FE6 HM LTC V1 - Completed in 133 Turns

[General Horace]

i removed my fe11 run because I lost my savefile and didn't want to have an incomplete run just sitting around. I guess I could have saved it, but tbh I found doing the run pretty boring (outside of a few select chapters) and very easy past the first few chapters.

fe5 ltc 100% movegrowth go

Another thing about stats in general, sometimes it's better to have lower defence on some of your offensive juggernauts (i'd imagine even more so in FE6 since weapon hit is lower) so enemies get sucked into attacking them instead of some units that might not be as strong offensively.

I think the reality of playthroughs with growths though is skipping enemies is sometimes detrimental since you oftentimes really need the exp. That being said, my playthroughs aren't full recruitment, so i'd have quite a few more turns to do stuff (like get Saleh levels without him having to kill a bunch of enemies at 10 HP to just barely make A Staves and 26 magic) too. I'd actually say FE8's the hardest GBA game to LTC, since the enemies (especially the endgame bosses like Lyon) are just as tanky (or tankier) than FE6's and FE7's endgame bosses, with significantly less chapters to gain levels in (and lower bases on characters in general).

FE6 without full recuitment would do stuff like skip Rutger too, and instead you get quite a few turns to sit around and feed Roy and Thany exp, and same goes for stuff like recruiting Sue and Cath, FE6 gives you a lot of turns to catch up, so maybe maximizing exp early on isn't as important. It's almost like having a bunch of FE7 defence chapters

i expect i'll be exponentially more useless once like, chapter 9 hits or something because I've honestly only beaten FE6 once on hardmode, and not at a fast pace at all.

Edited February 18, 2015 by General Horace

[dondon151]

Chiki already obliterated Tellius (although I'm interested in no bexp as a category),

my impression is that no BEXP in FE9 would just be like your standard fire emblem game with all of the stupid grindy bullshit. like, instead of BEXPing marcia and soren, you put them in dangerous situations over and over again so they they can gain the EXP that they would've normally gained with BEXP, and you also have to savescum for good stat gains.

the problem is that the units already exist, and fire emblem level ups are determined by the RNG. i suppose that FE9 no BEXP fixed mode would be an interesting category, though there would still be stupid grindy bullshit, just without without the savescumming.

(there are definitely 2 turns that chiki could have cut from his FE10 HM LTC. there may be more, but i know for a fact that his 1-8 and 1-E clears are suboptimal.)

Edited February 18, 2015 by dondon151

[Yojinbo]

I think it's OK to rig perfect level ups in a test run or during the planning phase of the LTC run just so you get an idea which important benchmarks a unit has to reach in order to make certain moves work out. In the actual run though I'd kind of advice against it because it frankly looks horrible - I mean stuff like the 0.2% Steel Blade crit against Henning in dondon's run has already been considered pretty sketchy [though tolerable because a.) it would've ruined his awesome tactic and rescue chains and b.) because Henning is an asshole and deserves no better] and that's still far better odds than a perfect level up which probably floats around 0.05% or something and for the most part is superfluous anyway. Imho rigging level ups should only serve to make sure than you gain +str and +spd, maybe +skl because FE6 hitrates. Everything else is a useful bonus but by no means requires rigging. I mean, what the hell would you rig a perfectl level up with Dieck for?

[Irysa]

The thing is, rigging consecutive levels of str/skl/spd for chars in this game is also very unlikely too. If I total up the amount of times they get +str if I rig it every level up you'll find it basically amounts to the same % as a perfect level up, or worse. That translates across the cast to such impossible chances that raises the question of why I shouldn't just rig everything? I draw the line at stuff I consider to be too dubious or unreliable unless it is absoloutely neccessary to achieve a particular turncount, such as Marcus critting the boss in Chapter 1. That simply can't happen otherwise, so I'll do it. However I don't know what stats are neccessary to achieve particular turncounts yet, so I'm somewhat obligated to do so unless I just retroactively hack stats higher as I need to.

I accept that however, I could just opt to run the test run and see how much I actually need in any given situation, then step it back a little, but the chances are all still really awful anyway. Shanna in particular is going to have to proc str non stop to achieve particular goals with her 30% growth or something.

Edited February 18, 2015 by Irysa

[Yojinbo]

Shanna having to proc str every level is one thing because without it the whole run won't work out. Having your units proc everything every level up is a different matter though. The former is necessary and has a clear purpose, the latter just looks horrible and show-offish imo. It's not like Dieck needs to proc that one point of res so badly that you have to rig it, when +str and +spd would be enough for him. That's just my personal opinion but I think rigging more than you actually need just for the sake of it can ruin the credibility of the run for a lot of people. That might be a stretch and people's opinion will probably differ but that's how I feel about it.

Edited February 18, 2015 by Yojinbo

[Irysa]

It's not like Dieck needs to proc that one point of res so badly that you have to rig it, when +str and +spd would be enough for him.

It's unlikely, but it is possible that it affects something somewhere. The point is I don't know until I try it. Part of the problem is that changing one thing has knockon effects in how everything else happens too. Maybe I can get a Mage to attack Sue in Chapter 7 so I have enough exp to go to Sacae, instead of attacking Dieck because he has 2 res procs, and maybe he won't get more than 2 levels. Who knows?

Talking about what is neccessary is only really applicable for more covert combat avoiding strategies, since those have the lowest benchmarks since I don't need combat stats to achieve them. For offensive strategies, Shanna doesn't need to proc str every level because I can hypothetically just start rigging double crits all the time, and tbh I don't even know how much str she actually really honestly needs to achieve particular goals. The chance of her double critting on small critrates on enemies she has a 100% hitrate on is like 0.16%, but I'm going to probably be getting Lilina to crit at single digits on much worse than that. The chance of Shanna's strength going up so much is pretty much the same. Sure, I've made the total chances of all outcomes occuring go down even more by rigging a perfect level up, but when we're in 0.0...% territory, does it really matter?

Basically, how am I supposed to actually determine what's completely neccessary? I've personally drawn an arbitary line against strats that have really gross reliability unless there's no other way to do it. I want what I do to look somewhat elegant, even if my stats are dumb. I could rig Shanna to double crit every single enemy on Turn 2 Enemy Phase and dodge all attacks, but that's incredibly lame, and not neccessary. Chapter 1's bosskill is in the 0.6% success chance or something (I can't into math), but there is simply no other way to kill the boss in 4 turns otherwise unless I suicide my Cavaliers to get Marcus to be able to move 15 tiles in one turn.

[XeKr]

RNG is not real in the world of gba FE and potential TA-LTC. :P

(obviously) matters of elegance are extremely subjective. From the impression I get itt, my 2c is you should rig everything until your patience/willpower runs out and/or even hack stats/weapon uses if necessary for the planning. For the final run, idealistic matters of purity would suggest no hacking (so do be cautious when doing so to avoid impossibilities).

Most statistics in FE are hidden from viewers, and mental calculations are too much work anyways. Unless one draws/pays attention to it, I don’t actually think it impacts elegance too much, for the majority of this niche (okay so this is some pure speculation and tbh some devil’s advocacy and such, who knows unless others chime in).

Though I would suspect a notable fraction of what kills similar attempts are trivial matters of inertia like these, so tbh ignore all this, keep playing. >_>

[Lord Raven]

I don't understand anything that XeKr is saying, no offense to him.

Also, I don't think there's an RN string that lets you do that, it's already hard enough to get her to dodge and hit everything at least once lol, but I could just be acting pedantic when I say that.

Edited February 18, 2015 by Lord Raven

[Irysa]

http://youtu.be/thRUHgOFYbI

5 Turns (duh). Skip to 3 mins if you want to see what's different.

Thanks to Horace for helping out with optimising Shanna's EXP gain. This strat is overall definitely more suspect in reliability than the previous one, and Lance misses out on a kill at the end, but the chances of death aren't THAT bad considering Javelin hitrate in this game is awful and I managed to get the Fighter to not attack Shanna on Turn 4 EP when she was using a Javelin. Shanna could get 1 more kill if she was equipped with a Javelin on Turn 3 EP but it's not worth trying to rig a good level up and dodge 3 out of 4 enemies because of the avo loss due to being weighed down by her Javelin. Roy honestly has more issues than Shanna in surviving but this demonstrates quite well why he really needs to get as much durability as possible.

[spoiler=EP Stats]Turn 3

Dieck 24hp (Merc)
66 Hit 12 Atk

Shanna 17hp (Fighters/Soldiers)
56 Hit 13 Atk
55 Hit 11 Atk
30 Hit 7 Atk
30 Hit 7 Atk

Turn 4
Roy 16 Hp (Fighter/Archer/Soldiers)
43 Hit 11 Atk
74 Hit 7 Atk
48 Hit 9 Atk
48 Hit 9 Atk

Dieck 14 Hp (Fighter) - Relevant because he'll get attacked by the archer unless he dodges this instead of Roy
42 Hit 10 Atk

Shanna 6 Hp (Soldier)
44 Hit 6 Atk

[spoiler=Large RN Burns]
Turn 1
Merlinus Arrow U4R1 Cycle (RDULx338)

Turn 2
Merlinus Arrow D4R1 Cycle (RUDLx436)

Turn 3
Lance Arrow U6R1 Cycle (RDULx421)

Turn 5
Shanna Arrow U6R1 Cycle (RDULx106)

Edited February 19, 2015 by Irysa

[PKL]

Honestly, if you're gonna take the time to burn so many RNs to get perfect levels, why do you even care about reliability of a strat? lol

[Lord Raven]

holy fuck thats TAS levels of RN abuse

[dondon151]

that's more like supra-TAS levels of RNG abuse since TASes only want str/skl/spd

anyway i do see the point in trying to secure reliability even when RNG abusing level ups. maximizing reliability is a hallmark of strategic prowess. if you throw reliability out the window, it seems like you're just bumbling through the game with the strongest possible units.

[Irysa]

5 Turns. (!)

I had to change my last turn of Chapter 2 slightly for this, by having Merlinus buy one more Iron Lance and Roy trading Dieck for the Armorslayer before he seized.

Another fun chapter. Long RN burns are now being sped up so as to reduce the length of the video. Turn 1 is awesome, Chad's ability to rescue Shanna gives me the extra tile I need to get Roy to the boss in time. Chad with no Sword can take exactly one hit from Soldiers, and his 6 mov lets him sneak into a corner and be safe on Turn 3. Also, Shanna with +2 def over base is not OHKO'd by the first Archer! Impressive. In case you're not familiar with how Merlinus works in this game, he's basically immortal. When he dies he'll come back next map, so he's exempt from the "no deaths" rule I've put on myself for this run.

There are basically no significant chances of death on this chapter aside from Bors needing to dodge at least one attack out of all the ones he gets hit by, Shanna needing to dodge one of a Knight and Soldier on Turn 3, and Roy needing to dodge at least once on Turn 2 and Turn 4. Technically Alan is in a risky position on Turn 4 but that's because I purposely didn't have him use a Vulnerary so I could get the Knight to attack him instead, which spreads EXP since he can actually damage the Knight and stops Shanna leveling up by 1 EXP at the end of the map (less of a headache to fix a levelup).

The final turn looks gross and is so implausible but it's pretty much the only way to 5 turn this map. Alternatively Roy has to crit twice on enemy phase, and that might be slightly more likely due to his Rapier having base crit but way harder to rig. I ran through about 5000 RNs to try to find a perfect levelup for Marcus and couldn't get it, so I settled for all stats but Luck. I guess you could say...Marcus was a bit UNLUCKY.

[spoiler=EP Stats]Turn 1
Merlinus 15 Hp (Soldiers/Archer - has to dodge at least one of the soldiers to lure Archer)
63 Hit 14 Dmg
50 Hit 13 Dmg
82 Hit 11 Dmg

Shanna (Soldier - needs to dodge so Archer goes for Merlinus since he can't OHKO her from full)
43 Hit 8 Dmg

Turn 2
Roy 19 Hp (Soldiers)
65 Hit 12 Atk
52 Hit 11 Atk

Turn 3
Roy 18 Hp (Fighters, Cavalier)
40 Hit 11 Dmg
26 Hit 10 Dmg
50 Hit 8 Dmg

[spoiler=Large RN Burns]Turn 2
Lott Arrow U4L1 Cycle (RDULx315)

Turn 5
Lance Arrow R3D4 Cycle (RUDLx42)
Lance Arrow R3D4 Cycle (RUDLx175)
Chad Arrow D5R1 Cycle (RDULx68)
Chad Arrow D5R1 Cycle (RDULx401)

Edited February 20, 2015 by Irysa

[Yojinbo]

That final turn will go down in history lol

5 turns is pretty amazing though, I don't think anything lower is possible even in theory. Good work on that one.

Why exactly did you let Shanna run short of that one exp to gain a level up? You could've attacked the Armor Knight on turn 3 with the Javelin so she'd be able to counter attack the soldier on enemy phase for a few more exp. Afaik the soldier will go after her if Alan is also equipped with a Javelin on that turn. It may be a "headache" to fix her level up but I think you should at least try it. It's not like everybody needs to proc everything every level up.

Roy can also kill the soldier next to him in the beginning of Turn 3 if he dodges the Javelin Soldier or crits. Maybe a rig would be in order there because Roy isn't exactly getting a lot of exp in this chapter. Now that I think of it Roy could actually get a kill on Turn 2 player phase as well if you have Marcus weaken the Archer instead of outright killing him and Roy finishes him off.

Edited February 20, 2015 by Yojinbo

[MacLovin]

All aboard the RNG Caboose.

Srsly tho, Super!Thany is likely the only thing comparable to Miledy for this.

Could Dieck be better than Rutger if you're going nuts with RNG manipulation?

[dondon151]

rutger is still better and they are both kind of bad.

[MacLovin]

it's fe6 ltc, I'm pretty sure the majority of foot units are going to be considered bad.

Wolt saves turns right?

Except in Niime's case because warp with a crazy amount of base magic.

[dondon151]

roy also doesn't OHKO the enemy fighter with a rapier crit on the last enemy phase.

it might be more beneficial to somehow enable roy to 3HKO the fighter and then rig a double rapier crit on enemy phase. i don't think it's hard to rig; it will take a bit longer to do so because enemy phase rigging is less under your control, but check this out (2:38), for example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jr13pbh2xWE

you do want to get roy to C swords quickly because it's easier to feed him EXP when he has killing edge and light brand access. that way in seize maps, you can drop him near the seize point and he can mop up the enemies there for more EXP. in grindy maps, roy is competing for combat EXP with lilina, sue, and later saul, so seize point combat is EXP that his competitors can't get anyway.

Edited February 20, 2015 by dondon151

[Irysa]

Oh right, he doesn't. Yeah I thought he did because in my dry runs he crit killed the Soldier on Turn 2 EP so he had an extra point of strength. I'm an idiot and Yojinbo is correct, I could get Roy to just kill the Archer on Turn 2 instead and that should get him the extra exp required to OHKO the Fighter with a crit.

@ your video, that is insane haha. I kind of feel that I shouldn't be rigging sub 25~% critrates if they aren't actually basically required to clear the map in X turns (which they are to clear kills on this chapter, and although Roy doesn't have to, at least 2 crits are going to have to occur). I mean...I can rig EP crits so Shanna or Alan have more EXP total but I think I should be able to feed enough exp in drawn out maps like 4 anyway.

EDIT: Actually hang on, it wasn't that Soldier that got him the level up. I think that fighter just spawned with less def (since those enemies, including the boss are generated mid map) so the crit could OHKO, and Roy leveled up after? I know I did it once, but that was before I was rigging growths and trying to just 5 turn. Regardless, if I can kill the archer on turn 2, then kill the soldier on turn 3 (or turn 2 ep) that will do the trick.

Edited February 20, 2015 by Irysa

[dondon151]

i think you shouldn't worry about rigging things regarding grinding. you're going to have to get lilina to L20, and even with relaxed turncounts from full recruitment, getting a bad unit 19 levels in HM is going to require enemy phase work, and lilina needs RNG abuse to consistently survive enemy phases.

[Skellow]

Good stuff !

I was wondering,is there a particular reason you rigged Wolt levelup ? Will this matter at some point ?

[Irysa]

It is extremely unlikely but I'm basically just rigging everyone's levelups in case it matters at some point in some ridiculous strategy. Dorothy has 0 chance of getting a level in Chapter 6 and I can see a +1 def making a difference on Chapter 7.

Also I had to burn a huge amount of RNs to rig Marcus a levelup anyway (and he can definitely use every single point he gets) so I may as well just get Wolt's on the way.

[Irysa]

So like I'm in the process of optimising Chapter 3. Aside from Marcus getting more Axe WEXP, one of major changes is since Roy is killing the Archer on Turn 2, I don't need Chad to bodyblock a Soldier to prevent Roy getting attacked 3 times, instead that dude attacks Lance. Additionally, if Roy is using an Iron Sword instead of a Rapier, I can get a Soldier (weakened by Wade) to attack him, which means I don't need to rig a crit. Combine that with the Soldier that Lance weakens on EP, this means Roy actually gets 3 kills, which is a huge improvement and doesn't really impact the rest of the map much at all.

The thing is, I could push it a bit harder if he does the double crit on Turn 4 EP, but he will definitely level up after fighting the SwordCav (even if he doesn't crit), AND his chance of death is going to be really gross since he'll have to dodge every single hit (unless I rig a good level up and 2x dodges on Turn 2 EP). So rigging a good levelup an addition to having to dodge a lot (23, 46, 36, 66 disp) and critting twice in one EP just kinda seems kinda ridiculous. Even if I rig the double EP dodges for Turn 2 (65, 49 disp) and a good level up its still whack, and it I still need to crit the Javelin Cavalier in the way, so that puts the total janky crits on the map up to 3, from 2.

tl;dr

Option A - Roy gets 3 total kills and has to dodge 3 or 2 times vs 23, 46, 36 disp hit on EP. I use PP crits from Shanna@Javelin vs Fighter, and Alan@IronLance/Sword vs Cavalier/Fighter at 2~4% each to clear the path and finish the map. Total crits are 2.

Option B - Roy gets 4 total kills (and 10 extra chip exp) and has to dodge 4 or 3 times vs 23, 66, 43, 33 disp hit, and crit at 12% on EP once. Alan@Javelin can KO the SwordCav without a crit thanks to Roy's meaty Rapier chip, but Shanna@IronLance can't ORKO the JavelinCav without DOUBLE critting at 2~4% on PP, so effectively I'm forced to use Shanna@Javelin crit the SwordCav and Alan@IronLance crit the Javelin Cav at 2~4% each anyway. Total crits are 3. (there is a chance I can rig the HandAxe fighter to attack from 2R of Roy instead of 1R1U so that this only needs 2 crits in total)

Option C - Roy gets 5 kills and has to dodge 4/3 times vs 23, 66, 43, 33 disp hit, and crit at 12% on EP twice. Alan@IronLance critkills the Javelin Cav in the way and Shanna@IronLance gets to freely kill a Soldier instead. Total crits are 3.

To reduce dodges he'll need to dodge consecutive 65, 49 disp on Turn 2 EP. Sub variant - Roy doesn't take the Turn 3 Soldier kill and uses a Vulnerary, which essentially cuts down 1 kill for 1 dodge on all the above.

tbh, I'm very likely going to just go for Option A, if only because I only actually 100% need 2 crits to 5 turn, but if anyone has any other opinions, please chime in. The biggest reason I'm loathe to try the other options is simply because rigging a good level up on EP in combination with dodges and crits is just absurd, even if I don't care about defensive procs (which are honestly Roy's most desirable ones).

Edited February 21, 2015 by Irysa

[Irysa]

5 Turns. Went with Option A, although it's still optimised past that.

Main changes:

• Roy gets 3 kills instead of 0, courtesy of Yojinbo and Soldier AI deciding it's okay to suicide onto a Roy@IronSword but not a Roy@Rapier
• Marcus gets a lot more Axe WEXP (that crit on Turn 4 EP was just kinda sitting there so I figured I may as well use it for Axe WEXP)
• Lance and Wolt don't get levels. They will next chapter anyway, very close, but in Wolt's case (and Lott's since I avoided getting him a level) I figured it would be better to sort of spread EXP since it's unlikey minor units like them will get 2 levelups, so letting them chip to a level is more sensible. Elen healed more I guess lol.
• I heavily cut down on chances of death via having redistributed Healing and use of Chad offensively since he didn't need to meatshield Roy anymore. Also reduced the amount of RN burning overall on the map. (although Marcus's level still takes a while)

There was potential for more Roy kills via crits on Turn 4 EP, but screw rigging EP crits and good levelups. Also potential for getting Shanna or Alan to level 4, but even if it's PP, rigging levels after 1~4% crits is annoying and Chapter 4 is going to be so leniant due to Rutger recruit that I can easily just rig noncrit PP levelups. EP Stats are essentially the same as the first vid aside from the fact the enemies after the first Soldier Roy kills get -3hit and -1dmg on Roy due to leveling up. Which still turns his chances of death on Turn 4 into something much more favorable.

For Chapter 4, +1 speed Marcus actually doubles more than half of the Cavaliers!

[spoiler=Large RN Burns]
Turn 2
Lott Arrow U4L1 Cycle (LDURx314)

Turn 5
Dieck Arrow R4U1 Cycle (ULRDx28)
Dieck Arrow R4U1 Cycle (ULRDx822)

Edited February 22, 2015 by Irysa

[Yojinbo]

I think option a and option c both have their pros and cons. A is the most reliable, C the most rewarding one. B is kinda neither here nor there so it's really just a question of how excessive you want your RNG abuse to be in the final run.