The Laziest Awakening Playthrough Ever: The Playlog

[Radiant head]

Oh, I was just quasi-quoting one of his voice-over lines.

[TheSilentChloey]

Oh, I was just quasi-quoting one of his voice-over lines.

I know and I meant what I said, I am pretty certain that he is older than he looks! How else can he marry the women of the Shepherds and not have anyone bat an eyelid ?

[mozumes]

Lissa is around 15 and it says that she's older than him, and Ricken doesn't need to marry anyone because there's too many guys and not enough girls. He should have just listened to Chrom.

[Radiant head]

Lissa is the only person I feel comfortable marrying him to, but on the other hand I got the sense that Ricken only wants to marry her so he can be brothers with his man-crush.

[Jave]

I've always had the impression that the S-Support is more of a commitment and the characters don't get married until they've come of age. I think Ricken specifically mentions this in one of his Supports.

[Czar_Yoshi]

I know and I meant what I said, I am pretty certain that he is older than he looks! How else can he marry the women of the Shepherds and not have anyone bat an eyelid ?

Keep in mind that this game is set in medieval times, not Hollywood. This sort of thing was pretty normal back then.

[NobodyInWonderland]

@deskita Hehehehehe. Oh they will be, they will be.

@shujinkou, not quite. The enemy AI goes for whoever's actually in attack range over the weak and defenseless healer; the only chapter where they don't is the Tiki paralogue. So all this really requires is putting someone in their attack range who is... a bit more able to handle it.

@Radiant head but how else are you supposed to look at him when he's so short

Regarding Ricken, he has a decent amount of magic capability and access to Luna, and if we want to get technical about class sets he's trading out Virion's wyvern tree for the cavalier tree. Arguably, the cavalier tree is better, and so he usually gets priority in matchmaking over our dear archer when I'm going for kid skills. I wouldn't call him the most fantastic first-gen unit ever, but he's got his merits. I usually just marry him off for his skills and/or modifiers rather than because I particularly like shipping a kid with women that much older than him. If we want to talk uncomfortable age gaps or people who look too young, though, I marry Nowi to someone every playthrough... so yeah.

[spoiler=Some Pre-Chapter Miscellany]
All this is skippable, but if you want some updates on where everyone's at, here they are.

So, folks, a bit has changed since last chapter. Pretty much everybody gained a few levels. A number of random supports were unlocked during my Golden Gaffe adventures - Riza threw figs at Lonqu and conspired with Stahl to make Chrom a birthday present. Chrom jumped in to take down something that Sumia left unkilled one too many times, and now she's blackmailing him into taking naps. Chrom and Riza are now at Support Level A. I'm debating on whether to actually go through their S support scene when it's unlocked, or just wait till Chapter 11. As long as I don't let Chrom get any more supports with Sumia they should be fine, and since I've always just read the unlocked S support when it was available (and I was planning to marry the two of them off), I've never actually seen the dialogue when the two are left un-S-supported until then. Both Riza and Chrom are at Level 16. They're still in their base classes; I could have done some grinding to get them to Level 20 and Master Sealed before this - I grabbed a few from Harvest Scramble - but I'm kind of eager to get started with the next chapter.

Also? Bless Spotpass teams. There's so much nice stuff there - I restocked Frederick's silver lance and hammer, as well as Lonqu's killing edge that he wore down a bit in the Golden Gaffe. I also grabbed some stuff for the, er, new players on the field. I'll introduce you to some of them below.

[spoiler='The Clone Wars: Chapter 5]

First thing after the title card is Gangrel. Not exactly a good start to anything, in my opinion. We also meet Aversa, and I spend a minute or two contemplating what exactly she is wearing and how it's staying on her, until I decide that I'm probably happier not knowing. Maribelle demonstrates that she was paying special attention to the insults chapter during her etiquette lessons, and Chrom tries his own hands at insults, but "black-hearted devil" is no match for "gutter-born troglodyte", in my personal opinion.

And now for some of Gangrel's Tips on Parleying:

#1: Insult the people you are parleying with as early and as often as possible. Insult your hostage, be sarcastic with the diplomatic crew, call people "dogs". This is always the best idea. You will certainly never end up at the business end of a sword held by one of the people you are insulting.

#2: Declare that, if given the thing you are asking for, you will use it to murder everyone. The people you are talking to will almost certainly give it to you.

#3: Attack at once, even if you have no clue where the thing you want actually is. You'll figure it out eventually, after everyone who could tell you is dead.

Chrom demonstrates that he's still effective against axe men, Ricken shows up and demonstrates that wind magic is effective against fliers even if they are not mounted, and Maribelle demonstrates that she is effective at running away.

And now it's time for the battle preparations. So we've got Chrom and Riza, as usual.

And now we've got some, well, not sure if I'd call them new faces. Remember how I said that I always use the same FeMU? Remember how I said that this would get confusing later? That wasn't a joke. With that in mind, let me introduce you to Riza...

Riza...

Riza...

And, of course, Riza.

Hey, at least I reclassed them first. I have an unholy love of the Grandmaster class, that shiny coat is awesome, and you have no idea how close you came to having a completely identical clone army. Then I realized that flying/mage classes would help a lot more in the sand chapters, and that there was a fine line between hilariously confusing and annoyingly confusing. So it's only going to get really confusing once I reclass our Riza into one of the above classes. Feel free to guess which one.

And for the record, all of the above do have more skills to choose from, so all the proc stacking isn't necessary. It is fun, though. I like all the shiny skills activating. I also have characters I hired besides these, but can you blame me for deciding I wanted a chapter with a Riza army?

I could have given Falcon Knight Riza the Rescue staff, but I really don't think I need it, and I'd like to save it in case it's really necessary. I also could grab enough characters to fill up all the available slots, but I've got a theme going and I don't want to ruin it. So I think I'm ready to begin the battle.

Maribelle and Ricken appear, Gangrel laughs like a madman, and the battle is on.

So, while I could move Ricken and Maribelle to a safe spot at once... all they have are single squares here and there, and I'd like to clear enough space to have them see what's on the sparkly tile near the top of the cliff. I go ahead and pair Ricken with Maribelle and her tiny, magically-appearing horse, but I don't move them yet.

I think Falcon Knight Riza is a good choice to attack the Barbarian at the top of the cliff.

Does it even have to be said that she annihilates him? No fancy skills activate, but she doesn't need any. One hit from her spear and down he goes. This means that Galeforce activates, so she can move again when I want her to. (If you didn't take a good look at the skills on those profiles, every one of the Logbook Rizas has Galeforce.)

More importantly, Maribelle and Ricken have the corner by the cliff completely open. They go stand on the sparkly tile. Maribelle's 'weapon' proficiency improves.

Next, hmm, let's use Dark Flier Riza. I have her land on the fort above the no-longer-living Barbarian and attack the dark mage. Astra activates. Dark Mage goes down with one hit, despite it being at half-strength.

Now there are no more enemies within striking distance at the top of the path, which means that I can't get any extra distance via Galeforce. I have Wyvern Lord Riza go land at the top of the path, anyway, so she can deal with anything that approaches Maribelle and Ricken from the left. She stands to the left of the fort, in order to lure the barbarian and myrmidon on the map's middle level to attack her. Meanwhile, the other two flying Rizas head onwards - Falcon Knight Riza stays on the slope above Maribelle and Ricken, and Dark Flier Riza goes to attack the myrmidon at the top of the slope.

The myrmidon is dead. Very dead.

I have one more Logbook Riza left, and that is Sorcerer Riza. She can't move as far as the fliers, but she has a Mire tome. On the lower level where I have Wyvern Lord Riza waiting, there's a myrmidon and barbarian, true; but there is also a mage close to the left side of the map. Sorcerer Riza has no trouble reaching him; I have her go stand below the fort first. She crits for 198 damage.

While Galeforce has activated and I can move her again, I think it's time to pay attention to our own Riza and Chrom. They do still need XP, after all; it's no fun if I leave everything to logbook characters. I pair them up - Chrom supports Riza for now - and I have her go attack the barbarian on the lowest level of the map. Thanks to their Golden Gaffe adventures, Riza hits pretty hard on these early maps now. She hits for 21 damage, and while it's not enough to fully take him out, Chrom's dual strike is.

Sorcerer Riza can use her extra turn to attack the myrmidon or the barbarian from close up, but why do that when I can have her sit in the tower and Mire people? I have her take out the dark mage at the upper level of the map.

Now it's the Enemy phase. There's still a dark mage left on the lower level of the map; he goes to attack Our Riza and Chrom. He meets a similar fate to the late and unlamented barbarian who Riza attacked; she dodges his magic and a dual strike takes care of the rest.

Nobody's left within range of Chrom or Our Riza, so everybody heads to attack the Logbook Rizas. Y'know, it's going to get a little repetitive if I say "Myrmidon approaches Wyvern Lord Riza, dies; barbarian attacks Dark Flier Riza, dies as well." So instead, let's have Death Montage 2: The Deathening. (Yes that is totally a word because I said so.)

Also? Book of Naga is SO SHINY.

The map looks... pretty clear after this. There's four enemies left, arranged like so:

If I play this right, I can probably take out all four on the player phase this turn.

The two enemies by the fort on the upper level are a myrmidon and a barbarian; there's a wyvern rider on the far left, and of course Orton the boss is in the upper center. I have Sorcerer Riza move to the bottom of the path that leads directly to the fort and Mire the myrmidon. This allows Galeforce to activate, so she can travel up the path, sit in the fort (in which there's a nice sparkly tile), and Mire the left-hand wyvern rider. Sorcerer Riza gains 27 XP from the sparkly tile that she doesn't need.

Now it's time to have Dark Flier Riza finish things off. She attacks the final barbarian. Astra activates, and the first strike is a critical hit. And now, before I move on to the boss, let's finish off the Death Montage with the departed myrmidon, barbarian and wyvern rider.

SO. SHINY.

Now Dark Flier Riza goes to confront Orton. This is especially hilarious since the Book of Naga is effective against dragons and he's on a wyvern, so Dark Flier Riza's attack power against him is 101 damage. Orton doesn't seem to realize that he hasn't the slightest chance of winning this battle...

Orton is very, very soundly defeated with that 101-damage strike. He claims that "This matters not. Soon war will be upon... your soil... Heh heh..." He doesn't realize that this sounds somewhat less scary when Ylisse has an army of Rizas. I mean, buddy, did you see what just happened to your battlefield?

I get a Bullion (M), and that's the end of the battle.

I think, more accurately, the heroes were "Riza, Riza, Riza, Riza, Riza & Chrom".

Maribelle and Ricken were the safest mage and troubadour on the continent. Maribelle and Lissa are reunited, and Maribelle is grateful to Riza. (She does not thank Riza, Riza, Riza or Riza, though.) And now it looks like we're heading back to the capital to discuss war strategies. I suppose Gangrel's tips for parleying were useful in getting what he wanted after all, given that he wanted a war. Paralogue 2 opens up at the end of the chapter, and that's that.

Edited November 21, 2015 by NobodyInWonderland

[Radiant head]

Hahaha amazing. Actually surprised the numbers aren't bigger.

[mozumes]

(insert applause here)

At first I didn't think having extra avatars were helpful but the clone team killed it. Very interesting turn of events!

[Radiant head]

Too bad all those flying Rizas can't save the Exalt :/

[Roflolxp54]

@Roflolxp54, shhhhh! Spoilers! Seriously, though; Golden Gaffe and a number of maxed-out logbook characters are indeed involved in my plans. I guess I could've gotten 20, but while playing around with Limit Breaker and Paragon I've only maxed out 11 actual logbook characters (a couple of my old avatars, a few Spotpass/DLC characters, and some peoples' avatars from Streetpass). Some of the builds are a bit gimmicky, but that's perfect for this playthrough, and there's a good selection of skills (of course). My renown... could be higher. I only recently started actually fighting Streetpass and Spotpass teams - usually I just use 'em for the shops; and unfortunately most of those battles were fought on my Streetpass team's file, since that's where I had all my maxed-out units. And... um... I got kinda tired of getting through the main story line with a male avatar without Galeforce, and... kinda haven't beaten the game properly yet on that file because I'm a bad gamer...

My bad about the spoiler stuff but it's not an uncommon tactic, especially among LTCers.

You can also amp up the Logbook shenanigans by making sure that all saved units got the Boots boost so they can be zooming around on the map at 7-10 tiles per turn (before Galeforce/Dance!) as a promoted or special class. Save before starting this! Use the Boots on your maxed out unit, save to a different file, then reload the first file (or any file other than the newly saved one) and rehire the boosted unit. Costs gold but that's easily fixed with Golden Gaffe. Easy way to get around the 2 Boots per file limit (only for Logbook characters though).

Edited November 11, 2015 by Roflolxp54

[Mackc2]

I'm really not sure what's going on with the horse's tail in that screenshot. Also? You have no clue how many hammer-related jokes I'm holding in right now. I'd better get some of this out of my system now, so feel free to skip the next few sentences.

Wow, that knight is hammered. Frederick hit the nail on the head with that attack. The knight can't touch this. You know what time it is? Hammer time.

I got one more to add. 'Nailed It'

[Roflolxp54]

Accidentally reposted. Stupid phone.

Edited November 11, 2015 by Roflolxp54

[MewMewExorcist]

Well that's definitely one way to circumvent Chapter 5's general difficulty. xD

[Skynstein]

"Laziest" would be Avatar/Chrom duo in Normal/Casual with Avatar reclassing to Dark Mage and spamming Nosferatu all the way. This is more like "Obnoxious". :D

[Roflolxp54]

"Laziest" would be Avatar/Chrom duo in Normal/Casual with Avatar reclassing to Dark Mage and spamming Nosferatu all the way. This is more like "Obnoxious". :D

The main goal seems to be breaking the game as legally hard as possible (no third party cheating allowed).

[NobodyInWonderland]

The main goal seems to be breaking the game as legally hard as possible (no third party cheating allowed).

Yeah, pretty much. I still feel it's pretty lazy when it requires no strategy whatsoever besides "kill all the things".

Oh, and I was joking about spoilers. If I cared I wouldn't have hinted so hard about the Outrealm and stuff.

... I totally knew about the boots trick. Guess now's a good time to try it out, huh? Brb, must spend a century in Golden Gaffe.

[mozumes]

If you're doing all the DLCs, are you going to do Infinite Regalia? That would be pretty funny to make a playlog about.

[TheSilentChloey]

If you're doing all the DLCs, are you going to do Infinite Regalia? That would be pretty funny to make a playlog about.

I'd love to see one where Risa just tears everything appart

[deskita]

Riza is far more overpowered than she should be, Veteran is so broken made her have 4 duplicates with maxed out stats.

[TheSilentChloey]

Which isn't even the most funny part I currently have an Amelia that is like that! Although she is a single unit. My Chloey is capped nicely. Plus she might have some difficult to obtain items if you ever get spot-passed by her should you ever see her on your map of course!

Edited November 11, 2015 by TheSilentChloey

[NobodyInWonderland]

Alright, now I'm actually at a computer and can answer people properly.

@Radiant head, yeah, I thought that about the Exalt too... but the Rizas can go on a roaring rampage of revenge, at least.

@Mackc2, I approve. I approve very much.

@shujinkou, I might do some DLCs, but it will probably be at least after I have maxed-out kids to send in (at least for the harder ones). Infinite Regalia is annoying because of all those deadlords with Counter, so I like having A/S supports for dual strikes/better hit to ensure they're properly dead before they can go kamikaze on me. It's best done with Galeforce pair-ups - two Galeforce users paired together - so I'd at least get Morgan or Lucina and grind them a bit before I'd send Riza in. The actual Riza from this playthrough, I mean.

@deskita, why is Veteran the broken skill? The real broken skill is Paragon (2 times the XP, from Lost Bloodlines 3). Or, for REAL breakage, Paragon + Veteran = 3 times the XP = your level 1 Tactician is a level 20 Grandmaster in 7 minutes flat. There's a reason I'm not afraid of grinding stats and skills for this playthrough (at least once I get access to unlimited seals); it's because it doesn't take as much time as you'd think. Except for Chrom's resistance stat. That takes an eternity. And don't even think of trying to get magic growth out of him. 'Course, if you're trying to get Chrom to use magic, might as well get fish to learn the fine art of tree-climbing while you're at it.

@TheSilentChloey, if you think maxed-out Riza is a holy terror, just wait till you meet her kids.

So I now have boots on all the logbook characters, and I've run through Golden Gaffe enough times to recruit all of them again. However, I've realized that I want a better selection of logbook characters to choose from in order to keep things interesting, and I've been maxing out a few DLC/Spotpass characters who I think will be fun. I mean, the Riza Army is fun, but I can't rely on them to keep things interesting for half the game, and I'm going to be benching most of the regular characters until unlimited seals are a thing with very selective grinding for a few. In the meantime... I think I can manage enough shenanigans to keep things from getting too repetitive, but it'll require a bit of work.

[TheSilentChloey]

Alright, now I'm actually at a computer and can answer people properly.

@Radiant head, yeah, I thought that about the Exalt too... but the Rizas can go on a roaring rampage of revenge, at least.

@Mackc2, I approve. I approve very much.

@shujinkou, I might do some DLCs, but it will probably be at least after I have maxed-out kids to send in (at least for the harder ones). Infinite Regalia is annoying because of all those deadlords with Counter, so I like having A/S supports for dual strikes/better hit to ensure they're properly dead before they can go kamikaze on me. It's best done with Galeforce pair-ups - two Galeforce users paired together - so I'd at least get Morgan or Lucina and grind them a bit before I'd send Riza in. The actual Riza from this playthrough, I mean.

@deskita, why is Veteran the broken skill? The real broken skill is Paragon (2 times the XP, from Lost Bloodlines 3). Or, for REAL breakage, Paragon + Veteran = 3 times the XP = your level 1 Tactician is a level 20 Grandmaster in 7 minutes flat. There's a reason I'm not afraid of grinding stats and skills for this playthrough (at least once I get access to unlimited seals); it's because it doesn't take as much time as you'd think. Except for Chrom's resistance stat. That takes an eternity. And don't even think of trying to get magic growth out of him. 'Course, if you're trying to get Chrom to use magic, might as well get fish to learn the fine art of tree-climbing while you're at it.

@TheSilentChloey, if you think maxed-out Riza is a holy terror, just wait till you meet her kids.

So I now have boots on all the logbook characters, and I've run through Golden Gaffe enough times to recruit all of them again. However, I've realized that I want a better selection of logbook characters to choose from in order to keep things interesting, and I've been maxing out a few DLC/Spotpass characters who I think will be fun. I mean, the Riza Army is fun, but I can't rely on them to keep things interesting for half the game, and I'm going to be benching most of the regular characters until unlimited seals are a thing with very selective grinding for a few. In the meantime... I think I can manage enough shenanigans to keep things from getting too repetitive, but it'll require a bit of work.

Oh I think that our Lucina would make a good run though and Morgan too! Still I wonder how spot pass works. Do you actually get players from other regions or your own? I ask this because I highly doubt that anyone has seen my girl yet, let alone my M!MU when I get to that playthrough! I think that I will have to have some fun playing around with stat-maxing later.

[mozumes]

You're thinking of Streetpass, spotpass is more about Nintendo giving announcements about things. We'd only have your current team pop up on the map if we walked pass your 3DS while carrying ours.

Edited November 12, 2015 by shujinkou

[NobodyInWonderland]

Yeah, you've got two different things, Streetpass and Spotpass. They're found in the same menu in Awakening, but they're not as related as you'd think, given the names.

Streetpass is a method of connecting to other people with 3DS's who you pass in your everyday life; so definitely in your region, and usually within 100 feet/30 meters of you. In Awakening specifically, you have Streetpassed someone when a random team pops up on your map without being summoned. You can buy things from them, fight them or recruit their avatar with in-game gold; if you fight them, you can also get their avatar for free, as well as Renown. This is the best way to know if someone has seen you - if you've seen them. It can be pretty hard to find anybody in certain areas. The only reason I get any Streetpasses is because I take my 3DS to college with me, and most days I'll find at least one or two teams on my map when I check on it. Most other places, I never see anything happen. If you ever see a team of limit-broken maxed-out kids with Counter and Lethality, including a Manakete Morgan and led by a guy with a Bolganone tome named Mustang, you've probably found me via Streetpass.

Spotpass is how Nintendo sends out free downloadable content for games. With Awakening you get a ton of cool stuff - it's all the things in the Bonus Box. Y'know, the bonus items and maps and teams. Those end-of-game paralogues? Those weren't originally part of the game; those are only accessed by downloading them through Spotpass. One of the nicer features for people trying to break the game (like me) are the Spotpass teams, though. As long as in-game gold is easily accessible (*coughGoldenGaffecough*), mostly anything that isn't legendary can be found in those teams - from Brave weapons to Mire and Nosferatu tomes, to Tomahawks and Hammers, to Javelins and Spears, to Dragonstone+ and Beaststone+, and of course my favorite weapon in any case where one hit isn't enough, Celica's Gale. Unfortunately, Master and Second Seals aren't available (or, for that matter, Rescue staves or Aversa's Night), or you'd see my early-game characters maxed out and raining death upon everything instead of the Riza Army. You get these by going into the menu < Wireless < Bonus Box < Bonus Teams and summon a team from whichever former Fire Emblem game you want. They'll appear on your map similarly to a Streetpass team with pretty much the same options, but they won't appear randomly; they'll only appear because you summoned them. Fighting these also gives you Renown, making them a good way to grind it. You can summon them as many times as you want, as often as you want. The characters you can recruit from these teams (either by fighting them or using in-game gold to recruit the avatar) are often pretty cool, too. They all have access to every class and skill that an Avatar of their gender would have, including the Tactician and Grandmaster classes. About half the time, they'll also come with some sort of skill that a similar Avatar couldn't learn; this is also true for DLC characters. So you can get guys with Galeforce, and there's a number of folks with Charm, or Aether, or Rightful King; and you can also get another version of Tiki from Spotpass, which means you've got access to an extra manakete, and one that can learn any skill from any class available to females. There's even a special class for the Marths called Lodestar, and they can wield Parallel Falchion and Rapiers like Lord classes. Is this a bit overpowered? Maybe, but none of the Spotpass characters can support with your characters, which means that any pair-up bonuses for C-level support or higher must be induced via the Dual+ skills, one of which is only available to females and another of which is only available to Lords (or a limited number of Spotpass/DLC characters), and in order to get more than the tiniest bit of a support bonus you're wasting skill slots. Plus, they aren't voiced and don't have much personality. So they're mostly just good for game-breaking in the early stages or in Normal mode, when you don't have any really powerful enemies to worry about.

And since I keep bringing it up - DLC is the paid stuff found in the Outrealm, and about 80% of the time you can recruit characters from finishing DLC maps. These characters are sometimes better or worse than Spotpass counterparts - they usually come with different exclusive skill sets - and sometimes they don't have Spotpass counterparts. Fun fact: DLC is the only way to get characters with Shadowgift on your team before the endgame. One of those characters is from Champions of Yore 3, which is a nice easy map that caused my (admittedly maxed-out kids) not a single problem. Her name is Micaiah and she comes along with the skill All Stats +2. The other character is Katarina. She can only be recruited by beating Apotheosis. Yes, that's right - the infamous insanely difficult DLC that everybody talks about in hushed tones.

I have both Shadowgift characters.

I am never playing Apotheosis again.

Edited November 12, 2015 by NobodyInWonderland