mean, I always interpreted it as "you must crit in order to silence" but I can see how it could be possible for someone to interpret it is as "I have 10 crit, so I have 5% silence. That means a 15% chance to crit or silence" So something like: "50% chance when user performs a critical" would make it less ambiguous. So let's see... Colm with 30 skill + S-rank bonus + Shamshir - Riev's 11 Luck = 44 Crit So taking that in account with the 50% Silencer rate and the extra 50% flip due to being a boss = 11% chance he will Silence in a single attack. But Colm will double attack so he needs to fail on Silence twice in order to flop on the boss kill (assuming he doesn't have the 17+ strength necessary to make it possible with a regular crit). So, basically a 20.79% chance to Silence within 2 attacks - and I was very generous with giving Colm max skill and the S-rank. If Colm has 20/1 stats with no S-rank, he has 29 crit on Riev which means a ~14% chance to Silence within 2 attacks. By the way... all this so far has assumed Colm has 100 hit. The 20/1 Shamshir Colm I described has 70 displayed hit (82.30 true hit).

Now I am curious, under what circumstances can Colm pull it off? With 0 critical hits: Impossible. Can't even do it with Audhulma + capped strength (20). With at least 1 critical hit: Just barely with capped strength and a Killing Edge. With 2 critical hits: 16 strength + Killing Edge or 17 strength + Shamshir.

The Earth Dragonstone is described on this site as "Negates ranged attacks" so it blocks magic even when used at 1-range?

Oh, I guess the Lady Sword is a valid point. Not worth it, but still an option if you were dead-set on making her useful somehow. By the way, would we risk losing any goodies in chapter 7 if we gave her (wasted) one of the 4 flying slots? Or am I just being paranoid after being traumatized by Lunatic? Also, I was going to rejoice at having simultaneous Wendell reviews but then I remembered Samto and his stupid face. Crap.

Oh no... I am now having terrible flashbacks of Pokemon Puzzle League. Ash's stupid "I'M GONNA WIN!" line that he says a million times during gameplay is permanently etched into my brain. Also, Gary's Kingler saying "COOKIE! COOKIE!"

I was actually a little bit surprised the support room is completely empty initially. After completing the Prologue, Hector was added to the screen... errr... weird.

Ah yes, if I concentrate really hard and strain my eyeballs, I can just barely see the soldier through the nearly-opaque FE7 text bubbles. All is well then.