Fates Conquest Lunatic Playlog [IN PROGRESS]

[shade_of_ox]

4 minutes ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

There's a Hexing Rod and a Freeze to beware of as well. Anyway, the only other enemies I consider worrisome are the paired up horse units.

You can't entrap the Hexing Rod and Freeze either. The guard stance horse units are big trouble - unfortunately, they're out of range of entrap anyway so there's really nothing for it but to tank them well. I was planning on using Corrin on the left side (since they have the Dark Knights) and maybe Xander on the right (with the Bow Knights) to bait, and then kill them off. It would take tricky timing to kill them without getting mobbed by the Faceless though.

[Shadow Mir]

1 minute ago, shade_of_ox said:

You can't entrap the Hexing Rod and Freeze either. The guard stance horse units are big trouble - unfortunately, they're out of range of entrap anyway so there's really nothing for it but to tank them well. I was planning on using Corrin on the left side (since they have the Dark Knights) and maybe Xander on the right (with the Bow Knights) to bait, and then kill them off. It would take tricky timing to kill them without getting mobbed by the Faceless though.

I know - Entrap doesn't work on immobile enemies (those with a move stat of -). And we have all the other crap to deal with as well... particularly the ninjas.

[shade_of_ox]

12 minutes ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

I know - Entrap doesn't work on immobile enemies (those with a move stat of -). And we have all the other crap to deal with as well... particularly the ninjas.

yeah, pretty much - I would say the ninjas are the most difficult part of the chapter because they're the only enemies that can debuff you (aside from the staff users who you can Silence). I plan to use Niles with Shurikenbreaker to take them out.

[shade_of_ox]

Chapter 8
Goals: Visit 3 villages for 10k gold, train Odin
Reinforcements: Lots of enemies from each village the enemy Lancers visit.
Supports: EffiexStella, C - JakobxSilas, C - ElisexEffie, C
New units: At the start of turn 2, Odin and Niles will come in from the bottom of the map.

Niles is an Outlaw. He's the only Nohr unit with the Capture command which pretty much makes him mandatory. He has very good SPD, and decent STR and RES - but bad DEF and mediocre HP. He also has very bad LCK, but that won't be a factor until later. Bows are very strong in this game, so even though his stats aren't the best, he's still a pretty good unit. Our plan is to put him into Bow Knight, because we absolutely need Shurikenbreaker before chapter 25 (also we don't need another staff user).

Odin is a Dark Mage. He comes in at a very low level (5) and his stats aren't stellar, but he's much better than Nyx (who is fragile to the point of being unusable). Odin has decent stats, but he's not actually a good mage - his MAG growth isn't actually very high at all. He's got pretty good defenses (DEF better than RES) but his SPD isn't very good. For some reason, he has an obscenely high SKL, which isn't very helpful at all since he already has Heartseeker to augment his hit chance. Fortunately, a lot of enemies in this game have terrible RES stats, so even though he won't ever reach very high power, he can still deal a pretty good amount of damage in early to middle-game. We're going to leave him in Dark Mage and put him into Dark Knight for the mobility, but he'll probably end up being a backpack for Leo in the endgame.

On to the chapter! 
This is one of my favorite chapters in the game. It actually gives you incentives to play aggressively, as opposed to the usual turtle/hit and run that the game often degenerates into. The setup is that there are two Lancers with 3 MOV who are moving from village to village, trying to visit each village before you do. If you get to the village, it closes and the enemy can't visit it. If the enemies get to the village first, it closes for you and many enemy reinforcements (3 Dark Mages and 3 Fighters) appear around it. Visiting these villages is crucial, because if we manage to visit 3, we get an extra reward of 10,000G, which will be very useful in the coming few chapters. What makes this harder is that there are enemies in the way of the villages, and in particular, Flora will use her Freeze staff to try and stop you from getting to the villages. We will be going for the village on the bottom left of the map, and the village at the top of the map, along with the "free" village that is given to us next to our spawn.

Setup:
Jakob is in the bottom left starting position. Above him is Silas, behind him is Arthur, and to the bottom right of Stella are Elise and Effie. 

Turn 1:
Stella pairs up with Jakob, Arthur and Elise move as far left as possible, Effie pairs up with Silas.
Jakob moves as far to the left as possible (and one tile up) and Silas moves to the left and up as far as he can. Both of them drop their pair-ups in the direction they were moving.

Turn 2:
Odin and Niles show up right where all the other units are. Elise pairs with Odin (to prevent enemy Dual Strikes), then Odin moves up to the space directly below and to the right of the corner of the central ice statue. Effie moves behind Odin, and Stella (Yato Equip) moves to the left of Odin. One Dark Mage will take a bite out of Stella, the other will attack Odin. 

Jakob has to move to a very specific spot which is in range of all three bottom Dark Mages, 4 tiles to the right and 3 above the left Dragon Vein. With the Arthur +4 STR, Jakob will ORKO all three Dark Mages. This specific positioning also has the benefit of luring one of the enemy Fighters down (he will attempt a Dual Strike which will be blocked by Arthur). Jakob can attack that Fighter next turn while making his way to the bottom left village. 

Turn 3:
Jakob attacks the fighter we lured last round. Odin finishes him off. Effie kills the Dark Mage that attacked her with a dual strike from Stella. Niles moves into Flora's Freeze range and kills the Dark Mage that attacked Odin, with a dual strike from Stella. Silas moves to the left of Niles, in range of the Fighter that we hadn't lured. Stella moves to the right of Niles, and uses a Concoction (Dragonstone Equip). Note that Flora will Freeze Silas (not Niles) because Silas has lower RES. 

Turn 4: 
Stella's now on low health, so Silas gets his +3/-3 boost. 
Silas kills the Fighter who attacked him last round. Effie kills a full health Dark Mage with a dual strike from Stella, Odin attacks and Stella kills the Fighter. Jakob secures the bottom left village. Odin comes back and kills the Fighter who attacked Stella. Silas kills the Fighter who attacked him last turn. Niles moves 1 tile above Stella, which puts him in range of where the top Lancer will move this turn. Stella moves as far up as possible, staying out of range of enemies. 

Turn 5:
Jakob retreats from the enemies that spawned from the leftmost village. Odin switches to Elise and heals Jakob. Stella attacks the top Lancer with Dragonstone, then Niles finishes him off. Effie moves next to Silas (who is Frozen).

Turn 6:
Effie is Frozen, so I pair her with Silas. The enemies from the leftmost village are moving towards us, so I put Jakob just within the reach of the front two (a Fighter and a Dark Mage with Fire). Elise moves next to him, but switches to Odin (if Lily's Poise is active, the Fire Dark Mage won't attack Jakob at all). Jakob will have a Dual Guard lined up after the Dark Mage attacks him, so the enemy Fighter won't actually damage him. Stella moves upwards and secures the topmost village, in range of the top left Fighter (NOT the Dark Mage). Niles pairs with her. With his SPD boost, she can ORKO that fighter with Yato Equip, and she will barely survive his attack. Silas (carrying Frozen Effie) moves around the central statue, towards Stella (staying out of reach of enemies). He drops Effie. 

Turn 7:
There's a Fighter with HP + 5 and a Steel Axe who's within range of Jakob and Odin. We move Odin in the direction of Stella (staying out of range of the remaining enemies on the right side) and bodyblock the Fighter with Jakob, who can live one hit from the Fighter. Silas and Effie stay where they are, and Stella moves just in range of the top left Dark Mage and switches to Niles, then they separate.

Turn 8:
Odin finishes off the Fighter that attacked Jakob, staying in range of the last Dark Mage that moved up against Jakob and Odin earlier. Despite being on 13 health, he can live one hit from that Dark Mage. Everyone else stays where they are.

Turn 9:
Odin moves back from the Dark Mage towards the rest of the group, someone transfers Elise away from him and heals him. Everyone else stands still.

Turn 10:
Odin finishes the Dark Mage. 

From here on out, the map is pretty much won - all we need to do now is kill the single Lancer who's slowly trooping towards the village on the bottom right (which we never visited. I'm just going to repeatedly shoot him with Odin until he's dead (weakening him with Jakob first). Heartseeker/dual guard helps here. 

None of the other enemies move, and there are hardly any of them left. We're going to steadily feed them to Odin and Niles, giving a couple to Silas to get him to level 9. In particular, I gave Flora to Niles. 

The boss is actually kind of a pain. He has the annoying combination of Nosferatu and Vantage, which makes attacking him on player phase ineffective - but, he's on a gate, so he heals on enemy phase. We whittle him down with JakobxOdin (who has enough RES to survive many hits, especially with Lily's Poise), then finish him with EffiexStella when he's 2 health above half. 

This chapter is a good illustration of how strong a shuriken user with good defenses can be, especially against tome wielders. Jakob pretty much soloed half the map. 
 

[Shadow Mir]

On 3/10/2018 at 1:13 PM, shade_of_ox said:

I've never used a 'zerker in this game, but both of my WL's have always turned out lackluster - maybe I've been getting unlucky but Beruka isn't strong or fast enough to deal enough damage, and Camilla has consistently turned out a bit too fragile to use in that way - even at level 20. Same for Silas - he consistently falls off in the endgame and I don't see what I can do to fix him. His personal is good, but not good enough to carry his terrible speed and RES.

If I may be frank, I don't think brave weapons are worth it - especially the axe with its very shaky 55 base hit.