video series FE6 Reverse Recruitment Low Turns

[Espinosa]

Promoting Karel prematurely would likely be dictated by immediate concerns about turn counts early on (or rather, around midgame). Capping stats has never been such a priority in LTC runs. If having more move and crit can help us clear maps in fewer turns then an early promotion is preferred to sustained babying.

Leygance has ~19 defence factoring in throne bonuses and around 59 avoid. Shin will neither double nor even dent him, Dayan probably not achieving much even with a double Killer Bow crit (he got to C bows pretty early on in chapter 6). Zeiss probably will be able to inflict *some* damage, but not a significant enough amount to matter, again not doubling, and with awful hit rates to boot. Miledy is nearly the same unit, so the same applies to her as well.

Hugh has some accurate, decent chip to offer if we bother carrying him that far (we do already have a Lord and two dancers to worry about moving forward). Yuno and Percival have Armorslayer and it's not so clear if Percy is worth instapromoting once we get the Crest. His stats are (and will remain) mediocre and just a shadow of what Percival is in vanilla HM. It doesn't look like there will be a single reliable Cav in this playthrough at all, actually, but the number of fliers, nomads (and Clarine I suppose) is just "good enough" to keep the team moving. And if Karel promotes before the boss, he can just critkill him with the Armorslayer (conserving the precious uses, too).

I wonder if I should spend my Angelic Robe on Dayan? He's still so vulnerable to getting 2HKO'd by just about anything.

[Yojinbo]

You don't actually have to ORKO Leygance because one turn is wasted through having to pick up the Elysian Whip and the Guiding Ring anyway.

Yuno and Percival have Armorslayer and it's not so clear if Percy is worth instapromoting once we get the Crest. His stats are (and will remain) mediocre and just a shadow of what Percival is in vanilla HM.

Percival can't be used as a longterm unit unless you rig his level ups and there are no other Cavs around to promote because you'll probably skip Noah and Treck sucks. Promoted Percival is pretty good in Ch.9, 10, 11L and 13 but past that he likely won't contribute outside of a rescue chain or the odd Javelin/Hand Axe chip. There really isn't a good reason to not promote him asap and he'll likely be around lvl 12 or 13 at that point anyway.

[Irysa]

Espinosa, are averages really applicable when you're at least attempting to do some levelup engineering? Sure, Fir probably won't get str every level, but it's pretty easy to rig her speed continously.

Also, Hugh does not have good chip against Leygance...Leygance is sporting 11 Res thanks to the Throne. He'll just be tickling him unless he made it to Elfire.

[Espinosa]

From chapter 4 to chapter 6, Percival has only gained one level-up (which was just +hp +spd iirc). Not really considering investing into him (he can't be carried by Miledy and I haven't got a clue which one out of her and Zeiss will be my main flier) and I didn't feed him many kills at all because of how little exp he gets due to being underlevelled. I suppose instapromoted Percival is somewhat comparable to vanilla Marcus and Zealot? No Silver Lance usage though, but it's not like I have one either.

Averages sorta matter because it's more difficult for me to get good levels for characters with poor growths. In some cases, I didn't even bother to get anything good (Niime) and in others I tried my best and got some interesting results (like Dayan growing strength 5 levels in a row; not much else besides that a lot of the time though).

Think of it this way; when you can manipulate Fir to get more strength and speed than average, for every 1 point in these stats Karel is capable of getting 2. And he'll be that much bulkier.

I just think being able to just drop him somewhere casually will be a huge relief if I can feed him more kills in the next two chapters.

Though, while we've been discussing some future chapters, I haven't really been thinking about chapter 7 much, and this is where I'm presently at. This will probably be the toughest chapter (even when Igrene (the real one) and Dayan can somewhat trivialise the normally difficult wyvern encounters) so far, since you have to go in all sorts of directions to accomplish the multiple main and side objectives. The advent of a second dancer will make the planning that much more complicated no doubt.

[Yojinbo]

Instapromoted Percival has more str than Vanilla Marcus/Zealot and there really isn't a good reason why he shouldn't have gained at least two level ups between Ch.3 and the time you promote him in Ch.8. It's not that hard to have him proc +str and +spd twice until that point and you don't really have anybody else to use that Knight Crest on. It's basically a free 8-move unit with solid stats that can fulfill whatever purpose you have in mind with it. It doesn't make sense to not use him.

[Espinosa]

Instapromoted Percival has more str than Vanilla Marcus/Zealot and there really isn't a good reason why he shouldn't have gained at least two level ups between Ch.3 and the time you promote him in Ch.8. It's not that hard to have him proc +str and +spd twice until that point and you don't really have anybody else to use that Knight Crest on. It's basically a free 8-move unit with solid stats that can fulfill whatever purpose you have in mind with it. It doesn't make sense to not use him.

Well, when he gets like 15 exp from a kill when the rest get 30-40 it makes sense to have somebody else take that exp and develop into a way better unit than base Percival. Plus, his enemy phase is a little limited since it's hard for just about anyone not named Hugh to counterkill a large crowd of enemies (accuracy / range problem).

The main reason I've been sorta neglecting him (he's still fielded in every map and always does something important though) is that I haven't determined any situation where I either need a good Percival or I shiver up and die. Dayan seemed more useful frankly speaking, even if I won't be able to promote him for a while. Will he level up only in speed, or is it so important that he levels in both strength and speed? I dunno; I haven't measured a time where specific stat benchmarks on Percival specifically would be of essence, although higher stats are always better no doubt. He's gained one level from base 9/0 so even if he happens to not gain anymore from this point onwards (say, due to successful babying of Karel taking place), he can still get instapromoted with the chapter 8 Knight Crest and function rather decently as a second 8 move unit to Yuno that doesn't fly.

So in a lot of my earlygame strats, when I need to sacrifice a unit's turn to rescue someone, usually it's Percival doing that while Zeiss/Miledy/some others like lolSophia self-improve (though having Sophia rescue people is obviously not an option).

[Espinosa]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrTBoU2Xz0Y

Chapter 3 in 6 turns.

Featuring the only time Karel has entered combat on enemy phase in the first six chapters of the playthrough (I'm sure this will have to change in a map or two).

[momogeek2141]

Did you show Cecilia's stats?

[Espinosa]

Didn't show her stats since she's a healer and whatnot, but here they are:

1/0 - 17 hp / 3 mag / 0 skl / 4 spd / 6 lck / 2 def / 6 res

She's got some of the worst bases in the challenge so far. However, as a mounted healer she is sure to be helpful until I get Clarine (who can just instapromote straight away).

Does anyone know if Thany is the one who will have to pick up the Guiding Ring in the desert (since she's replacing Sophia)? I could always forego promoting Hugh and keep the first one for Clarine (and I might, I dunno; after all, Hugh & Lugh could be a great wyvern-killing duo for the desert), and Hugh will likely pale in comparison to Lugh anyway.

[Excellen Browning]

As far as I know, the replacement characters are class/stat/growth/pallette swaps from the originals, nothing more. Pretty sure Thany will be the one who can pick the Guiding Ring because the game checks for the character ID/slot, which is the same.

[Yojinbo]

Thany picks up the Guiding Ring which is rad because you don't have to ferry Sophia around.

Promoting Hugh is a complete waste tbh. He's totally useless once Lugh joins. Wyverns aren't that hard to take care of. You can ferry around Klein and promoted Echidna to deal with them or just destroy them with Wyrmslayer!Karel.

[Espinosa]

I actually sorta regret not having Hugh proc more speed right now. It looks like the easiest way to clear a large portion of the enemies in the map is to drop a speedy mage (12-13 AS) capable of doubling most of these units somewhere above the arena. That would take care of a lot of these problematic enemies.

Anyway, with the presence of two dancers, the map should be cleared more quickly than before, though probably in a really messy way. I have to figure out the houses / shops I absolutely have to visit (running out of Javelins would probably be one of my main concerns, and more Chest & Door Keys are important), and then just aim to clear the map ASAP, possibly in 4-5 turns (hard to say which because the enemies only succumb to a team effort and don't really kill themselves on your units on EP).

I'm actually thinking if it wouldn't be a good idea to just let Hugh take on the left side of the map alone while the rest of the team attempts to really clear the right side where most of the houses are. This is worth trying I suppose.

Treasures I really care about: Barrier (chest), Killing Edge, Hero Crest, Torch, Physic.

Can be neglected when going for a lower turn count: Rapier (Karel probably can't use it), Horse Slayer (Tate brings one with her), Elixir (plenty of these around), Red Gem (money helps cut turns, and if we can cut a turn off without touching this...), Long Bow (Shin brings one in the next chapter).

Of course, if there are the units to do it, I might as well just get everything I can.

If somebody gives her a dance, Miledy should be able to open the Barrier chest on turn 4. Zeiss could also do it, but Miledy has more bulk right now (on both sides). Still pretty vulnerable to arrows and tomes, though, but that's even more of a reason to send the whole team that side to clear the way for her.

[Espinosa]

Gotta love how Lalum has 14 hp/1 def as a result of an error in the patch (which gives her 1 def/1 res for some reason) and she keeps dying to an iron bow archer with 15 atk. Probably going to have to change the whole strategy instead of giving her the stats she needs to have (otherwise, there'd be more I'd be tempted to "fix").

[Excellen Browning]

Give Lalum her original def/res, since it's clearly an error in the patch.

[Espinosa]

How would I go about changing her defence/resistance from 1/1 to 2/4 respectively?

Those base stat numbers don't make much sense, and they don't look like hex either...

[Topazd]

Those numbers are added to the base stats of the class to calculate the actual base stats of the character, unless you meant something else.

Edited April 8, 2015 by Topazd

[Espinosa]

Ah, now I get it. Fixed now; just restarted the map and Lalum has the right defensive stats now.

...the funniest thing is that after I adjusted my strategy, it was Miledy who was dying. Welp.

[Excellen Browning]

Useless post is useless

Edited April 8, 2015 by Excellen Browning

[Espinosa]

Arrrgh... The reinforcements in front of the boss being triggered by my flier going into the Barrier staff area completely ruined my 5-turn strategy (a 4-turn was unsuccessful because most of my dances until the last turns were spent trying to clean up the large enemy armies and not moving in some specific directions).

Let's see if I can manage in 5 turns still... Right now it looks like I'll be missing out on the Physic staff but at least I'm getting the Hero's Crest (barely).

[PKL]

Cant wait for chapter 4.

[Espinosa]

Managed to finish chapter 7 in 5 turns as intended, only missing two somewhat unimportant items. Really happy about it.

Karel is starting to look more like base level Roy, just with more strength and skill (which I like). I might drop a robe on him, but I haven't decided to do that yet and it's probably too late for that to be any useful. I suppose I could always just sell the robe.

I only regret I wasn't able to visit the farthest shop on the map, which offers namely Javelins. But this game is FE6 and Javelins are p atrocious as a means of player phase combat, and PP is where most productive things happen in this game. I'd probably not be saying this if I had Marcus / Zealot in the party at this point (though these two like Hand Axes against the lance users and usually pick an accurate 1-range weapon to really injure someone most of the time), but Zeiss (whose level-ups kicked in big-time) and Percival (could promote next map) may well change that.

The presence of two dancers makes the chapters play out in an entirely different way, I think, and while we kinda saw it coming, I can say for myself I didn't really predict the manner in which it would unfold. In chapter 7 though, they mostly just gave people turns so that the surrounding enemies wouldn't destroy me on the same turn's EP, but it was more than that.

[PKL]

You could have Level 20 dancers in one spare turn if you wanted :o. Then you could put them in some amount of danger later on!

Edited April 8, 2015 by PJSalt

[Espinosa]

Yeah, and that would also buy me a ticket to hell Sacae.

[Lord Raven]

Sacae is pretty crazy with LTC playthroughs, in my FE6 one I managed 11 turns total in all 5 Sacae maps. For reference Chapter 8 is 13 turns.

[Espinosa]

I raised the question of going to Sacae before. I have been raising Sophia lately (and right now she is like a Niime that whiffs a lot but can take a hit), because I know Elphin will be gaining a ton of experience until the route split, but if I decide to go to Sacae still, it's going to be really easy (and can maybe be done in chapter 16 if I hesitate to make the decision until then, but I'd rather not slow myself down or neglect more worthwhile characters because of Sophia until then).

A lot of Sacae maps do look shorter, but the bosses tend to be speedier and I've no clue if it's really the best path for the amount of rigging I allow (which is very little, since I "arrange" a lot but don't really rig anything per se). It also helps to remember my Warping will be rather poor, with Ellen having 12 warp range at base and Clarine having 10 + a mount. It will never get better since Niime was an unpromoted Shaman in C1 - that is, unless I find a way to efficiently train Clarine and/or Ellen.

Can someone remind me what (original) Dayan's recruitment was like? I have to talk to him with Karel/Elphin/Barth (the latter I might not even recruit), but just how far away is he from my starting position? I wanted to consult dondon's old LTC videos (they're still worth watching but of course the dude went and deleted all of them) but that's not something that can be done anymore.