My 2* only challenge... and what to do with it in the future

[Marston]

Hello forum!

So, many months ago, I wanted to do a personal challenge and see how far in the game I can get with only using 1* and 2* units. The beginning was fun enough, but now I am basically getting to the point where I can no longer progress or only do minimal progress: I have every single 2 star unit in the game (including Narcian and FRobin, but excluding that one Draug that was a quest reward early on), they all are basically max level and the only two things to make progress would be to increase their support, which is rather hard since only 35+ enemies count or to use and upgrade the seals, which just takes ages due to the coins being a finite resource (the good news: every seal I missed can simply be crafted!).

So, since I can barely continue I thought about what to do with this challenge, since I don't really want to let it go to waste. I have several things I thought what I could do, but I wanted to ask you guys what you think may be the most interesting one. For all of my suggestions: I haven't pulled with orbs a single time yet. I could either say only free units are allowed or I am allowed to pull using orbs.

With that out of the way, here are my suggestions what I could do:

1. Don't change anything: This should be pretty clear. I don't change a thing and hope I may get other ways to get stronger later on. Maybe I will actually get more 1 star and 2 star units at some point.
2. Don't change anything, but...: The same as above, but I would allow something, whatever it may be. Be allowed to merge my units, so I can get +1 or +2 on most? Actually allow pulling and merging? Allow Skill Inheritance? 
3. Upgrade to 3 star: The same as before, but I would be allowed to use 3 star units. This would go hand in hand with pulling, as this would give me many more options how to tackle things, give me access to every GHB unit and many core skills, like Dance or Reposition, which are simply not available at 2 star rarity.
4. Upgrade to Free Units only: "Free Units only" would be all units I get for free: Quest rewards, Tempest Trial, Grand Hero Battle, Story Units but also units I get from free pulls. For example, so far I managed to get a 5 star Tharja and a 5 star Hardin from my free pulls. Again, would this be with merging or without and would skill inheritance be allowed?

Well, those are my suggestions. Out of those I actually would prefer either 2 star only with Skill Inheritance and merging but without actually pulling with orbs or using free units only (and I think I would disallow skill inheritance here). The first has a much smaller unit pool but would probably not differ much with Skill Inheritance from a normal playthrough. What Skills I actually get would still depend on what free units I get with my pulls. The latter would probably be easier overall, as I would have access to rather strong units, but I would still be fairly limited in the units I could use, especially if I disallow Skill Inheritance and "normal" pulling. 

So, yeah. My dilemma. What do you guys think?

[mampfoid]

Funny thing, just last week I was thinking about your challenge and got curious what happened to your project. Cool that you continued, respect for your endurance. 

17 minutes ago, Marston said:

but now I am basically getting to the point where I can no longer progress or only do minimal progress

What progress do you mean? Is it impossible to solve story chapters of a certain difficulty? 

What team do you use most and what are their biggest limitations in your opinion? Perhaps we could find a way to improve them without changing the challenge too much. 

[Marston]

Well, since I only continued yesterday after months, I still have some things I can do. The last thing I did in the story was chapter 11, so I finished 12, 13 and the two extra maps now on normal. But even on normal the later chapters actually became rather hard (1surviving unit and stuff). 

The main problem is the total lack of support skills. I mainly use the 3 Askrians due to them having a support skill or activation skill, which pretty much every other character who isn't a healer lacks. Depending on the map I do use pretty much all of my units, especially my two fliers (Narcian/Subaki), a mage (FRobin, Raigh, Cecilia) or Virion. Stahl is also quite tanky, but then I have units like Olivia who doesn't have the dance skill and subpar stats, same for Felicia who barely deals any damage.

Due to that enemy stats start to spiral out of control even in the mid hard chapters in book 1. I barely can use strategy due to the low amount of skills available (nothing to move units besides Escape Route on Cecilia, basically no buffs, no special weapons), so once enemy stats get to high I most of the time just can't do anything. And Seals and Support can only help so much (and take ages to level, as said above).

[Usana]

I would probably say allow limited skill inheritance. Positional's I would think should be ok, simply because I think those are rather important for strategy in general. And obviously any skill available to any unit at 2* should be fair game to give to any of the 2*'s(as long as it doesn't go past the 2* limits the source shouldn't matter, so Askrian 2* skills could be spread around a bit for example). I'd probably stop there and see how that affects things before allowing too much more to creep through.

It does depend on how much challenge you want. The above is basically just giving you the tiniest shard of flexibility to give you greater strategic options. I am pretty sure it would have to be opened up further than that to actually get stuff done. But I also wasn't . . . determined, we'll go with that, enough to try a 2* challenge in the first place :D.

[Johnwaluigi]

Perhaps you could permit Skill Inheritance, but only from units available to summon at 3/4 stars (and that are only unlocked at that rarity - so no promoting Hana for Life and Death)? That way you're not tapping into the broken skills in the game, but there's still enough variety to keep things interesting.

[mampfoid]

2 hours ago, Marston said:

• Don't change anything, but...: The same as above, but I would allow something, whatever it may be. Be allowed to merge my units, so I can get +1 or +2 on most? Actually allow pulling and merging? Allow Skill Inheritance? 
•  

I think this option would be a good first step. The "but" could be to allow a promotion to 3* for all units, access to 3* free units (i.e. GHB), but still no summoning, no 4*/5* promotion and no SI. In this way you would have more options skill wise (dance on Olivia), more units and +2 on all stats. 

Edited March 2, 2018 by mampfoid

[Marston]

Since Voting Gauntlet actually gives quite a few Sacred Coins I can buy and maybe even upgrade some of the most important seals (Close/Distant Def, Iote's Shield, etc). Also, Sharena/Alfonse just reached S supports as my first two units.

So, basically I will play throught the "new" conent and see if the seals make a difference. Blessings are sadly useless since I need to use Fjorm or Vike to actually get something out of those. I also think I will use some sort of SI but for 2* units only, because that is something I could undo at any point (just unequip the skills). Not sure if I will start pulling or use some other restriction. As said first of all I will just do the daily guantlet quests for the coins and upgrade some of the things. Maybe stuff like Distant Defense 3 is enough to make a dent somewhere.

[Cute Chao]

Honestly, I think it would be more interesting to see how far you get with full skill inheritance - how much good skills can make or break a unit. That's me personally. However, even limited skill inheritance would be interesting.

[SoulWeaver]

2 hours ago, Marston said:

Blessings are sadly useless since I need to use Fjorm or Vike to actually get something out of those.

Blessings grant double SP gain to any Unit they're given to regardless of what season it is or whether the Legendary Hero is present, which can actually be useful once you hit Level 40 but still want them to inherit Skills without Promotion.

[Marston]

21 minutes ago, SoulWeaver said:

Blessings grant double SP gain to any Unit they're given to regardless of what season it is or whether the Legendary Hero is present, which can actually be useful once you hit Level 40 but still want them to inherit Skills without Promotion.

That's onlye useful if I allow Skill Inheritance, as a 2* unit has all their skills way before max level anyways. :P

[SoulWeaver]

12 hours ago, Marston said:

That's onlye useful if I allow Skill Inheritance, as a 2* unit has all their skills way before max level anyways. :P

Yeah, but you mentioned that as being a possibility so I thought I'd let you know in case you didn't already.

[Marston]

Not sure if I can beat all of the current GHB rotations on hard, but Michalis is definitly doable.

 

Should I continue to narrate this? I also skipped animations at the end, not sure if I should continue to do this. xD

[Marston]

Aaaaaand Xander Hard down:

 

I also tried Arvis and Takumi, but I doubt they are doable without much better seals. In Arvis' case, I can't kill anything in round 1 and the mages double pretty much everyone. In Takumi's case, I just get overwhelmed and can't kill stuff fast enough and also heal myself. And since I don't have access to Dance or other support abilities, I am pretty screwed. 

[mampfoid]

@Marston Nice Xander clear, it's hard to recognize they are just 2* units and not 4* from the color of their portrait border. Bonfire is actually "Leuchtfeuer" in German, not "Ignus" (Ignis). 

[Marston]

I am actually thinking of how to proceed and what would still be "fine" for 2* only. Considering I still have 1 copy of every 1* hero you can get (and another Virion copy) I thought of either merging them all together to get +1 on most of my units (or +2 in case of Virion) or if it would make mor sense to actually give characters more skills, especially since some of them are pretty good. Stuff like DEF+2 on Sharena from Stahl for example, or SPD Down from Virion would come in handy. On the other hand, Lissa and Wrys can't give anything, so those would definitly become +1. Considering that would still only use free copies of heroes available and nothing beyond 2* heroes, I think they may still be fair game (as basically anyone could do this with the heroes he gets). The two things that prevent me from doing this are:

1) I may actually get in the situation where I want the same hero twice, like 2x Lissa because she is a bit bulkier than Wrys. Or 2x Virion, him being the only archer.

2) This more or less would come hand in hand with allowing merging and skill inheritance, so eh...

[Marston]

So, still no SI or merges, but I managed to beat Navarre (which was rather easy, even though my kill video was sloppy - seems I moved my units differently than before):

 

...more importantly though, I finally managed to beat Arvis. Man, that was a pain and I really didn't think this possible. I had to buy several buff seals and equip some rather unusual seals just to make this work. I am also pretty sure S Support is needed (unless you got better seals to get the missing stats). Better seals would have made this so much easier, but I have to work with what I got and that isn't much. 

Anyways, here is the video:

 

[Marston]

And with that I beat Llyod:

 

 

I tried Ursula several times but haven't found a way to beat her map yet. I haven't tried all units though. Maybe next week, else I wait for better seals. Also, I realized I never recorded my FRobin win, so I have to do that as well. 

As far as new content, I beat the first stage (level 30) of Rival Domains. I could have killed the enemy fort, but decided to kill the last enemy and then realized one unit couldn't reach the fort to destroy it. I will probably record my first try for the second stage, as that will most likely become a true defense battle. :D

For the gardens, I am missing 1 fire blessing for a fire team. I beat the first 2 stages in the water garden but only the first in the wind and earth garden. Due to only having access to 19 units (no more 2* being available) I have some rather odd team choices, as I looked to get the support bonus as well. Haven't done the new chapter yet, but since normal is only at level ~16 that shouldn't be a problem.