Most efficient Runthrough?

[OriginalRaisins]

I've noticed that there are videos all over youtube showcasing efficiency runs for the other fire emblem games, but I can't find a single one for this game. My question is: What's the most efficient runthrough of Fire emblem 8 to date? I've seen a few speedruns, but those are more focused on time, rather than turn count.

[Smiley Jim]

As far as I know, Donny did a LTC FE8 playthrough on 0% growths a few years back, and he has it on his YouTube channel.

Here's his channel if you are interested.

[Ring Wraith]

I would guess you could get better turncounts than that with using growths, although not much better.

[Radiant Dragon]

General Horace did a runthrough recently, as well.

[Mekkah]

Thanks to the Sacred Twins and the 3x Mt modifier (on other weapons), I don't think you can do much better than the 0% growths run. Final Chapter might be place where you can improve easily - dondon had to 5HKO the Demon King with Duessel (at 55% hit) and thus took 3 turns, whereas pretty much any trained team can kill him on turn 1.

Edited August 19, 2011 by Mekkah

[General Horace]

General Horace did a runthrough recently, as well.

That wasn't max efficiency though, I think that's what TC is looking for. That was just my first complete run through the game, casually efficient. Pretty sure dondon's is quicker.

Yeah, it's way quicker. My most recent draft is quicker than my logged run, and that was without a flier or Warp

Edited August 19, 2011 by General_Horace

[OriginalRaisins]

That wasn't max efficiency though, I think that's what TC is looking for. That was just my first complete run through the game, casually efficient. Pretty sure dondon's is quicker.

Yeah, it's way quicker. My most recent draft is quicker than my logged run, and that was without a flier or Warp

funny how runs where you have restrictions (such as dondons 0% growths run) end up being more efficient than when you dont restrict yourself. It only seems to happen in fe8 too...

[zahlman]

I independently (although I am following dondon's commented run for FE7 HHM 0% growths, and inspired by a lot of the strat there) attempted to minimize turn count for Easy difficulty, Eirika's route, for lolz and science.

I have achieved a total turn count of 102 turns. I'm pretty sure this can be improved, but I'm pretty sure not by much. My "rules" are that I don't care about anything else (even recruitments/unit deaths - although I didn't come up with any strategies requiring a deliberate sacrifice), and RNG abuse is ok (but should only be used where it's really needed) but glitches are not. The detailed breakdown:

(Edited to spoilerize the breakdown. That was impolite of me, blarg.)

Prologue - 3 (your hands are tied by the tutorial stuff, so yeah)

Escape! - 4 (ditto)

The Protected - 5 (you have to rescue Ross a certain way, but I suspect this is possible in 4, possibly requiring RNG abuse)

The Bandits of Borgo - 4 (tricky because of the obstacles in your way. I ignore all the treasure as well as Colm, who joins anyway as long as he survives)

Ancient Horrors - 4 (Pretty sure this is optimal. You can do it a few different ways, but I tried to maximize XP gain for Artur here, since he's essential to later chapters)

The Empire's Reach - 3 (I didn't get to the north village, but I think it might be possible to do so by sending Seth there and having Joshua face the boss with a bunch of RNG abuse)

Unbroken Heart - 7 (Pretty sure this is optimal. There's just too much distance to cover, even ignoring all the treasure and taking the near path. Trading the javelin to Orson helps a lot)

Victims of War - 3 (obviously optimal. I'm guessing everyone who cares about these kinds of things already knows how to do this)

Waterside Renvall - 4 (Pretty sure this is optimal, because you have to ferry two units and seize the throne. I did manage to steal the energy ring)

It's a Trap! - 6 (I had 7 on a previous attempt and didn't think that could be improved, but it could :) 6 has got to be optimal though... right? I only get the angelic robe and ignore the west treasure room, obviously)

Distant Blade - 4 (This has got to be optimal. I would be very impressed, though, if anyone can do a 5-turn strategy either recruiting Amelia on the turn she appears, or stealing the speedwing and killing her. In a run like this, the speedwing is obviously more valuable than she is. Basically, Vanessa and Tana ferry Javelin!Seth and Joshua (who claims the Ocean Seal), Artur takes out the other pirate on turn 1, and Tana plays a support role by taking out an archer so that it doesn't keep harassing Joshua. Everyone else goes west (including Artur), and a cav lures the killing edge swordsman. It takes some pretty precise unit positioning, TBH.)

Revolt at Carcino - 5 (I suspect this is optimal, but maybe if you RNG-abuse to have a flier avoid the ballistae you could do it in 4... ? I did get the killer axe, as well as recruiting tethys, innes and gerik, the first two of which are very useful. Marisa, er, lol no.)

Creeping Darkness - 7 (Artur promotes using Pablo's guiding ring, since I missed the earlier one, and staff-spams Torch here so that he'll be able to use Warp later.)

Village of Silence - 7 (I was very surprised to shave a turn off my previous record, yet it was very close to being 6 turns, except that one monster near the shop doesn't move. Basically, all the cavs and fliers rush north - getting some early assistance from Tethys - while Joshua, Innes, Saleh, and Artur handle the mob that accumulates in the south. Seth takes out the boss, who has a 0% hit rate when he hides in the adjacent forest tile making the Halberd a non-issue, as well as several wyverns and other assorted monsters, while Tana and Vanessa clear out the Evil Eyes and the north Bael, one cav takes out the south Bael after it's been lured onto land, and another cav has to make it to the shop area to finish the job. I had to give Tana a bunch of stat-ups in order to be able to do meaningful damage to the Bael and survive the wyvern reinforcements, and she still needed a fair bit of luck.)

Hamill Canyon - 2 (Lol, obviously optimal. Nothing really needs to be said here. I should have brought Colm to steal Amelia's Speedwing; I'm sure I could have kept him safe on enemy phase)

Queen of White Dunes - 8 (I hate this map layout, really. I eventually realized that it was best not to carry Eirika from the beginning, but let her lag a bit and then rescue-chain her to the front. She goes with Arcy, Seth, Artur and Saleh through the east door, while two cavs and Innes charge the center, and Innes takes out a few key units that would otherwise hold Seth back on his way to the boss and/or make it unsafe to drop Eirika. Some precision is needed so that Rennac can unlock the north door before Seth gets to it so that he isn't needlessly delayed. Artur staff-spams again, this time with Barrier.)

Scorched Sand - 6 (Really wish I remember more about how I did this. Pretty sure it is optimal. I managed to spare some time with a flier to search for some miscellaneous stuff after ensuring I had the Swiftsole and Warp; I lucked out and got the Killer Bow on my first try. Maybe I should have used it? Don't really know where, though... I gave the Swiftsole to Myrrh; in retrospect, it may have been better to give it to either Artur or Tethys.)

Ruled by Madness - 6 (First time using Warp, and I use it a bunch. I actually had to Warp Eirika on the last turn to bunny-hop her to the throne (she needs to seize, so she can't just be ferried unless you already have Tethys near the throne, which I didn't). Warp proved not to be as useful here as I hoped, because the range is only Mag/2 instead of Mag/2 + 5. I did use it to allow Rennac and Colm to get all the treasure, not that it's particularly useful. Myrrh gains a bunch of levels here, which is important: she really needs to be maxed out by the end, and she's not really at risk of running out of Dragonstone uses in a playthrough like this.)

River of Regrets - 2 (Provably optimal: only the fliers have any chance of getting to Lyon on turn 1, even with Warp assist, and none of them are going to take him out on player + enemy phase except Myrrh. And Myrrh can't do it on turn 1 because she doesn't have a ranged attack and the square in front of Lyon is blocked by an enemy Druid. Anyway, pretty standard Myrrh boss rush. You don't get the Dragonshield this way, but you aren't going to need it, and you can still get some exp for other units in the west. I had Tana get some more exp from the Heroes in the south, and Vanessa went after a mage in the east on turn 2.)

Two Faces of Evil - 5 (I used a lot of Warp charges here - Hammerne broke in this playthrough and I only used it for Warp - and only saved 1 turn off my previous Warp-less record. I keep thinking this has to be doable in 4, but there are just so many eggs to take out. It's too bad you can't get Bolting until the next chapter...)

Last Hope - 2 (more Myrrh-tastic-ness, and again I'm pretty sure there is no single-turn strat here. She only needs a Warp boost on one turn, so on the first turn I Warp both thieves to claim treasure. The Speedwing was actually useful; Myrrh got kinda screwed on my playthrough and needed the boost in order to be able to double Morva.)

Darkling Woods - 2 (Took a bit of careful planning and a bit of luck, although not that much precision in unit placement. This is obviously not doable in 1 because you have to ferry 2 units over a considerable distance. Maybe if Artur had capped Mag or something... anyway: Turn 1, Artur gives Myrrh a Warp boost and she flies near the boss. Eirika gets herself in position. A peggy picks up Artur and waits; Tethys dances for the peggy and she carries Artur across and drops him. The other two peggies carry and drop Tethys in a forest tile. Enemy phase, basically one of the pegasi will have to dodge an archer, who obviously won't go after the one with the Fili Shield. Turn 2, Artur Rescues and then Warps Eirika, who runs in after Myrrh doubles Morva. Nice and simple. Sure is fun to give the finger to the "omg so many monsters kill them all" map... :) )

Sacred Stone - 2 + 1 (With your units as underleveled as they are by this point, this requires RNG abuse so that Myrrh can get a critical on Fomortiis. In Easy mode, he will summon on enemy phase 1 instead of attacking, so even if you could do a bit of damage with other units and pull them away, he wouldn't pwn himself against Myrrh on enemy phase. As for Lyon, this is pretty straightforward: just warp Myrrh to the spot in front of him, after giving her a Barrier boost from Saleh so that she can survive two hits from Naglfar. This would be doable in 1 with either (a) RNG abuse (I think?) or (b) more Mag on Artur or some other way (Swiftsole to Tethys? :/) to allow Artur to get Myrrh to that spot without Myrrh using her movement -> i.e. so that she can attack on player phase. There was no risk of Myrrh getting Stoned by the Gorgons; they apparently will only use that attack at range.)

Edited October 27, 2011 by zahlman

[General Horace]

Sorry to steal your Thunder, but I recently completed Hard Mode in 93 turns. Here are my turncounts:

[spoiler=Chapter Turncounts.]

P - 1 Turn
1 - 3 Turns
2 - 4 Turns
3 - 4 Turns
4 - 3 Turns
5 - 3 Turns
5x - 7 Turns
6 - 3 Turns
7 - 4 Turns
8 - 5 Turns
9 - 7 Turns
10 - 5 Turns
11 - 6 Turns
12 - 8 Turns
13 - 2 Turns
14 - 8 Turns
15 - 5 Turns
16 - 3 Turns
17 - 1 Turn
18 - 6 Turns (I'm trying for 5 now)
19 - 1 Turn
20 - 2 Turns
Final - 2 Turns, 1 for each part.

I'm sure I could reduce 18 by one as well. This game is tough to LTC on Hard Mode because you don't have the opportunity to train a half decent flier.

Edited October 27, 2011 by General Horace

[zahlman]

Yeah, I just saw that, and have already realized a few things that could be done better in my own playthrough. I probably still could accomplish more by training Saleh in staves rather than Artur, for example. I also missed the Purge tome in Ch. 16 which might have been useful in Ch. 18? :/ I'm also face-palming now for not spotting the rescue-warp technique for Ch. 19 when I used it for 20 :P

Single-turning Ch. 17 is really impressive (I didn't imagine that Seth could be transported there on the first turn, much less succeed in that environment... besides getting the critical, how lucky did he need to be?) and 5 turns for Ch. 15 is colon-oh impressive. Can't wait to see a video for that one :)

(For most maps, the actual enemy difficulty isn't the worst part, I suppose... but Hard mode certainly does have some extra units in places that would make some of my Easy mode strat impossible. OTOH, Easy mode means you don't get as much xp -> lower Mag growth -> shorter Warps/Rescue. You're also forced to waste turns on the first few chapters >_< )

ETA: Oh man, I just realized that even with Artur's pathetic Warp distance, there's no real reason I couldn't have sent Myrrh over the wall first instead of Rennac. The treasure there is totally not useful for the later chapters after all. I guess the basic idea is to send Seth-rescuing-Eirika over next, yeah?

Edited October 27, 2011 by zahlman

[General Horace]

Yeah, I just saw that, and have already realized a few things that could be done better in my own playthrough. I probably still could accomplish more by training Saleh in staves rather than Artur, for example. I also missed the Purge tome in Ch. 16 which might have been useful in Ch. 18? :/ I'm also face-palming now for not spotting the rescue-warp technique for Ch. 19 when I used it for 20 :P

Single-turning Ch. 17 is really impressive (I didn't imagine that Seth could be transported there on the first turn, much less succeed in that environment... besides getting the critical, how lucky did he need to be?) and 5 turns for Ch. 15 is colon-oh impressive. Can't wait to see a video for that one :)

(For most maps, the actual enemy difficulty isn't the worst part, I suppose... but Hard mode certainly does have some extra units in places that would make some of my Easy mode strat impossible. OTOH, Easy mode means you don't get as much xp -> lower Mag growth -> shorter Warps/Rescue. You're also forced to waste turns on the first few chapters >_< )

ETA: Oh man, I just realized that even with Artur's pathetic Warp distance, there's no real reason I couldn't have sent Myrrh over the wall first instead of Rennac. The treasure there is totally not useful for the later chapters after all. I guess the basic idea is to send Seth-rescuing-Eirika over next, yeah?

I didn't have enough time/warp charges to get the purge tome, even though it would have been useful. Enemy difficulty is a big part of it in Hard Mode, as every unit from Chapter 1-Gerik 3HKO'd the enemies, meaning I had to use Seth to kill everything, which made maps like chapter 9 very annoying. Chapter 17 required a spear crit on Lyon (Seth doubled, had around 17 crit) and was barriered up before heading over. Chapter 15 was actually more or less soloed by Saleh. And I'm 100% sure you get much less exp in Hard mode then easy mode.

If you decide to do this run again, Saleh is better at warping than Artur (in hard mode anyhow), and feed energy rings to your warpers to increase their warping distance.

[zahlman]

I didn't have enough time/warp charges to get the purge tome, even though it would have been useful.

But you're warping units right up there anyway, and just have to attack him before allowing a unit into his purge range on EP... it doesn't seem that complicated? Maybe I'd appreciate it if I tried it myself :P

Enemy difficulty is a big part of it in Hard Mode, as every unit from Chapter 1-Gerik 3HKO'd the enemies, meaning I had to use Seth to kill everything, which made maps like chapter 9 very annoying.

Ok, that definitely explains the disparity there.

Chapter 17 required a spear crit on Lyon (Seth doubled, had around 17 crit) and was barriered up before heading over.

Hrm. Should work in Easy too, yeah?

Chapter 15 was actually more or less soloed by Saleh.

Hmm. I guess movement isn't a big problem for him, but there are two important places to be (near each boss), and a lot of need for durability... I still have trouble imagining it.

And I'm 100% sure you get much less exp in Hard mode then easy mode.

Overall? I know there's a mod to the calculation, but Hard mode enemies are both higher level (right? or do they just get stat bonuses :| ) and more plentiful...

If you decide to do this run again, Saleh is better at warping than Artur (in hard mode anyhow), and feed energy rings to your warpers to increase their warping distance.

He would be in easy mode too, and the main reason I went with Artur was because he'd be able to spam Torch in ch 11 which would make it much easier for him to get to A staves as soon as the Warp staff was ready. But I guess it wouldn't be that hard to get Saleh there :/ I did feed all the energy rings except one (that went to Tana, needed for the pwnsome 7-turn ch12 result) to Artur.

So yeah. The main planned changes are:

- Figure out how 3-turning ch4 works...? o_O

- Saleh to be the main warper.

- Swiftsole goes to someone else (starting to sound like Saleh would be a good idea...)

- moar RNG abuse in places where it seems likely to actually accomplish something

- see about that 1-turn for ch 17, and if Myrrh can still get enough exp to be useful later

- I forgot to promote my cavs, which might help >_<

- Try using insta-promoted Gerik a bunch (I actually benched him for this run o_O Seems like I greatly underestimate the pwnsomeness that is Garm... ?)

I was also thinking of attempting LTC for 7!LHM...

Edited October 27, 2011 by zahlman

[Colonel M]

3 Turning Chapter 4 is really easy. Should be Seth @ Hand Axe though.

[zahlman]

3 Turning Chapter 4 is really easy. Should be Seth @ Hand Axe though.

I've been using Seth@Javelin; didn't expect it to matter...? o_O

[Ϲharlie]

Seth can't use hand axes. o_O

[Colonel M]

Seth can't use hand axes. o_O

Sure he can, except his name becomes "Marcus" and he gets transported to FE7 land...

...With a few minor repercussions.

[General Horace]

3 Turning chapter 4 requires Steel Axe! Garcia, as he ORKO's everything (including the boss) with a strength proc, I forget who I used to take out the north enemies, I think Gilliam got a point of speed and did it or something.

And I gave my boots to Tana, to enable a 1 turn clear of 17, although you might be able to do it otherwise. A 10 Mov flier is generally very nice though.

Also, for LHM, I might have been able to improve on a couple of chapters by early promoting Sain/Kent, but here are mine from my semi-recent efficient run of it.

P - 5
1 - 4
2 - 4
3 - 3?
4 - 8
5 - 3?
6 - 3?
7 - 2 
7x - 3
8 - 4?
9 - 4?
10 - 5?

I can't quite remember them all, and am too lazy to check my topic, but the numbers seem right.

Edited October 28, 2011 by General Horace

[zahlman]

for LHM, I might have been able to improve on a couple of chapters by early promoting Sain/Kent, but here are mine from my semi-recent efficient run of it.

P - 5
1 - 4
2 - 4
3 - 3?
4 - 8
5 - 3?
6 - 3?
7 - 2 
7x - 3
8 - 4?
9 - 4?
10 - 5?

I can't quite remember them all, and am too lazy to check my topic, but the numbers seem right.

Those all look about right to me. Doubt they can be improved except with a LOT of RNG abuse. I'll have to verify that I can match them :) Sucks that you can't end ch 4 early, hmm? I can confirm that I've done 8 in 4 before but I can't for the life of me remember how. I can do 6 in 3 and also get both chests. You can't promote until the start of 9 anyway, and I don't think there's enough XP to go around in an efficient playthrough for Kent or Sain to get it, unless maybe you ignore one in favour of the other, but that's kinda hard to do in the early chapters. (Actually, wait, it's probably safe to start that on 4?) For 5 you might just be able to airlift Lyn and have her pwn Bug with the Mani Katti on EP 2... wait, is it a rout map?

[General Horace]

5 is a route map, yes.

[zahlman]

Ok, 3-turning Ch4 does turn out to be pretty easy after all, I guess I just wasn't thinking very clearly on previous attempts.

Ch10 is doable in 4 turns on Easy. I made Tana able to take one ballista hit, and to get Eirika in place, she had to be threatened twice. But for some reason, the ballistae never actually aimed at her either time - turn 2, the left ballista preferred Seth (because he was slightly injured?) and turn 3, the right ballista preferred the freshly-dropped Eirika (because she's Eirika?). Obviously it helped to realize that you don't actually have to talk to tethys et. al.