Can you beat Maddening (No NG+) without auxillary battles?

[Benice]

I'm on my first go at Maddening on Verdant Wind, (NG, Classic) and I'm finding Maddening to be rather punishing right now. My greatest fear for the playthrough is getting softlocked on ch. 13, so I'm trying not to mess around anywhere. I'm also trying to avoid grinding, since I don't wanna wreck the difficulty curve of the game. That said, I feel that already at ch. 4, I've sorta hit a wall stat and skill wise, particularly with having no actual way to deal with the DK. I can deal with it now, but I don't know if I will be if there are any difficulty spikes.

So I suppose the question is: Is Maddening feasibly possible without any auxillary battles, or should I start getting them now rather than having to backtrack later to get past a softlock?

[Zapp Branniglenn]

Chapter 4? Just go around him lol. There is no point to fighting the DK on that chapter unless you want easier access to both chests. He never comes after you until you've put somebody in his range. You'll want to travel clockwise or counter clockwise around the map, prioritizing whichever chest feels more valuable, since you may run out of time in trying to get both. The left is spirit dust. The right is an intermediate seal (which you can start buying in the next chapter), so I pick left.

Auxilliary battles really don't help much in Maddening, especially not much past your point of the game. They don't scale up with your level very well, and Maddening's combat exp is severely nerfed when beating an enemy below your level. Your units won't gain any levels battling them throughout the mid or late game. Instead the only real value is in earning skill exp and class masteries. You'll unlock level 10 class masteries a bit later than the average playthrough, but this restriction is far from making the game unbeatable.

Edited December 19, 2020 by Glennstavos

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

On YouTube, Mekkah has been doing (finished?) a series where he commentates over a Blue Lions Maddening NG playthrough. It's an LTC, so I don't believe it uses any Auxilliary battles (although it does include the Paralogues). The videos are fairly short, so perhaps you could watch them to get ideas for your own playthrough?

3 hours ago, Glennstavos said:

Chapter 4? Just go around him lol.

Also this, he's an optional boss. Not faring well against him is normal.

[Benice]

Alright, thanks for the advice, everyone!

Also, regarding the DK, it wasn't that I couldn't find a way around him, it was more concern that I wouldn't really able to "play" the maps, instead having to kinda skip them in a sense.

[Agro]

The Death Knight can/will still move even if you're out of his attack range in Chapter 4

[Dark Holy Elf]

For Chapter 4, I usually send five units to the left and five to the right, snagging both chests and usually winning with around 5-10 turns to spare.

The Death Knight does not normally move if you don't enter his threat range (tip: click on him to turn his threat range red and leave it that way for the entire fight). However, occasionally he can. In my experience, the trigger is if an enemy moves very close (within 2 panels, I want to say) of him. This is probably a glitch. If it happens, you're likely going to be in for a bad time. To avoid this, make sure you bait the mage reinforcements before they can move due north past him.

And you can definitely do Maddening NG without aux battles (besides the forced one in Chapter 2, of course), for all that I do recommend doing the merchant ones anyway.

[kyos]

Without aux battles, yes .. definitely.

Chapter 13 is unforgiving, especially if you're unprepared. If it helps, there's a guide on Youtube by Mekkah showing how to complete it on all routes, very helpful. (Really fun on Hard, awful on Maddening.)

On 12/19/2020 at 4:12 PM, Dark Holy Elf said:

In my experience, the trigger is if an enemy moves very close (within 2 panels, I want to say) of him. This is probably a glitch. If it happens, you're likely going to be in for a bad time. To avoid this, make sure you bait the mage reinforcements before they can move due north past him.

I would like to add, I am certain that this is the case since on my playthrough, as soon as the reinforcements moved into the range of the Death Knight, he began to move. 

[Barren]

I prepped hard for that chapter 13 fight. I did get a lucky turn where all the enemies gathered around the center of the chokepoint and Claude nailed them all with his battalion...twice.

[Shadow Mir]

On 12/19/2020 at 10:12 AM, Dark Holy Elf said:

The Death Knight does not normally move if you don't enter his threat range (tip: click on him to turn his threat range red and leave it that way for the entire fight). However, occasionally he can. In my experience, the trigger is if an enemy moves very close (within 2 panels, I want to say) of him. This is probably a glitch. If it happens, you're likely going to be in for a bad time. To avoid this, make sure you bait the mage reinforcements before they can move due north past him.

 

16 hours ago, kyos said:

I would like to add, I am certain that this is the case since on my playthrough, as soon as the reinforcements moved into the range of the Death Knight, he began to move. 

That seems to be a thing in this game in general. Chapter 5 is case in point for this, as if you aggro one of the archers in the center, they'll advance on you - and aggro whoever they pass by in the process (and unfortunately for you, Gilbert is stupid enough to do this). 

[Dark Holy Elf]

Letting Gilbert die to the first wave of reinforcements is in fact the objectively correct choice.

[Shadow Mir]

1 hour ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Letting Gilbert die to the first wave of reinforcements is in fact the objectively correct choice.

Yeah, otherwise you're fighting a land war in Asia, and we all know how THOSE turn out, don't we?