Low-Tier Playlog

[Dark Sage]

Again. Should I use stat boosting items or not?

Sure, why not?

[dondon151]

I don't really know what "DA125" is, but it's really hard to keep low turn counts in mind when you're using people like Gilliam, who get doubled by enemies more than half time, miss more than half the time, and barely do any damage anyway. So turn counts are actually at the back of my mind.

No, here's the problem: you think that 10/20/5 Ewan is possible by endgame.

See, if you're only using low tier units, then the earlier joining ones will be far superior to the later joining ones because of giant level advantages. By the end of the game, you should be going through the game quickly enough that Ewan will be lucky to even reach 10/10.

Furthermore, you're making the absolute worst decisions ever. Why are you using super trainees when their normal unpromoted alternatives are far superior (due to higher con)? Why are you even considering general over great knight for Gilliam?

Edited July 22, 2011 by dondon151

[StinDuh]

Sure, why not?

Well do you think it takes away from the fact that I'm using really crappy units? I mean, if I just stuff them full of stat-boosters, is the integrity being kept up?

Furthermore, you're making the absolute worst decisions ever. Why are you using super trainees when their normal unpromoted alternatives are far superior (due to higher con)? Why are you even considering general over great knight for Gilliam?

Um... did you read the rest of the topic? I'm purposefully choosing the worst promotions. On purpose.

Edited July 22, 2011 by StinDuh

[Dark Sage]

You're still using shitty characters, so I don't see why that would be a problem.

[StinDuh]

You're still using shitty characters, so I don't see why that would be a problem.

Fair enough, I'll use 'em.

No, here's the problem: you think that 10/20/5 Ewan is possible by endgame.

See, if you're only using low tier units, then the earlier joining ones will be far superior to the later joining ones because of giant level advantages. By the end of the game, you should be going through the game quickly enough that Ewan will be lucky to even reach 10/10.

And if you think Ewan will barely get to 10/10, I guess it doesn't even matter, now does it?

Edited July 22, 2011 by StinDuh

[dondon151]

Um... did you read the rest of the topic? I'm purposefully choosing the worst promotions. On purpose.

Did -you- read the rest of your own topic? Especially the part where it said "low turn counts?"

[StinDuh]

Did -you- read the rest of your own topic? Especially the part where it said "low turn counts?"

Did you read the part where it says "while keeping the integrity of the playthrough, IS PREFERRED"

I'll put it simpler.

I'm not going for necessarily low turn counts. Sure, it'd be nice, but I'm not trying to just speed through each level. I'm seeing how easy it is to beat the game with the crappiest characters. Not how fast.

Edited July 22, 2011 by StinDuh

[Dark Sage]

How is deliberately shooting yourself in the foot with class choices somehow destroying the integrity of the playthrough? I mean, they're still completely horrible units anyway, there's no need to cause yourself so much unnecessary pain.

[Rewjeo]

dondon, not everyone's definition of low turncounts is the same as yours. Don't be obnoxious about it. Besides, eight turns on chapter six when your team consists of a SPD-screwed Gilliam, Ross, and Neimi isn't bad.

[StinDuh]

How is deliberately shooting yourself in the foot with class choices somehow destroying the integrity of the playthrough? I mean, they're still completely horrible units anyway, there's no need to cause yourself so much unnecessary pain.

Whats more interesting, crappy units who turn out sub-par because of promotion advantages, or crappy units who turn out crappy because of promotion disadvantages? It's more interesting to watch someone use notoriously bad units in notoriously bad classes to beat the game. Especially if it's on hard mode. It's supposed to be hard. Not unbeatable. But hard. Hard enough to change it up for once in a while, which is something I rarely do. I have never done a "themed" runthrough like this before, and I thought, "Hey, if I'm going to do bad on purpose, why not do REALLY bad on purpose?" So yeah. The point of the playthrough is to not only deliberately shoot myself in the foot, but shoot myself in both feet, and maybe both legs, to the point where it's incredible hard to walk.

dondon, not everyone's definition of low turncounts is the same as yours. Don't be obnoxious about it. Besides, eight turns on chapter six when your team consists of a SPD-screwed Gilliam, Ross, and Neimi isn't bad.

Thank you. It was really tough getting that Orion's Bolt.

Edit: Also on a side note, I take back what I said about using Stat boosting items. After writing that paragraph, I realize that I should not use them.

Edited July 22, 2011 by StinDuh

[Dark Sage]

Whats more interesting, crappy units who turn out sub-par because of promotion advantages, or crappy units who turn out crappy because of promotion disadvantages? It's more interesting to watch someone use notoriously bad units in notoriously bad classes to beat the game. Especially if it's on hard mode. It's supposed to be hard. Not unbeatable. But hard. Hard enough to change it up for once in a while, which is something I rarely do. I have never done a "themed" runthrough like this before, and I thought, "Hey, if I'm going to do bad on purpose, why not do REALLY bad on purpose?" So yeah. The point of the playthrough is to not only deliberately shoot myself in the foot, but shoot myself in both feet, and maybe both legs, to the point where it's incredible hard to walk.

Right. Don't let me or dondon stop you in also sawing off your own hands, gnawing off your arms, and eating your own ass while you're at it too. Ideally earning low turn counts and deliberately amputating your own legs essentially are about as contradictory as you can get.

[StinDuh]

Right. Don't let me or dondon stop you in also sawing off your own hands, gnawing off your arms, and eating your own ass while you're at it too. Ideally earning low turn counts and deliberately amputating your own legs essentially are about as contradictory as you can get.

Exactly! I think you finally understand! The fact that they're so contradictory is why I said low turn counts are not a must, why they're not important at all, really. Again, it's just something to showcase, something I thought would be interesting to add in. If my units fail me and I get high turn counts, then I ain't startin over. I got a pretty high 35 turns on a chapter because Gilliam, Ross, and Neimi weren't hitting much and were getting hit by everything. Did I care? No. Why? Because it shows how hard it is to use those units.

[dondon151]

dondon, not everyone's definition of low turncounts is the same as yours. Don't be obnoxious about it.

Uh, I'm 100% sure that there is an objective concept of "low" and that "turncounts" is a very clearly defined word.

Exactly! I think you finally understand... Because it shows how hard it is to use those units.

It doesn't actually show anything to that extent. All it shows is that poor decisions lead to negative consequences, and we've learned quite enough of that in our elementary school D.A.R.E. lectures.

If you pick the worst characters, wouldn't it make a lot more sense to show them at their best than at their worst?

[StinDuh]

It doesn't actually show anything to that extent. All it shows is that poor decisions lead to negative consequences, and we've learned quite enough of that in our elementary school D.A.R.E. lectures.

If you pick the worst characters, wouldn't it make a lot more sense to show them at their best than at their worst?

Yes. That WOULD make sense. Why don't you go and do that? I'll do it the way I want. You can do it the way you want. After all, this IS my play through that I'm logging. It is following the rules that I made. So lets just say that I'll keep doing it this way. You're accomplishing nothing by continuing to tell me I'm making poor decisions. I'm going to continue the way I have been whether you agree or not. Thank you. Excuse me now, as I'd like to get back to actually playing my game.

[Dark Sage]

Yes. That WOULD make sense. Why don't you go and do that? I'll do it the way I want. You can do it the way you want. After all, this IS my play through that I'm logging. It is following the rules that I made. So lets just say that I'll keep doing it this way. You're accomplishing nothing by continuing to tell me I'm making poor decisions. I'm going to continue the way I have been whether you agree or not. Thank you. Excuse me now, as I'd like to get back to actually playing my game.

Once again, I don't see why you would WANT to go cripple yourself that badly by making awful decisions. Like I said, the characters are still going to be awful no matter what you do, so why not make it at least easier for yourself instead of doing something that makes no sense for no reason?

dondon's trying to help you out here. I mean, would you really have fun playing the game with the worst characters in their worst possible classes? I don't think you would. Who honestly needs the frustration? Unless you're a masochist or something, I really think you'll regret it later on.

[StinDuh]

Once again, I don't see why you would WANT to go cripple yourself that badly by making awful decisions. Like I said, the characters are still going to be awful no matter what you do, so why not make it at least easier for yourself instead of doing something that makes no sense for no reason?

dondon's trying to help you out here. I mean, would you really have fun playing the game with the worst characters in their worst possible classes? I don't think you would. Who honestly needs the frustration? Unless you're a masochist or something, I really think you'll regret it later on.

Once again, I don't see how I haven't explained it enough for you. Like I said, I want it to be hard for me, so why not make it harder for me, instead of doing something that would make this less interesting. dondon may be trying to help. I understand what y'all are saying. Y'all don't understand what I'm saying. I'm having a lot of fun with this run through actually. And no I'm not a masochist. I might regret it later. Okay. But again. The point of the play log is to see the difficulty of using the crappy characters in the crappy classes. So please. Allow me to continue without telling me I'm being an idiot. I get it. This doesn't make sense in any normal sense. This isn't normal sense. This is I'm bored and want to do something new sense.

Edit: I finally finished chapter seven....

Chapter 7:

Units: Neimi, Gilliam, Ross, Eirika, Seth

Turns: 22

Again, Seth is only coming in case I need someone to rescue Eirika. I doubt I will since this is a relatively tight chapter if done correctly, but better safe than sorry. That and I won't have to wait for Eirika's 5 Mov to get her to the gate to seize it if Gilliam and Ross and Neimi take it before she gets there. That way I can have Seth just run her up there. So I started off sending Ross and Neimi up to quickly take care of the fighter and mage while Gilliam held the bridge as a choke point. After that, sent them eastward like you normally would. Ross needs to gain some speed. He's annoyingly slow. I understand Gilliam being slow, but... Ugh. Gilliam is still managing to miss almost everything and get doubled by almost everyone. He's level 12, I don't understand. Neimi is so far my best unit. She can one-round a good amount of enemies. She's my only unit who's consistently doubling. I didn't pack many vulneraries... and it's proving to be harmful. Well there was nothing special about this chapter. Neimi and Gilliam took the boss down. Nothing spectacular. A couple of level ups:

Name    Lv Class       HP  Str Skl Spd Lck Def Res WeaponRank
Gilliam 13 Knight      32  12  9   3   8   15  5   Lance: B
Ross    8  Journey(2)  28  13  9   8   17  9   9   Axe:   C
Neimi   13  Archer     23  13  13  15  11  5   2   Bow:   B

Note: Gilliam has not gotten a single spd increase. His base spd is 3. And he's only gotten +3 in skl in 9 level ups. That's what I call RNG screwed.

Edited July 22, 2011 by StinDuh

[Life]

Once again, I don't see how I haven't explained it enough for you. Like I said, I want it to be hard for me

Chapter 7:

Turns: 22

Naw, you just suck at this point. Seriously? 22 turns? I can't even achieve that on an Eirika solo.

[StinDuh]

Naw, you just suck at this point. Seriously? 22 turns? I can't even achieve that on an Eirika solo.

Okay so apparently my luck sucks and my whole game is RNG screwed. No, I don't suck. Please refer to 8 turns on chapter 6, a huge, wide open map with fog of war. I took a lot of risks in chapter 6, but that was because I wanted the Orion's Bolt. Please look at the characters and stats I'm dealing with. I'm not necessarily trying to get low turn counts, but I am not deliberately trying to get high ones either. That's ridiculous. I'm sorry that I've had terrible luck. Excuse me that Gilliam and Ross are so terrible that they can't one-round anyone. Also, look at where Eirika is on the tier list. She's much higher than Gilliam, Ross, or Neimi. Even on the Ephraim Route tier list she's much higher.

[Dark Sage]

The point is, it's an Eirika solo. You have many more units at your disposal than Life did. The fact you took 22 turns really does say something. And I'm not trying to be jerk for no reason. It's because right now, you're acting like Tim Buckley, in the sense you're blaming everything else but yourself.

[StinDuh]

Fine. It's my fault Gilliam is missing with 69 hit and Ross isn't doubling.

Edit: Okay, I didn't even notice it was taking me so long until I looked at the end. Seriously, it's not something I'm really thinking about. And seriously, it doesn't matter to me. I'm taking turn counts out 'cause you wont shut up about it. You should feel proud.

Edited July 22, 2011 by StinDuh

[Anouleth]

Silencer actually gives LESS exp. If silencer is activated, the EXP is multiplied by -1.8, so it effectively gives 1/5 normal EXP.

No, that's not how it works. EXP is multiplied by 1.8.

Experience from defeating enemy = [Experience from doing damage + (Experience from defeating (base) + 20 + Boss bonus + Thief bonus, take as 0 if negative)] x Silencer bonus

Silencer bonus: ~1.8 if the user activates Silencer, 1 if not.

That is a tilde, not a minus sign. A tilde before a number indicates that it might not be perfectly accurate, so it should be read as "roughly 1.8".

...Seriously, go look at the Average Stats for Pupil(3). They're pretty good. Compared to Mage Knight, they're so much better, it really isn't even a question. Ewan will double with most things anyway, so the Con probably won't even make a difference.

I have looked at the average stats. And yes, Pupil does get better defense boosts. But I don't think that outweighs more movement and staff access.

[Life]

Fine. It's my fault Gilliam is missing with 69 hit and Ross isn't doubling.

You don't get it. It's 22 turns. My 11 year old sister could achieve better turn counts. And she's never played this game before.

I took the liberty of counting the squares on that map. Like the fastest route to the boss? It's 39 squares. You're going to tell me that you moved less than 2 squares a turn with Eirika and 3 other units?

I almost want to do a run with the exact same units. And the fact that you got 5 turns in the prologue alone is laughable, most people take 3 without Seth.

Edited July 22, 2011 by Kitty Admiral

[StinDuh]

No, that's not how it works. EXP is multiplied by 1.8.

That is a tilde, not a minus sign. A tilde before a number indicates that it might not be perfectly accurate, so it should be read as "roughly 1.8".

Ah. I see now. Thank you for correcting me, I apologize.

I have looked at the average stats. And yes, Pupil does get better defense boosts. But I don't think that outweighs more movement and staff access.

I'm still looking into it. I think all three are going to trainee(3) though.

I took the liberty of counting the squares on that map. Like the fastest route to the boss? It's 39 squares. You're going to tell me that you moved less than 2 squares a turn with Eirika and 3 other units?

No. I'm first going to tell you that I first sent off Ross and Neimi to take care of the fighter and Mage up by the ballista. It took two turns to kill both of them, and then about 3 turns to get them to where Gilliam was, just across the first bridge. There's a lot of trees in that area. It probably took me 3 more turns to get around to the mercenaries just above the ridge. Those mercenaries gave me some trouble, even using the forests as cover. I should also point out that since my units were taking pretty heavy damage, my turns were mostly made up of correctly positioning my units so that the enemies attacked the ones I wanted them to, and then healing my units with vulneraries so that they weren't completely obliterated. Killing the two mercs and the archer took a little while because the merc kept target Neimi. Then Ross's WTD and low skill were making it hard for him to hit the mercenaries. After I killed those guys, I headed north towards the boss. Ross and Gilliam were targeted by the archers, Neimi killed one of them by herself, and Ross and Gilliam finished off the other. I took the units near Murray(not in his attack range) and healed up my units. Next turn I started attacking him. I was actually quite surprised that I took as many turns on that chapter as I did. I had thought I had taken 10-15.

I almost want to do a run with the exact same units.

Go ahead. I wouldn't be surprised if you got completely different results. The RNG has hated me this entire time. I've had horrible stat-ups, and I've been getting hit by people with 35 hit. I don't think it's my fault. I don't see how it could be.

And the fact that you got 5 turns in the prologue alone is laughable, most people take 3 without Seth.

Good for them. Refer to "getting hit by people with 35 hit" for response.

Edit: It really may look like I'm just making excuses. I'm really not. I'm sorry that my turn counts have not been favorable.

Edited July 22, 2011 by StinDuh

[Anouleth]

3 turns on Prologue is pretty dicey, since it requires Eirika to dodge a lot of attacks.

[StinDuh]

3 turns on Prologue is pretty dicey, since it requires Eirika to dodge a lot of attacks.

Which she did not. Thanks for having my back.

Chapter 8:

Units out: Gilliam, Neimi, Ross, Eirika, Seth

Okay so Gilliam is sent West while Ross and Neimi are sent North. Ephraim's team comes in. They're horribly under-leveled, and I can't do much about them getting attacked, so... Whatever. I don't have very many vulneraries. So this will be tough. Seth is rescuing Eirika so that they can stay right behind Ross and Neimi. That way Eirika can take the throne quicker. Gilliam's speed is not allowing him to double a fellow knight... that's just sad. I'm ignoring the chests. They don't contain anything I want. The boss took forever to kill because of his high HP and strong weapon.... I'm scared of listing my turn count in case I get more heat for it. I guess I suck because the boss has a silver lance and Ross took 18 damage from it.... 29 turns

I got quite a few level ups. Gilliam's speed FINALLY went up. Not that it makes a difference.

Name    Lv Class       HP  Str Skl Spd Lck Def Res WeaponRank
Gilliam 17 Knight      35  14  9   5   9   17  6   Lance: A
Ross    14  Journey(2) 33  14  12  10  18  9   10  Axe:   B
Neimi   16  Archer     25  12  16  16  13  5   2   Bow:   B

Edit: Didn't mean to double post. Sorry.

Edited July 22, 2011 by Red Fox of Fire