Hard Mode Diary

[Galenforcer]

The first chapter I failed in H5 was Ch.5

[Blackbird]

C10

I probably made this map more challenging than it was. There aren't that many enemies here, but even in small numbers they are threatening. The last couple maps had all been pretty easy, so I was feeling like I was over the hard part and it would be easier from now on. Wrong! On this map, they bump the difficulty up again. All the enemies are upgraded to Silver weapons by default, increasing both their Mt and accuracy significantly. Any foes with a Javelin had it forged; the Javelins were almost as strong as Silver Lances themselves =P. Here I was thinking my units were getting something approaching survivability... ah well, back to everyone being 2HKO'ed again.

I found my biggest problem on this map was simply trying to do too many things at once. There was a lot of temptation to go into the prison and start clearing the way to Maria. A lot of attempts were wasted because I split the group and tried to do too much. However, once I buckled down, completed the map at a slower pace, and tackled threats one group at a time, I cleared the map in one go.

I reclassed Marich to Mage for this chapter; I used Excalibur a lot this mission, so it made more sense to give the exp to someone with growths. Oddly, Wendell hasn't been doing too bad, though. He doesn't gain much, but I've been lucky to gain useful stats like Magic and Speed.

Your initial threat is a few cavaliers. There are only four, so wall -> overwhelm works just fine. I had Shiida oneshot the annoying Javelin one with a forged Wing Spear; they are hard to attack otherwise. Next is a pair of dracos and pegasi. I walled for the dracos, but you have to be a bit more careful this time, as they have more Speed. I positioned my units in such a way that the pegasi fell just short; they are annoyingly fast, so it's better if they don't get to attack, if possible. Marich Excalibur-ed the annoying Javelin peggy and the remaining dracos and peggy were simple to clean up with my numerous bow units.

During this time, the enemy Thief within the prison will steal the Levin Sword. Whatever you do, don't block the stairs to the outside. If you do, the Thief won't run out into an ideal position for your units to eliminate it; instead, it will run backwards into the prison, past the archers and sniper, becoming impossible to chase.

The hardest part of the chapter was the cavalier reinforcements from the NE. They have among them extremely annoying Horsemen with very high Speed. I lost two attempts here; I planned to have Marich counter on the enemy turn, and checked the Horseman's speed. Too late I realized that the Horsemen reinforcements have two separate levels; one is higher leveled than the other, and has higher Speed. Doh. Doubled - > Dead. Another time I flubbed because I forgot Marich loses AS, even with a Fire tome (he has no Base Str). *ragequit, play Princess Debut* With renewed vigor, I tried again, being more wary of the Horseman. It's best to let the horse units run south towards you for a couple of turns, rather than moving to them. This separates them from their Armor Knights, making them much easier to deal with. After that, the best I can say is to keep your whole team together and attack all at once. It's important to kill both Horsemen, because almost anything they attack will be dead/finished off by another enemy. I was also able to clear 3/4 of the cavaliers, which was good enough if I positioned my weaker units out of harm's way. The Armor Knights by themselves are target practice. Mage + Axe = dead, etc.

I found a fun trick for clearing the row of snipers/archers that guard the interior of the prison. First clear the Armor Knight. There is a safe spot where you can hit him at 2 range in the corner nearest the stairs. Marich should be able to take him out. After the Armor Knight is eliminated, position a unit at the full extent of the easternmost archer's range (the furthest tile east of his threat area is fine), the archer will move and attack your unit on your turn. At the same time, the much more dangerous sniper also advances, because you are in his threat, but the archer now blocks the only space he can attack you from, so he stops short. I don't know if this will work every time for every unit (I personally used a unit that was fast enough not to get doubled by the sniper, for safety), but if it does, it positions the sniper in an ideal place for counterattack. You can mop it up easily with several melee units, and the sniper gets no chance to use it's nasty crit chance. It also saves Silver Bow uses.

The hero with the Master Seal is also mildly threatening, with a high Speed. Position your units near the door ahead of time, then rush out at once. I tag teamed him with ranged attacks, Shiida, and Oguma.

The boss is mildly difficult, with his forged Javelin. Wendell and Marich were both fast and durable enough to double without dying, so they took turns blasting him with Fire until the boss died. I had Axe units nearby for insurance.

Recruited: Maria, Minerva

Gaiden Sacrifices: Jeorge, Jeigan, Maria

Notable Loot: Levin Sword, Speedwing, Physic, Master Seal, Hauteclere

MVP: Peggy!Shiida, and whoever has the Ridersbane. Clearing out the throngs of reinforcement horse units is the toughest part of this map.

Jeigan was retired due to declining productivity. Jeorge was traded for Minerva based on Athena's (the forum member's) suggestion. Minerva is pretty comparable (a little better, even) than Jeorge in base stats, and unlike Jeorge, her growths actually give her a future, if I want that option. With starting rank of C in bows, it won't be long before Minerva can use Silver Bows anyway. One nice thing I noticed about reclassing Sniper with Minerva is that it increases her HPs; probably her biggest stat hole.

I gave the Speedwing to Bord. He's supporting Barts and Cord, so I'd like to keep him viable if possible.

Lena reached level 20 with perfect timing at the end of this mission. Since her closest competition for the Master Seal was Marich at a distant lv 14, she pretty much had no contest on being promoted immediately (okay, so I could have promoted someone early, but that just feels wasteful to me, especially when I have someone at 20/--). Lena is guaranteed to survive until the endgame, anyway, because she is the only person that can use Hammerne. I don't know why Lena always has such a huge exp lead in my runs. I didn't Arena exploit at all, so it must be staff spam from elsewhere. She gets a pretty decent boost from her early Warp use (I've used it at least once), maybe that accounts for some of it.

Hauteclere will probably sit in the convoy until Barts can use it. There isn't a pressing need to use it, yet, so I'll save it until I'm a bit closer to endgame. Until then, Silver Axe will do just fine (I can forge if I need to).

Planning ahead for C11: I forged my Wyrmslayer. It's still at full uses, and will be useful for killing that nasty fire dragon near the castle. It'll get used later on, too (in C24 definitely, if not far sooner). I'll probably sacrifice Linda immediately. She's really underleveled, and probably too much of a liability on H5. I don't know if I'll use Jake. I'm not a big fan of Ballisticians. I still need to sacrifice one more unit for 12x. Hmmm.

Edited October 12, 2009 by Blackbird

[Blackbird]

C11

A tricky map. There are lots of particularly threatening individual enemies here. Notably, there is a Sniper with a forged Killer Bow (wtf!?). Forged Javelins look to be standard from now on, too. Fortunately, aside from those few nasty enemies, the rest of them aren't numerous or equipped in a threatening way. There are no reinforcements (that I found...) either. I'd say that this map isn't that bad, but it takes a healthy amount of caution.

I reclassed Minerva to Sniper. She could be equally useful as a Draco or Paladin for this map, given the large number of Mercs in the SE, but I wanted to start improving her Bow rank immediately. What I forgot to do was reclass Shiida to something other than Pegasus Knight. You need her to be on foot if you plan to recruit Jake (and it's a good idea, because of his Arrowspate, and his usefulness next map). Ooops! This cost me a first-attempt clear. Rather than starting the map over, I instead opted to use a map save and exploit the RNG until Shiida dodged Jake's attack. It was around 40% odds, but I got hit the first couple times anyway =P. Lena got promoted, and I reclassed her to Sage because it's a better class than Bishop 99% of the time (Better Mag and reduced AS penalty? Yes please!).

The immediate threat in this map are the Pegasi to the north. Fortunately, there are only two. Bait with tough/fast units and they fall easily to bows. Minerva proves her worth by surviving the Pegasus' forged javelin on a freak miss. Tough broad ;).

The SE of the map is filled with Mercs. They are are moderately fast, but Lance units pretty much destroy them. Sword units lose a lot of their power against Lances, making them much easier. Unfortunately, Athena and Hardin are a bit underleveled, so they are getting doubled. I'll have to feed them a few kills to get them back up to speed. The cavaliers and the peggies were able to mop up the Mercs pretty easily though, with a little Sage/Bow assistance. Marth recruited Linda, largely for her very nice Aura tome.

Breaking into the NW part of the map is the hard part. There are lots of nasty enemies, any one of which can potentially 1/2 hit KO you, and they all have overlapping threat ranges. The enemy ballisticians might hit you, as well, finishing off any damaged units. Walking in recklessly is suicide. I broke into this area in several stages.

I ignored the Thunderbolt ballistician initially. It sits in the threat range of much more dangerous enemies, that had to be eliminated before I could attack it properly. It only does 10 damage/hit anyway, and it's not doubling anyone.

First, I baited the horseman threatening the forts and Thunderbolt with a fast unit. Once this unit is cleared, it's possible to tackle the Sniper.

Second is the forged Killer Bow Sniper. It threatens the forts/Thunderbolt, and is very dangerous. It's got enough Speed to double pretty much anyone who's not a myrmidon/merc or Sheeda, it's obscenely accurate and strong, and it's got a huge crit chance of 30% or so. None of your units can completely mitigate that crit chance, or reduce it to a level where it can be ignored. If you reclassed Shiida to Mage, she might be able to reduce that crit under 10% or so, with her high Luck and A Marth support, and then counter. Even so, I didn't have any units that were completely safe to bait it with. Therefore, I found it best to bait the Sniper into melee range with sacrificial units. You've got a few more gaiden sacrifices, right ;)? Linda got crit for an impressive 69 damage. Headshot! If you don't want to get anyone killed here (no deaths run, for example), maybe it would be a good time to bring out an extremely high Def character, like Zagaro, who could potentially survive a crit.

With the hazardous archers dead, I was able to move forward and clear the Thunderbolt. As soon as you pass the forts, the Cavaliers will begin to advance. I advise retreating a bit and fighting them on the forts, rather then fight them and the ballisticians at the same time. I had Barts tank them on the forts, then cleared them with Sages, Archers, and effective weapons.

This clears the way to circle around the nasty fire dragon boss and take out the Stonehoist. At this time, you can also circle around and recruit Jake, clearing all the ballisticians. You'll have a much easier time if you reclassed Shiida for this, unlike me =P.

Finally, with everything else cleared, simply bait the fire dragon with a durable and fast unit. The dragon's AS is 18, I think. I used Wyrmslayer!Oguma on a fort, to knock him down to size. The fire dragon is very strong and fast, but it still has no 2-range, so your archers and mages chew him up.

The cavalier guarding the capture point doesn't even qualify as a boss. It's just a regular enemy, and it's immobile. Not a threat. It was a particularly insulting move that it carried a separate Javelin specifically so it doesn't drop you it's forged Javelin. *groan*. Ah well, map's cleared.

Recruited: Jake, Linda

Gaiden Sacrifices: Linda, Roger

Notable Loot: Energy Drop, Spirit Dust, Aura tome

MVP: Linda. No, really, thanks for taking one for the team and baiting that Sniper. It had to be someone =P.

I gave the Energy Drop to Shiida. I've decided to run her as a Dracoknight/Paladin this time around, and her Str is predictably starting to lag. This should patch her up a bit.

I gave the Spirit Dust to Marich. He's a pretty safe bet. Durable enough to take the best advantage of extra Magic (being able to counter some enemies) and it's not like he's in danger of cap-ramming Magic anyway. I was tempted to give it to Lena because she just promoted and it's make her really uber for a while, but I decided to go with the long term payoff instead.

Lena will use the Aura tome eventually, when her tome rank hits B. If you raised Shiida as a Mage, she's brutally awesome with the Aura tome, too.

Oguma is at 17 speed right now, I think I'll reclass him to Fighter (whenever the map allows it) until he promotes, to grow his Str a bit.

I've got a pretty nasty dilemma on the next map. Assuming I don't keep any units from C12, I need to sacrifice two units if I want to go to 12x. Then I remembered that you need to keep Midia alive if you want to recruit Astram. Blah! That would make three units that need to get sac'd. If I recruit Astram, I can obtain his Silver Sword. However, that would probably mean eliminating a useful unit. I'm sorely tempted to just sacrifice Midia and ignore Astram's recruitment.

Party Snapshot: Here's who is still alive. Any ideas on who should go?

Marth, Peggy!Shiida, Peggy!Athena, Sniper!Minerva, Merc/Fighter!Oguma, Archer/Myr!Navarre, Pirate!Barts, Pirate!Cord, Hunter!Bord, Sage!Lena, Mage/Curate!Marich, Sage!Wendell, Julian, Jake, Cav!Abel, Cav!Cain, Cav!Hardin.

I'm thinking Julian and Jake. Wendell might be safe to retire now. He's still extremely useful, but Lena's promoted and Marich will probably be the next to promote. Bord and Navarre aren't all that great by themselves, but they support people who are good (Barts and Oguma). Athena's struggling a bit as a Pegasus, but she'll get better once D lances kick in, and I really want to see what her endgame is like as a Dracoknight. Hardin's still scaling up a bit, but he's definitely passable, especially with his A lances.

Edited October 12, 2009 by Blackbird

[Blackbird]

C12

I was on a roll this map. I was worried because I could only bring 11 units, 2 of which were gaiden sacrifices, but it all worked out. My plan worked flawlessly and I cleared it on the first try. I actually almost did too well; I encountered a strange bug as a result of doing things in a different order.

I completed the map in such a way that I defeated the boss before I attacked the general in the chest room. Then, for some reason, the general would not attack, even with units in his threat range. Anyone seen anything like this? For a moment I thought I would have to restart (I needed that general to kill my gaiden sacrifices, as he was the last enemy unit). Fortunately, I was able to get him to "wake up" by attacking him. Once he was attacked once, he started moving as he was supposed to.

Anyway, I started the map by killing the nearby Thieves, then moving west. Soon after you pass the Armor Knights, cavalier reinforcements arrive to the SE, while Mages and another party of Cavaliers/a Paladin start to rush you from the SW. I fought all the rushers on this map in the north-central area of the map, near where the Armor Knights were. I didn't have a particular strategy for this section, I sort of moved my party to the right and left, baiting and defeating one group as they arrived, while being just out of range of the other. When groups from the left threatened me, such as the Paladin and co., I used Barts and Fighter!Ogma to block the chokepoint of 2 squares that the Armor Knights guarded.

I used Barrier on Lena and had her solo the Mages that rushed me; She was doubling them and with her impressive Res, was getting 5HKO'd or some other ridiculous number like that. Cain came into his own on this map. He had just enough speed to not get doubled by the Horsemen reinforcements, and enough HP/Def to survive 1 Silver Lance + 1 Silver Bow hit. 3HKO in my H5? This is madness! Positioned properly, he did a superb job of tanking the SE reinforcements as they arrived, getting some nice counters in with a Javelin.

After all the rushers were defeated, I cleared the jail room (all the prisoners were dead by this time, of course) and looted some of the chests, leaving the general alone for now. I had a momentary panic moment when I realized none of my units could fight the Manakete and survive the round. Fortunately, his movement was restricted by the pillars. My units were able to get close enough that they could swarm around him and soften him up with ranged attacks, allowing Cain to finish him with the Wyrmslayer (without taking a counter, of course).

I actually had Lena lure the Sniper. Her Luck was high enough that she wasn't in danger of being crit, and she wasn't getting doubled either. She had enough HP/Def to survive one hit.

Getting Bolganone without wasting charges: The boss of this map is a Bishop with (relatively) low HP that drops a very nice Bolganone tome. With only 13 charges, though, wasting any of them is a shame. Fortunately, it is possible to kill this boss without giving him a chance to retaliate, retrieving the tome intact. I can present two strategies to accomplish this. If you have a very strong unit (Barts, for example) you can potentially oneshot this boss at full HP with a Forged Silver weapon. If you don't want to drop the gold to Forge and/or your unit isn't strong enough to make a Forge inexpensive, you can instead use Jake. Jake can soften up the boss from a distance with his Arrowspate (may take a few tries, he has about 50% chance to hit the boss) after which most of your stronger units can generally kill the boss with a base Silver Weapon (or a small Forge, at most). I used the latter strategy.

After the boss was defeated, Julian opened the remaining door in the chest room (discovering the aforementioned weird general bug), then suicided with Jake. Meanwhile, Marth collected the remaining loot. Yay, Boots!

The gaiden requirements totally ruined the feel of this map. It's supposed to be a triumphant scene where Marth rides in to rescue the captured Archanean soldiers just in time. The gaiden chapter requirements instead mandate a different ending, however. Instead of a triumph, Marth is instead greeted by a macabre scene where the still-cooling bodies in the cell sit amidst a pool of blood.

Recruited: Dolph, Macellan, Boa, Midia, Thomas (auto)

Gaiden Sacrifices: Dolph, Macellan, Boa, Midia, Thomas, Julian, Jake

Notable Loot: Bolganone, Master Sealx2, 20k gold (score!), Boots, Arms Scroll, Silver Sword, Dragonpike, Warp, Silver Bow, Armorslayer, Parthia

MVP: A lot of units got to do useful things. Lena owned Mages, Julian sped up looting, Barts + Jake dropped the boss without contest. I'll say Cain gets the win this time, for tanking the reinforcements.

Man, what a haul!

Bolganone goes to whoever. Marich has Excalibur and Lena will soon have Aura, so Bolganone is second tier pretty much from the start. Master Seal 2 goes to Marich, probably, as he's level 17 or 18 now. Boots went to Marth to get him around maps faster. Minerva has a monopoly on high level bows for now.

Arms Scroll I will probably give to Lena; once she hits C tomes, she can bump up to B and use Aura immediately. Any other ideas? Alternatively, I could give it to Minerva once she hits B bows to jump up to A + Parthia.

Barts is about to hit A axes, so I gave him Hauteclere. Meanwhile, Cord is about to hit B axes, so I traded him Barts' Silver Axe.

Edited October 12, 2009 by Blackbird

[Blackbird]

Double update. Simple/small maps.

C12X

Oh my goodness. What a royal pain in the ass. This mission is made way harder than it needs to be if you try to keep Horace alive and clear the chapter of enemies. Horace will advance on you when you enter a certain threshold, after which he will follow you all over the map. This is extremely annoying, because you can't simply recruit him; you have to clear the map first. Meanwhile, Horace will run around hitting your units and trying to suicide on Barts. Blah. I was sorely tempted to just kill him. It's a shame, too, because the chapter's enemies are easy, otherwise. They got downgraded to Steel. If you don't plan to recruit Horace, the chapter is much easier, and it's a great time to level up underleveled units or to level someone in a different class.

Eventually I trapped Horace on a bridge, with a couple units that couldn't hurt him on either side (snipers, weak units, etc.) and healbotted whoever got hit. This distracted forces from elsewhere in the map, though.

I recommend keeping your forces to the right side of the map; pirates spawn from the island bases and run across the water at you. Eventually a few Cavs will spawn from the SE fort, as well.

The most dangerous enemy on the map is the 20 AS Manakete near the northern village. Either bring a very fast unit, or surround him with ranged units and finish him with a Wyrmslayer. The boss is a scrub, hardly better than a regular Cavalier.

Chime in if you have a better strategy on this map (maybe the better strategy is to just ignore the reinforcements and clear the map more quickly >_>...)

Better Strategy: Ninji suggests simply avoiding Horace and the center of the map until you are ready to clear the boss. Then, on your final turn, you can clear the remaining units around Horace and capture on the same turn. Sounds pretty solid to me, much better than I was doing it.

Recruited: Horace

Gaiden Sacrifices: None!

Notable Loot: Killer Lance

MVP: Athena/Shiida joint victory, for being able to not kill Horace!?

C13

The Ballistician map. I don't find it too bad. A little luck is needed for this map, I think, because some enemies you just can't get to without exposing your units to intersecting fields of fire. I recommend bringing units with really good concrete defense (high HP/Def/Avo) like supported Cavs, Generals, etc, because you can't always assume you will dodge. You can use the forests to avoid more attacks, but at the same time, it also restricts your ability to close the distance on the Ballisticians.

One thing that surprised me on this map is the Thieves. You generally capture the village before the Thieves reach it, after which they become aggressive (rather than mindlessly running towards the village, ignoring everyone). I forgot this, and one of the Thieves ran up and doubled one of my axe users, *groan*.

The boss is pretty strong too. He was capable of one-shotting some of my units.

It's useful to have Marth capture the village ASAP, because Beck arrives with a weapon that is, conveniently, effective at killing Ballisticians. Feel free to spam it, this is the only map it will be really useful on =P.

As a general strategy, I recommend first clearing the Ballisticians that advance on you, then the Ballisticians in the north and south routes, then gradually pressing up the center with Beck's Thunderbolt as a support. Finally, try to take out the boss and his adjoining Ballisticians at the same time, it's problematic if they focus fire anyone.

The Warp Strategy: Comparing my play with !?'s H5 walkthrough, I tested out the "warp a sage to assassinate the boss" strategy. It actually worked out really well, and can make defeating the boss much safer. You'll probably need Marich to be promoted as a Sage, he's the only caster that's really durable enough. I was able to do it with Mage!Marich, but it's not as ironclad. You'll need a second staff user with Rank C (not hard at this stage of the game) as well. Then clear the first several Ballisticians as normal; particularly, the Ballisticians that move, and the ones on the north and south routes of the map. This makes things a little safer before the warp, otherwise, the moving Ballisticians will move backwards and attack Marich as well. When all the movers are defeated, you can warp Marich to a location 1W of the Curate near the boss. With a little luck, Marich can one round the boss (magic really owns the Ballisticians), and is in the deadzone of the nearby Stonehoist. Only the Arrowspate and Thunderbolt (the Thunderbolt probably doing no damage because Marich has decent Res) can attack you. On the next round, you can send Marich to kill the Arrowspate from the safety of the nearby forest, healing him with your other staff user's Physic if needed. With the biggest danger assassinated, the rest of your troops can safely move up towards the two Stonehoist and Thunderbolt in front of the castle.

Marth dispatched Astram personally for being such a nuisance to recruit. Marich capped 20/-- this map, so I promoted him to Sage.

Recruited: Beck

Gaiden Sacrifices: None!

Notable Loot: Ridersbane, Wyrmslayer

MVP: Beck. Thunderbolt, lol.

Edited October 12, 2009 by Blackbird

[_____]

I completed the map in such a way that I defeated the boss before I attacked the general in the chest room. Then, for some reason, the general would not attack, even with units in his threat range. Anyone seen anything like this? For a moment I thought I would have to restart (I needed that general to kill my gaiden sacrifices, as he was the last enemy unit). Fortunately, I was able to get him to "wake up" by attacking him. Once he was attacked once, he started moving as he was supposed to.

This General never attacks you unless you attack him.

C12X

Oh my goodness. What a royal pain in the ass. This mission is made way harder than it needs to be if you try to keep Horace alive and clear the chapter of enemies. Horace will advance on you when you enter a certain threshold, after which he will follow you all over the map. This is extremely annoying, because you can't simply recruit him; you have to clear the map first. Meanwhile, Horace will run around hitting your units and trying to suicide on Barts. Blah. I was sorely tempted to just kill him. It's a shame, too, because the chapter's enemies are easy, otherwise. They got downgraded to Steel. If you don't plan to recruit Horace, the chapter is much easier, and it's a great time to level up underleveled units or to level someone in a different class.

Eventually I trapped Horace on a bridge, with a couple units that couldn't hurt him on either side (snipers, weak units, etc.) and healbotted whoever got hit. This distracted forces from elsewhere in the map, though.

Why bother even going into Horace's unit's attack range?

[Blackbird]

Why bother even going into Horace's unit's attack range?

So weird about that General. As for Horace's map, I had moved units up to destroy the Armor Knights and Cavaliers in the center of the map for extra EXP. However, even though I was not within Horace's threat range, he became aggressive anyway (perhaps because all the other units were "activated").

C14

Not too bad. Forged weapons make a comeback, this time with Forged Longbows and Ridersbane. Bleh.

The hardest part of this map was figuring out how to handle the Pegasus reinforcements; the one-two punch of Silver Lance and Forged Javelin was enough to 2HKO most of my units. Eventually I had supported Barts tank them with a Handaxe. His HP/Def/Avo was good enough that he was taking 4-5 hits to kill at 40% accuracy. I let the pegasi run up and hit him, then had archers standing behind him (Minerva and Hunter!Bord) pick off whatever attacked him. Blew through a ton of Handaxe uses though.

Cain and Abel worked together with Javelins to clear out some of the archers in the NW room, while the rest of my party defeated the Armor Knights and circled around to clear out the rest.

A small party of Pegasi!Athena, Shiida, and Lena circled around to the SE. If you arrive quickly enough, you can chokepoint the Thieves and Cavaliers to the south in a 1-tile chokepoint, preventing them from unleashing the nasty Sniper. I finished the Sniper off after the Pegasus reinforcements were done zerging with Marich; he had enough luck to negate the critical threat.

The boss room is no danger. Armors are sluggish, and the boss is the same. You can easily take him out with magic before he switches to his Killer Bow, or else leave him so weakened that Axe units can finish him off. Try not to make him switch to his Killer Bow, no sense wasting weapon uses unnecessarily.

Once I obtained the Silver Card, I bought an arsenal's worth of Heal staves at a discount. Can never have too many of those. Ridersbane are also conveniently available on this chapter. I purchased a couple, as they will be extremely useful later.

If you have no uses left for your Barrier Staff, you might want to pick up a Pure Water or two for the next map, as well. It's a magefest.

Recruited: Katua, Paora

Gaiden Sacrifices: None!

Notable Loot: Silver Card (Cha-Ching), Thoron, 10k gold (insta-doubled by the Silver Card), Silver Sword, Killer Bow, 2x Ridersbane (purchased)

MVP: Barts, for being able to survive the Pegasi.

Killer Bow went to Bord. He's got decent Skill, and will soon have 3x A support for +15 crit. Minerva's got plenty of Silver Bows to use, anyway =P. Thoron isn't strictly needed now; both of my Sages are gibbing most enemies with a simple Fire tome. Marich might use it on tougher enemies as his Excalibur is running a bit low. Lena's got full Aura uses whenever she needs them.

I'll probably sacrifice Wendell, Paora, and Katua next map, as it's the desert/Mage chapter. Wendell's not really needed anymore with both Marich and Lena promoted and melting faces. I don't plan to field the Pegasus Sisters (they just join too late, really) so I'll get a bit of use out of them against the Mages next chapter, then suicide them.

Edited October 13, 2009 by Blackbird

[_____]

So weird about that General. As for Horace's map, I had moved units up to destroy the Armor Knights and Cavaliers in the center of the map for extra EXP. However, even though I was not within Horace's threat range, he became aggressive anyway (perhaps because all the other units were "activated").

I'd suggest just hammering/Ridersbane-ing the Cavs and Armors to death the same turn that you would seize. No enemy phase to deal with, Horace won't have a chance to move, and you get the exp.

Edited October 12, 2009 by Ninji

[Blackbird]

That sounds a hell of a lot better than what I was doing. I'll edit that into the post so people don't make the same mistake as me =P. Thanks, Ninji.

[Blackbird]

C15

The token desert map. The main hurdle here being Gharnef, and his obscene (for the chapter) Mag and Spd. If you can find a way to mitigate Gharnef, the map is reasonably easy. Getting hit by Bolganone!Mages hurts a lot, but by the same token, the Mages are extremely frail, being doubled/ORKO'd by most of your units. I was able to clear this map on the first try. I almost did too well again; I intended to sacrifice Wendell, but he crit (what I thought was) the last reinforcement unit and survived the round. Fortunately, there were more reinforcements left; they just took a few turns =P.

Prior to this chapter, I forged one of my newly acquired Ridersbane for a little extra might. I don't need it for this chapter, but I'll use it later.

I also equipped Lena with Barrier. I'll need that for this map. I brought a Warp staff, too. If you plan to have Marth loot the chests in the SE, the Warp staff can save you a few turns having Marth run all the way across the map back to the capture point.

Mage/Sages are awesome on this map, having much better mobility than most of your units across the sand. Similarly, Pegasi/Dracoknights are also very helpful here. You might want to reclass your Armors or Cavs to other classes for this chapter, as they have terrible mobility in the sand. Armors are a pretty bad choice for a Mage chapter, anyway =P.

I positioned Sage!Marich and Lena to the far right in map preparations. At the outset of the map, Marich rushed to the NE. There are two Dracoknights that will rush you; I wanted to eliminate them quickly so I could block Gharnef's advance. In my file, Marich was tough enough to tank both of the Dracos and live; I equipped him with Excalibur and had him oneshot both of them on the counter. Marich is a beast.

With the Dracos cleared, you will need a Sage that is both fast and has decent Res. On my file, Marich oddly had more Res than Lena (maybe because I raised him with Curate levels this time), so he was volunteered to tank Gharnef. Usually it's the other way around. Wendell and Lena healed Marich back to full and Barriered him for the next turn. If you act quickly enough, you can block the bridge to the east, trapping Gharnef at a chokepoint. Gharnef's AS isn't as bad as it looks (he's weighed down by Imhullu) but his AS is still 20. Fortunately, with Barrier, your average Sage's Res is so high that Gharnef can do little damage to you, even if he doubles. In my file, Marich was actually fast enough not to get doubled. With Marich's massive ~40 HP, this basically meant that Gharnef was LOLRKO'ing Marich, doing a pathetic 4 damage a round, with like 55% accuracy on his attacks. I probably could have left Marich completely unattended and he still would have survived Gharnef's tantrum, with HPs to spare. If you need to heal him, you can have Lena do it (she can probably survive being hit by Gharnef) or simply Physic him from a safe distance.

Although we can't hurt Gharnef, it is worthwhile to block him simply to keep him out of the way. Your Sages can laugh at him, but he pretty much gibs anyone else he attacks. Marich had better equip a sandwich or something, because he's going to sit there a while. It takes Gharnef a while to get bored and leave. While Marich is keeping Gharnef entertained, I equipped him with a Fire tome so I wouldn't waste a more valuable weapon. Even doing no damage, we can still build up some WEXP, at least. So long as none of your other units walk into range, Gharnef will happily sit there ineffectually hitting Marich, leaving the rest of your units free to advance safely into the NW of the map and take out the Mages there.

With Gharnef out of the way, the rest of the map is pretty easy. The Mages 2HKO pretty much everyone who's not a Sage, so just be mindful to take them out all at once and not to let them gang up on one unit. Eventually Draco reinforcements show up from the northern fort, I recommend setting up a tough/fast unit ahead of time to bait the Draco to a favorable position where your archers can finish it off. Otherwise, it may fly to an awkward area of the desert where you can't retaliate against it, and it's free to attack your vulnerable units. I think Mages are supposed to arrive from the western fort, too, but I opted to simply block it and take out the boss. The Swarm boss isn't hard. He hits Res, so you can't ignore his damage, but so long as you keep your units healed they can walk up and take him out without trouble.

I used the Pegasus Sisters on this map, thinking they'd be good against the Mages. I was very wrong. On H5, the Mages are strong enough that they actually oneshot Katua (admittedly, she was still at base HP), even with Pegasus' Res bonus. Paora has more HPs, and barely survives. Uh, wow. This is supposed to be one of their better chapters, too, until you get their levels caught up way down the line. Needless to say, they got used as shields and eventually became gaiden sacrifices. I could probably ignore the remaining gaidens and be safe, but what can I say, I'm a completionist. If you plan to use them, I recommend trying to get them some levels on the previous map. Wendell also got gaiden sac'd. With both Lena and Marich promoted and melting everything in range, Wendell wasn't needed anymore.

You'll need to wait a little while to get to the SE chests with this strategy, unfortunately. Gharnef initially blocks the most direct route to the SE, and then later Mage reinforcements spawn every turn in the chest room, threatening Marth (who's wimpier against Mages than Ike). I had Marich fight the Mages as well; they couldn't hurt him and he was one-rounding them.

Recruited: None.

Gaiden Sacrifices: Katua, Paora, Wendell.

Notable Loot: Energy Drop, Talisman, Recover staff.

MVP: Marich. He tanked Gharnef like a champ, slaughtered Dracos, and pretty much soloed the SE of the map. Devastation.

I gave the Energy Drop to Minerva. This should help keep her relevant, and she is unfortunately the fastest of my Snipers, for now. It'll get better once other units promote. I'll probably keep her around for the rest of the game; she's better off than most of the remaining prepromotes in that she has growths to speak of. I gave the Talisman to Hardin. Marich and Lena have enough Res to laugh at Mages already; it would just make them hit their Res caps sooner. Oddly, Hardin has existant Res (of 1?) as a Cavalier, so I thought he might have a respectable Res as a Paladin (combined with the Talisman). Marth makes a good candidate too; or any promoted class with a Res score.

Edited October 13, 2009 by Blackbird

[Blackbird]

C16

A little advance planning made this chapter much easier for me. During map preparations, I forged a second +mt Ridersbane. This made Cain, Abel, Marth, and Shiida into a force of destruction against the annoying horse units on this level. I didn't feel too bad about it, because they have cheesy weapons, too. Notably, one of the Horsemen has a Forged Killer Bow, and several have Forged Ridersbanes that spell death to your mounted units. The Forged Javelins are annoying, too, as they are hard to fight without injury. Fortunately, they rush you. I simply let them advance just short of my units, then slaughtered them at once with effective weapons.

After a brief pause at the start of the map to bait and shoot down the Dracos, the majority of my forces moved as quickly as possible around the map, moving counter-clockwise toward the southern end of the map. You could take a shortcut and go through Chainey/Xane's jail, but Marth needs to hit up the NW villages anyway. I recommend visiting the western village and recruiting Arran. Neither of the units you recruit here are particularly good, but Arran comes with better equipment (to give to your other units). He has both a Silver Lance and a Killer Lance, while Samson only owns a Silver Axe. If you wanted all of this equipment, it would cost you a lot more to purchase Arran's gear. I gave Arran some Iron weapons and a Javelin and had him contribute chip damage for the chapter, before suiciding him on the boss.

While Marth, Cain and co. circled around the map and speared the Cavs for great justice, Pirate!Barts and Cord launched an amphibious assault across the sea to clear out some of the units lurking around the boss. The boss itself isn't really one to be messed with; he has a Forged Killer Lance and Bow. It's best to leave him alone until you can have a couple of Sages blow him away (before he switches to his Killer Bow, of course). Shiida or Marth might be able to fight him, too, if they are A supported and have 20 or more Luck. Sage is the simplest option, though.

Eventually, reinforcements show up from the forts in the NW of the map and in front of the boss' castle. It's best not to dawdle too close to these areas. The reinforcements aren't too bad to clean up with your Ridersbane, but you don't want them all focus firing someone on the enemy turn when they arrive.

Oddly, Chainey is guarded by a Forged Levin Sword Hero, with a magic stat to boot. It's actually better to fight him through the door with a Sage before moving in.

There are a lot of shops here, I might have purchased a couple Hand Axes or something.

Recruited: Arran, Chainey.

Gaiden Sacrifices: Arran.

Notable Loot: Master Seal, Silver Lance, Killer Lance, Dracoshield.

MVP: Cain and Abel joint victory. They absolutely annihilated this Cavalry-heavy chapter with their Forged Ridersbanes. Honorable mention to Barts and Cord for amusing naval skirmishing.

Barts promoted to Berserker this chapter. He's doing really well with his Defense, too. I think he's at 16 (solid for a unit that's not an Armor).

I believe I gave the Dracoshield to Oguma. He was sitting at a pitiable 7 Defense (compared to Barts' 16...) only 1 more than his base, at level 16 or 17. Not a lot of luck there. It'll greatly improve his toughness; he's definitely got the HPs to meatshield, he just needs some Def.

I don't know if I'll field Chainey or not. You basically just use him to duplicate your best character, which is kind of boring, imo. I need to clear out two units for C17X (if I want to go).

Etzel is not really worth going to a chapter for, but the Longbow, Warp staff, and extra EXP might be.

Edited October 13, 2009 by Blackbird

[dondon151]

You can do chapter 15 easily without tanking Gharnef. There is enough sand for your units to run away on without Gharnef reaching you before he leaves (I'm talking about sand in the desert, not the strip of land that you start out on). You end up having to blitz a couple of mages, but it's a far more reliable strategy, as in it doesn't require you to have high level units to execute.

[Blackbird]

To be honest, I've never actually tried to clear C15 without tanking Gharnef. I had always gone under the assumption that he would eventually catch up to my units, because casters are faster on sand. I don't like to be rushed anyway, I'd rather just tank him and forget about him =P.

C17

Another castle map. This one's not too bad; it's another of those maps where there are just a few highly threatening enemies to be aware of. I cleared it on the first attempt. The Manaketes here have capped Spd, if I recall, making their AS 24 after the Firestone. This is pretty obscene; they double any non-promoted units in a chapter where you have you have 3 characters promoted + prepromotes/units without promotions (unlikely to hit 21 speed anyway). There is another Forged Killer Bow Sniper on this map, too.

I forged a Dragonpike for Cain and experimented a bit with reclassing Shiida to Archer. The initial impetus for the class change was that she had (predictably) cap-rammed Spd as a Pegasus, so I wanted a class with a lower Speed base so she could continue to gain stat-ups in it. It's actually not bad; she does far less damage than Mage!Shiida might, but her durability is better. He has existant Def growth, and Hp is 20% better. She'd probably be pretty decent as a Sniper. Fast A support with Marth + early Sniper promo might be an interesting path for Shiida, now that I think about it, for a good crit chance.

Anyway, getting back to the map. The first thing I do is take out the immediate threats. To the NE are a pair of annoying Fortify!Bishops that will make killing anything more difficult if left alive. They are backed by a Sniper, too. If you have a durable Sage (Marich is promoted) you can actually go over and clear out the lot of them early, which I did. To the north is one of those nasty 24 AS Fire Dragons that can one-round most of your units. The only safe way I found to kill them was to not let them attack at all. I parked a number of indirect attack units just out of it's threat range, then rushed in at once and softened it up with numerous ranged attacks. You can then finish it off with an accurate unit like supported Dragonpike!Cain or Wyrmslayer!Oguma; Forged weapons are very handy here. You may even want to forge a little accuracy; the Fire Dragons have surprisingly good evasion with their 20 Spd. 80% chance to hit generally isn't a big deal, but it is if that miss means you get one-rounded in return. There's another identical Fire Dragon in the NW corner of the map, I fought it in the same manner.

Finally, to the west are the Thieves looting your treasure. You'll need to send a few units over that way, too. I was surprised by the AI here, actually. I predicted the Thieves would stay in the area looting the chests for several turns, but instead they grabbed only one chest each and started fleeing for the exit almost immediately. You'll need to move quickly if you want to kill the Thieves and take their loot before they reach the second 24 AS Fire Dragon's threat area. As I think about it now, it may be possible to Warp a blocker as a last resort if the Thieves get away from you.

The Killer Bow Sniper is hazardous as usual; lure it with a unit that can survive a crit, a gaiden sacrifice, or possibly with an A supported unit with high Luck.

With the high threat units eliminated, the remaining units in the west of the map are easily cleared with normal methods.

Breaking into the NE room can be a little tricky because of the one-two threat of the forged Javelin Armor + the Swarm!Bishop. I believe I had Marich open this door, because the Swarm couldn't hurt him, and the Armor couldn't OHKO him. Once the Armors are cleared, it is simple to eliminate the Bishop. Avoid standing adjacent to the statue/wall just within the boss' chamber, enemy reinforcements arrive around this time. Among them are more Javelin Armors that will attack units near the walls immediately.

It might be worth fighting the reinforcements in this case, to get to the secret shop north of the boss' throne (it's an obvious niche in the wall, see Serenes Forest's guide if you need the exact location). Don't forget to bring both the Silver and VIP cards.

The boss itself worried me a bit. I imagined that it would have an AS even higher than the Fire Dragons because Magestone is generally > Firestone, but then I remembered that Magestones actually decrease Speed. The boss' AS was actually 17, not so bad at all. Unfortunately, your Sages can't hurt him. It is best to bring a few Snipers and Handaxes to soften him up before you finish him with an effective weapon.

Recruited: None.

Gaiden Sacrifices: Chainey, Beck. Both useful units, but someone had to go to see all the chapters.

Notable Loot: A pile of stuff! Warp, Killer Bow, Master Seal, Fortify, Speedwings, Dracoshield, Secret Book, Silver Bow, VIP Card.

MVP: I'll go with Marich. He did a great job tanking the areas of the map where combined physical and magical threats were a danger.

I purchased a Poleaxe, Killer Axe, and Longbow in the secret shop. Killer Axe for insane crit shenanigans next chapter, Poleaxe paired with the one next chapter means one for each of my axe users, and the Longbow will be very useful next chapter (for shooting over walls and attacking Mages without counter).

I gave the Longbow to Minerva, the Killer Axe to Barts, and the Poleax to Cord. Cain promoted with the Master Seal; a Paladin is best for next chapter's Snipers, but Dracoknight might be better in the long run for better Str/Def. I believe I gave both the Dracoshield and the Secret Book to Cord; he was having problems with both. The Dracoshield helps Cord take advantage of his decent to high HP, as well. I saved the Speedwing for now, because I couldn't tell who would need it the most, honestly.

Edited October 16, 2009 by Blackbird

[dondon151]

Oh, I make a distinction between sand and desert. Sand terrain doesn't hinder your movement, but desert does (I know for a fact that there is this distinction in the GBA FEs, and I haven't played FEDS in awhile, so...).

[Blackbird]

C17X

It probably isn't strictly necessary to go here, although there is some nice loot that comes in handy later, like a Poleax and a Longbow. I decided to do it for completion's sake. In any case, Etzel's not really a compelling reason, by himself =P. I forged a Poleax for Cord in this chapter.

Much like the last chapter, this chapter has a few threatening enemies and hidden threats, but is overall not bad with some caution. I cleared this one on the first try, as well. I don't have any Thieves, unfortunately, so I circled the map with Marth and had another unit open doors with a Master Key. I first looted the NE rooms, then went counter-clockwise around the map to the boss room. Probably better to keep a Thief alive if you care about a lower turncount =P.

The trickiest part of this map is the narrow "gauntlet" of Archers and Bishops on the west side of the map. At the bottom of the Gauntlet are a 21 AS Fire Dragon and a Forged Killer Bow Sniper, nasty enemies. I advanced slowly here, using durable units to pick off the Archers one by one. Minerva's Longbow/3-range option came in extremely handy here for attacking over the walls in such a constricting area. Taking out the Fire Dragon was difficult. My usual surround strategy wouldn't work because I couldn't get enough units in position within the confines of the corridor. Instead, I had a very fast unit with the Wyrmslayer lure it (Myr!Navarre in my case, Oguma would probably work too). The Sniper is similarly challenging. You won't have any gaiden sacrifices remaining (no chance to recruit any since the chapter started) so you'll have to either tank the Sniper or mitigate it's crit. This is a situation where a good General would be handy =P. I had Marth mitigate it's crit with Shiida's A support; it was a small gamble, but poor planning on my part had more suitable units out of position.

Notably, the Oguma/Barts/Cord/Bord support circle hit A support on this map; meaning mass devastation was about to be unleashed. Aside from Oguma, each unit gets +15 crit and crit avo; Berserker!Barts had ~50% crit with his Killer Axe, Hunter!Bord had ~40% crit with his Killer Bow, and all of them had ~20% crit just with Iron Weapons. They would have been really handy against the Sniper, but I had left them behind to deal with the Paladin reinforcements that arrive. Among them is a Forged Killer Lance Pally, who amusingly had no crit chance against either Barts or Cord, after supports.

The final threats on the map arise from hidden enemies that are revealed when you open rooms. Be wary opening the far SW room; it contains a Swarm mage that will start attacking once you reveal him. Don't leave any injured units around the area unless you want them dead. You'll need to have units on hand to attack the room immediately, anyway, because a Bolganone!Bishop and an Armor threaten to 1-2 KO whoever opens the door.

Don't move any units into Etzel's corridor, either, (refer to the SF Chapter Data to see where exactly this threshold is) until you are ready. When you reveal the corridor, place the unit away from the SE room's wall. Another Sniper waits to attack units adjacent to the wall once he has been revealed. I made this mistake, and fortunately the unit left in the threatened area was able to survive the Sniper. This one doesn't have a Killer Bow at least; you can counter him with any unit with moderate Luck and decent Def/Spd. I think there is another Fire Dragon in this room, too, but you have more space to attack him than the previous one. He can be safely eliminated in the usual manner.

If you don't kill Etzel, you recruit him. I left him alone for the free Elfire.

The boss is pathetic. Slow Armor is fodder for your Axemen and Sages at this point, and he's not initially equipped with a 2-range weapon, either.

Recruited: Etzel. Yay?

Gaiden Sacrifices: None.

Notable Loot: Poleax, Longbow, Warp (another!?), Wo Dao, Wing Spear (although I still have plenty of uses).

MVP: Barts and co. were a human wrecking team, but I'll have to give it to Minerva. Her Longbow utility was extremely helpful for clearing the gauntlet and shooting over walls. She pulled me out of a fire several times when threatening enemies were revealed by opening rooms.

Poleax to Barts+Cord so they each have one. Longbow to my second Sniper (Navarre, whenever he's in Archer mode). Cord promoted on this map. I made him a Berserker to optimize my support/crit advantage. I don't know who will use the Wo Dao best; probably Oguma, or possibly Pally!Cain with his 2x A support (Abel+Marth).

Edited October 16, 2009 by Blackbird

[Candlejack]

Hmm, are you actually using Horace?

[Blackbird]

You know, I went through all that trouble to get Horace, and I've hardly used him >_<. I figured I've come this far without relying on a General, I might as well go the rest of the way. I do feel kind of stupid for working so hard to get him now, though.

C18

A pretty straightforward map. There's really nothing to do here except beat the enemies, unless you want to shop or farm the arena. You simply walk across the bridge and capture the castle, there isn't even a village to visit. You don't even need to go out of your way for the recruitable character; Est, as she'll fly up to Marth and recruit herself on her own.

There are a ton of Pallies and Cavaliers in this chapter, so I piled the horse-killing weapons on my units. Forged Poleax for my axe users, Forged Ridersbane for my dracos, peggies and cavaliers. I advanced slowly across the bridge, using tough units like Dracos or Barts to block the narrow chokepoint. There are a few Horsemen this chapter, so you need to be a little wary of bows, but it's not bad. There is one unit with a Forged Killer Edge and a few with Ridersbanes, just keep an eye out for them. The effective weapons make cutting through the massive HPs of the Pallies much easier. You really can't fail so long as you don't take on too much at once.

Once the southern end of the map is reached, give a large amount of space to the row of forts in the SW. Horsemen, Cavs, and a Pally will reinforce from there, potentially tagging a stray flying unit. The reinforcements come on alternating turns, so you can commit to an attack, clear them in a single turn, then retreat to safety for the next wave. I opted to wait around the single fort in the south and defeat the reinforcements as they came, rather than let them accumulate into a dangerous horde. Eventually a single Pally will reinforce from the fort in the middle of the map, too. He's not very dangerous, alone.

Eventually, Est will appear from the west side of the map. If you leave a path open, she'll fly up to Marth on her own and recruit herself. It's a good idea to allow this, because she contributes an extra Ridersbane, in addition to the Mercurius Sword. Afterwards, she mysteriously disappeared. (got one-shotted by a Paladin).

The boss is marginally better than the Pallies you've been fighting all map. Nothing to see here.

Recruited: Est.

Gaiden Sacrifices: Est. I didn't even really plan to take her out immediately, but when she got oneshotted by a Paladin, I didn't bother to reload =P.

Notable Loot: Ridersbane, Mercurius, Master Seal.

MVP: Cain did well. His Draco Defense kept the Pallies at bay.

Abel promoted to Dracoknight this chapter, as well.

[Blackbird]

C19

This is the chapter that really makes me wish I had a spare Thief. Maybe in future playthroughs I'll raise Julian; I've noticed that a lot of my units are waiting to promote, and a Thief would reduce the number of units on my team that need promotion items, while not sucking that much more in the short term than a Swordmaster. Lesson learned. I ended up popping on to the Wi-Fi shop for a few Master Keys; I thought I had recalled a store ingame where you could purchase them from my NM playthrough, but I was wrong. Anyway, another easy chapter. Aside from a mistake where Bord got one-shotted at full HP by a Bolganone Mage (I had gotten overconfident and forgot to check their Mt, lol) it was smooth sailing. I reloaded the map save and cleared the map on the next shot.

There aren't any reinforcements on this map, so you only have to defeat the few enemies that are present. A good portion of those enemies are trapped in rooms, as well, so you can pick them off at leisure. The most threatening enemies are probably the Killer Edge Mercs in the main hallway north of your starting position. I had Draco!Cain+Abel tank them while Marth went off to loot the chests. Minerva and Hardin each grabbed a Master Key and opened the rooms for him. The enemies within the rooms are all archer classes. I had Oguma or Barts defeat most of them, with some Longbow support from Minerva if needed.

I allowed the Thieves to open some of the northern rooms and chests to save time, then trapped them with the Draco Bros. Breaking into the northern chamber of the map is mildly tricky. First clear the Bolg!Mage in the northernmost chest room; try to do so without actually entering the chamber, otherwise the Mages near the throne will move down to finish off your unit. Then I had units circle around both sides at once; if you position units correctly, you can lure one Mage left and one right, allowing you to clear them safely.

If Bantu is still alive, you can recruit Chiki. She's a pretty cool character, it's fun to plop the Star Orb on her and go nuts. If you level her, she's great at busting Manaketes. It's such a pain keeping Bantu around for so many chapters, though, with the gaiden requirements. I wasn't willing to put up with it this time, so I had to defeat her. I felt really bad about it. As a recruitable character, Chiki's so underpowered/leveled compared to most of your units that it's like kicking a puppy.

Recruited: None. Poor Chiki...

Gaiden Sacrifices: Technically Chiki...

Notable Loot: A ton of chests in this chapter. Starsphere, Lightsphere, Geosphere, Master Sealx2, Speedwings, 30k gold (I'm rich!), Seraph Robe, Spirit Dust, Silver Sword.

MVP: Marth gets MVP for this chapter, despite hardly fighting at all. It was like a full time job opening all those chests!

Shiida was at 20/-- and promoted to Draco. The next chapter is full of Pallies, so I expect she'll bust out the Wing Spear again.

I gave Marth the Seraph Robe. He's turned out pretty blah this run; his HP was sitting around 30 or so at level 21. I anticipate using him to fight Pallies and in the final chapter, so I wanted to shore up his durability a bit as a precaution. I should probably purchase some more for Bord and Lena, though...

I decided to give one Speedwing to Bord and one to Minerva. This should keep them relevant through the endgame, I think. Minerva needed it because she's been getting really odd levels; tons of Luck and Def and no Speed, as a Sniper =P.

I gave the Spirit Dust to Marich; kind of a no-brainer, really. No one else needs Magic except Lena, and he can take better advantage of it with his durability. It's honestly overkill at this point though; both Lena and Marich one-round any enemy they can double.

Looking ahead to C20, it looks like I'm in for a challenge. Everyone and their mom is packing a Brave Weapon. Wow =). I've never seen an FE game where Brave Weapons were so prevalent. Too bad they won't drop some of those items my way. Etzel will get Gaiden sacrificed so I can go to C20X, no big loss there. As before, there's no compelling character to go to C20X, but I like completion, and there are some good items there. Notably, the game's only Killer Axe is there, if you don't buy one from a shop. In the past, I've managed to relieve Camus of his Gradius lance without wasting any uses of it. I'll see if I can duplicate that feat on H5.

Edited October 18, 2009 by Blackbird

[_____]

What exactly is your team at this point? There's really no point in sacrificing Ymir (or anyone after 20x). Ymir is actually pretty decent if you reclass him to a Hero, if you need some filler.

[Blackbird]

Party Recap:

(After C20 cleared. I'll write the post for it in a bit, but I figured I've spammed this thread enough for today.)

Marth, Draco!Shiida, Draco!Cain, Draco!Abel, Berserker!Barts, Brsrk!Cord, Horseman!Bord (largely to keep his speed growth passable), Merc!Oguma (probably next to promote), Archer/Myr!Navarre, Sniper!Minerva, Sage!Lena, Sage!Marich, Peggy!Athena, Cav!Hardin, Horace (lamentably unused =P).

Lots of people sitting around at lv 19/20 waiting for promotion. Poor planning on my part; my NM run had a major leg up in that regard because I purchased a few Elysian Whips to experiment with.

I love/hate Shiida as a Draco. On the one hand, she greatly benefits from the Str + Def, and ruins lategame Pallies with her Wing Spear. On the other, I feel like her overkill speed growth is completely wasted on the class. Needless to say, she capped Spd as soon as she promoted.

It seems like I'll have a ton of Dracos in this party. I don't think you can have too many of them, though. The class seems pretty interchangeable with Paladin. I've noticed that some characters actually have existent Res growths as Draco, which is interesting. I doubt it would amount to a significant difference by the end of the game, though.

I've got a pretty major decision to make regarding this run, actually, which I would love to hear feedback on. Basically, I need to decide if I want to get the Falchion or go to 24X. 24X seems obvious for a completion run, but at the same time, I've never actually gotten the Falchion and done it "the proper way" before. Usually I just skip it because the orbs seem more useful.

Come to think of it, we can cheat by exploiting the Ohm staff to go to 24X, even if we obtain the Falchion, but that still leaves the tradeoff with the orbs. Looking at it this way, I have two options:

1) Give up the Star Orb and Light Orb to get the best version of the Falchion.

True!Falchion's a useful weapon against the final boss (I think?). Starlight is pretty lame. It's slightly inferior to Thoron, and worse than both Excalibur and Aura. Unless I was in a farfetched scenario where I had 4 or more Sages and/or some of the better tomes were consumed, Starlight is completely redundant except for killing Gharnef.

2) Keep the Star and Light Orbs, and settle for a weaker version of Falchion.

I've never actually attempted this, but can you forge Fake!Falchion? If you could, it wouldn't even be a question; money is abundant, so I'd take the utility of the orbs and just forge the Fake!Falchion back to the original's effectiveness. The Star Orb seems so much more valuable than Starlight's one-time application; the Star Orb lets me spam my legendary weapons as much as I want for the rest of the game. Then again, I do have Lena, and the Hammer staff has many uses in this game. It might be redundant when I can simply repair them. The Excalibur is the only one with significant wear right now (Forged Wyrmkiller/Ridersbane/Bows being more effective at killing the majority of enemies in this game, lol). The Light Orb isn't quite as useful, but it's definitely got applications for making bosses easier to hit (no Throne bonus).

So really, Starlight and a good Medeus killer or unlimited legendaries, +accuracy vs bosses, and a poor(?) Medeus killer. Thoughts?

Unrelated, but I miss FE3, where the Geosphere was cool and gave support bonuses.

Edited October 18, 2009 by Blackbird

[Candlejack]

Lena is your ideal Gharnef Killer if you have the Arm Scrolls to spare. Or just use Merric!Bishop for the extra RES.

[Blackbird]

Oddly, Marich has higher Res on my run. I suspect it is a combination of Lena getting RNG screwed and Marich being raised for some levels as a Curate. I could probably use either to fight Gharnef, though; Lena's working towards A in tomes and has passable Res.

C20

The big showdown with Camus. The first thing you notice about this map is how absurd it is that all the generic enemies have Brave Weapons. While intimidating, I found this to be a mixed blessing, in practice. The Brave Weapons do slightly less damage than Steel weapons. Oddly, Brave Lances and Swords are less accurate than their Steel counterparts, while Brave Axes are on par with Silver Axes. Fortunately, there are none of the latter on this map =P. With the decreased accuracy of the enemy, I found my more evasive/supported units to be pretty dodgy, often putting enemy hit rates into the thirties. While the enemies are guaranteed to attack you twice, they are likely to miss at least one of those times. Combined with the Brave Weapon's lower damage per hit (Defense is applied twice to two weaker hits), I found that the enemies were generally hurting me a lot less than if they had made a single, hard-to-avoid attack with a Silver Weapon. This was especially true if they missed one of their two attacks. (likely). Of course, the other side of this is that I had to be extra careful to guard my slower or less evasive units, because they would be annihilated by consecutive attacks.

There are also several Ballisticians here, which is annoying, especially for my flyers. Flyers are very useful here (with the rivers, forest, and mountain range impeding ground units) but the Arrowspate restricts that usefulness.

I arrayed my Berserkers and Dracos as close as I could to the nearby Arrowspate and Generals. On the first turn, Cain and Abel flew over and destroyed the closest Arrowspate, while Barts and Cord launched an amphibious assault and destroyed the Generals with crits and Hammers. Surprisingly, Shiida could tank both the Hoistflamme and two Brave Lance hits, so I let her counter one of the Pallies to the west. On turn two, I had Abel and Shiida fly around the Pallies and eliminate the Hoistflamme, while everyone else concentrated on eliminating all the nearby Brave Lance Pallies. Forged effective weapons are extremely helpful here for cutting through their massive HP count. After that, it was mostly cleanup. A few foot units went over to get the remaining Arrowspate. There are a few Brave Sword Pallies to the north; Dracos cut their damage down significantly. After they are cleared, you can feel free to drop the drawbridge safely.

Getting Gradivus Lance + Pachyderm without wasting uses: That weapon is mine to break, Camus! I experimented a lot with this, hoping to find some way to make Camus advance without leaving a unit within his range. That was pretty much a failure, but it's still possible to do it, it just requires some luck and planning. You must minimize Camus' attacks and make Camus miss once; if he does, the weapon's uses won't be wasted. To do this, you'll need a well-supported axe unit, like Cord, preferably with a Forged Poleax and the Light Sphere. Additionally, one or more decent Snipers with Longbows is a big help(or perhaps a Ballistician). Your axe unit is to lure Camus into range. A unit with good evasion and supports can drop Camus' accuracy to 30% or so. After Camus approaches, weaken him with a few Longbow and/or Ballistician attacks, then finish him in one shot with a Forged Poleax. He might be in a forest himself, so bringing the Light Orb isn't a bad idea.

On the same turn you plan to lure Camus, park a supported Dracoknight in range of the Pachyderm, but out of Camus' range (over the central mountain range is good). The Ballistician has a 20-30% chance of hitting, depending on who you use. After Camus moves to attack your axe unit, you are free to fly in and defeat the Ballistician at close quarters. Once you are in it's dead zone, it's finished. An axe is better, as the Brave Lance General might move to attack you.

So yeah, doable, but they still might hit you on a 30 or so. I guess it's not the end of the world. You get Hammerne on this map, too =P.

Lorenz guards the capture point and is inferior to the enemy Generals you fight on this map. Recruit him if you want, or just defeat him. He's really terrible. I recruited him for the Silver Lance, then suicided him on the nearby Brave Lance General. Etzel added some healing utility for this map, then became a gaiden sacrifice, as well. Thankfully, this is the last of the annoying gaiden requirements (unless you want to exploit the 24X Falchion loophole, lol).

Hax 2 Turn Victory: Needs a little luck, very doable. Warp Marth to a position 1E of Lorenz and recruit him. Have Lorenz move 1E of Marth, 1S of the enemy Brave Lance General. On the enemy turn, the Brave Lance General will be unable to one-round Lorenz, and will prevent Camus from reaching Marth, so Camus will gib Lorenz instead. The Pachyderm and Brave Lance General will attack Marth. Marth dies if all attacks hit, but he can survive the Brave Lance General's attacks if you aren't underleveled. If you can dodge the Pachyderm, Marth will survive, and it has a ~30% chance to hit at best. With a little RNG abuse, you can capture on the second turn. It's questionable if you should actually do this, though. You could complete the game without the Gradivus, and you might not have Lena to use the Hammerne, depending on your party. Still, even setting that aside, they are useful items, if available, and you stand to skip a lot of EXP, too. I opted to complete the map this run, rather than use this method.

Hax 1 Turn Victory: Warp Shiida to Lorenz and recruit him. Have him move away, then warp Marth with a different Sage and seize. Again, not strictly recommended, and kind of wasteful of your Warp staves.

Recruited: Lorenz

Gaiden Sacrifices: Lorenz, Etzel.

Notable Loot: Gradivus, Silver Sword, Devil Sword, Pachyderm, Hammerne.

MVP: Tough call. Dracos own, but so does Cord for dodging Camus. Hmmm...

Bord promoted after this map, to Horseman.

Gradivus is really cool. It's like a super-javelin.

I could still use some feedback on the Falchion question, by the way =).

Edited October 20, 2009 by Blackbird

[_____]

I don't really have an opinion on it, but I would like to clarify something. The weaker Falchion is not forgable, just like the stronger one.

[Candlejack]

You're going to use Ymir much? Might as well...

[Blackbird]

Thanks for the clarification on the Falchion, Ninji.

Oliver: I'm mostly doing this map for completions sake; I'm not really going out of the way to recruit Ymir. However, I'll field him for at least one map, C21 (the game allows you to field your whole party). Looking at his stats, Ymir actually looks pretty passable if reclassed into Hero. If nothing else, he's got a pile of HPs... I'm imagining a Largo scenario =P.

C20X

A pretty easy chapter. I can't quite put my finger on it, but the enemies here seemed really feeble for some reason. Maybe they were slower than on the last map; I found that most of my units were doubling the Paladins, and in the case of the Axe Brigade and the Draco Bros., one rounding. Most of the enemies were killing my units in 3 to 4 hits, too, so my durability was solid (by H5 standards). I actually had to restart a few times because Cain slaughtered too many enemies, and thus they were able to attack him consecutively =P. I got a little overconfident because I was blowing through the level, lol.

Dracos are good on this chapter, as they can fly freely over the lava. Bring Wyrmslayer weapons and Horseslayers.

I usually clear this map by sending Marth, a Merc/Myrmidon, and a Sage to the NE corner, the Dracos and Snipers west, and the Axemen and remaining units NW. Shiida was also a Dracoknight; she was to assist whichever group needed help the most, but to be honest, they all did fine without her =P.

The Merc kills the NE Fire Dragon with a Wyrmslayer, then Marth talks to Ymir and loots the chests. After this, I use a Warp to send Marth to the opposite corner of the map, where he moves northward, looting the remaining chests. The Warp isn't strictly necessary, but I do it to save time, rather than have Marth trek across the entire map.

Earlier, I sent the Draco Bros. to fight with the Armors on the west bridge. Amusingly, I found the AI prefers to prioritize attacking with the Javelin Armor before the Horseman. If you position correctly, the Javelin Armor will block your Draco, preventing the Horseman from inflicting nasty bow damage. The Dracos pushed across the bridge steadily, with Minerva and Navarre assisting with their bows and Long Bows when needed. I found that I was able to clear the area by the time Marth was ready to Warp down, so Marth was free to continue looting unmolested.

In the center of the map, the Axe Brigade runs over a few solo Horsemen and Pallies that rush you; they aren't a threat alone. The Generals are fodder for your promoted Axe units.

Eventually, the group of 5 Pallies near the boss will begin to move. Depending on which group is further ahead, they will either go to the SE towards the center of the map or due south towards the SW corner of the map. In my case, if the Pallies went south, I could use the Dracos to chokepoint the bridge and destroy the Pallies gradually with my Snipers. If they went towards the center, they would meet ruin at the end of crit Forged Poleax and Shiida's Wing spear.

I finished off the Bishops near the boss with a few underleveled units to cap the last of my units at 20/--.

The boss is a forgettable General with no 2 range.

Recruited: Ymir

Gaiden Sacrifices: None! I think I'll opt to get Falchion and cheat my way into C24X, which means I'll probably sacrifice one more unit for that purpose(then resurrect them later).

Notable Loot: Killer Lance, Killer Axe, Wo Dao, Killer Bow, Poleax, Longbow. This map really kits out all your classes with crit weapons.

MVP: Lena for saving like 10 turns by Warping Marth? I don't know, Cain sure reaped faces on this map...

C21 is the map I've been dreading the most on H5, with it's numerous Dracoknight reinforcements (that move immediately). The mass Brave weapons return, and a couple units have Forged Killer weapons, too. Could get ugly. The secret shop is on this map, so I'll probably go shopping.

Edited October 21, 2009 by Blackbird