Hard mode: you give me tips, and I...

[cloudropis]

Nah, sorry but Aran can't cut it with those bases. His heavily loopsided growths make him extremely bexpable, but until that point he's doubled by everything. Also he's not worth it in the Endgame either thanks to his 33 speed cap (which I found out with extreme sadness when my blessed Aran stopped getting speed), but I guess he can choke the ledge quite well next chapter.

Talking about next chapter, I'm forging an Axe that I'll use with Nolan and later on give to Jill, hoping the Coin is on my side. I'm buying a Wind Edge from the Bargains since Arm Scroll are useless right now and Energy Drops are flawed by nature.

How should I use Volug? To weaken enemies and raise his Strike rank? I guess he gets fuck all experience otherwise. I'm supporting him with Nolan though, and Jill will support Zihark (but I'm planning to support Nolan + Zihark for the endgame).

What should I aim for in this chapter? Should I try and steal the Rune Barrier from the boss?

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

Yes, use Volug to weak the enemies in part 1. He gains strike-level and other units can get the kill experience. If Volug reaches S-strike, he can kill the cats in part 3 with two hits.

If you plan to make a support between Nolan and Zihark, then give Volug a support with Jill to get +30 avoid.

Imo the rune barrier is not very useful at all in this game. Never could make good use of it. Only steal it, if you're units are safe.

The masterseal is much more worth to steal.

I would recommend to buy the iron-longbow in the base before 1-5.

Edited August 24, 2014 by TalesOf Hysteria

[cloudropis]

Why would I buy the Iron Longbow? Leonardo is the only who can use it.

The Nolan/Zihark combo is for later in the game, Nolan/Volug and Jill Zihark seems more balanced right now to feed kills to Nolan and Jill.

I'll focus on the Master Seal then.

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

Of course the longbow is for Leonardo.

It's not a must-have because of high weight and poor accuracy. Though it's useful for the chapters, you can attack from upper areas (1-5, 1-7, 3-13). So the accuracy raises by 50%.

If you defend in 1-5 from the top platform, you can use the longbow without taking the risk to get a counter of enemies with range weapons. It would be a good way to use Leo without bringing him in danger.

It would be a good way to beat the boss without using Sothe. Attack him with Leonardo from the range of 3 and with another unit from the range of 2 (Nolan or Edward) to beat him.

[Blaze The Great]

Nah, sorry but Aran can't cut it with those bases. His heavily loopsided growths make him extremely bexpable, but until that point he's doubled by everything. Also he's not worth it in the Endgame either thanks to his 33 speed cap (which I found out with extreme sadness when my blessed Aran stopped getting speed), but I guess he can choke the ledge quite well next chapter.

Talking about next chapter, I'm forging an Axe that I'll use with Nolan and later on give to Jill, hoping the Coin is on my side. I'm buying a Wind Edge from the Bargains since Arm Scroll are useless right now and Energy Drops are flawed by nature.

How should I use Volug? To weaken enemies and raise his Strike rank? I guess he gets fuck all experience otherwise. I'm supporting him with Nolan though, and Jill will support Zihark (but I'm planning to support Nolan + Zihark for the endgame).

What should I aim for in this chapter? Should I try and steal the Rune Barrier from the boss?

Ok, I understand. It's fine, I'm probably the only one who would try it.

Also, with the Forging with Coins, once you load a save, the game is locked to one option, for instance if you start say 1-7 and go to forge an axe and you get the arrow card, if you reload the save, you will keep getting arrow over and over again. But what you can do is load a save from the end of the last chapter, keep forging and record the pattern in which you draw each card. This will allow you to get whichever combo of attributes in in the field. Hope that this can help you in HM, because we all know you need all the help you can get in Radiant Dawn HM.

[cloudropis]

Ok, I understand. It's fine, I'm probably the only one who would try it.

Also, with the Forging with Coins, once you load a save, the game is locked to one option, for instance if you start say 1-7 and go to forge an axe and you get the arrow card, if you reload the save, you will keep getting arrow over and over again. But what you can do is load a save from the end of the last chapter, keep forging and record the pattern in which you draw each card. This will allow you to get whichever combo of attributes in in the field. Hope that this can help you in HM, because we all know you need all the help you can get in Radiant Dawn HM.

I knew about that but I didn't actually know where is the cutoff point for the RNG to roll another card. The chapter end save huh? Thanks a lot, this will definitely help.

[Blaze The Great]

I knew about that but I didn't actually know where is the cutoff point for the RNG to roll another card. The chapter end save huh? Thanks a lot, this will definitely help.

I'm not exactly sure of the cutoff point but I'm pretty sure the RNG determines it as soon as you load a save from the base. So as long as you reload before the base, I'm pretty sure you can reset the card you get.

[Shadow Mir]

Yes, use Volug to weak the enemies in part 1. He gains strike-level and other units can get the kill experience. If Volug reaches S-strike, he can kill the cats in part 3 with two hits.

If you plan to make a support between Nolan and Zihark, then give Volug a support with Jill to get +30 avoid.

Imo the rune barrier is not very useful at all in this game. Never could make good use of it. Only steal it, if you're units are safe.

The masterseal is much more worth to steal.

I would recommend to buy the iron-longbow in the base before 1-5.

I think the Iron Longbow's too bad to be worth it when it's already inaccurate enough without the hit penalty that results from attacking at 3 range, in addition to being pretty heavy.

[Junkhead]

Use Danved, he is the funniest. By far.

[Blaze The Great]

Use Danved, he is the funniest. By far.

No, Danved is the worst. Even if he has slightly more personality than Aran, he is by far a worse unit overall. And unfortunately, you can't field units based on how much you like them in RD HM.

[Junkhead]

No, Danved is the worst. Even if he has slightly more personality than Aran, he is by far a worse unit overall.

"worst unit", as in, worst among the 3? He's certainly nowhere near close to the worst in the game.

And "slightly more personality than Aran"? HA. Let me reply to to that with some light-hearted laughter:

Sorry, can't. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

And unfortunately, you can't field units based on how much you like them in RD HM.

uhhhhhhh

Yeah, I can. And, I do. Quite often, actually. Unless, you meant...ranking them based on how much I like them?

[Blaze The Great]

"worst unit", as in, worst among the 3? He's certainly nowhere near close to the worst in the game.

And "slightly more personality than Aran"? HA. Let me reply to to that with some light-hearted laughter:

Sorry, can't. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

uhhhhhhh

Yeah, I can. And, I do. Quite often, actually. Unless, you meant...ranking them based on how much I like them?

Yeah I meant worst among the three sentinels sorry. There are plenty of units worse than him.

I'm not replying to that second part. XD

With some units you can do that. But just because you like say...Astrid a lot, doesn't mean you can use her.

[Junkhead]

Oh, but you meant when it comes to ranking them and when making suggestions to others, and stuff like that? If so, I completely understand that. In no way do I ever do that, lol.

[cloudropis]

Continuing tomorrow, I wanna enjoy FE12 today and tomorrow I gotta study for my Java exam.

[cloudropis]

And here we are again.

Chapter 1-5

I decide not to buy the Iron Longbow because 2000 gold for a bit of safe chipping damage from the ledge is way too much. Heck I can forge a max Might Iron Axe for less than that. I make one with enhanced hit as well, name it Francisca and draw a Sword card for +1 MT. Nice. It's for Jill, I'll forge one for Nolan with the next coin.

Everyone who isn't a relative of Brom gets fielded, we need meatshields to hold the ledges while the real units block the Fried Wyvern-loving fire mages the last two turns.

Volug, Nolan and Sothe kill the northern enemies while the others stay behind and cover the ledges. The green units fare pretty well, the buffed enemies rarely leave them in that annoying limbo "I'm severely hurt but I really believe attacking this Soldier is the right idea" - either they miss, or trigger their vulneraries. Sothe gets SKL SPD, keep on rocking boy!

The rest of the chapter can be summarized pretty quickly: we kill a few soldiers more to the West with Nolan, steal the Master Seal, we hold the ledges so that the Daein guys stay alive, we accidentally trigger the boss' posse in covering the Ancient Coin spot goddammit, Nolan and Volug fly north to catch the mages. Easy peasy. Also Volug activated Howl once, for whatever good it brings.

Resets: 1, total 14.

Gee, at least we left the chapter with dumb AI controlled weak units behind huh? Boy do I feel happy!

Next chapter's bargains are even worse, but I'm considering buying some Bronze weapons to abuse the final cleric a bit. We get 1000 gold and Renewal in the base convo, and here I am again asking: wtf was IS thinking with Renewal in world where Imbue and two promotion gains exist?

I'll support Volug/Nolan and Zihark/Jill, and I think I'll seriously use Zihark (supping Nolan) later until the game's end. Mad avoid yo. General suggestions about next chapter? I'll probably post it today to compensate the short chapter. Also, I'm sitting on a bunch of stat boosters, suggestions? Giving them all to Volug like many do is overkill since I'm not aiming for efficiency or anything.

Oh, I'll post one of my favorite pics though:

Yeah, equally.

"Beast tribe, your kind can be ferocious Tigers and Lions... Or cats."

"Bird tribes, your kind can be prideful Hawks... Or crows. And pigeons".

"MOTHERFUCKING DRAGONS RIGHT HERE, FLAME BREATHING DRAGONS OR... MAGIC BREATHING DRAGONS? OR YOU WANNA BE SWAGGIN' THE BLACK AND FLY? NOT BIASED I SWEAR".

Edited August 26, 2014 by cloudropis

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

Here a few tips:

• give the angelic robe from 1-4 to Micaiah, if you haven't done yet. You will get another one by Rafiel in 1-8.
• give Tauroneo's resolve to Micaiah. Use sacrifice till she's under 50% health.
• energydrop and dracoshield are very precious items. I normally never use them early in the game. Though Jill only has 11 base strength. So an energydrop wouldn't be a bad idea for her to use hand axes without speed penalty.
• give renewal to Volug, Sothe or Zihark
• give Leonardo's cancel to an unit, who often attacks (Nolan, Zihark)
• Forging another iron axe for Nolan is a good idea to get good accuracy and might.

Edited August 26, 2014 by TalesOf Hysteria

[cloudropis]

Resolve to Micaiah? Now that's a good idea, in HM she doesn't need Discipline in Tier 1 because she'll never be combat viable anyway. The angel robe is a good idea too, especially with next chapter's pegasi.

I'll give an ED to Jill because she really freaking needs it, while the Dracoshield will have to wait for a while. Renewal goes to Sothe, Nolan has cancel already, Nolan is getting an Iron Axe even though I don't have any Coins.

Also I'd like a suggestion about the supports. I always considered Nolan/Volug and Jill/Zihark following the thought of "unit who needs training with crutch character, so the two couples can split if needed". Then I realized splitting is never needed outside of maybe 1-6-2, so going Jill/Nolan and leaving them fending off everyone may be better. But then, Nolan is so close to promoting (17) I should consider supporting him up with Zihark right away? I'll think about it, but I'm probably going Nolan/Jill and Zihark/Volug, to then switch to Nolan/Zihark in part 3.

Edited August 26, 2014 by cloudropis

[Quintessence]

I don't think Fiona will ever resist a strategy that requires "pairs to be split" in 1-6 Stg 2, so you better go for a 2 turn clear and avoid any headaches with the Maradan Army. It requires Adept/Wrath Sothe with 2 or 3 max mt/crt forges being shoved by Turn 1 and positioning him in the thicket to draw Laverton inmediately and crtkill/Adept him quickly at EP2.

EDIT: Or Tier 2 Wrath Jill if you want to rig dodges/crts and extra EXP for her.

Edited August 26, 2014 by Quintessence

[cloudropis]

No sorry but I'm not doing these kind of specific setups that require to screw the rest of the units. I'd rather get some headaches and have a high turn count than that. Also I'm already at part 2 and don't want to go back because I got some sweet level ups. Plus I guess if things really go south I can throw Tauroneo, Volug and Sothe plus speedpromote Nolan with a Master Crown.

Chapter 1-6-1

Where the "hard" part of Hard Mode tilts his ugly head and stares at me dead in the eyes.

This shit was difficult. I sorta tend to break under pressure and just say "fuck it" and send Volug tackle the Pegasi reinforcements rather than risk the game and the level ups, but holy shit it was very tense. People hurt a fuckton or have high defence, using Volug, Zihark and Tauroneo was pretty much obligatory.

These 4 plus Nolan hold the line and decimate every enemy and reinforcement until turn 15 or so. That's it. I really didn't want to risk much and I had some problems calculating the enemies movement with thickets and cliffs (let's say, a cliff takes 2 movement. Does that mean that a unit to go through 3 cliffs needs 6 movement?). I got some pretty sweet level ups though, and thanks fuck because Jill's bases are really underwhelming. Also HM made me notice and pay attention to biorhythms for the first time - and made me hate Jill even more, 12 skl + low biorhythm = 63 chance to hit with a 90 hit weapon. Cool.

Nolan got HP STR SKL SPD RES in his only level up, Ilyana being a unit I'm not using for anything other than chipping gets an obvious HP STR MAG SKL LCK RES, Micaiah STR MAG SKL LCK RES (weren't you blessed gal?). Micaiah didn't see much action because, as I said, I was pretty afraid of the pegasi and stayed far away the frontlines other than thaning a random Knight.

Jill got instead a lot of kills, STR MAG LCK and HP MAG SPD DEF. Huh, I guess she wants Imbue. I gave her an Energy Drop BTW. Laura heals the sacrificing Micaiah around (she's level 9, a tad underlevelled?), and gets MAG SKL SPD LCK. Finally reinforcements are over and I can safely clean the final OH SHIT 22ND TURN SOLDIERS AND 3 PEGASI OUT OF FUCKING NOWHERE PISS OFF VOLUG TAURONEO GO GET'EM I'M SCARED. Shit.

I keep the Priest alive and grind him off with Bronze weapons till turn 200. Jill got HP STR DEF. She doesn't like getting many stat ups at once, but they go where needed at least. But I think she'll need the next Seraph Robe.

Oh, I decided to give Ed his last chance to redeem himself. I really like Trueblades in this game and Astra is a simply amazing skill. Edward himself is very good past his "ok" bases, and since this is free and all why not?

Edward gets:

HP STR SKL SPD LCK

HP SPD

HP STR SKL LCK

SKL SPD LCK RES

HP STR SKL DEF

Not bad. He is level 14 and more or less dead on in his averages (but 1 behind in STR), but I guess he can be pretty useful next chapter because with 17 AS he can double pretty much anything.

Resets: ZERO. That's right, enemies were more trucks than men, but they never got a kill. Good for me I guess.

Turn count: 200.

I don't remember shit about next chapter, what do the enemies do? And the Morono soldiers? Tips?

[Quintessence]

Welp, good luck then.

[Shadow Mir]

Next chapter's bargains are even worse, but I'm considering buying some Bronze weapons to abuse the final cleric a bit. We get 1000 gold and Renewal in the base convo, and here I am again asking: wtf was IS thinking with Renewal in world where Imbue and two promotion gains exist?

I'll support Volug/Nolan and Zihark/Jill, and I think I'll seriously use Zihark (supping Nolan) later until the game's end. Mad avoid yo. General suggestions about next chapter? I'll probably post it today to compensate the short chapter. Also, I'm sitting on a bunch of stat boosters, suggestions? Giving them all to Volug like many do is overkill since I'm not aiming for efficiency or anything.

Oh, I'll post one of my favorite pics though:

Yeah, equally.

"Beast tribe, your kind can be ferocious Tigers and Lions... Or cats."

"Bird tribes, your kind can be prideful Hawks... Or crows. And pigeons".

"MOTHERFUCKING DRAGONS RIGHT HERE, FLAME BREATHING DRAGONS OR... MAGIC BREATHING DRAGONS? OR YOU WANNA BE SWAGGIN' THE BLACK AND FLY? NOT BIASED I SWEAR".

Huh. Sure, Imbue might outdo Renewal, but just how many units actually have enough magic that it'd be by a significant amount??

[cloudropis]

Everyone who isn't a laguz. That's the point. To recover 6-7 HP you need 60-70 HP, that's 20/20/15 stuff and only for high HP units like warriors. The same units that thanks to the usual +2 and 3 to MAG when promoted, BEXP, natural growths etc reach 6-7 MAG shortly after promoting to Tier 2. Renewal is useless for Beorcs, getting the amount of Mag required to beat Renewal is incredibly low.

Look at Nolan itself. He caps MAG at 20/5 on average and gets 5 HP back with Imbue, he gets one less with Renewal. At 20/20/1 he has 53 HP and 9 MAG, Imbue heals almost twice the amount. It's this way for almost every physical unit.

[Shadow Mir]

Everyone who isn't a laguz. That's the point. To recover 6-7 HP you need 60-70 HP, that's 20/20/15 stuff and only for high HP units like warriors. The same units that thanks to the usual +2 and 3 to MAG when promoted, BEXP, natural growths etc reach 6-7 MAG shortly after promoting to Tier 2. Renewal is useless for Beorcs, getting the amount of Mag required to beat Renewal is incredibly low.

Look at Nolan itself. He caps MAG at 20/5 on average and gets 5 HP back with Imbue, he gets one less with Renewal. At 20/20/1 he has 53 HP and 9 MAG, Imbue heals almost twice the amount. It's this way for almost every physical unit.

From where I'm standing, Imbue's usefulness is rather limited when most of the units that can use it well suffer from low availability (because I don't consider healing slightly more than an outclassed healing item worth a skill slot)... True, it doesn't need much mag to beat Renewal, but still...

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

Imbue is at least good for Elincia, Seraph Knights in general, Ena and Kurthnaga.

Give paragon to Micaiah (except she's overleveled), because she's the only one, who can make good use of it. Promoted units don't get much experience at all.

Zihark has only 30 HP, but 6 magic, so he's probably the best contender for imbue in part 1.

1-7 is one of the easier chapters:

Try to rush the enemies and free the prisoners as quick as possible. Thani and hammer should be an instant kill against the armorknights except the boss. Decoy the mages with Micaiah, Ilyana or Leonardo.

If you have cleared all the enemies incuding the boss before the reinforcements appear in turn 9 or 10, you have done the "hardest" part. Then make use of the advantage to attack the reinforcements (hand axes, steel bows) from the upper platform. Jill's canto will help a lot.

[Shadow Mir]

Imbue is at least good for Elincia, Seraph Knights in general, Ena and Kurthnaga.

Give paragon to Micaiah (except she's overleveled), because she's the only one, who can make good use of it. Promoted units don't get much experience at all.

Zihark has only 30 HP, but 6 magic, so he's probably the best contender for imbue in part 1.

1-7 is one of the easier chapters:

Try to rush the enemies and free the prisoners as quick as possible. Thani and hammer should be an instant kill against the armorknights except the boss. Decoy the mages with Micaiah, Ilyana or Leonardo.

If you have cleared all the enemies incuding the boss before the reinforcements appear in turn 9 or 10, you have done the "hardest" part. Then make use of the advantage to attack the reinforcements (hand axes, steel bows) from the upper platform. Jill's canto will help a lot.

All of whom have low availability (and in Tanith's case, other issues [*coughspeedhack*]; Sigrun, who uses it better than either her or Marcia, doesn't have it much better).