FE8 100% Enemy Growth Playthrough.

[Hello]

Chapter 13: Bolting and Sleep. Great Knight and Sniper. Babying newfag Gerik.

Really fun and challenging. I even kept Gerik and Tethys alive (I had two Hero Crests I wasn't going to use, so bleh.) So I head South with my good units, and Ephraim and Duessel and Seth go to the east. Ephraim and Gerik take out a loldier while Tethys dances for Ephraim to get him ready to accept Cavalier rapeage. Reginleaf runs out of uses and I cry a little bit inside. Gilliam, Neimi, Franz, Vanessa and Forde move their way inside the first marsh. Vanessa goes and attacks Selena with Javelin, really was a smart idea (first time she died and I had to reset and waste RNGs.) Everything is going A-OK then all of the sudden. BAM, the gheyness meter hits me. TROUBADOUR 8% HITS FRANZ. I'm like great, might as well have Gilliam guard him like a boss. And it's working until Great Knight raper feels like "Gilliam is too hard, lemme go kill Franz" Hammers Franz like a nutcase, 6HP is left on Franz . I'm like ohgreat. Next turn I stand by Franz, savestate and find the RNG (remember Gilliam has B support with Franz) for Battle Axe, to OHKO this Great Great Knight. Took about 80 RNGs and I'm like woot. Meanwhile on the east-coast (woot woot.) Ephraim and Gerik are dying. Ephraim takes the Killer Lance out of inventory that I stored there a while ago and hands Gerik Joshua's unused Killing Edge. Gerik says "lol wut is this?" and Ephraim says "Their doom." And crit rng spam happens and a bajillion RNGs later... Duessel takes out a fighter/bandit with his Silver Axe. Duessel isn't able to kamikaze, which is kind of good, for the time being. So anyway Neimi and Moulder the legendary 'stache. Fight their way through Pegasi and Pirates. Forde plunders the village and takes the Barrier staff. He eats it for extra storage. Vanessa and Forde finally start dating get A Support. Franz gets attacked by Pegasi that can do 2 damage and Moulder wasn't anywhere near him. Gilliam support allowed him to dodge in his sleep. Sniper was taken down by a Gerik critical and Vanessa critical. Gerik goes through the rest of the map with RNG abusing crits and amazing levelups because Gerik was nowhere near the rest of the team. And I don't have the guts to kill a slutdancer and her manfriend. Selena isn't even on a fort, which is kind of weird. Hardest chapter by far, mainly because I had to use a strategy. :(

Name    | Lvl   | Exp  | HP | ST | SK | SP | LK | DF | RS | Supports	
Ephraim |  18   | 18.95 | 37 | 20 | 20 | 20 | 22 | 19 | 15 | B Forde
Seth    |   3   |  3.03 | 32 | 16 | 15 | 14 | 15 | 13 | 10 | B Eirika; A Franz      	- I guess he only got attacked once. o.0 Kept dying though.
Franz   | 20/ 3 |  3.38 | 44 | 24 | 22 | 24 | 16 | 24 | 21 | A Seth; B Gilliam  	- A Sword, B Lance, D Axe.
Gilliam | 17/ 9 |  9.58 | 50 | 29 | 27 | 24 | 20 | 30 | 25 | B Franz; A Neimi  	- E Sword, A Lance, A Axe
Vanessa | 20/ 4 |  4.00 | 41 | 24 | 23 | 23 | 20 | 23 | 23 | B Moulder; A Forde 
Moulder | 20/ 2 |  2.23 | 41 | 23 | 21 | 21 | 13 | 22 | 21 | B Vanessa; A Colm 
Neimi   | 18/ 5 |  5.88 | 34 | 24 | 25 | 24 | 19 | 24 | 18 | B Colm; A Gilliam
Forde    |  20   | 20.-- | 38 | 20 | 20 | 20 | 21 | 20 | 11 | B Ephraim; A Vanessa
Duessel  | --/ 8 |  8.37 | 41 | 17 | 12 | 12 |  8 | 17 |  9 | 			  	
Tethys   |   2   |  2.40 | 19 |  1 |  3 | 13 | 11 |  6 |  5 | C Gerik
Gerik     |  14   | 14.91 | 36 | 18 | 17 | 17 | 12 | 14 |  8 | C Tethys

I probably should of kept Marisa to make that a support threesome circle.

Onward to take a Castle for myself.

Edited December 24, 2010 by Hello

[Mekkah]

Hate to be a buzzkill but the RNG abuse seems to be defeating the point of making the game harder :(

[Parrhesia]

Hardest chapter by far, mainly because I had to use a strategy. :(

Yeah, this...this sorta broke the illusion of difficulty.

[Jaybee]

Agreed. You might as well have set PC growths to 100% as well to make it easier for yourself >_>

[Hello]

It's still super hard, even with RNG, it's even harder then Juna fruit, just because of the reason, you can't have 20-30 luck and 40-50 hp before promotion. I'm in the castle right now, and I can't even get a good RNG where it saves all of my people from being Silenced, Beserked and Sleeped. RNG is alot harder than Juna fruit, just because of the lesser amounts of levelups and exp. Also in the caslte of fundoom, max magic Bishops and Druids make the game uber hard.

=/ I can't figure out a good, and safe strategy to boot. I'm probably going to rush the side opposite of Ephraim with Moulder, Vanessa, Neimi, Gilliam, Franz and Seth, just because of the supports. Tethys will help alot making dances for anyone on Ephraim's side. It doesn't help with Ephraim has 90% chance of Berserk and Forde has 100% chance. Moulder has a 50% chanced of being silenced, so I'm going to have to run him on the Sleep side for he can have a use.

[dondon151]

You can buy Pure Waters in Caer Pelyn and Taizel. That should reduce staff accuracy on Moulder to 15. Ephraim and Forde are lost causes but you at least have a very high chance of keeping Moulder safe.

[Tables]

I really, really disagree with you saying it's harder than the Juna Fruit run.

1. RNG abuse means you get 5+ stats per level. With the Juna Fruit, you may level up 3x faster, but at that point you're getting 0-2 points per level regularly.
   
2. RNG can easily promote people, since by the time they hit --/20, they've capped most stats. Juna Fruit can't, it needs a ton more levels to get those lower growth important stats up (what was it, level 50ish when I promoted most people?)
   
3. After promotion there's very limited EXP left to gain extra levels. With Juna Fruit, you basically gain nothing extra after promotion, at least not until the last few chapters. With RNG abuse, you can take 5 levels and you've basically capped everything.
   
4. 30 LUK and 60 HP mean diddly-squat compared to the above advantages. RNG abuse can still reach ~40 HP with most units and then promote to reach around 45, and LUK is getting to a solid 20-22. 30 LUK gives minor avoid and hit increases, 60 HP gives a significant survival improvement, which offset by lower DEF/RES and SPD.
   
5. The strength of units with the Juna Fruit decreases hugely as you add more units in. The strength of units with RNG abuse only decreases slightly, so you can have a larger army.
   

I find it amazing that, if you compare my character stats to your character stats chapter by chapter, you can see your units have both a small lead in most stats (especially the big three - STR, SPD, DEF), and you have an army about twice the size of mine. Yet despite that, you still claim your run is much harder than mine.

[Hello]

1.) You're getting 0-6 points per level. With RNG it's random. Honestly you have an average of 3 stats per level. 3x speed * 3 = 9 stats vs 5-6 stats. Your point proved yourself wrong. Even if 3 is rounding up, over 200% total growth proved you wrong.

2.) True, but looking at legitness, most of my characters have no way of getting to 60 HP, except with the few Angelic robes, which will make my way harder, because you have Juna Fruit saving you on exp, and an average person has an 70% growth stat in HP.

3. Except HP and Luck. A five levels won't give General Gilliam full stats, but I can tell, it's not your point. Even though, after promoting with most max stats, you max almost everything in five levels with your Juna fruit way.

4. Endgame the challenge will still be the same, mine will probably be easier because of Longbow Neimi and Gerik. Still it'll be harder because of the lack of HP my characters are going to have.

5. It honestly depends if you got lucky or not, too. When you have people already promoted, and could use a helpful backup, go ahead and give the exp to someone else, you could of afforded to keep Gerik or even Cormag, you just needed to baby them a bit, and you could of had an extra kamikaze pilot for those Dracos. My run will actually be harder then your's because I also increased the growth rates of bosses also.

I haven't personally played yours to compare, but seriously, Ephraim's route vs Eirika's route. Ephraim's is alot harder, even in the normal game. We have Druid and Bishops with max magic with Sleep and Berserk, I'm not sure if Eirika's route is the easiest, but it's definitely alot easier than Ephraims.

I was using your's as a guide, if that is what you were referring to, and then I guess, I'm sorry. But claiming that my route is harder then yours is definitely plausible. I could call it even, just because I'm RNG abusing and I took the Ephraim route. If I took Eirika's, mine would be easier, but I took Ephraim's. And by endgame most of my units won't be claiming 60 HP, which is going to suck, since damage there is going to be siick.

[Parrhesia]

1.) You're getting 0-6 points per level. With RNG it's random. Honestly you have an average of 3 stats per level. 3x speed * 3 = 9 stats vs 5-6 stats. Your point proved yourself wrong. Even if 3 is rounding up, over 200% total growth proved you wrong.

I don't really care, but...

DON'T FUCK WITH IET ON MATH

HE WILL USE YOUR FACE AS A TROPHY RACK

Just gonna quote this;

Next turn I stand by Franz, savestate and find the RNG (remember Gilliam has B support with Franz) for Battle Axe, to OHKO this Great Great Knight. Took about 80 RNGs and I'm like woot

...yeah.

Edited December 25, 2010 by Furetchen

[Scarlet]

How can an RNG-Abuse run possibly be "harder" than a Juna Fruit run when you can constantly force ridiculous things like a 99 Hit attack missing or a 1% crit to happen with a 100% certainty? You shouldn't even need much of a strategy.

[Tables]

We probably shouldn't be flat arguing this, rather, each do the other's run and see what happens :P. Unfortunately I have enough leisure things going on already...

1.) You're getting 0-6 points per level. With RNG it's random. Honestly you have an average of 3 stats per level. 3x speed * 3 = 9 stats vs 5-6 stats. Your point proved yourself wrong. Even if 3 is rounding up, over 200% total growth proved you wrong.

That only applies when stats aren't capped. Let's check my run for what level characters cap stats:

Character | Cap 1 | Cap 2 |
Eirika    |  17   |  32   |
Franz     |  21   |  39   |
Gilliam   |  26   |  26   |
Vanessa   |  14   |  21   |
Moulder   |  33   |  33   |

For obvious reasons, it's the higher growths that cap first (except my awesome Gilliam's SPD). After 2 caps, growths are down to about 180%ish. And most of my units promoted about level 50. Basically, the point I'm making is that, by the time my units gain levels ultra-fast, their levels are also very mediocre.

To put this another way: Assume my units averaged a total of 180 points of stats at promotion (about correct, max would be 190 but few if any actually reached that). The average total stats they started with was ~54 and they gained ~49 levels on average. So, they gained 126 points over 49 levels: Or an average of 250% per level, which started high and ended low. Compare this to yours, you're levelling slower, but gaining an average of about 550% (complete estimate) per level, consistently - so you started stronger, and my rapid middle never managed to catch you up.

2.) True, but looking at legitness, most of my characters have no way of getting to 60 HP, except with the few Angelic robes, which will make my way harder, because you have Juna Fruit saving you on exp, and an average person has an 70% growth stat in HP.

Irrelevant. 60HP is nice but by no means as important as other stats.

3. Except HP and Luck. A five levels won't give General Gilliam full stats, but I can tell, it's not your point. Even though, after promoting with most max stats, you max almost everything in five levels with your Juna fruit way.

It's a bit longer than that but point taken.

4. Endgame the challenge will still be the same, mine will probably be easier because of Longbow Neimi and Gerik. Still it'll be harder because of the lack of HP my characters are going to have.

By endgame you'll be on 50+HP for most characters and have twice as many characters, all at or near caps. Yours will be easier.

5. It honestly depends if you got lucky or not, too. When you have people already promoted, and could use a helpful backup, go ahead and give the exp to someone else, you could of afforded to keep Gerik or even Cormag, you just needed to baby them a bit, and you could of had an extra kamikaze pilot for those Dracos. My run will actually be harder then your's because I also increased the growth rates of bosses also.

Harder bosses makes little difference - when everything else is capped, a capped boss as well is just another enemy to kill. Perhaps it matters for kill boss objectives, but that's about it. As for me training extra characters, perhaps, but, regarding Gerik, need I remind you of this:

And that was just to pass the chapter comfortably (admittedly I later discovered Tana could have recruited Innes but... eh.

I haven't personally played yours to compare, but seriously, Ephraim's route vs Eirika's route. Ephraim's is alot harder, even in the normal game. We have Druid and Bishops with max magic with Sleep and Berserk, I'm not sure if Eirika's route is the easiest, but it's definitely alot easier than Ephraims.

Uh? There's only two routes. If Ephraim > Eirika in difficulty then surely Eirika's is easiest. And actually, consider the nature of this run. Then consider chapters 9 and 10 Eirika have a number of promoted enemies (read: max stat promoted enemies) that MUST be killed (ch. 9's anyway, ch.10's are very hard to avoid though). Ephraim doesn't throw any of those at you until chapter 11.

I was using your's as a guide, if that is what you were referring to, and then I guess, I'm sorry. But claiming that my route is harder then yours is definitely plausible. I could call it even, just because I'm RNG abusing and I took the Ephraim route. If I took Eirika's, mine would be easier, but I took Ephraim's. And by endgame most of my units won't be claiming 60 HP, which is going to suck, since damage there is going to be siick.

I don't know, still...

Final point I'd make (even if I made this before) is that you even claimed that, until chapter 13, you didn't have to use strategy. I had to numerous times, even in the early chapters. So... yeah.

But, we'll see. I'm interesting in seeing what else goes on.

[Hello]

Okay, I'm sorry, I didn't quite make myself clear.

Juna fruit run is definitely harder then RNG run.

Juna fruit Eirika route run is eaiser then RNG Ephraim route run. Just because of the lame chapter I'm stuck on =/

1. Caps stop with RNG abuse too.

2. I feel like RNG abusing is kind of like a burst of energy, gaining it fast then stopping, while Juna fruit is a consistent growth, both end up with good units though, just RNG is better sooner.

4. Yeah, you're right, probably the only reason why I'm doing RNG instead of Juna fruit, is because I'm the biggest noob at Fire Emblem. It's kind of like Pokemon, I could make a good team on paper, but fail when it comes to putting it to the test.

5. I guess I forgot about all the promoted units in Eirika's route, it's such a beeze when I play on my GBA. =/

Doing a good RNG requires a strategy. I guess I didn't do an amazing strategy, I just inched my way towards the boss, which I've said before. On chapter 13, I was serious though, the only one where I didn't inch my way to an annoying boss, mostly because the boss's bolting did like 5 damage. But I had to worry about Hammer Great Knight with sleeping Franz, which was a problem I ignored because of previous RNG'd levelups. Sure I could of found a different RNG to sport my good levelup, but sleeping Franz felt alot more fun.

I'll get back to playing it after Christmas though.

Edited December 26, 2010 by Hello

[Tables]

Chapter 14, that'd have to be... hmm... Yeah, Max stat Berserk staff Druids doesn't sound too tasty. Sounds insane, but considered deploying Natasha? She can Restore Staff IIRC.

[dondon151]

Pure Water, man. Pure Water. Or Barrier. Judging by those numbers it's impossible that Moulder is facing 50 hit with a Pure Water.

[Smiley Jim]

Chapter 14, that'd have to be... hmm... Yeah, Max stat Berserk staff Druids doesn't sound too tasty. Sounds insane, but considered deploying Natasha? She can Restore Staff IIRC.

He had killed off Natasha in Chapter 5. So basically, no can do.

[Tables]

Ah. *Checks his team*

Only 1 staff user, and all others are dead or not recruited yet. Awesome. Yeah, Pure Waters on Moulder (Talisman as well if necessary but probably overkill), Barrier others frequently, have a spare Restore Staff. Good luck.

[Hello]

I can have Moulder Barrier twice, or I can use alot of Pure waters. I'm wondering how I'm going to get Rennac. My characters aren't going to use the stat boosters, just for added challenge because selling them and getting Rennac for the Member card (couldn't save L'arachel, died before Vanessa could reach her) will be alot easier, buying killer weapons. I have enough Money as it is, and getting the 10k boost in gold next chapter (Innes's White Jem) will boost my funds anyway