Westbrick Plays FE13 Lunatic+!

[Othin]

Something I just thought of: if you want to make sure you don't kill an enemy on the enemy phase and get exposed to another attack, unequip the weapons from any allies in Double. Random unwanted Dual Attacks caused so many problems when I was trying to use the strategy I described and didn't think of that, although I'm not sure how applicable it is to whatever strategy arvilino is describing.

Holy shit this game

It sounds like they want you to take advantage of Casual Mode, at least for your initial Lunatic runs. I'm guessing that the older games like SD's H5 are easier than this?

I've thought about Casual Mode, but it sounds boring.

SD's H5 is much easier than "regular" FE13 Lunatic. From what I understand, even FE12 Lunatic winds up easier if you filter out the gamebreaking elements of FE13 Lunatic, which isn't really be a fair comparison, but it seems to me that the filtering needed for FE13 is much less invasive than any filtering you could do for FE12.

[NeonZ]

Too bad this game likely won't get patches. If they removed Nosferatu, or tonned it down to the point it became much more restricted (5 uses? 2 uses?), it sounds like it'd be trully hard throughout.

[ReedTien]

^ Alternatively, you could just not use a Sorcerer.

[Polaris]

Too bad this game likely won't get patches. If they removed Nosferatu, or tonned it down to the point it became much more restricted (5 uses? 2 uses?), it sounds like it'd be trully hard throughout.

When has IS actually cared about balance though? Fuckin' Holsety in Thracia, with 50 uses to boot. Or Mastery Skills that were basically instakill. Nah, I think that it's not a bad thing to have options - you can break the game over your knee, or actually do a challenge run.

SD's H5 is much easier than "regular" FE13 Lunatic. From what I understand, even FE12 Lunatic winds up easier if you filter out the gamebreaking elements of FE13 Lunatic, which isn't really be a fair comparison, but it seems to me that the filtering needed for FE13 is much less invasive than any filtering you could do for FE12.

Oh my.

I had a pretty bad time with my first couple of H5 runs, though I've gotten better at it since. At least SD let you throw warm bodies at the enemies without making you feel guilty.

[fatgamecat]

From what I understand, even FE12 Lunatic winds up easier if you filter out the gamebreaking elements of FE13 Lunatic, which isn't really be a fair comparison, but it seems to me that the filtering needed for FE13 is much less invasive than any filtering you could do for FE12.

The only thing that makes FE12 significantly easier is the rainbow potion, even then it doesn't break the game the way I've heard nosferatu described (throw a single unit into a ton of enemies, hit skip turn). Isn't there even worse DLC in FE13 in addition to the nosferatu tomes as far as reducing difficulty? Not to mention that FE12 has a scoring system.

[Othin]

The only thing that makes FE12 significantly easier is the rainbow potion, even then it doesn't break the game the way I've heard nosferatu described (throw a single unit into a ton of enemies, hit skip turn). Isn't there even worse DLC in FE13 in addition to the nosferatu tomes as far as reducing difficulty? Not to mention that FE12 has a scoring system.

Okay, so let's say we're talking about FE12 without the Rainbow Potion. That makes for a more fair comparison. In any case, I'm not inclined to take your word for it regarding the comparison unless you've played FE13 Lunatic.

And no, the DLC isn't really relevant. There are some designed for grinding, but they'd fall more under skirmish territory and therefore be generally assumed irrelevant for serious runs. You can also replay the character DLC for that same purpose, but that falls under the same classification in that case.

As for the scoring system, it's nice as an incentive, but not necessarily required when you can keep score yourself.

Speaking personally, my main concern is the overall ratio of enemy-to-player strength when not abusing things. That's what determines if there are real combat tactics to do without having to actively play against yourself. FE13 has some outliers like Nosferatu in that strength ratio, but those outliers are easily removed if desired, and when you do so, the result is the most impressive enemy-favor ratio in the series.

[cheetah7071]

On a slight derail, how did you dot he final chapter in normal lunatic, westbrick? I'm allowing nosferatu and tiny teams just so I can say I've bean it, but the enemies with physic make it basically impossible to beat the boss--every time I know him down to 75 hp, he gets healed right back up, and the most I can do in a single attack is 30 (with a low-hp vengeance + dual attack).

[Dark Sage]

Okay, so let's say we're talking about FE12 without the Rainbow Potion. That makes for a more fair comparison. In any case, I'm not inclined to take your word for it regarding the comparison unless you've played FE13 Lunatic.

And no, the DLC isn't really relevant. There are some designed for grinding, but they'd fall more under skirmish territory and therefore be generally assumed irrelevant for serious runs. You can also replay the character DLC for that same purpose, but that falls under the same classification in that case.

As for the scoring system, it's nice as an incentive, but not necessarily required when you can keep score yourself.

Speaking personally, my main concern is the overall ratio of enemy-to-player strength when not abusing things. That's what determines if there are real combat tactics to do without having to actively play against yourself. FE13 has some outliers like Nosferatu in that strength ratio, but those outliers are easily removed if desired, and when you do so, the result is the most impressive enemy-favor ratio in the series.

Have you played FE12 Lunatic or Lunatic Reverse

If not, then why should anybody take you seriously when you say that FE13 Lunatic or Lunatic+ has the most impressive enemy-favor ratio in the entire series? Seriously, it's the pot calling the kettle black.

However since I don't want to pick a fight (too late) and I want to make this post worthwhile, I am curious on whether or not you like Lunatic or Lunatic+ better. Lunatic+ from what I gather has totally randomized skills and it can make a map unwinnable (like the Barbarian with Absolute Hit and a Hammer), which makes it impossible to form a consistently good strategy since the skillsets of the enemies are so randomized and can completely change the success rate of a strategy. But on the other hand, it does force you to think on your feet and adapt more, which could be interesting.

EDIT: Grammar sux

Edited June 13, 2012 by Dark Sage

[cheetah7071]

Speaking as someone who has played rainbow pot-less FE12 and the first half of nosferatu-less FE13 (since you only get nosferatu halfway through anyways), I found FE12 to be about equally difficult up until your units start promoting, then FE12 became much easier. FE13 also becomes easier around when MU promotes, but not by such a huge margin.

[Othin]

Have you played FE12 Lunatic or Lunatic Reverse

If not, then why should anybody take you seriously when you say that FE13 Lunatic or Lunatic+ has the most impressive enemy-favor ratio in the entire series? Seriously, it's the pot calling the kettle black.

However since I don't want to pick a fight (too late) and make this post worthwhile, I am curious on whether or not you like Lunatic or Lunatic+ better. Lunatic+ from what I gather has totally randomized skills and it can make a map unwinnable (like the Barbarian with Absolute Hit and a Hammer), which makes it impossible to form a consistently good strategy since the skillsets of the enemies are so randomized and can completely change the success rate of a strategy. But on the other hand, it does force you to think on your feet and adapt more, which could be interesting.

I've played only a tiny amount of FE12 Lunatic. So no, I'm not an expert on the comparisons, but my point where was that MJ is not, either.

And yes, you're right that that means I can't conclusively know about the enemy-favor ratio in FE12 Lunatic. But while what I've seen, heard, and figured out of it is not enough to tell me its difficulty precisely, it is enough for me to feel confident in guessing that the enemy-favor ratio is not higher than in FE13.

Is you last paragraph directed at me or in general? I haven't played Lunatic+ yet, personally, but from learning about it, I was afraid of issues like this in the earlygame even before Westbrick's attempts. On the other hand, I do think that those issues should fade soon: past the first half of Ch3, you get more freedom, which should be enough to manage things, even when the skills still intensify a massive challenge. It does seem like from that point on, it should be exciting for the reasons you described, and I'm interested in playing it for the sake of that part of the game. I also plan to allow myself some more leeway on other restrictions for my Lunatic+ run that should make things even more flexible, probably just enough to accommodate the crazy skills.

Speaking as someone who has played rainbow pot-less FE12 and the first half of nosferatu-less FE13 (since you only get nosferatu halfway through anyways), I found FE12 to be about equally difficult up until your units start promoting, then FE12 became much easier. FE13 also becomes easier around when MU promotes, but not by such a huge margin.

See, this is the guy whose word I'm trusting for the time being.

Edited June 13, 2012 by Othin

[Stark]

On a slight derail, how did you dot he final chapter in normal lunatic, westbrick? I'm allowing nosferatu and tiny teams just so I can say I've bean it, but the enemies with physic make it basically impossible to beat the boss--every time I know him down to 75 hp, he gets healed right back up, and the most I can do in a single attack is 30 (with a low-hp vengeance + dual attack).

There's a video on youtube beating it in two turns using Krom + MU doubled, so it should be very possible with capped units.

Also, I'm not sure if I really buy the whole "Resire sorcs trivialize 1/2 of the game, therefore let's not consider them when discussing how hard this game is relative to other Fire Emblems." I mean, Sigurd can more or less solo the entire first gen of FE 4, and yet no one says "Sigurd can only be used for seizing" when discussing that game's difficulty. If the game gives you a lawnmower unit or units that can destroy most of the game with no difficultly, those units are usually just considered god tier. It's unfortunate game design, but it's not something new to the series. (See: Seth.)

[cheetah7071]

There's a video on youtube beating it in two turns using Krom + MU doubled, so it should be very possible with capped units.

Also, I'm not sure if I really buy the whole "Resire sorcs trivialize 1/2 of the game, therefore let's not consider them when discussing how hard this game is relative to other Fire Emblems." I mean, Sigurd can more or less solo the entire first gen of FE 4, and yet no one says "Sigurd can only be used for seizing" when discussing that game's difficulty. If the game gives you a lawnmower unit or units that can destroy most of the game with no difficultly, those units are usually just considered god tier. It's unfortunate game design, but it's not something new to the series. (See: Seth.)

That video claims to be lunatic, but definitely isn't--the icon for gimle's dragon scales skill doesn't show up when she gets hit.

EDIT: Still, checking the veracity of the video made me realize that Krom can double the final boss if MU is in a class that gives speed double bonuses (which sorcerer doesn't). That'll help.

Edited June 13, 2012 by cheetah7071

[Othin]

Kill the enemies that have Physic?

---

See, what we have here are three related but different situations.

Nosferatu solution: Drop Nosferatu tomes into storage between chapters and leave them there, or just sell them

Seth solution: Remove Seth from deployment list between chapters

Sigurd solution: Keep Sigurd on the field to seize but take away his weapon and/or keep him away from combat at all times and then have him run up to the gates and seize them

If Nosferatu and Seth are allowed when forced, then only Sigurd requires playing sub-optimally within the maps themselves, where you actually do have to actively play against yourself. Sigurd is clearly a more problematic situation than the other two.

Now, this indicates that we could compare no-Seth runs as representative of FE8's difficulty, and in terms of evaluating the game's overall enjoyment factor and things people might likely be interested in doing when playing the game, it certainly seems to make sense. "But wait!" you might be asking. "Couldn't we also ban Franz and Vanessa and any other powerful non-forced characters and the same from every other game?" Well, we could, but consider the impact. FE8 has 35 characters. Cutting out, say, three of them would erase 8% of the character options, and that's not even necessarily representative because those three have particularly notable presences in availability.

Meanwhile, we're talking about removing two of FE13's items. Looking at tomes alone, FE13 has 30, and the total items available is far higher, with many being more common throughout the game than Nosferatu and especially Inverse's Darkness. So while erasing two related tomes would not cut out a whole lot of options and content, cutting out characters, especially multiple ones and ones with high availability, would really get excessive and not be as reasonable. If it's a contest between FE7 HHM with all characters but seven banned and FE13 Lunatic with just two items banned, and the bans place both as equal in raw difficulty (not likely), I think FE13 is the one I would prefer to play.

---

Doesn't Gimle always have Evil Dragon Scale? That shouldn't be a point of contention. Max HP should determine the difficulty more definitively: 80 for Normal, 88 for Hard, 99 for Lunatic.

Edited June 13, 2012 by Othin

[Westbrick]

That video claims to be lunatic, but definitely isn't--the icon for gimle's dragon scales skill doesn't show up when she gets hit.

EDIT: Still, checking the veracity of the video made me realize that Krom can double the final boss if MU is in a class that gives speed double bonuses (which sorcerer doesn't). That'll help.

I'd love to see the video posted, because if it seems in any way simple or straightforward, it almost certainly isn't Lunatic. Even with maxed caps, it takes a good deal of work to pull things off. I had a maxed-cap Sorcerer MU and still played that chapter a half-dozen or so times before figuring out the best strategy.

The biggest problem, as I'm sure you're aware, is that even with forged Nosferatus, you won't be able to dent Gimle much per turn, and there are several Valkyries that actually heal Gimle every turn. It's a nightmare. The only way to pull it off is to kill Gimle in one turn, which can be done with a max-forged Il tome; MU will get 4 shots of chip damage, but Krom will have 3-4 hits with the Falchion, which is where the bulk of the damage will come from. You can one-round Gimle, or you can get close, hope you survive a couple Lunatic promoted enemies without a Nosferatu equipped, and then Gimle should attack before the Valkyries get a chance to heal.

Hope this helps!

[cheetah7071]

Kill the enemies that have Physic?

Doesn't Gimle always have Evil Dragon Scale? That shouldn't be a point of contention. Max HP should determine the difficulty more definitively: 80 for Normal, 88 for Hard, 99 for Lunatic.

Taking a closer look,t he video is really odd. Krom doubled with grandmaster MU is incapable of doubling gimle--that only puts him at 49 speed. He's dealing a ton of damage (my krom is dealing only 9 after evil dragon scale and certainly isn't 32 point away from his str cap). Yet Gimle has 99 hp. I just don't know.

As for the physic enemies, they keep spawning--any of the infinite reinforcements that can wield staves come with physic.

[Othin]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzpSXV4WSSk&feature=relmfu

Hmm. 99 HP, yet on top of the grinding, there's clearly a ton of luck abuse involved. Gimle's activation rate for her skills is 80% on Lunatic, yet she keeps not activating Great Shield, then misses with her crazy powerful attack that would obliterate Krom.

Let's see about those raw stats that would even make it even possibly work in the first place. Krom needs 100 Atk and 50 Spd to do 25x2 damage. As a Great Lord with maxed Str/Spd and Divine Falchion with its effective bonus, he should have 89 Atk and 42 Spd. A Grandmaster can then give up to +7 Str and +7 Spd, so then he'd need another +4 Str and +1 Spd, which can be arranged with the combination of All Stats +2 and Chris's Home-Made Sweets.

So yeah, it's possible, but requires a ton of trickery. Not relevant for non-abusing playthroughs.

Edited June 13, 2012 by Othin

[Byte2222]

I was worried about this.

On Lunatic, I survived that chapter by having Frederick, Krom, and MU form a wall in the lower left, but things kept going wrong even without the added skills. Pass in particular would likely destroy the strategy completely.

The only meaningful and potentially useful thing I can think to add to the discussion if a reminder that even though units with pass can go straight through a defensive formation they still can't go into occupied squares. I have no idea what the map is like but if you barricade your units somewhere, leaving no gaps, then you can hold a defensive formation. I doubt this helps but on the off chance...

[Othin]

The only meaningful and potentially useful thing I can think to add to the discussion if a reminder that even though units with pass can go straight through a defensive formation they still can't go into occupied squares. I have no idea what the map is like but if you barricade your units somewhere, leaving no gaps, then you can hold a defensive formation. I doubt this helps but on the off chance...

Yeah, the problem is the lack of cover. You can stick yourself in the corner, which walls you off on two sides, but then you have to block off the other two sides, while I only needed one on Lunatic. A 2x3 formation with Double would let you protect everyone, but it would be extremely difficult to keep all the ones on the outer wall alive. Shrinking the outer wall to make it a 2x2 formation would give you better chances, and you can fit eight characters into that formation with Double, but you have nine characters forced on that map, so you'd have to sacrifice someone to do that.

Edited June 13, 2012 by Othin

[Westbrick]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzpSXV4WSSk&feature=relmfu

Hmm. 99 HP, yet on top of the grinding, there's clearly a ton of luck abuse involved. Gimle's activation rate for her skills is 80% on Lunatic, yet she keeps not activating Great Shield, then misses with her crazy powerful attack that would obliterate Krom.

Let's see about those raw stats that would even make it even possibly work in the first place. Krom needs 100 Atk and 50 Spd to do 25x2 damage. As a Great Lord with maxed Str/Spd and Divine Falchion with its effective bonus, he should have 89 Atk and 42 Spd. A Grandmaster can then give up to +7 Str and +7 Spd, so then he'd need another +4 Str and +1 Spd, which can be arranged with the combination of All Stats +2 and Chris's Home-Made Sweets.

So yeah, it's possible, but requires a ton of trickery. Not relevant for non-abusing playthroughs.

Seeing as no items or skills were used during the battle, is it possible after all?

Either way, this team's been grinded as all hell, and isn't reflective of actual Lunatic Final difficulty.

[cheetah7071]

I didn't even realize that the final boss has great shield, it just activated any time I decided to hope for the best and hit for more than 0 damage. That's why I thought evil dragon scale had an icon, it was actually great shield.

So, westbrick, how did you deal with it? Did you just have enough extra party members to kill the staff users? did you go around chasing them until you got lucky and no new ones spawned?

[Othin]

Seeing as no items or skills were used during the battle, is it possible after all?

Either way, this team's been grinded as all hell, and isn't reflective of actual Lunatic Final difficulty.

All Stats +2 is a passive skill that he just needed to put into effect sometime before the battle and would stay in effect the whole time with no indication of its presence. Boosting items like Chris's Home-Made Sweets can be used before battle and retain their effect throughout the upcoming map. So yes, it is.

[Westbrick]

I didn't even realize that the final boss has great shield, it just activated any time I decided to hope for the best and hit for more than 0 damage. That's why I thought evil dragon scale had an icon, it was actually great shield.

So, westbrick, how did you deal with it? Did you just have enough extra party members to kill the staff users? did you go around chasing them until you got lucky and no new ones spawned?

Quick repost in case you missed it:

"The only way to pull it off is to kill Gimle in one turn, which can be done with a max-forged Il tome; MU will get 4 shots of chip damage, but Krom will have 3-4 hits with the Falchion, which is where the bulk of the damage will come from. You can one-round Gimle, or you can get close, hope you survive a couple Lunatic promoted enemies without a Nosferatu equipped, and then Gimle should attack before the Valkyries get a chance to heal."

My initial strategy was to kill all the reinforcements, so I sold every item and weapon on my team and stocked up about 60 Nosferatu tomes. I burned through all those and the reinforcements still hadn't stopped, so that's not exactly a viable strategy. The trick is to kill Gimle before he can be healed, as the above strategy outlines.

[Stark]

Out of curiosity, what did your final team look like for regular Lunatic? Because it seems to me, if enemies have capped stats and absurd skills, most of your team is going to need to be equally deadly IE maxed stats anyway, so that video doesn't look entirely out of the question.

But it seems at the very least you would needed a max stats Krom in addition to a sorcerer if you planning on abusing resire, because if you get to the final with just a maxed out sorc MU, you are SOL. Since I doubt Krom can solo the other half of most maps, this will likely encourage you to train additional units for a defensive formation. And from that you have... an entirely normal playthrough using a handful of strong units.Yes, resire forms an incredibly strong defensive pivot for the team, but given how difficult early chapters have been, I'm guessing it's something you'll be grateful for.

The above post is pure conjecture, since I don't actually have the game.

[cheetah7071]

I just ended up beating lunatic, and here's my final team:

Krom -- great lord

63 hp

41 str

3 mag

36 skl

42 spd

38 luk

33 def

18 res

MU -- sorcerer

80 HP capped

27 str capped

44 mag capped

37 skl capped

40 spd capped (had to use a speed potion to double the boss, fortunately they're buyable)

47 luk capped

43 def

38 res

Thats it. I haven't used anybody else since chapter 13.

[Stark]

Oh. Well then. Did you usually have Krom doubled behind MU or was he able to hold his own? I forgot to take into account the ability to raise him like that.