insanity Teehee Madness 2 - Full 3DS Linked Ironman!

[Codename Shrimp]

Welcome to the good elevator map, or as i like to call it, the last not horrible map in Rev.

Here's how i will split the gang and go through the map:

The fliers will hightail it to the bottom part, while Corn, Kana, Ryoma and Odin Dank will take the elevator and the other 4 deal with the incoming fliers

Let's do this!

Spoiler

Odin tank

Least skilled Beruka

Zombie suicides to double bows

Charlotte genes...?

oh look, money

Orochi doubling a flier, you love to see it

Myrmidon.lvlup

Tankorochi

>Magic

Sorcerer confirmed?

Mood

Why yes

 

annd....i accidently closed my emulator lol

Will try to recreate the steps

Spoiler

Oh wow

The Lvlups seem to be better atleast :lul:

We return to where i kinda was before i did the oopsie 

And GGz

And Corn seizes to finish the map

Edited April 14, 2023 by Shrimpy -Limited Edition-

[Dayni]

Last few days I wasn't playing (Been playing Metroid Samus Returns though, I'm as far as that boss, I think I don't need to elaborate further), but I got the chance to pick up my Alm Amiibo for those shenanigans later on. Anyways, Fear Mountain Shrine first. But inside a spoiler box, because I make these long enough as is.

Spoiler

Going in I have just enough space for a full party entering the dungeon, so I go ahead, manage to avoid notice from all the enemies on that map, only to remind myself the battle trial has to be done first and there's also a chest, so back I go. I manage to lure one to the back and fight them first, Python unlocks Hunter's Volley, then faca a second where Luthier learns Sagittae and gets a poor level, then face a Cantor who was within hitting range. Delthea got Atk/Skl/Spd/Def off chip, Forsyth got Spd/Luk from finishing, then grab that chest and face the trial. I put Forsyth and Lukas in range of a dragon referred to as Duma's Apostle, get Python in range of the sniper and everyone else out of range. Both have a bad time with Forsyth and Python, then get finished on PP, Silque gets Atk/Def/Luk/HP on healing, Tobin gets HP and Atk on finishing a baron when he does move, Luthier 1-rounds the other and Silque takes a Sagittae hit. I then clear him out (Alm gets HP/Atk/Skl/Def from it) and that's the first part of the dungeon. Clair gets Suma's Lance, then I go to the shrine, remember to promote Alm (Who gets +2 Atk and +3 Spd from it, this is my worst Alm yet) and ignore the statboosters for the moment, I'd like to see what Delthea looks like promoted first and she still needs two levels. First I head down the dead way, which I manage without getting caught on the way to the fountain, take the items, then turn around. Being a glutton for punishment I decide to try and attack two arcanist groups. 7 show up close to each other. 5 have Mire. Uh oh. I manage to be stupid lucky and not get anyone injured, barring Delthea getting hit, which Faye covers with Physic and with only one of the two left able to deal damage on EP I survive on RNG. Python levels Skl/Spd/Luk chipping and I try to follow behind the wall they were guarding. There was a witch at the bottom. No thanks, I choose life (gate).

Going this way, I remember how much of this route is monsters, which seems like a bit of Duma Faithful humour. Fighting a bunch of zombies and skeletons (Across multiple combats), Lukas gets HP/Skl/Spd/Def off a mummy, Tobin gets Physic and Def, Forsyth gets HP/Atk/Spd/Luk, Faye gets Atk/Spd/Def, Delthea gets Atk, I make a rash decision and fight two groups at once, Alm gets HP/Skl/Luk/Def during that and I manage to not have an incident again and for some reason I pretty much only found singular coins in the pots. I manage to get the Spd Ring before waltzing into an encounter sadly, though I do risk Python for a second with it because he missed a 79% and I didn't shield him. And then I run into a second gargoyle. Clair gets Skl/Spd/Luk (Clair things) Alm gets HP/Luk, Luthier gets HP/Atk/Skl/Def and I manage to get the mummy encounter after all, with Lukas getting Skl/Def, Silque got Def and Invoke DF (WOO!), I snatch the Blessed Shield and loop back to the Cantor fight I ignored earlier. I forgot there was a dozen enemies in it. And two witches. I just used Hunter's Volley on the DF first, but things could be better after the first turn, the cantor does do Gargoyles, a witch didn't teleport and the enemies are all pretty much in front of me. However, their being in front of me means I make short enough work of the myrms, baron, witches and the arcanist who moved. Delthea getting just HP off the level unlocking her promotion, we wall some gargoyles and the other arcanist while the Cantor moves to cover. Forsyth hits level 10 Myrm on a gargoyle and gets a level with I think Spd and HP, before Lukas 1-rounds the cantor to get +Def. Ah well, DF time!  I take the Hexlock Shield get back to the Mila Shrine, promote three units (Delthea gets +9HP and 2 Def, Lukas +3 Spd and Forsyth +3 Skl), use the Spd shrines on Alm and Python, then leave.

And with that, it's time for Nuibaba! First we get the random narration about her, then Alm realises that he has been catfished and responds with violence. Sure, the violence is mutual, but still. I make an attempt at getting as many units as possible further up first turn, then by turn 2 I have Python, Forsyth, Lukas and Alm in range of the gargoyles or the bow knight. The Bow Knight gets crit to death and Python gets Atk/Spd from the level. Then I remember how much Nuibaba complicates things by having 7 range. Silque conjures 3 DFs (I don't think i've ever seen her get more than 2, I start moving Lukas and Forsyth up the hill (helped by my having 2 Physic units), Alm gets HP/Atk/Spd/Def (Nice), but I have to scramble a little to get clear enough of most of the 7 gargoyles while taking out a Mire guy and letting my DFs move up. I try to expel but only get one, then clear as many of them as I can while getting Forsyth and Lukas up the hill. We get a Death Arcanist as well, but the invoked DFs move for the gargoyles down the hill so lose all progress they'd made. Nuibaba misses again thankfully, then I remove a DF with Lukas and Python, allowing Forsyth to remove the cantor from the map...... if he crits. He doesn't but gets HP/Skl/Def/Luk. Tobin gets Stk/Luk healing him, I do some other healing then enter EP. next PP Forsyth finishes the Cantor, freeing me of this annoying pain. Luthier gets Atk/Skl finishing a DF, Python crits the last one of them and Lukas sadly misses on the last arcanist and only gets Luk from a level up. Nuibaba finally hits Lukas again, while an invoked DFs start attacking for 3 damage. RIP. .Lukas and Forsyth fail to kill her, so I warp in Delthea to finish her off and take the Mage Ring. Clair finishes the last one and I'm done, this map could have gone a lot worse. I kinda expected it to and if it weren't for some of the crits I got I would not have been as cavalier with the end. So anyways, we free Tatiana from Nuibaba's soul pantry, free a merchant from a quest that I happened to activate back in Act Three, then move to face Zeke and Jerome....

Next time! That took long enough as is, as you can see with all the text.

On 4/14/2023 at 3:23 AM, Eltosian Kadath said:

It is a tense one to do with low troops. This section reminds me of my Echoes ironman (that I should get around to finishing at some point), as the Berkut chapter was a real bloodbath for me, after which I just barely limped past this hellscape of a chapter with the few characters I had remaining, with Delthea's amazing base Res making her the clear MVP.

I was more worried about witch reinforcements showing up, though that didn't occur thankfully.

On 4/14/2023 at 3:23 AM, Eltosian Kadath said:

Thank goodness that surprise maneuver didn't kill someone.

Least Forsyth is a safe unit on the one hand.

On the other I was completely sidelined by Marla moving.

On 4/14/2023 at 2:08 PM, Shrimpy -Limited Edition- said:

Tankorochi

Wait, where's her Spd?

On 4/14/2023 at 2:08 PM, Shrimpy -Limited Edition- said:

annd....i accidently closed my emulator lol

Oh no.

On 4/14/2023 at 2:08 PM, Shrimpy -Limited Edition- said:

The Lvlups seem to be better atleast :lul:

There's that I suppose.

[Eltosian Kadath]

Alright, time for my writeup of chapter 23. I have put it off long enough

Spoiler

As usual, lets start with the meal

And with so many paired enemies, the extra speed felt like a good choice, defense for safety being an obvious second choice, and the magic is a fine boost.

As for my deployment, assuming nobody dies, this is likely to be my team until the end. Although lets get to the story

Alas Sakura isn't handling captivity well, but

Don't worry my linked friends, we didn't kill any of the named characters for real, so they all should be safe.

Its also nice to see Elise get over her petty jealousy, and see what links the two princesses.

We also see some budding tension within the NPC army of Nohr

Which is a nice bit of foreshadowing for chapter 26. But enough about the past, and the future, what about the now

...And yet we will have another map after this one before we reach the castle. These last few chapters as so intense, and yet the story acting like each is a bigger step than it is makes it feel drawn out as well. Admittedly this is a slow map, so the gameplay does kinda draw things out as well here, but I digress (and usually next map is too fast pace for its own good...)

Although unlike the last chapter (Sakura), and the next two chapters (Hinoka, and Ryoma), this one isn't named after Takumi...

🙄

Although Takumi is really intent on killing TeeHee...is this how it will all end, at the point of one of Takumi's Arrows? we will see.

Alright onto the map, and starting position doesn't matter, because I can take this map at whatever pace I want to at the start, so I start by

Buffing Silas as much as I can with rallies and positional buffs, to bait this little group across the wall, which

He doesn't fully enemy phase, but otherwise deals with rather well, and almost more importantly

It lets me deal with these aggressive reinforcements right now, where I really don't have to deal with any other enemies, as there is a pit between me and the only enemies I aggroed

And I can kill the only ranged one that threatens me now, while also helping Izana catch up on his level deficit.

I also chip the one that aided in the attack stance in a way that could theoretically get him attacked in melee from those across the gap (although he isn't currently in their range), which lures the two about to run off back in this direction, which will make them easier to deal with in the future.

Rusty also gets a fabulous levelup from the chip

I do also use Shelter, and transfer to

Give Izana a second kill, despite my lack of dancer.

Which gets me to the end of turn two

And the only interesting thing about turn three is that Izana gets this solid healing levelup

Turn four I try to repeat turn one but with the other ranged enemy across the gap, who is the well known, and underwhelming compared to his Lunatic counterpart

Rallyman, but I did bungle things by kinda assuming he had a similar damage output as the spearman from before, so I pumped Silas's defenses too much for him to attack me

And those reinforcements are getting close enough that I will have to account for them next turn. I am doing more of that yo-yo baiting with Rusty to distract Rallyman and his companion.

And my opening move for the reinforcements is to dragon tank and dragon hex debuff a pair of them with TeeHee

And she deals a lot of chip to them as well.

And I open player phase with another Izana kill

Next I debuff the last pair, like I did the other two on enemy phase.

And Rusty finishes him off. Speaking of which

That takes care of the last paired one.

Which leads into Nina chipping one enemy so

That Kana can get the kill, and give Izana some attack stance exper-

...or Kana can proc Dragon Fang to deny him that exp.

le sigh. Lets try something similar with

Odin getting the chip, Sophie sheltering Velouria so that I can

...forget about Soleil's personal skills increase damage so that she can't give Izana the attack stance exp he missed out on. No wait, I think I can fix this

But before I waste a bunch of actions on it, I have Ophelia kill the last of the reinforcements

And after some transfer-separates I can prevent her personal from activating, and finally get the kill while giving Izana some experience in the process.

I have Beruka also bait back rallyman, and this time

I am more careful with how much I pump up Silas's defense,

Although in retrospect I should have been more careful with TeeHee's attack stance. I didn't get punished for it, but she could have theoretically crit, or procced something with this weapon,

Which might have prevented the capture here.

And I feed the other kill to Izana

For an underwhelming levelup on him, but at least he is starting to catchup levelwise.

The next thing I want to accomplish on this map is taking down the ballista covering the approach to the enemy snipers, but

That means a few turns worth of repositioning across the gap.

Although a position like this is a bit more efficient for that process

As you can pair with the flier, and have someone  on the other side transfer-separate the away without using the flier's action to get more people across in a turn.

I try to lure the group around the ballista in, but alas they don't take the bait, so

I spend even more turns repositioning people in preparation for

The big assault to take all of them out

Although if I have one of these 90+ accuracy attacks miss it would be kinda awkward...and this was after a skill rally. Also I used a defense rally on Rusty to make sure the enemy has to get a crit for the kill on a miss.

But we manage to wipe out the lot of them without having to get to any of the more desperate contingency plans.

And Ophelia becomes even more of a magical powerhouse.

Although I don't want to jump too far ahead of the map, just wanted to silence an otherwise annoying ballista, so I have

Even more turns repositioning across the gap in preparation for the next stage of this fight

And I start by rallying up Mozu so that she can safely

Draw in the Sniper group on enemy phase

Which also makes the southern group aggressive, and causes some more reinforcements to spawn in, but I have the space to wipe out these Snipers safely right now.

And I start by giving Izana his kill for the turn

An important thing to note is that all of these snipers have the Counter skill, so sometimes I will chip them at range like this.

Which lets Soleil get the kill here

For a great little levelup.

This Lunge is mainly to breakup both of their attack stances, although that did enough chip that

Velouria can get the kill on him anyway

For a solid levelup as well.

And after this one last time suffering through the effects of counter

We kill the last of the snipers in this group, and

We even prepare some enemy phase action for the southern group

Which is a start at least

As we are going after this group next, with Rusty opening with some chip-rebuff-savage blow combo down here

For a solid levelup on good old trusty Rusty.

And that lets the other flier finish him off

Sophie then misses the kill by one...

Or would have if TeeHee hadn't missed, but in either case it setup Izana's kill for the turn

For another good little levelup.

And a mother-son combo kills the last of these southern foes, as one of them broke off to join in the reinforcement's assault instead.

Little Llardbutt even got an...OK levelup from it.

And again we setup some enemy phase chip

Which was rallied to be a bit more effective this time.

And I kinda want to capture this guy, as he has the one rally I lack on the team, Rally Speed

But alas those hit rates are kinda sketchy, and

I miss this chance. Oh well, there is another one of these guys that went south that I can try to capture next turn when I don't have as much pressure to use my action killing enemies.

TeeHee also gets a needed defensive levelup on the kill as well.

Alas, these snipers also have counter, and despite the attack stance getting the kill, Velouris still has to take the 31 counter damage.

But the Savage Blow chip on the sniper here is free.

It also setup Izana's kill for the turn quite nicely

Alas, I still needed more chip on the sniper, before

The two fathers combo the last Sniper to death.

...Eh it is nice to have someone with really good defense.

This time I opening with more debuffing than chip on the last one I want to capture for its Spee-

...Of course it has a different skill, useless piece of-

Just die. Now for Hinata's group. I could ignore them, but I kinda want the exp, especially with having to train up the underleveled Izana.

But his group is very reluctant to move, I forget exactly how reluctant, so after a few turns of maneuvering I start by testing it a bit

With a massively Rallied up Silas with TeeHee backup, but

They hold course even when Silas is in range of all of them, and in a slightly uncomfortable maneuver, and I even try it

Without the defense rally buff on him. Despite being convinced by this bit of testing, I

Spent more turns making some uncomfortable repositioning of troops in preparation for my assualt

And this felt like the perfect opener.

The lunge here is to both prevent, and make it a little easier to reach him later in the turn (theoretically)

But again I have to deal with counter on this guy.

But that deals with the Lancer that was in the back

Next I chip up the one with the guard Naginata, which lets

Kana gets the kill with the Dragonstone equipped for defensive reasons. Now for Hinata himself,

And I don't want to have to deal with the +3 Defense, and +30 Avoid he is getting from terrain, so I lunge him off of it

Because he is very annoying to deal with otherwise, like so.

I could literally ignore you if I wanted to, so you aren't really protecting much of anyone from this position.

Next I debuff him wit-

Oooh, now that isn't a kill, but a lucky break none the less.

And that should be the kill right there, unless I get the like half a percent chance of missing all of theses hits

The big blocking bridge does undermine the tragedy of this scene. Although knowing that we aren't supposedly aren't going to kill him does as well.

And that takes care of the sniper I left behind

And I wasn't planning on dealing with this last pair of snipers to begin with, but that does mean I have to

Shelter Beruka to safety before that crafty lunge maneuver earned her an arrow to the face.

That is most of Hinata's crew dealt with, as

Kana can take the hit, and dragon hex debuff him for his troubles.

Which makes this an easy kill on the front of the pair come player phase

And while Izana will have to take 25 from the counter damage getting this kill, he doesn't take damage from the attack stance hits that would finish both of them off

Or he can save himself that inconvenience with this little crit here.

And while its another underwhelming levelup, he is just about caught up levelwise.

Meanwhile Elise gets this defensive levelup while healing, and she is probably going to be our first level 15 skill. If I wanted to, I could have probably gotten there by now with her if I wanted to, but I more prioritized other experience goals (like getting Izana caught up), although I will try to get it by the end of this map.

Next is to climb the wall, and kill Oboro's army, and when playing, I actually suspended here for the night, so that I could finish the next section while better rested, although how much that helped is debatable.

Nina also got a healing levelup, as I go through the long process of fiddling, and preparing for climbing the wall. Realistically, the answer is to kill the 8 nearby enemies all in one fell swoop, and then deal with Oboro's paired up posse after that, but that would require me to go all in on the assault, and if something goes wrong, like a miss, or missplay then, I am probably losing someone critical.

I end up deciding to go with a more cowardly opening, by buffing the Mozu-Silas pair as much as possible

To try and deal with some of the Basara on the wings before I fully committing to the assault. With all the buffs up she does rather well here, and she should be able run back down the stairs to buff up again, and have the enemies return to her original position.

She is so close to the kill, but alas, not quite. The other doesn't even try, but with all the enemies rushing in, I am going to need to go back down the stairs to bu-

...We've got trouble. I was not expecting one to just randomly block the stairs. I do have two outs for this, but both are going to cost me.

And I decide to go with the one with the most benefits, but also a chance of failure. I have TeeHee grab this from the convoy, give Elise a daughter Ophelia pairup for more staff accuracy, unfortunatelys both my magic, and skill ralles are on the wrong side to get this staff accuracy into the 90s, but I go for it. If it fails I do have other options, but

I turns out just fine, and we jump the little dastard.

And Sophie gets a very offensively oriented levelup from the chip

So Beruka can get the kill on him

And lets Mozu escape.

But being silly, I go for it again, but intentionally getting some chip

On a safe number of Snipers

And finish off the one she chipped before

For a solid little levelup on her.

Even the other Basara decided to get chipped by Mozu

But after pulling her back one more time, I decide to stop being so silly, and just go for the kill next turn.

And I start with Mozu chipping one of the Snipers for free

Which gives Izana his kill

For a passable enough levelup

Which setups the next kill in this little attack stance chain

For a levelup that I want to call great, but she is so desperate for speed that I am a bit reluctant to commit to calling this great

That clears out the ballista, which nets her

And interesting little levelup for how few stats she gained from it

And lets me get some minor, but funny chip from the ballista on these two

Before doubling up for the kill on one,

And letting Kana setup the kill on the other

For Kana

For a really solid levelup on him, for how much magic damage I end up dealing with him.

Honestly, I should have just gone for the full bore assault on the wall from the start, instead of all that pussyfooting around with Mozu.

Velouria really did a good job of filling her mother's shoes, being able to open up an assault like this.

Next I dragon Hex debuff a bit.

How Rude.

Alas these guys are tough enough to usually need some chip before getting the kill.

But that does give me my pick of who to feed these kills to

Get a good little levelup on Soleil for instance

Or give a kill to Izana for instance

I am amazed he actually has the speed to pull this off, even with the effective +5 speed.

Next Llardbutt decides to hog the Oboro kill all to himself

Poor girl pinning after a Lord that blindly took advantage of her love.

The chip is nice, but far more importantly

That is another step closer to Shuriken Breaker, which is a skill I really like to have before chapter 25. Admittedly his effective damage should make reaching that easier in chapter 24.

And he setup the kill for Elise to get closer to her level 15 skill as well.

And there we go, that is Oboro's crew dealt with.

That just leaves the scary Takumi, and his last paltry squad to deal with, but before I forget

I make sure to grab both the chests while I am repositioning my troops for the last step.

And I open by giving TeeHee a defensive pairup, with the bonus of Lily's Poise to boot, with a tome to 1-2 range on enemy range

Which involves baiting this lunger

And filling up her guard gauge while chipping the sniper.

And for funsies I lunger the lunger down the wall, so he isn't clogging up space, and so my troops can jump

The one in the back, because the lunging attack kills the front half.

Speaking of which, goodbye lunger

And after a bit of creative finagling to get Nina up to 100 accuracy (using Ophelia's warp to get an attack stance accuracy buff in this position) to get the kill here, with no worry about facing retaliation.

I also try to bait Tacomeat into debuffing himself on TeeHee on enemy phase (with the full guard gauge), but alas he doesn't take the bait, and ballista's instead. Oh well, that just means I can

Set things up for maximum hit using Odin's Heartseeker skill, with TeeHee filling the gauge with her attack to cripple and debuff Takumi, for the cool convo boss where he gives his edgelord manifesto about murdering the thread to boot.

This guy really has no life.

And knows just how to sound like a Creepy Mc Creeperson.

Get a hobby. Have you tried Knitting?

What a liar. We all know why this chapter isn't named Takumi.

And like most revenge stories, revenge will ruin you.

TeeHee even levelups on the chip.

In retrospect, if there is a level 15 skill to try and get on this chapter, the Sorcerer's Bow Breaker skill would be the one to reach for. It would let Ophelia utterly decimate Takumi here. Plus if I had to, I probably could have gotten this kill safely without TeeHee's chip and debuff using a Lighting Ophelia attack, with an Elise Lightning attack stance to finish things.

Interesting that he expands his hatred beyond simply Nohrians, and onto even their allies.

Don't worry, it isn't Mr Revenge

And Ophelia learns to kill even more. Also by healing up everyone before finishing the map

Elise manages to grab Inspiration just before finishing the map.

Yeah, I took that very slowly, and let the pressure of it being an ironman delay me even more, but I did make it out without casualties.

Sorry to steal your thunder again TeeHee, but once again, I routed this map.

He really is a rude git...to us Nohrians at least.

You can't blame everything on TeeHee...

The meta answer is that Conquest is a way better game, and never spits in the face of the game's story as much as the "it OK to have sex with your siblings" letter does. The less meta reason is that I find that familial connections are less about blood, and more about bonds.

..."real" family...

Welcome to the dark side for certain Takumi.

And then he falls off a cliff

And the body is missing in one of the most cliche tropes, to make sure you know for certain he is coming back.

But we end with Azura acting too logical to be genre savvy here, and convinces TeeHee to be the same.

 

Next up is Hinoka, a much faster paced chapter from what I remember, and hopefully it doesn't blow up in my face.

 

[Dayni]

In which I inflict anxiety about units dying in story affecting gameplay:

Spoiler

25 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Don't worry my linked friends, we didn't kill any of the named characters for real, so they all should be safe.

 Wait, does that remove Xander, Ryoma and Elise entirely from us after those chapters?

Isn't it implied Setsuna and Azama don't make it out of the next chapter? I just realised the Xander chapter is a nightmare for this.

2 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Although Takumi is really intent on killing TeeHee...is this how it will all end, at the point of one of Takumi's Arrows? we will see.

I lost Xander to him in my lunatic playthrough and I had to just shrug my shoulders because he wasn't a generic.

4 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

TeeHee also gets a needed defensive levelup on the kill as well.

How often does it feel like people don't get Corrins that can tank? Seems pretty frequent to me.

4 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

The big blocking bridge does undermine the tragedy of this scene. Although knowing that we aren't supposedly aren't going to kill him does as well.

.....'bout that.

4 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

...We've got trouble. I was not expecting one to just randomly block the stairs. I do have two outs for this, but both are going to cost me.

Oh that's not a good look.

I know you manage it, but it's still a risk.

4 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

for the cool convo boss where he gives his edgelord manifesto about murdering the thread to boot.

Takumi writing an anti-Corrin and Nohr manifesto is a worrying image.

4 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Yeah, I took that very slowly, and let the pressure of it being an ironman delay me even more, but I did make it out without casualties.

So you have dis-possessed Takumi of his wall.

4 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Sorry to steal your thunder again TeeHee, but once again, I routed this map.

And yeah, I feel like it suggests any of the soldiers who were defeated die.

Does this count....

4 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

But we end with Azura acting too logical to be genre savvy here, and convinces TeeHee to be the same.

I mean, she's half right in a sense.

Just not in the ways anyone except her should anticipate.

Maybe this is part of VillAzura's plans.

[Eltosian Kadath]

On 4/14/2023 at 6:08 AM, Shrimpy -Limited Edition- said:

Welcome to the good elevator map, or as i like to call it, the last not horrible map in Rev.

Hmm I wonder how accurate that is, let me think... Chapter 24 is horrible for its attempts at a stealth gimmick, and its traps; Chapter 25 is certainly horrible thanks to roughly 2/3 of map spaces being inaccessible tiles; Chapter 26 feels more like an average Birthright map, so horrible may be a bit of a stretch; Chapter 27 is horrible in the sense that it is either a boring one turn boss kill, or an absolute slog; but Endgame I find is OK for what is just a final boss map.

 

On 4/16/2023 at 11:23 AM, Punished Dayni said:

Python unlocks Hunter's Volley,

Now ya cooking with gas.

 

On 4/16/2023 at 11:23 AM, Punished Dayni said:

I kinda expected it to and if it weren't for some of the crits I got I would not have been as cavalier with the end. So anyways, we free Tatiana from Nuibaba's soul pantry, free a merchant from a quest that I happened to activate back in Act Three, then move to face Zeke and Jerome....

That map is really intimidating when you can't pull the warp-kill-rescue strats, and good job getting through it.

 

On 4/16/2023 at 11:23 AM, Punished Dayni said:

 

Next time! That took long enough as is, as you can see with all the text.

It also takes forever to do safely without warp-kill-rescue strats, so I can't blame you for ending it off there. This map being so draining with the few units I had is part of why I got distracted by other games before finishing my ironman of Echoes. I just double checked, I only had Alm, Kliff (who went cav line), Silque, Clair, Forsyth, and Delthea alive in that army at that point (I stopped just after getting Titania and Zeke, while Celica's army hasn't lost anyone at all...)

 

11 hours ago, Punished Dayni said:

Wait, does that remove Xander, Ryoma and Elise entirely from us after those chapters?

Isn't it implied Setsuna and Azama don't make it out of the next chapter? I just realised the Xander chapter is a nightmare for this.

By the rules of the run, probably not, but it is a funny thought.

 

11 hours ago, Punished Dayni said:

I lost Xander to him in my lunatic playthrough and I had to just shrug my shoulders because he wasn't a generic.

I am tempted to joke that nothing of value was lost, but I know most people like to use Xander in Conquest. Takumi's proc skills do make him super dangerous unless you can overwhelm him with magic, have Bow Breaker, or a full Guard Gauge with someone...

 

11 hours ago, Punished Dayni said:

How often does it feel like people don't get Corrins that can tank? Seems pretty frequent to me.

Even with me complaining about her defense there, Corrin is still tanky if you need her/him to be, as your sword gives you +2 from the inventory, and Dragonstone+ gives another +9. As long as you don't class change, Corrin can tank by taking out that Dragon shield...assuming you have the speed to cover the speed penalty, which is a big part of why I went with a Speed Boon over a Defense Boon.

 

12 hours ago, Punished Dayni said:

Oh that's not a good look.

I know you manage it, but it's still a risk.

Yeah, that was an uncomfortable surprise, which made me worry I might end up losing Mozu to a maneuver I mistakenly believed was safer than the alternative.

 

12 hours ago, Punished Dayni said:

And yeah, I feel like it suggests any of the soldiers who were defeated die.

Does this count....

I felt it more suggested the opposite, as Xander basically gives the same command to the enemies last chapter, and the game is very explicit about everyone surviving until Garon comes with his slaughter troops there, so them repeating it again here made it seem like short hand for the everyone is surviving for now nonsense.

 

[Dayni]

So, considering where I'm at you'd wonder why I'm not chomping at the bit to finish Alm Act 4. Some of it is playing the one Metroid some seem to argue for fangames of over the 3DS release. I can't speak to those but I can speak to this one.

Spoiler

I did beat Diggernaut. This was a pain at times figuring out the patterns and some things are rough (Not knowing I could use Spiderball to avoid getting sucked up was an issue that might have been on me, but why would I have assumed it was immune to getting sucked up? Why did the two circles move at the same time in opposite directions in the end?), but as hard as the Experiment boss or the final boss in Dread? No, I wouldn't rank it that high, certainly didn't do as many reties. I felt like I could get good enough for it. I never mastered the wind tunnel in the experiment boss.

Power Bomb jump logic is pretty silly imo, how does locking yourself in place make the bomb able to shove Samus outward in whatever direction is opposite to where she's stuck but it doesn't affect her when not stuck to a surface? Also, for some reason music didn't load at all, so that was weird. It didn't load from the main menu down, had to restart to get it again.

Left it off right before the queen (And a first attempt that was me flailing when she dropped her head while I was under it).

Back on topic:

Spoiler

No cavs makes advancing to Jerome and Zeke more awkward sadly, but I'll have to make do. Jerome having arcanists is also unfortunate, but at least it's not 2:1 against me. I start with charging upward, trying to get Python to distract from the forest just across the river in the process. The enemy phase sees Zeke's forces lose most of the paladins but they take out a paladin and arcanist in the process. I get Forsyth and Lukas in the action, sit Alm on the bridge with Marthipan and delete the bow knights. Delthea gets Atk/Skl/Spd/Luk healing, Forsyth Spd/Luk on a bow knight, Forsyth HP/Atk on a Paladin and I forget what Lukas got. Zeke loses all but his bow knights but the other arcanist is finished  I warp Alm and Delthea in the middle of the carnage, Lukas gets Atk/Spd/Def off a Gold Knight, then realise I'm in a minor pickle with my guys but form a formation between Alm and Zeke's forces that keeps Delthea safe from Jerome and the worst he can do is damage Clair who should live. Jerome proceeds to attack the bow knight on the fort, slowing down proceedings as I don't have one-range on him anymore and risk Zeke if we're not careful. Thankfully he can just be rescued away and Python, Delthea and Forsyth (who gets Skl/Spd/Luk/Def off the level) end him. That done, we've freed a Rigelian village and more importantly get access to their smithy.

Entering the village we get the Camus spiel about how the Camus can't turn his back on the man who spared him from execution and gave him work only for him to see Alm has a birthmark and that convinces him to change sides. I don't suppose a tattoo would have done the job? The CG's even funnier because he's staring at it like the mark murdered his family. Moving on, I end up realising I hadn't sold either expotic spice I had on Alm's side, leaving me with 9 Gold. On top of over 600 silver, that's some fine forging money there. I don't use it all here (I can make another killer bow before Act 5 this way), So I spend it making the Duma Lance useful and increasing the Ridersbane and an Iron Lance's might to max. Alm has a conversation to help stave off the inevitable destiny junk and we move on to the next map, which worries me more than the Last Bastion because witches.

Unfortunately I have to have people in the two groups, so I think about it and have Forsyth try and solo the south group (After helping secure south of the bridge) while the rest of the party heads for the northwest in both directions. The first part sees Python try and pull the norther bow knights with all the saints,Zeke and Tobin close by while the rest go up the stairs. The northern bow knights die. Then I realise all the bows don't have effective damage on Clair so she helps clear the group ahead on the stairs, which she gets Atk/Skl/Def from while I also defeat all but the lone bow knight who can't kill her, I get Forsyth into the woods for the gold knights from the south (Marthipan in hand) and it's while I have the saints heal I realise Clair's not in range and there's two witches who can warp. Uh oh. Python also doesn't kill the cantor, which is a shame as he'll almost certainly summon on EP. The enemy bow knight I worried about Clair for goes for Luthier because he could be doubled, Forsyth gets Skl/Def off a Gold Knight. With that, I say screw it and use Hunter's Volley and thankfully it crits the cantor, saving me that trouble. I then hold off on the south group and hope that they don't cause too much damage to Alm, who's in range of two of the bow knights. I have Delthea start on the Death trio on the bridge, have Forsyth and Lukas take out two of the Bow Knights and move the rest of the south group in range to help the north group. Forsyth gets HP/Luk (Better than Lukas's earlier Skl level), Delthea gets Skl/Spd and Ragnarok off the second arcanist and Luthier gets HP/Skl off the third (He'd be a decent Bow Knight looking at his growths). Hestia then summons four witches and that's it, I think we need to move. Forsyth beats the last Arcanist, Luthier and Delthea take out the generals, Python takes out a witch and after a rescue in range Lukas moves and iis one space too short to fight Hestia. So I move the rest close as I can and wait and see what happens with the witches. One teleports to Luthier but he does fine and the others and the general attack Lukas. In the ensuing moves Python doesn't kill Hestia but Alm does on a 39% hit (Really?) and gets HP/Atk/Spd/Def (Yeah that's the good stuff) and leave Magnus to face Lukas and Zeke on healtiles. He runs to try and get healing. I chip him enough for Tatiana to take the kill and get Atk for her level up (Oof)

I then decide to keep going along the falls instead of to the Last Bastion for a detour. I leave Forsyth and Python behind, then go in. Finding a Def Shrine, I give it to Clair because I didn't bring Python in and the physical bulk would be nice for her. I find a mummy enemy, but unfortunately there's an entombed bunch as well. I take the opportunity to experiment with how rescue AI is handled when surrounded on adjacent tiles and it goes for NW of all directions. Tobin gets HP off a level, Tatiana gets HP/Skl, Silque gets Spd/Luk/Def off a heal (Wait, that sounds impossible). Then I make a bad call and Silque gets crit once (She wouldn't have survived 2 if she hadn't levelled Def. Despite Dracoshield!). Thankfully luck prevailled and I move on with only a realisation that yet again I made a bad call. I pick up gold and nectar in the back, then leave. And that's where I'll leave it for now. Next time I'll get Slayde, do Duma's Ordeal and we'll see about the Dadslaying.

  TL:DR Forsyth OP, do not nerf.

6 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

It also takes forever to do safely without warp-kill-rescue strats

Still the fastest I've done that map though. My first time I was in deadlock until I unlocked invoke DF during it.

6 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

I only had Alm, Kliff (who went cav line), Silque, Clair, Forsyth, and Delthea alive in that army at that point (I stopped just after getting Titania and Zeke, while Celica's army hasn't lost anyone at all...)

I'd have wondered if it was doable at that point myself.

6 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

I am tempted to joke that nothing of value was lost, but I know most people like to use Xander in Conquest. Takumi's proc skills do make him super dangerous unless you can overwhelm him with magic, have Bow Breaker, or a full Guard Gauge with someone...

Takumi's dangerous there and is the capstone of a map that's already got plenty of reasons to be anxious.

Admittedly Xander was there because I had space in the party.

6 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Even with me complaining about her defense there, Corrin is still tanky if you need her/him to be, as your sword gives you +2 from the inventory, and Dragonstone+ gives another +9. As long as you don't class change, Corrin can tank by taking out that Dragon shield...assuming you have the speed to cover the speed penalty, which is a big part of why I went with a Speed Boon over a Defense Boon.

As long as you don't class chance

That is very true. Some people should remember that more often, me included.

6 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

By the rules of the run, probably not, but it is a funny thought.

Phew.

[GuardianSing]

Ah, good items but blocked by a way too risky to fight army.

Alas

Alright, chapter 22!

Spoiler

So if we go by the laws of the run, does this mean that these people sacrificing themselves is also causing their linked counterparts in the other universes to die mysteriously?

The jacked up units in this map are scary at first but with the way they work it's a pretty easy fight, lure one in and every unit in that wave moves in for my units to pick off.

I'll will never again witness a scene like this and not imagine in my head the two characters yelling to each other because they can't hear what they're saying.

Don't you just love trivializing overpowered units?

this wave unexpectedly came down but they are still far away enough to manage.

Weapon triangle.txt

She'll live.

She lived.

I don't think I've ever had a Gaius this good.

Nice a simple, no casualties.

Oh hey, she lived!

Now that we're at this point and Stahl kicked the bucket, I wonder if it'd be worth to try and grab Tiki now...

Oh Awakening, so easy to trivialize

Anyways, here are the current status' of my units.

Spoiler

I'm not sure what to change Gaius into, if I should change him at all considering how useful the bows are.

 

[Dayni]

Let's end the war.

Spoiler

First off is Last Bastion, where we get reminded we only get one shot, do not, miss your chance to blow, this opportunity comes once in a lifetime only for Slayde to ride up to us, see Clive's animate corpse say hello and neg? Alm. Slayde admits he defected but not that he told them about Delthea. He gets to tell Clive's corpse to go fuck itself and that he will survive. It's at this point I realise Slayde doesn't have the four lackies with Steel Lances because I didn't do that quest. I start by trying to get two bow knights to attack Python and also call over Meuller with Lukas, who takes pretty much nothing from him as he has 31 Def. I also Warp Zeke to the west to also do some distraction. All the Bow Knights having Iron bows sadly makes Clair too risky to use. Zeke sadly is one off 1-rounding the arcanists but does make it so they can't attack him on EP. I have Lukas equip the Lightning Sword for next turn, have everyone else ready for next turn then EP starts. Python gets Skl/Spd off the first Bow Knight he kills, sadly he doesn't quite get the second one while Zeke gets under fire and the arcanist starts running for healing. Next player phase Delthea attacks Meuller and sadly misses one, but gets Atk/Spd/Luk from the level up, Alm takes the Killer Bow off Python, kills the boss and gets HP/Atk/Skl/Def for a level. Luthier gets HP/Skl from healing Python and to expedite things I have Forsyth warped into one of the rows, with plans to do Lukas next. On EP an Arcanist runs into Forsyth's sword because there were bow knights in the other spaces he could attack from,  the middle one attacks Alm instead of Lukas and dies, then the first thing I do is change Lukas's weapon to warp him but muck it up and place him between the rows. Thankfully Delthea can take out the bow knight who was in range of her. Zeke finishes a Bow Knight, Forsyth starts on a bow knight and gets HP/Atk/Spd/Luk/Def (This man is going to kill Rudolf), place Alm and Python at the mercy of a Bow Knight (Forgetting I left Alm in range of that guy at the time I was putting in range of an arcanist was unfortunate) and more guys at the edge of ranges. Alm does get Skl/Spd/Def off the Arcanist and Hunter's Volley, but thankfully nothing else really happens. Zeke kills that arcanist who .turned around because a healtile popped up and finishes him off for Atk/Skl/Def (Neat), I make a bad call and leave Faye exposed to a Bow Knight rescuing Zeke out, but she has enough stats to not die. I see if I can tempt over Slayed with Lukas, warp Alm into a corridor and Python deletes an arcanist. Python takes out two bow knights, Slayed attacks Lukas and suffers for it and Fayes takes the hit. next player phase sees me warp Zeke back in with Silque after rescuing her close with Faye, Zeke crits to finish the bow knight who attacked Faye, Lukas levels Skl/Def/Luk off Slayde, I start advancing my physical units closer to the generals who haven't moved yet and nothing happens on EP. Clair finishes the last Bow Knight on a healtile and learns Vendetta off Duma's Lance, I proceed to take on the generals over the next few turns mainly with the mages (Tatiana gets Atk/Skl/Luk/Def and Fortify off one) and that's the map before Rudolf done. Let's do the other Amiibo trial!

After a quick tap, the menu to enter Duma's Ordeal shows up. Compared to Mila's it's more linear and also has more fire and lava in the background. Once again benching Forsyth and Python, I go in. It also plays the track from the lower half of Thabes Labyrinth (Still makes more sense than the track in Mila's Ordeals) The first bit of lore confirms Duma fought Naga at some point, then we find an encounter. Zeke and Tatiana have a C support where Zeke lies because MotE exists, Delthea gets tricked into complimenting her brother, then Tatiana levels Skl and I put her in an awkward position with the "boss" in range. Nothing unmanageable, just awkward. It's managed, an Iron Shield is got and onto the next one. The history stones then timeskip to Naga giving a Falchion to Duma as a parting gift and hint as to where he can stick it. The next fight I decide I can have Tatiana attempt to pull the paladin boss from a healtile and it works, with her killing it on her own. Tatiana takes down a cav and levels Atk/Skl/Spd/Def (Whut.), Delthea gets HP/Atk/Skl/Luk, while waiting on a merc to move I do some healing and Tolbin gets Skl/Spd from a level before I stop messing about and end the map. This lore also implies that Falchion's an incarnation of Naga. Could you then call on Naga directly from the sword? Next fight's unfortunate because there's two witches and a DF, one of which I warp Lukas in to kill in a way that distracts the DF as he gets Skl/Spd. Delthea takes out an Arcanist on the left and stays out of range because Mage Ring is fair and balanced. So all my fears are for nothing as Lukas crits the DF who had a brave sword and steals it for himself. Clair beats the other witch to get Skl/Spd, I pul the arcanists, Faye gets Spd from healing, I beat said arcanists, we move on. We get a paragraph with says those who bear the divine dragon's mark can draw out Falchion's true strength. Does that imply Marth was just given less power because of not being marked by a divine dragon? That's just mean. Lukas gets Def off a Mogall, Lukas 1-rounds the fiend on this map (Brave Sword OP) and Zeke barely misses levelling up. Then we face the last fight, which unlike last time does not have a wall to distract the Duma's Apostle through. I manage to scramble a formation as Zeke starts remembering his Camus nature. The enemy phase goes stupid well, Alm near 1-shots the DF with a crit, Lukas leaves the apostle on 5 HP, Delthea takes out the sage with fire and Clair does a good amount to the gold knight. Zeke finishes the apostle for a level with HP/Spd/Luk/Def (Good), Luthier misses a necrodragon Lukas failed to kill with a Sagittae, but I manage to defeat the enemies who aren't barons, leaving him to attempt to kill Alm and fail. Lukas gets Skl/Spd from fighting the baron (and gets Skl/Spd, Lukas usually doesn't get as fast as he is now), Clair finishes the baron and we get our rewards.... only to learn the convoy's full, what? .I pour out some water and leave, seeing as I'll have to sell some stuff and hopefully Rudolf won't send reinforcements I decide to pop back to the hidden village to do so. I take the time to make another Killer Bow from the Silver I got from Meuller, max it out and call it the Dadbreaker. I also get the Fruit of Life from the girl in this village before heading back to face Rudolf, getting an Ambrosia mixed up on the way.

Heading back to the castle, Rudolf finally sorties on seeing the Deliverance coming, he tells Berkut to not interfere because he'd be a fool otherwise and Berkut says the line. Alm starts trying to rationalise apparently noting as familiar, then Lord of a Dead Empire starts blasting. Silque warps Forsyth to the west wall, he starts breaking bow knights while Lukas charges forward with a rescue and Python temps over the east Bow Knight. This guy doesn't die, but Alm finishes on player phase as Lukas also near 1-rounds an enemy Gold Knight. on the next player phase Forsyth gets anther bow knight but only gets Def from it, I for a 2-unit wall with Alm (Who got HP/Atk/Skl/Luk/Def from the Bow Knight, in case you're wondering if Alm is not broken) and everyone else behind it. This sees little change barring more bow knights moving, a gold knight fighting Alm the injured gold knight retreating. The Gold Kight in our faces is beaten by Alm and Luthier while the Bow Knight nearby is crit by Python with Huner's volley while Forsyth continues killing western Bow Knights. I have Delthea attempt to crit a baron in range, but she doesn't and gets HP/Atk/Luk from the experience.I regret this decision when I learn the barons had javelins and attempt to attack her but they miss. The Bow Knight in range goes for Luthier, the gold knight who ran to heal goes for Alm and and arcanist runs up close to heal the baron who runs to them. Zeke attacks the bow knight who gut close and crits it down, Tobin finishes the Gold Knight, Python's put in range of the last west Bow Knight, Luthier finishes the injured Baron and gets Atk/Skl/Spd (He got Spd. What.), I warp Zeke out of range of the Baron and Arcanist, rescue Forsyth back from the west, then enemy phase happens, the last barons, bow knights, oh and Rudolf all move. At this point I'm not risking a run to get the mana herbs, so I attempt to have Tobin attack a Gold knight but he doesn't crit and focus on wailing on Rudolf. Forsyth and Lukas get him to 21 HP (He crits Lukas for 3 damage, it's hilarious), I have Alm use the Dadbreaker with Hunter's Volley, once critting him once so Rudolf's left on 1 HP, so I have Tatiana hand in Zeke's resignation letter with a blast of Serpahim. She gets Atk/Skl/Luk and Invoke (No Warp??) and that's the map. Rudolf confesses to being Alm's dad and he asks Alm to kill a god.

I go to get the stuff in the palace and head back for one last bit of forging, confirm you can write Fuck on the weapons in this game, go back to listen to Mycen talk about the gods dying and pushing the destined brand bs, ugh this was unneeded. Also, telling Alm that there's no time to mourn and get to godslaying and maybe ladyslaying (Kaga did it first after all!). We recruit Mycen and that ends Act 4, right before the real fight begins.

TL:DR: Rudolf commits suicide by holy magic, another Killer Bow is made, Dread Fighters are still broken.

19 hours ago, GuardianSing said:

So if we go by the laws of the run, does this mean that these people sacrificing themselves is also causing their linked counterparts in the other universes to die mysteriously?

Same with all the sacrifices and starving in Valentia, or all the soldiers across all routes if that's the case.

Does anyone in the purple realm goons dying again count?

19 hours ago, GuardianSing said:

She'll live.

An ill presage was an accurate title after all. considering how bad a call that was.

19 hours ago, GuardianSing said:

Now that we're at this point and Stahl kicked the bucket, I wonder if it'd be worth to try and grab Tiki now...

Tiki does have decent stats and reclass options, so if you want to take that chance go for it. Something about this map looks different from what I remember though.....

Edited April 19, 2023 by Punished Dayni

[Interdimensional Observer]

On 4/4/2023 at 3:28 PM, Shadow Mir said:

Oh hey, I see Whale Island.

With spring beginning in the northern hemisphere, I wanted something with bright and vibrant nature instead of a character for my avi. Not finding many landscape video game artworks to my liking, I settled for Whale Island, a fine embodiment of nature vibe Rune Factory aims for with its locales.

 

On 4/5/2023 at 12:39 AM, Eltosian Kadath said:

Fates does also emphasize how terrible, and neglectful TeeHee is as a parent as well, for dropping the kids off at the hyperbolic time chamber, and pretend that is parenthood.

The problem wasn't putting them in a time chamber, it's that they chose the wrong type of time chamber. You use one where time moves faster for pregnancy, but a separate one where time moves slower relative to your dimension, after the birth. This way you can get your buns in & out of the oven quickly, in case you're concerned you'll die in battle without producing progeny, then you place the newborns in the slow dimension. Then you return fight your war back home, and since your children are in a slower world, they'll have aged but a few days or weeks by the time you're done. You'll able to experience all the great moments big and small of parenthood this way.

On 4/8/2023 at 6:24 AM, Eltosian Kadath said:

Where to put them. I wasn't going to do the boring all on the left strat, where Hana is particularly deadly, but instead I had to think about splitting my troops.

I tried all the all-left strat once or twice, given how narrow this map it, it's safe, but doesn't necessarily let you get through it any faster.

Overall, seems like an excellent job done!

On 4/17/2023 at 5:14 AM, Eltosian Kadath said:

Alright, time for my writeup of chapter 23. I have put it off long enough

I can feel the slowness with which this map must've been done. Which is understandable. The enemies aren't very aggressive here, befitting being a defensive wall and all, but better to go slow than fast if the game doesn't force your hand on an ironman. And the next map sure is going to give the enemy the initiative, too much.

On 4/17/2023 at 10:45 PM, Eltosian Kadath said:

but Endgame I find is OK for what is just a final boss map.

I think I'd agree with this for Rev's last. Flat and empty barring a few infinite reinforcements you can easily keep under control. Better than Awakening's at least, and perhaps Birthright's as well. If there is an issue I have, it's that the final phase when all that remains is the eyeball should've spiced things up more. 

On 4/17/2023 at 10:45 PM, Eltosian Kadath said:

Takumi's proc skills do make him super dangerous unless you can overwhelm him with magic, have Bow Breaker, or a full Guard Gauge with someone...

Vengeance and Rend Heaven can't stack, and you calculate how much damage each deals. It's not entirely impossible to plan it out and find someone with enough durability to endure a proc of either kind.

 

On 4/16/2023 at 2:23 PM, Punished Dayni said:

On the other I was completely sidelined by Marla moving.

I think it might've killed Alm once for me, Marla isn't the typical conjurer who does nothing but spam summons. Maybe it's b/c she's a Witch and not of the usual summoner class.

On 4/16/2023 at 2:23 PM, Punished Dayni said:

(Been playing Metroid Samus Returns though, I'm as far as that boss, I think I don't need to elaborate further)

I hope you're able to finish the game, unlike me.

On 4/18/2023 at 3:15 PM, Punished Dayni said:

I did beat EVIL!

...And now you've gone further than me. Congrats!

On 4/16/2023 at 2:23 PM, Punished Dayni said:

Silque got Def and Invoke DF (WOO!)

First SoV playthrough of mine had me abuse Silque's Invoke. Nuibaba was taken out via DF spam, and even Duma largely fell victim to death by 1000 little phantom cuts.

On 4/18/2023 at 3:15 PM, Punished Dayni said:

and we move on to the next map, which worries me more than the Last Bastion because witches.

Unfortunately I have to have people in the two groups,

Witches aside, I like this map b/c it feels like an SoV map with a figment of real design. How tempting, yet so late a map and false promise of the future.

 

15 hours ago, GuardianSing said:

Don't you just love trivializing overpowered units?

Maybe not a bet I would've made, but it paid off.😅

15 hours ago, GuardianSing said:

Now that we're at this point and Stahl kicked the bucket, I wonder if it'd be worth to try and grab Tiki now...

You should be strong enough for it.

You could also consider moving with a Rescue to the right (or left) of Tiki against the north edge of the battlefield, surround them with two units, one to adjacent to the south, one to the east, then use Rescue and Tiki should take the left space, up against the northern edge of the map. Doing this will let you surround Tiki with five units two tiles away from her, keeping her safe from all harm. -Although this defensive strategy requires five units able to enemy phase this map without worry (and you should make sure anyone hiding behind them can survive range 2 assault as well.

 

---

Time to take a moment from playing one easy SRPG and spend it on Birthright again, which surprisingly might not be so easy this time. C23 BR is the infamous Camilla round 2!

But first, a silly little scribble, totally skippable.:

Spoiler

A long time ago, there was a great plague that swept through the city of Windmire. Disease was everywhere, the bodies kept piling up, too many to bury with too few willing to do the job. His Majesty and his court fled to the countryside and tried to quarantine the capital, though the disease followed.

There was one lesser member of the royal line, a margrave, who chose to stay behind. He was regarded as foolish by his royal family and the elite aristocratic and not for endangering his life like this against a force of nature, yet he saw great suffering in this world, and sought at all costs to relieve it.

The margrave walked the streets, going from district to district, overseeing the supply chains providing food to those stuck indoors and taking away the corpses, he visited the few hospitals -or rather hospices. During his tours, the margrave found travel in Windmire off the central paths that he, as a royal, had taken, to be most inconvenient. For the streets were filled with debris, uncollected garbage, which piled up, what edible among it was fed upon by rats and flies. Speaking to residents, the margrave got a good idea that this was the norm, if a little less bad, even outside of a year of terrible plague.

Putting his observations together, the margrave concluded that the great plague might stem from the mal-aria in these commoner districts and alleyways. That had the city’s elite properly kept the streets of the whole city swept reasonably clean, then this would not have happened. Contrary to what some thought the recent disastrous military campaign against Chevois had indicated, the plague was not another sign the Dusk Dragon had turned against Nohr. It had a human cause.

Not only that, but as the margrave stood steadfast in the Dusk Dragon's benevolence, he received an insight from the Dusk Dragon itself. He could see what he had never seen before, his First Blood from his royal ancestry shone with the brightness of the setting sun. He realized the power latent in Windmire- its Dragon Veins. As he lightly tapped into them, hoping for a glimmer of hope in their power, he discovered that he could produce no panacea using them. He did not despair however, he had the power of fire, of destructive fire -no of cleansing flame!

The margrave realized what he would do. He told everyone to bring out their garbage, to pour it all over the streets, everything. He too said they should honorably lay their dead out in the open, he told them that they would be cremated, but convinced this was a divine mission given to him by the Dusk Dragon, it would not be an ignominy, but a final blessing. The ailing masses did as the margrave said and then sealed their doors and windows shut. Street by street, alley by alley, district by district, the margrave purified the city of Windmire with a dragon’s hot breath. The trash incinerated, the remains consecrated, yet not a building nor live folk walking the streets unaware the slightest singed.

The plague endured a while longer, but after this it did indeed begin to relent and subside away. The margrave tragically caught ill and died as one of its last victims. He had beaten the odds and avoided it so many times before, but pouring his soul into sanitizing the city had taken a toll on his body, weakening his immune system.

Realizing the margrave had gained a serious following in the capital, and him being harmless to the political system being dead, Nohr’s dynasty moved within two years to sanctify him. The Kings of Nohr added the title “Janitor of the World’s City” to their official epithets, and would once a year carry out a ceremonial city cleansing down a street or two as the margrave had. Windmire’s municipal government added a street-cleaning program, but it never met -except when plague inevitably struck again- the high ideals the margrave had sought to see fulfilled. Sometimes and in some parts of the city it functioned decently well, other times and places, due to local corruption, not at all.

-And this is why Camilla can hurl great waves of fire at the Hoshidan invaders!

And now, to battle!:

Spoiler

Anyhow, this is easily Birthright’s most infamous map. Enemies have finally consistently become decently sorta strong (33-41 Atk) and Camilla is dealing 10 damage to the heroes every single turn.

For maybe my past two Birthright Lunatic runs, I decided to lowman turtle this map. The alleyways between the three vertical columns this map is divided into are safe from the annoying flames. Turn four units into two bulky Defensive Stance pairs, then have them occupy both ends of an alleyway to the left of the starting area, and put two DS’ed healers between them safe each with enough durability to survive a range 2 attack. Make sure the two tanking pairs have some healing items if one or both of the healers needs to heal the other on the same turn. Let the enemies come at you and kill them at a pace nonfatal to you. Easy!

-I will not be doing this. I will be using the alleys to my advantage, but I’ll be fielding an entire team. Camilla can only sweep one of the map’s three columns per turn, so if I spread my units between two of them, it ought to keep the damage down. While a Great Festal would be nice here, I don’t have anyone who could use the A-rank thing. Heavy use of Defensive Stance may help as rearguards don’t take DV damage. Enemy density on Hard looks to be fairly low, even if I halve my team by keeping it mostly paired, it shouldn’t curtail my enemy deletion capabilities. Reinforcements could upset this however.

I am able to bring everyone to this fight, even Shiro and Takumi’s still-not-wife Mozu. Out of precaution, I cook a +Def & Res meal (with Elegant as the trait for +1 Mag), I want durability. HP/Def/Res Tonics are purchased and applied fairly heavily because I have proven myself not the smartest when it comes to ironmanning. I don’t need Spd b/c the fastest thing this time are a 23 Spd Bow Knight and some Strategists with a rather low 20. Before the fight begins, I pair Shiro with Ryoma b/c he’s the only one he has a rank with and Ryoma likes being in Defensive Stance. Azama takes Scarlet for the Def, Takumi Mozu ofc, Corrin takes Orochi, Silas takes his daughter Sophie, Sakura takes Reina as a precaution against accidental Offensive Stance, the remaining three of Felicia, Shura, and Saizo remain unpaired.

Turn 1 has Azama move north, into the range of the Great Knight in the right column should Camilla begin her DV streak with it, 50 HP & 37 Def with Tonics and Scarlet + Renewal will keep him alive. Shiro-Ryoma are moved over the bridge west of Azama to bait the center column Paladin and Strategist. Saizo kills the nearby Sorcerer in the alleyway and Corrin takes their spot to bait the center Wyvern Lord. Sakura hides behind Corrin, Felicia takes the last alley spot though her replica is left in the open, Shura hides in the tiny right alley and Silas and Takumi are left in the open next to Felicia-replicant.

On the next turn, Felicia heals Silas (and heals herself b/c I gave her Live to Serve for this one), her replica, Shiro, and Sakura, Takumi. Then, I notice Silas has an 98% on killing the GK, so I go for it. Using the Spy Yumi, Shura injures the Bow Knight enough for Azama to kill (a Spd Tonic would’ve let Azama double it you unthinking cheapskate). Shiro kills his Strat, Corrin moves to bait a GK, WL, and Strat 42-36-26 is good enough durability for this. The enemy phase has Camilla blast the right column; Corrin kills the GK & WL, injures the Strat; Azama baits the north-right Strat and injure a WL.

Turn 3- Feli-Repli heals Shura, Silas slays the northeast Sorc that moved with its Strat, Shura finishes the WL there and Azama kills the Strat. For the center column, I have the injured Strat, a Pally, and a Dark Knight approaching. As I did feed Orochi a Spd Tonic, she is safe from being doubled by any of them and can finish off the Strat (Corrin would’ve if I had given him a Spd Tonic). Orochi moves next to right of the DK b/c it’ll bait a Sorc too, 37-31-37 should assure her survival. Saizo pairs with Felicia and moves into the center-right alley second from the bottom. Takumi warily ventures out into the center and so does Sakura, betting Camilla will pick the right again.

And… Camilla did. 3 allies in the center, 4 to the right must slanted her to a third right cleansing. All the enemies except Effie have been cleared from the right column, so I decide to begin marching having those soldiers join the rest and I’ll spare Effie. While Corrin can turn Arthur and Effie into allied NPC since Elise is with him, I don’t go out of my way to do so. Both them are pretty lousy and will quickly die fighting the other enemies. I don’t get any reward for flipping them either, so I don’t care so much.

Owing to the Fujin Yumi negating terrain costs and water-walking being a thing, Takumi is able to get into position to kill the Sorc Orochi injured. Sakura kills the Pally and Corrin the DK. I do some healing, and end the fourth turn with Shiro-Ryoma in the alley, leaving my units 3-4 center-right in their column placement, it causes Camilla to pick the right. No enemies move towards me, and as of yet, not a single reinforcement on this map.

Turn 5 begins with Sakura healing Corrin for minor sustained damage, and Takumi takes to the lower left-center alley. Rather than bait two enemies instead of one, Corrin chats with Arthur, it’s the nice thing to do and he’s in the way, even if he’d be more useful dead for a touch of EXP. This I forgot also sends Effie over to the green side (she sits still doing nothing the entire fight), and Azama moves right next to her in the northernmost center-right alleway. For the rest of my movements, well I decide to mess with Camilla’s decision-making again. I put Felicia-Saizo, her bunshin, Shura, and Silas-Sophie to the right. I’m not sure how Camilla factors green units in her calculations, but this brings it to 3 including Arthur in the center, 4 to the right.

Finally, two reinforcements arrive in the rightmost alleys on the edge of the map, one Pally in the south, one DK in the north, Shiro and Silas will bait them respectively. Arthur gets attacked by a Malig Knight and moves south, possibly to Sakura for healing. I let my human emotions towards fictional people get in the way and have Corrin kill the Malig Knight to keep it from killing Arthur on the next enemy phase. The optimal thing would’ve been to move Corrin northwest to end this battle a turn sooner. Azama baits the north-center WL, Takumi equips an Illusory Yumi for 19 Res, low, but he should still survive both a Strat and a Malig hit -provided Camilla doesn’t choose the left column. I leave Shiro, Silas, Shura, and FR in the right column to hopefully rig this.

It worked, Camilla kept to the right, and it turns out that Takumi who I somehow forgot to HP Tonic even though I Res’d him, would have survived a Cammy bomb with 1 HP anyhow. Two more reinforcements of the same arrived too. Rather than top off the five missing HP on Arthur, Sakura is healing her bro. Corrin moves to bait the WL and the Sorc defending the big lady of this map. Azama finishes his WL. Silas effortlessly kills his target, though Shiro needs a crit, they all get healed and keep the right column stacked.

Turn 8, Shiro crit his second goon, so only Silas has to kill his. A WL spawned three tiles north of Azama, so he water-walks and almost kills it. Corrin has lost 16 HP, but Camilla can only deal 4 damage to him and the retainers nothing, so he moves in. Though Cammy knows how to abuse a Dragon Vein here, she herself is statistically poor 30 Atk, 19 Spd, Bow- & Tome-breakers as her only skills, unsurprisingly her loyal ladies are similarly subpar. Azama badly injures the GK, Shiro and Corrin kill their targets. Takumi goes to the very edge of Beruka-Selena’s range in hopes of getting a chance to counterattack Selena. Camilla moves, Corrin misses (40% hit rate b/c Tomebreaker), Selena is left injured and then killed by Corrin. A Malig spawns center-south, I so I move Takumi in hopes of some prey, even if Shiro should’ve baited it.

Beruka kills Arthur (oh well), Corrin misses Cammy again, a WL spawns center-north. Saizo and Sophie take the kill meant for Takumi, Takumi heads back north, perhaps he’ll kill Cam next turn as Corrin uses this one to slay Beruka. 10 EP has Takumi get Brave Axed by the purple-haired lady for 16 total. Certain Blow and massive Skl gives him a 100% even with Bowbreaker against the Big Sis of Nohr. Since this is a rout map ofc, Azama has to finish the north WL and then Saizo kills the Malig on Turn 11 Enemy Phase.

Level-Ups:

• Sakura- HP/Spd
• Orochi- Res
• Corrin: Mag/Lck/Def
  • HP/Str/Def/Res
• Azama- HP/Mag/Lck/Def/Res (And Future Sight.)
• Silas- HP/Str/Skl/Lck/Def
• Felicia- Mag/Lck
• Takumi- Str/Skl/Spd/Lck/Def

Not for the first time, easier than I remembered for BR, possibly because it’s Hard and not Lunatic. It needed more enemies, which will certainly not be an issue on the next map.

[Dayni]

18 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

First SoV playthrough of mine had me abuse Silque's Invoke. Nuibaba was taken out via DF spam, and even Duma largely fell victim to death by 1000 little phantom cuts.

Like I said my first playthrough she had to learn it mid map to break the deadlock, but I have not done that with Duma before. Sounds like a plan!

18 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

...And now you've gone further than me. Congrats!

I'll have to see if I manage to push the rest of the way.

20 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Time to take a moment from playing one easy SRPG and spend it on Birthright again, which surprisingly might not be so easy this time. C23 BR is the infamous Camilla round 2!

You might say things start heating up from here.

20 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

But first, a silly little scribble, totally skippable.:

Well that was nice, a piece of history for a world which could have had more.

Like the train of logic the margrave uses to come to the conclusions he does.

I assume the palace is not like the streets as it doesn't have the same DVs. Wonder if that could be intentionally altered.

(Looking at it, 22 has healing DVs. Seems like it fits as a result of those actions eh?)

2 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Certain Blow and massive Skl gives him a 100% even with Bowbreaker against the Big Sis of Nohr.

Birthright, why are you like this?

And why does this route still cause me issues?

Off topic, been making some lunatic progress, mainly on Rev though as I got to 16BR and it went south when Corrin had less HP than I thought I saw trying to stop the thieves.

2 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Not for the first time, easier than I remembered for BR, possibly because it’s Hard and not Lunatic. It needed more enemies, which will certainly not be an issue on the next map.

That's late game BR in a nutshell.

[GuardianSing]

Tf you mean "Archer classes only"? The word bow is literally in her class name!

Alright, Tiki and chapter 24

Spoiler

This skill is such a meme sometimes.

I kind of blanked out half way through, but we did it.

Well importantly if you die than my comrads will be less mad at me.

I might just keep her the same honestly, I can't be bother to train her up to be any better.

Oh there are some invisible ties alright.

Oh...shit.

Welp, hope Poundmaker will have fun crying in the corner this whole chapter.

It's tempting but there's no way I'm going to get Galeforce before the end of the game unless I really grind for it.

Oh no.

Oh no.

Lucina! I didn't know you were a witch!

Having fun there, bud?

Okay I didn't capture it because I didn't expect it but today I learned that Validar has his own crit quotes.

Aaaaand, scene.

Capitalism is finally dead.

[Dayni]

9 hours ago, GuardianSing said:

Tf you mean "Archer classes only"? The word bow is literally in her class name!

It's to enforce Sniper use, I guess.

9 hours ago, GuardianSing said:

I kind of blanked out half way through, but we did it.

I forgot this is a rout and am unsure if you did the strat of surrounding her with the army.

9 hours ago, GuardianSing said:

Oh no.

Oh no is right.

>She's a free unit

Could be worse on that front, but yeah, that's unfortunate.

9 hours ago, GuardianSing said:

Having fun there, bud?

I have an image of a dead Robin crumpled up in the corner for some reason.

9 hours ago, GuardianSing said:

Capitalism is finally dead.

I was unsure what it meant.

I should have realised.

[Shadow Mir]

23 hours ago, GuardianSing said:

Oh no.

"Oh no" is right...

23 hours ago, GuardianSing said:

Oh no.

 

[Eltosian Kadath]

Hinoka's chapter is cleared with no casualties. Again it will be a bit before I get my write up done, but I did enjoy the faster pace of the map after the two slow ones, even if I did waste like three-four turns having to psyche myself up to actually attack Hinoka herself.

 

On 4/18/2023 at 12:15 PM, Punished Dayni said:

Then I realise all the bows don't have effective damage on Clair so she helps clear the group ahead on the stairs

Enemy archers are funky that way in Echoes, where bows are closer to normal effective weapons. Its almost even weirder in Gaiden, as all enemy items drop, so enemy effective archers are even rarer.

 

On 4/18/2023 at 12:15 PM, Punished Dayni said:

Clair's not in range and there's two witches who can warp.

Warp behavior is kinda weird in a way that tends to be surprisingly beneficial to an ironman...

 

On 4/18/2023 at 12:15 PM, Punished Dayni said:

With that, I say screw it and use Hunter's Volley and thankfully it crits the cantor, saving me that trouble.

Classic, the power of Hunter's Volley to save the day.

 

On 4/18/2023 at 12:15 PM, Punished Dayni said:

In the ensuing moves Python doesn't kill Hestia but Alm does on a 39% hit (Really?)

That is why you try for the long shots sometimes; if you roll enough dice you get those low odds events eventually.

 

On 4/18/2023 at 12:15 PM, Punished Dayni said:

Then I make a bad call and Silque gets crit once (She wouldn't have survived 2 if she hadn't levelled Def. Despite Dracoshield!). Thankfully luck prevailled and I move on with only a realisation that yet again I made a bad call.

Yikes...but again it sounds like you got away from that scary instance scot-free

 

19 hours ago, GuardianSing said:

The jacked up units in this map are scary at first but with the way they work it's a pretty easy fight, lure one in and every unit in that wave moves in for my units to pick off.

Fun fact, these guys are a reference to the Dead Lords from the Jugdral games that feature prominently in the final chapters of Genealogy of the Holy War, and Thracia 776. Also some of the droppable weapons (like the Helswath there) are reference to the Holy Weapons of Genealogy of the Holy War as well.

 

19 hours ago, GuardianSing said:

Don't you just love trivializing overpowered units?

It is a little spooky seeing her face slightly less than 3% chance of death there, but instead Lethality let her turn the tables

 

19 hours ago, GuardianSing said:

Nice a simple, no casualties.

Well Done, despite the close call.

 

13 hours ago, Punished Dayni said:

It's at this point I realise Slayde doesn't have the four lackies with Steel Lances because I didn't do that quest.

I don't think I have ever successfully completed that quest, so I have no idea how that actually works on that map...although it is kinda funny.

 

13 hours ago, Punished Dayni said:

Alm does get Skl/Spd/Def off the Arcanist and Hunter's Volley, but thankfully nothing else really happens.

Oooh, you got Alm all the way to Hunter's Volley. That is going to be brutal.

 

3 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Vengeance and Rend Heaven can't stack, and you calculate how much damage each deals.

Huh, I never knew that, and always just assumed they could when calcing potential damage against him.

 

3 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Witches aside, I like this map b/c it feels like an SoV map with a figment of real design. How tempting, yet so late a map and false promise of the future.

I probably should put this in the unpopular opinion thread, but I find a fair bit of talk about how bad SoV's map design is hyperbolic, and while it is inconsistent, there are sections of that game with some surprisingly good design. For example most of Part 2 is cleverly made with a tutorial basically built into its map design.

 

3 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

 

But first, a silly little scribble, totally skippable.:

I rather liked it, a cute little bit of historical fanfiction filling in one of the innumerable holes in Fate's world building.

 

4 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

-I will not be doing this. I will be using the alleys to my advantage, but I’ll be fielding an entire team.

I appreciate you playing the map for real, instead of cheesing it with low-manning strats.

 

5 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

(a Spd Tonic would’ve let Azama double it you unthinking cheapskate).

Reminds me of one funny benefit of fielding a Witch, you get a bunch of random tonics in your inventory so you can accident your way into saving yourself from your own stinginess like this.

 

5 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Rather than bait two enemies instead of one, Corrin chats with Arthur, it’s the nice thing to do and he’s in the way, even if he’d be more useful dead for a touch of EXP.

I find this little act of mercy for the named enemy rather adorable.

 

5 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

I let my human emotions towards fictional people get in the way and have Corrin kill the Malig Knight to keep it from killing Arthur on the next enemy phase.

Dawww, looks like the power of permadeath is getting you to care for all those one and zeroes in a touching way, even on a green unit

 

5 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

 

Beruka kills Arthur (oh well),

Oof, after all that little effort to save the poor guy before. Plus it seems the Green Player has another embarrassing death under their belt.

 

1 hour ago, GuardianSing said:

Tf you mean "Archer classes only"? The word bow is literally in her class name!

They mean Archer and Sniper, not sure why they were so coy about that in the description.

 

1 hour ago, GuardianSing said:

This skill is such a meme sometimes.

Lol, I guess that makes it double dead

 

1 hour ago, GuardianSing said:

 

Oh...shit.

Welp, hope Poundmaker will have fun crying in the corner this whole chapter.

Sorry. Hopefully I don't get you a gameover here by forcing you to neglect poor Poundmaker for so long.

 

1 hour ago, GuardianSing said:

 

Oh no.

Oh no.

Oof, That sucks at this late stage, as getting another unit up and running so late into the game is rough, and going without a unit slot can hurt.

 

1 hour ago, GuardianSing said:

Capitalism is finally dead.

Well, I can't complain too much about that. She isn't even linked, so the penalty falls only on you.

[Eltosian Kadath]

I got a bit distracted by other games, so it took me a bit to get around to this write up. Now without further ado, onto Hinoka's chapter

Spoiler

As usual I will start with some of the early stat preps, most notably the meal

And I went with a more offensive approach this time, as keeping up with the kills I need for the pace Hinoka is setting, is vital to this map, and I wont look the gift defense boost in the face either. I also buy too many Speed Tonics and use them on everyone where it looks even slightly like it might make a difference. I also give Elise a Resistance and Luck tonic to maximize her staff avoid, as I am hoping to soak up some of Azama's Hexing Rod uses with her dodging some like I did in my Lunatic run.

Well, onto the story bits

...It does feel like I am still being strung along again like the last two maps, as we are about to have a battle in the fields before the maps that feel like they take place in the actual capital.

Tee Hee, she has been dead for a long time now, and even if she wasn't, she was always more a support instead of a fighter.

I get you Azura, Conquest is tough at this late stage, and can be a bit intimidating, but just like you, I wont lose my nerve now.

Being conquered isn't all that beneficial Azura...

Also we are keeping Takumi's "death" from Sakura a secret, which does seem to be an odd combination of kind in the short term, and cruel in the long term.

She was barely a part of your nation at all, what were you really expecting? Hell, because Fate's storytelling is so garbage, she isn't even actually a Hoshidan princess...

Credit to Iago, this is a clever way of hurting TeeHee, as Iago hurting people TeeHee wants to protect ostensibly on her behalf, makes it all the worse.

Sadly the madness of Garon reigns here, as Xander is probably correct that they have enough to force a surrender here.

Figures Iago would want to come in the rear entrance

...ugh, this feels so uncomfortably like he is Xander is TeeHee's daddy.

Sorry, I can't help myself, I am going to go over Xander's infamous truth illusionist speech.

Xander here is doing his best edgelord impression while trying to pretend

that Fates's story has any moral gray in it at all

When what he really means is that the ends justify the means,

And those ends are to elevate you, and yours.

As Xander is literally letting evil men's vision takes precedence over his own, because that evil man is one of those loved ones he wants to elevate.

This time, positioning matters a little bit, as I want to get some of my troops into specific positions on this first turn

Most notably getting Elise as close as she can get to the first Dragon Vein in a position to actually bait some enemy phase action for her, and gets Nina in a good position to spearhead the assault in the direction of the second DV. For now I am also splitting my forces a bit, so that I can reach both DVs on the islands on time.

And there is this cute little interaction between Lady Hinoka and her retainers at the start of enemy phase, which even ends with

A very silly animation where she uses her naginata as a helicopter propellers, like a joking reference to the old Hector-Copter crit animation. Now onto enemy phase, and one important thing to note is that the Resistance tonic I gave Elise makes things a little awkward for her, as only one of the enemies I intended for her to counter has high enough damage to attack her,

Thanks to it having the Scroll equivalent of a Silver weapon, the rest dealing exactly 0 damage to her

Fortunately these guys all have the Seal Resistance skill, so she can apply her magic chip to all of them. On the Nina side of things, to avoid physical damage I couldn't put her in a position to face a magic attack strong enough to attack her, but the enemies still advanced on her. Then at the end of enemy phase

Hinoka uses her Dragon Vein, but

I need to clear out the DV space before

I can counter it with a DV use of my own, which is kinda necessary. Hinoka's DV use causes all grounded units to get 1/2 move (rounded up), and all flying units to get 3/2 their normal move (rounded down), and my use of it reverses this dynamic. With only two fliers on my team, this DV use is a serious boon to my army, and hampers my enemy's most dangerous units. With that dealt with, I think I will start by clearing out the path to the second DV

With Nina wiping out the mage most protected by the Kinshi Knights advancing from the south-west corner.

Ophelia and Rusty each wipes out an Onis, which prevents them from debuffing our units with the Seal Speed skill

But I don't have as easy an out for the last one, so Kana takes the speed debuff to chip and debuff the last one.

Which lets Sophie finish it, which only leaves

This last mage that Velouria can kill without counter thanks to attack stance (I did have to trade-switch Kana to his sword for that).

And little Llardbutt gets a little magic levelup from helping with the kill.

Now back to the leftovers around the first DV

And with them all chipped like this it is easy cleanup,

And even gets Izana this rather defensive levelup.

Preparing for enemy phase is more interesting on this front, as

I shelter Elise out of range of the Bolt Naginata

So that I can enemy phase that one with Niles instead. I am also hoping this will convince the one following to end up in a space I can attack with grounded units. Mozu does get a little action on the other front as well from an incoming kinshi.

Niles is uncomfortably close to being too evasive to do his job, and I didn't quite notice that the follower is physically unable to get into a position to give an attack stance to this fellow

And Mozu gets her own effective damage kill on her side of enemy phase, thanks to horse effective weapons being effective against winged horses as well.

And again its the attack stance partner that gets the level on the kill.

And I open turn two with Sophie beast killering the other kinshi knight, that was foolish enough to stay over the land instead of water

Now my DV use is a bit of a double edged sword, as it let some mages advance on my forces in a bit of an awkward way, which has more of an impact on the other front for now, but one headed in the direction of the second DV, and is in a very awkward position, as attacking him in melee would put me in the extended range of Setsuna, and the collection of enemies that share her attack range.

Fortunately Mozu earns this solid levelup from clearing that spiny problem.

Nina also gets this disappointing staff avoid levelup from healing, but now onto the other front

Where I have decided to pull out of the range of both the fliers, and mages converging on their position. I did also make sure Kana is in position to DV when I need it.

I open next turn by wiping out all the fliers that clustered in here

And Silas got this Strength and Defense levelup, and even the Luck is appreciated at this point. Although he really could use a little more speed.

I do need to explain something about the timing of DVs here, as this is a turn where nobody's move is changed at the moment (which happens just before Hinoka triggers her DV), which means the mages that were threatening the middle have less move, and weren't close enough to threaten us this turn, despite looking like they could last turn, and in fact doubled back a little to threaten Mozu again (she will be enemy phasing one of them). Also more Kinshi reinforcements came from the south-west again, which I have left a small contingent to deal with

Mozu gets her enemy phase mage kill just fine

I open next turn by trying for a warp kill on the Kinshi in the south

...This might be too paranoid for my own good, but instead of risking a very tiny chance of death here

And instead go with more certain survival, but also slightly lower kill chance, and higher chance of taking some dama-

...That'a girl. Although dealing with the other one is going to be a little awkward, but the plan is

To lunge it close enough for someone not facing the Air Superiority penalty to kill it, after debuffing, savage blowing, and if I am lucky chi-

...I was not expecting the crit kill there. I so frequently use weapons that can't crit with him, and wasn't even expecting him to hit at all, so I was caught so off guard that I entirely missed the image of it. That makes thing MUCH easier, and he got a great little levelup with strength there, on the first time in a while that I even used a strength weapon with him.

Now I must face an uncomfortable truth here, to get these two kills here I must either face Setsuna's army now, or leave the effects of Hinoka's DV use in effect

And I decide to wait on my own DV use for another turn

Which lets me press into areas that would otherwise be covered by Setsuna's infantry army, and lure in the fliers to the east a bit closer.

...I was thinking of trying to jump Setsuna, but with the new reinforcements so close, I decide not to. Despite that, it is time to use the second DV here.

And start killing the fliers I let get much closer than they should have by delaying that DV use by a turn

And Niles just got Shuriken Breaker before Ryoma's ninja fun house.

I then let Silas gets the ranged kill on the other.

Despite not wanting to jump Setsuna, it is time to deal with her. I used my press in from the last turn to concentrate most of my forces in the center, and buff up Mozu as much as i can for the onslaught to come

I even have her equip the Bronze Sword for more paranoia than is necessary, although her Resistance with skills and buffs is actually too high for magic units to try attacking her, which led to her little army splitting up a little

Which lets my main army here gang up on all the physical threats

not to mention safely chip and debuff Setsuna down with Rusty

And the attack stance chip gets Odin this sad levelup.

Which lets me give the kill to Sophie

For a speed levelup at least.

And that takes care of the last Oni

For a great levelup on Odin's daughter.

Now the mages, unable to hurt Mozu, instead went on to threaten the handful of units left around the second DV, with Nina easily killing one, but to avoid flyer range with anyone else

I kill the other from above with Elise

The keen eyed among you might have noticed I used Mozu's effective resistance to block those mages to the west from reaching anyone else, and the flyers will have to either go for her, or Nina

Which does hurt a lot, especially since I forgot to switch her weapon back to a knife/shuriken

And without WTA the mages are even capable of doing a whole point of damage as well.

The Bolt Naginata was too weak to damage either of the high resistance people left in her range, so she gets to be eaten by Velouria's effective damage instead.

And there are even more fliers to deal with that spawned in from the north-west before. Niles takes care of one on his own

But the next needed the chip/debuff of Rusty for Kana to get the kill, and the last of them

I pointlessly chip with Elise, as her main job

Is to let Ophelia warp adjacent to that last flier after Sophie paired with her, so she can switch-transfer to have the best chance

To beast killer it to death. Now this is another no movement buff turn, so reaching this group was difficult enough to require the warp.

Mozu then finishes the flier that attacked her before

And I fail to capture an image of the levelup screen, and with all the random buffs she is getting at the moment, the stat screen isn't that useful, other than showing off the shiny new skill she unlocked.

While I did wipe out the incoming wave of flier, to do so I had to leave most of my army in Hexing Rod range. I had taken a fair bit of effort to avoid it before, but I think suffering the consequences of that staff is the safer option at this point.

And Rusty gets his health halved for the map.

The Fliers just keep coming in, and this is another turn of Hinoka's DV use, so I have Kana pair with the crippled Rusty, to use that better flying movement to reach the third DV, which I have been mostly ignoring in the center here.

And with the movement bonus in our favor again, that lets Sophie Beast Killer one of the Kinshi coming in

And Soleil manages to reach the other with a Beruka pairup (for +1 move), which she can then transfer for the attack stance hit needed for the kill (and it even triggers her personal to boot).

And that is an alright levelup from the kill

I also finally get around to dealing with those mages Mozu has been bottling up for two turns now.

By the end of the turn, my forces are scattered to four corners, two to grab the turn's kills, a small contingent to join those that hit the DV, as more Kinshi are coming from the south, and the last group are pressing in towards the fourth DV, with the pairups there used to ensure the units I plan on using for enemy phase in that direction can't be

Targeted by the Hexing Rod. Now Soleil gets her health halved.

Next turn, I send Niles to get the jump on one of those southern Kinshi, so he can kill the other on enemy phase with no chance of death, while I have the rest of my army

head towards that fourth DV, and what is our final front of this battle, but I do wait

For Azama to break his Hexing Rod on Beruka first. Tragically I didn't see a miss at all. To think I thought to play this map slow enough that Elise might be able to exclusively bait this staff with her astronomical staff avoid...

Niles also gets a bit more speed and defense from the enemy phase kill of that last Kinshi from the south as well

Nina then gets this healing levelup in preparation

For drawing in the last little cluster of enemies

And Azama even range heals this guy a tiny bit after this chip

But not enough to save him...also it does amuse me to safely use the hexed Beruka here

For a disappointing levelup...she really could use some more speed.

And I press in to kill the furthest mage here with my cavs

And Sophie gets a solid little levelup on that kill

And Ophelia warp kills the other

Which just leaves Azama to deal with, and he comes with a bit of a trap in place, as he has both miracle, and counter, so I decide to deal with him only at range, first with this chip here

Azama is vicious with his comments.

And SIlas gets this great levelup for that chip, most importantly some of that speed he is hungry for.

And I still have one last action saved in case Azama trigger's miracle

But he doesn't

So that just leaves Hinoka and her pairup par-

...sigh. Of course there are even more reinforcements pressing in.

Hinoka also triggered one of her DVs, so I counter it with the fourth one

And jump the infantry reinforcements

Again its funny to safely use my hexed units to kill things.

And I prepare to enemy phase one of the new Kinshi coming in

Although there was a small chance of death in doing that, if Silas had missed, and they had managed at least two crits (and all three hitting as well), but he doesn't miss the kill

And there are even more flier coming in from the west. Well I setup a safer enemy phase kill on the other Kinshi

With Nina, but her father's resistance is too high for the bolt naginata to kill herself on him with a Mozu pairup at least, so next turn

I setup a different pairup for next enemy phase, and also setup

The Beast Killer enemy phase kill with Sophie on the melee ones coming in

Although Niles is one damage shy of his enemy phase kill.

Although even if he had the numbers for the kill, it might have triggered Aegis on it anyway. Speaking of which, another funny Hexed unit kill

For a nice little levelup to boot.

I just can't help myself, the hexed kills amuse me...

Admittedly this chip is unnecessary, as

TeeHee very reliably kills it without the help.

For this nifty little levelup.

And now all that is left is Hinoka, for real this time...and I waste like three turns fiddling with setups for rallies, and some number check, and just jittery nerves of tripping over the finish line, but finally I start my final turn, by applying all the rallies I can to the units I will use, and have Odin wait adjacent for the Heartseeker debuff

I then open by using Mozu to chip and debuff her

And I did account for the possibility of her proccing Luna, so this is fine

And while I was tempted to see TeeHee's battle quote with Hinoka, I decide to just get the kill now, and not tempt fate

For a...strength levelup I guess.

And that wipes her pairup partner off the map as well,

Show off

I appreciate the small detail that there actually is a DV underneath Hinoka. After eking out the last little bit of healing exp I can I seize the map

For a much faster pace map than the last two.

Don't worry guys, all the linked characters are still alive after that map.

But TeeHee is in a bit of a pickle with the goo-father so close at hand

Hinoka is rather evasive

Although really TeeHee is just making a small show of things before some catch and release warring.

And yes, even the retainers are saved in this act of mercy.

Tragically we don't actually get Hinoka's superior 1-2 range lance, as it is just a prop for the story.

I can't really fault Hinoka's reluctance here. There are some things that are worth risking your life for.

But then Camilla makes the threat much more immediate with an axe to the throat.

And of course Camilla has to get all wierd and possessive about TeeHee

...and she has to get awkwardly flirty

In a way that they have to make a little incestuous implication to it too...

Well that is a promise that will only technically be fufilled, and for practical purposes be broken.

Just like that waky dinner party at Izana's place *cue laughtrack*

...sigh, Fates really doesn't deserve the respect of that clip.

Here is me hoping Ryoma doesn't hurt TeeHee either.

 

[Dayni]

On 4/22/2023 at 11:24 AM, Eltosian Kadath said:

I don't think I have ever successfully completed that quest, so I have no idea how that actually works on that map...although it is kinda funny.

It adds four Gold Knights to the map. I thought they were already there and the quest would give them the lances, but no.

6 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

...ugh, this feels so uncomfortably like he is Xander is TeeHee's daddy.

The supports don't help in fairness.

6 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

As Xander is literally letting evil men's vision takes precedence over his own, because that evil man is one of those loved ones he wants to elevate.

This is why killing him with paper in BR26 is the canon answer, as justice is more served with paper than a blade.

And because he's as dense as a rock.

6 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

...I was not expecting the crit kill there. I so frequently use weapons that can't crit with him, and wasn't even expecting him to hit at all, so I was caught so off guard that I entirely missed the image of it. That makes thing MUCH easier, and he got a great little levelup with strength there, on the first time in a while that I even used a strength weapon with him.

Guess he was less Rusty with it than anticipated.

What a nice level for him besides.

6 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

For Azama to break his Hexing Rod on Beruka first. Tragically I didn't see a miss at all.

Ah, that's never fun to see, having to incorporate that staff hitting.

6 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Says the guy using a Hexing Rod.

6 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

For this nifty little levelup.

Teehee is pretty nippy as well, 37 Spd is impressive.

6 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

And yes, even the retainers are saved in this act of mercy.

Clearly forgot that.

Then again I haven't seen this scene in my Lunatic run WRAGH

6 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Here is me hoping Ryoma doesn't hurt TeeHee either.

That's a real possibility, much as it's more from his access to Astra than doubling at this Corrin's Spd. How would we handle that loss?

Would I instalose the vault run?

[Shadow Mir]

3 hours ago, Punished Dayni said:

It adds four Gold Knights to the map. I thought they were already there and the quest would give them the lances, but no.

Wait, which map are you talking about? Because the only Gold Knight on that map is Slayde himself. Anyways, completing the quest makes it such that Slayde himself, and some of his goons, use Steel Lances. Though honestly, the real issue is the bow knights and arcanists.

Edited April 28, 2023 by Shadow Mir

[Interdimensional Observer]

On 4/20/2023 at 6:26 PM, GuardianSing said:

Capitalism is finally dead.

It will wait, in the shadows, it shall hide. When government of oppression gives way to anarchy, when society breaks back down, for all who can grasp it, the want for more shall be liberated. It might become corrupted into oligarchy with a militant or political bent, but capitalistic desire shall rule again, even if capitalism returns impure!

...Thinking on it, given the nigh-infinite number of Annas, they should've made it so that if the current one dies, a sister volunteers to take her place. -For a price, that increases with every dead Anna. 

 

On 4/19/2023 at 7:44 PM, Punished Dayni said:

Well that was nice, a piece of history for a world which could have had more.

Like the train of logic the margrave uses to come to the conclusions he does.

 

On 4/22/2023 at 6:24 AM, Eltosian Kadath said:

I rather liked it, a cute little bit of historical fanfiction filling in one of the innumerable holes in Fate's world building.

I wanted to write something that seemed generally realistic (as in a limited understanding of how disease works in the premodern era), and gave it a loosely hagiographical spin too.

I did remember the Great Plague of London in 1665-1666, was coincidentally tragically followed by the Great Fire of London of 1666. I blurred the events together -but spun the flames as a positive force.

On 4/22/2023 at 6:24 AM, Eltosian Kadath said:

Dawww, looks like the power of permadeath is getting you to care for all those one and zeroes in a touching way, even on a green unit

I suppose I like saving NPCs even when it's optional with no reward? And this being BR, there weren't any pressing needs that were compromised by doing so. I'm not one for heartlessness in RPGs.

On 4/22/2023 at 6:24 AM, Eltosian Kadath said:

Huh, I never knew that, and always just assumed they could when calcing potential damage against him.

The offensive proc skills have a priority sequence. Apparently, the hierarchy is Lethality > Astra > Aether > Dragon Fang > Sol > Luna > Ignis > Vengeance > Rend Heaven. In the case of a character with multiple proc skills, if one with the higher priority activates, all those below it in the hierarchy cannot. So don't give Corrin Dragon Fang if you want to maximize Sol usage for instance. Two procs on a character isn't a terrible idea though, since their individual activation rates can be pretty low, something activating is better than nothing.

On 4/22/2023 at 6:24 AM, Eltosian Kadath said:

Hinoka's chapter is cleared with no casualties. Again it will be a bit before I get my write up done, but I did enjoy the faster pace of the map after the two slow ones, even if I did waste like three-four turns having to psyche myself up to actually attack Hinoka herself.

Hinoka's battle feels like a rollercoaster, ups & downs as she DVs and you counter-DV. Highly mobile (-And armed with skills! Very important!) reinforcements that come at you on a pretty open map. Takumi's army turtles on/next to a wall, giving you basically all the initiative. Hinoka's forces take the initiative, and you can't simple turtle it into insignificance. This can be very menacing to the player, but thrilling too. The beloved CQ10 is similar in that all the great many tiles you have to defend, prevent you from the mindless tanking with very little chance of loss a great many other FE defend map has been.

On 4/27/2023 at 11:39 AM, Eltosian Kadath said:

And I fail to capture an image of the levelup screen, and with all the random buffs she is getting at the moment, the stat screen isn't that useful, other than showing off the shiny new skill she unlocked

Had you thrown in her Archer, then Quick Draw + Aggressor = 11 (or 22) extra player phase damage. Given how much Quick Draw helps the Archer line better than normal in Fates, Aggressor, if late, ought to be helpful.

On 4/27/2023 at 11:39 AM, Eltosian Kadath said:

Azama is vicious with his comments.

-"Barbaric life". Is he aware of much slaughtering his parallel self has been doing? His soul is soaked in Nohrian blood.

On 4/27/2023 at 11:39 AM, Eltosian Kadath said:

I just can't help myself, the hexed kills amuse me...

You've done the math to assure it's safe. And I can see the fun in mocking the hex's infamous debuff by defying its unit-crippling limitations.

On 4/27/2023 at 11:39 AM, Eltosian Kadath said:

For a much faster pace map than the last two.

Seems like it was fun. And not overly stress-inducing.😀

As I hesitate on whether or not to use the DVs on any given turn and the finite quantity of them, this map leaves me strategically indecisive atop the rest of its turbulence.

 

---

Birthright Chapter 24:

Spoiler

Welcome to the crowning jewel of Castle Krakenburg! Behold an unparalleled architectural feat of engineering, Nohr’s legendary Grand Aerial Arenaaaaaaaaaa! Today’s spectacle shall be broadcast -whatever that means- via magic only the nerds in robes understand throughout the castle, open to the public for this very special occasion without fear of being jailed and tortured for trespassing! There’s no floor sand to wipe away the blood and guts -because all losers shall be thrown off the sides of the ring! *Gasp of awe from the audience* Our great country might not have bread, but Nohr has CIRCUUUUUUUUUUS! *Rousing roar of ovation.*

For this glorious, extraordinary occasion today, the TRAITOR! prince returns with a bunch of filthy barbaric Hoshidans and other TRAITORS!. Together they shall meet their grisly end against the Bloody Bald Butcher Hans Sans Pants! His Majesty King Garon has threatened death upon all soldiers if they fail in their task for today, and Crown Prince Xander has offered them kind words of encouragement. May they succeed in battle, for if not, the Hoshidan royalty and their elite forces invading our capital’s castle clearly indicates all hope is lost for us winning the war. Now let’s get it o- *stabbed in the stomach and chucked out of the announcement booth for spreading demoralizing lies, and talking too much in general*.

Map Overview-

*Ahem* More than Arena Ferox back in Awakening (which tbf is a very early battle, can’t be too crazy), does Birthright 24 capture the feeling of being tossed into a coliseum, IMO. This map is relatively small, round, open, and dense with enemies. Sorcerers (37 Atk), Generals (44 Atk, lances only; 48 HP 31 Def), Great Knights (full weapon triangle, start with Silver Swords equipped for 41 Atk), Berserkers (48 Atk 19 Crit), Heroes (36 Atk, swords only). Not-insignificant enemies exist south of the starting position, so you’re surrounded on all sides at first. Off in the four corners, Wyvern Lords and Malig Knights shall spawn, since this is Hard, two per corner each time they do reinforce, it’d be three on Lunatic. The Dragon Veins exist to neuter the reinforcements by greatly slowing their movement down.

Now, Birthright is overly merciful and provides you with not one but two safety mechanisms if the map looks too hairy. The first would be to pair someone with a flier over the emptiness to the left or right, and then in a couple turns reach Hans and kill him. 69 HP and 24 Spd are sunk by an absolutely squishy 14 Def and 6 Res taking into account his odd choice to start with a Brave Axe equipped instead of his Silver Star Axe. One might not be enough, but two or three units harmlessly flown over ought to kill him, ending the map.

If you’re looking for something less cheesy, then the alternative would be good old turtling. Move everyone south and destroy the Nohrian contingent (six units on Hard) there. Then, place your two bulkiest units in Defensive Stance next to the impassable and indestructible Fire Orb and let the foes approach. The flier reinforcements might complicate things, but not so much if you spare the moment on the first turn to pop the two readily approachable Dragon Veins. The convergence of the western and eastern enemies hopefully shouldn’t be deadly for you with this chokepoint. Even if you position you defenders southwest/east of the Fire Orb for their maximum safety, you’ll have two rows of space behind them, one enough to keep anyone especially fragile safe from being sniped.

The most dangerous approach for this map is too attempt to take out the south and both sides at once. You’d be splitting your manpower thin and take a lot of damage doing this. The lovely spot marked by the DV for the northeast quadrant would result in attacks from all three Heroes, three Sorcerers, one General, and one Berserker from the right.

Yet again, I cook +Def/Res food (with a useless Saucy (+1 Mag to Nohrians) flavor) and apply plenty of Tonics, should be the last battle where I need to.

For my strategy, l decide to go gutsy and attempt to fight all three fronts on the first turn. Scarlet shall Rally Def on Azama (paired with Kaden, Reina is pretty useless here, Kaden is a slightly better backpack for Azama) and Corrin paired with Orochi, plus several other units. The vast majority of my team shall clear out the southern enemies, they only need to kill the three generals on turn 1, surviving two GKs and one Sorc via the two chokepoints shouldn’t be an issue.

Now, for the hard math, Azama with everything applied on him has pre-Rally 35 Def, 23 Res, and 51 HP. To the left, the three Heroes bounce off him, the two Berserkers are 15 each, the two Sorcerers are 14 each, the two Generals are 9 each. He can’t get into all of their ranges on turn 1 b/c Move, the one ‘zerker and one Sorc on turn 1 would be left unbait, so surviving is no problem. Corrin pre-Rally Def has 38 Def, 27 Res, 43 HP; so 10 damage per Berserker (he can’t bait both and all three Sorcs), 10 per Sorc, and 7 per General. 10x4 + 7x2 = 54, but the Rally Def will make it survivable, if Corrin is surrounded on turn 2, I can pop one of the two Elixirs I have.

Battle Start-

Here we go! Takumi injures the left General, Sakura finishes it. Felicia ORKOs the right General. Saizo attacks the center General and Silas paired with Sophie finishes it while choking the right, as Shiro paired Ryoma block the left; Shura just hangs out. Easy part accomplished. Azama moves two south of the left-center Berserker, Corrin… one of the Heroes has a Wyrmslayer, idiot, so close to fully thinking things through. That’s so random. Should give him… 50 Atk? One south of the NE-controlling DV will have to do, should get two Sorcs and one ‘zerker baited at least.

The southern Sorc takes to the Fire Orb and injures Scarlet, as the northern Sorc Corrin was trying to bait and its symmetrical one on the left take their nearby Fire Orbs too. Silas crits one GK dead, Corrin kills one Sorc too, but otherwise nothing dies, mostly injured. Lots of enemies to the sides move, as do the northern GKs, though three of the Generals stay in place.

Before this map, I noticed Azama was alllllmost at C Naginatas. Sophie has been relegated to her father’s backpack a lot lately, so I took her Guard Naginata and passed it to Azama. He hits C on the enemy phase and equips it for +4 Def over a Brass, the ‘zerkers have but a 1% Crit chance on him with it.

For Turn 2 Player Phase, Takumi kills the souther Sorc with the Dual Yumi, Saizo the injured GK, thereby securing the south. Azama remains standing where he and whiffs a 70-something on a nearly dead Berserker, taking 8 damage before finishing it, no problem. Corrin I choose to retreat back however, as long as Azama has the left distracted and I stay out of range, everyone else can fight the right. Azama’s nearer position ought to bait the mobile GKs too. Corrin is withdrawn to the very edge of the most mobile right enemy’s range, healed by Shura, and re-Rallied. Sakura heals Scarlet, Felicia Replicates, Silas and Shura separate from their family.

Azama took out an injured Hero and another, Corrin killed an injured ‘zerker and a Hero, and two of the GKs move this way while I notice one Hero stayed in place. The residual left enemies stayed near Azama indeed, who survived the turn and healed back to 48 HP via Renewal, I have him attack the GK. Felicia-Replicant ORKOs the Wyrmslayer Hero and then her real self ORKOs the Berserker. Now comes the two right GKs. Corrin falls one-damage short of a ORKO on a GK… Ryoma uses the Rajinto on the northern one (both are pressed against the right side of the Dusk Dragon statue in the middle) while directly south of the other GK. Corrin then scores the kill on the northern one and a Mag Tonic’ed 32 Mag Sakura using Paper ORKOs the southern GK with Ryoma’s help for the last five (actually one? -Ah, Corrin’s Malefic Aura) damage, staying exactly one tile out of the unmoved Hero’s range. Shiro eats the Sorc I ignored while thinking out the GKs. I park Silas at the edge within range of the Azama GK to see about feeding him its EXP. Everyone else stays safe.

The right Generals were baited by Corrin, Azama killed some stuff, Silas munched on the GK. One Hero appeared from the left offscreen passage, one Berserker showed up next to Hans, and two Wyvern Lords to the southwest with 41 Atk. Things are easy now. Azama retreats, b/c he’s at 80 EXP and wants to swap to Mechanist before the next level up, to get Golembane at 14 for Replicate at 15, he has a Brass Shuriken ready for this. Saizo pairs to Sophie to give her +1 Move, she then finishes the General Azama left at 4 HP. Sophie’s placement and equipping of an Iron Lance gives Silas exactly enough with a Steel Sword to kill the adjacent Sorc with a Dual Strike; it’ll bait the Hero reinforcement too. Takumi falls one space short activating the southwest DV, but it a turn-2 activation should still keep him safe. Felicia ORKOs the full-health General, Scarlet takes the crippled one, Ryoma the surviving Hero. Shura, Sakura and Other Felicia heal. Corrin chooses to move southwest of the Sorc manning the right Fire Orb, and swaps to Orochi to attack it, none of the four Berserkers can reach her and food + Tonic + DK!Corrin + Horse Spirit = 37 Res, exactly enough to negate their Atk.

Orochi injures two Sorcs, and one GK spawned in the south and one Sorc to the east. Takumi activates the Dragon Vein, but remains the in the range of one WL, he’ll live. Sophie finishes the Hero, Silas takes and splits off Saizo before I forget about him. Felicia kills the Sorc reinforcement. Orochi kills the Sorc currently manning the Fire Orb (and kills another on the next enemy phase). Ryoma takes Shiro as a backpack, he can survive two 17 damage Fimbulvetrs with 12 HP and they only have a 21 hit rate on him. Azama baits the GK reinforcement.

The same set of reinforcements to the left on Turn 5 EP. Takumi OHKOs a WL, Saizo brandishes a Flame Shuriken and uses Takumi’s help to finish the other WL. Shura injures the GK and Azama finishes it. Orochi takes out the replacement at the Fire Orb, Ryoma slays the mobile ‘serker and baits one of the three stationary ones (0% hit on him). Silas and Sophie almost kill the Hero reinforcement.

No reinforcements on Turn 6 EP, oddly. Oh well, Sophie finished the Hero, Ryoma killed another ‘zerker, but falls one Move short of Hans. Corrin procs Dragon Fang to kill the last Sorc at the western Fire Orb, Ryoma dispatches a Crit McAxey and finishes the other two on the following EP. Two WLs appear in the southeast and there are still two left to the southwest, but they’re out of range and it’s too late. Corrin is one movement short of attacking Hans, yet Ryoma lands 31x2, I didn’t notice Hans had Pavise, which he procs on the first hit, but Ryoma responds with a 20-something crit proc and vanquishes him on Turn 8.

Level Ups:

• Sakura- HP/Str/Mag/Skl/Lck
• Kaden- HP/Str/Mag/Spd/Lck/Res
• Saizo- Str/Mag/Skl/Spd/Def
• Azama-
  • HP/Str/Mag/Lck (And Rend Heaven.)
  • HP/Skl/Spd/Def/Res (His Str is already capped at 32. And Golembane.)
• Corrin- HP/Def
• Shiro- HP/Spd/Res
• Silas- HP/Str
• Sophie-
  • HP/Skl/Spd/Def
  • Str/Def
• Felicia- Str/Mag/Spd/Res
• Orochi- Mag/Skl/Def/Res
• Ryoma-
  • HP/Skl/Spd/Lck
  • HP/Str/Lck/Res
• Shura- Lck/Res

Not a nightmare with some careful math and bulk-stacking, pleasant.😅

After the battle, Mozu and Takumi still haven’t hit S, I should’ve waited another turn or three. Well, Asugi and Kana are available, I’ll go get Asugi b/c I want Kiragi now. The 20/14 auto-leveling is perfect timing for skill acquisition too.

Paralogue 9:

Spoiler

Map Overview-

Asugi’s paralogue has an element of map design, more than other BR child maps can say. Kill the boss before Asugi can reach the exit (don’t use Rescue on him I’m told b/c he’ll flee south of the starting position instead, insta-loss). I have 6 player phases before Asugi opens the last door and any enemies have the chance to attack him. Shouldn’t be difficult. -If the enemies ignore Asugi I supposedly heard once, then I don’t need to count the number of turns to know I have more than enough.

Attack values range from 34 on Adventurers and Master Ninjas, to 41 Sorcerers, 43 Oni Chieftains, and 50 Berserkers. Spd reaches highs of 28 on Adventurers and 35 on the Master Ninjas, overall fast and potentially more durable for it. Double-thick walls prevents sniping from the other side of them. Small rooms make the make the map  Using the Dragon Veins let you get to the boss quicker.

I have to keep two units home here, I pick Shiro and Sakura. Still have Corrin, Ryoma, and Takumi to trigger the three Dragon Veins I need to use. For a meal, +Str & Def, it gets a Dreamy flair for another +1 Str/Def/Skl to all males. I throw a few Tonics around- on HP/Str/Spd/Def/Res on Azama and a Spd on Takumi.

Battle Start-

Turn 1 and the first enemy room gets half-planned out (I’m never cerebral enough for full thought). Corrin activates the Dragon Vein, Takumi thanks to the Spd Tonic ORKOs the southwest corner Hero with a Dual Yumi. Azama moves to choke the hallway and kills the Onmyoji two spaces north of him with Chopsticks (MyCastle RNG gave me four of them, 1 Mt vs. a Brass Shuriken’s 2, but it can Crit and trigger proc skills). The Master Ninja is injured by Shura using the Spy’s Yumi (~74% accuracy) and then Orochi uses Calamity Gate and a Dual Strike from Shura for the kill. Ryoma paired to Silas for the extra movement switches in and attacks the Oni Chieftain in the northeast corner, would’ve left it alive with 5 HP, but a 20-something Crit fixes that. Scarlet Rallies Azama, Felicia Replicates, everyone else moves along.

Azama proc’ed Rend Heaven and killed a Hero on the EP, injured the Adventurer and the Oni Chieftain too. Saizo finishes the Oni, Orochi the Adventurer. Ryoma transfers Silas to Sophie, giving them enough Move to attack the unmoved Hero and chokepoint the southern room entrance, in case the Adventurer chooses to use its Locktouch and open the door. Shura scores a potshot on an Onmyoji in the northern room I can’t reach with Ryoma following up.

Next, Scarlet moves back and Rallies Corrin, this is why I left Azama unpaired on Turn 1. Corrin pairs to him, Azama moves onto the DV and Corrin activates it. Between +2 meal, the Horse Spirit, Azama’s Mechanist Pair Up bonuses, and Scarlet’s Rally Def, 44 Def will make the 50 Atk Berserker not a problem, and can even take a 20 damage hit from the Sorc next to it. Neither enemy can reach Silas and the rest of my team is kept safe too.

A Master Ninja chooses to attack Silas, keeping the Adventurer from opening the door, this lets a Sniper double Silas for 8 damage each, but Dual Guard activation blocks the latter; Corrin injures stuff but kills nothing. An Oni Chieftain appeared from the stairs in the room where most of my units presently are, Scarlet injures it for chip EXP and Ryoma kills it. Shura range-3 snipes with an Orochi Dual Strike the Hero that attacked Takumi b/c it’s choking the very end of the hall (my stupid move). Saizo procs Lethality on the Sniper, Takumi kills the Berserker, Felicia heals Corrin, Orochi kills the Oni Chieftain that attacked Corrin with Corrin’s help. Corrin moves to the chokepoint to the room with a Master Ninja and Adventurer and swaps to Azama who slays the Sorcerer. Silas stays in place to keep the door from being opened, Felicia-Replicant wasted its turn moving out of the way for Shura’s earlier sniping. I winged it for some of this, yet I had just enough actions to kill all immediate threats.

Turn 4… how to proceed? Well, using the last Dragon Vein means having to deal with a Berserker and an Oni Chieftain, I don’t like that. Saizo shall instead open the door two spaces south of the boss -on Turn 5 that is. Scarlet joins with Saizo for +1 Move so he can kill the Master Ninja Azama injured. Azama moves to block the door at the north end of the room to the south with a Berserker, Adventurer, Sniper, Hero, and Sorcerer, and uses a Partner Seal to go into Master Ninja. Shura range 3 snipes the Master Ninja that has been attacking Silas, Silas then trades for the Spy’s Yumi and kills that Master Ninja with a Javelin. Takumi then take the Spy’s Yumi from Silas (he hit A Yumi in this battle) to snipe an Adventurer and re-equips the Guard Naginata on Silas out of irrational caution.

Turn 5… just short of enough Move to kill Funke in one turn. Oh well, I’ve the next player phase for that with 100% certainty. Takumi injures another Adventurer with the Spy’s, Silas swaps to Sophie and lets her kill an injured Onmyoji over the door. I swap Azama over to Corrin for another through the door kill and move a bunch of units into place for Turn 6. When the last turn arrives, Takumi and Sophie snipe for kills, and then Saizo opens the door to Funke. The man with a groovy name has comparable stats to Shura, and much better durability though he has hit level 20 and has no skills. Felicia kills a Berserker because she can, Corrin takes a swing with the Noble Yato for 34 damage, Ryoma moves to Corrin’s spot and kills a Sorc, Orochi captures Funky on a 24 damage 100% hit, absolute overkill certainty.

And thusly, I have acquired my watermelon-flavored Asugi. I shuffled Felicia’s skills so that Asugi inherited Inspiration. Tomebreaker demands a concentration of tome users that BR doesn’t have, and Replicate and Shurikenfaire (thanks to his dad passing on Lethality) will be learned in one and two levels  Inspiration does have a diminishing point where more of it contributes increasingly less, but four users of it is not that point, given it has but a radius of 2. +2 Atk +2 Def & Res is good. He Offsprings to Mechanist, b/c of a late recruit and Ninja’s nonexistent Mag growth, he only has 14 Mag despite his mommy and good personal growth, but it’s still better for the second Flame Shuriken I have than his father.

After the battle, I know I should’ve done it sooner given it’ll take level 16 now for Tomefaire, but Orochi reclasses to Onmyoji, I know it’s not really necessary, but I prefer spending on Seals than weapons. Speaking of, I finally get around to buying the two Barb Shuriken (bringing me down to 12k in gold reserves) for two of Saizo, Saizo Jr., and Azama to use.

Level Ups:

• Orochi:
  • Mag/Skl/Def
  • Mag/Def/Res
• Corrin:
  • HP/Str/Mag/Skl/Spd/Lck/Def
  • Str/Mag (And Lifetaker.)
• Saizo-
  • HP/Str/Skl/Lck/Res
  • Str/Skl/Lck/Def/Res
• Takumi- HP
• Ryoma- HP/Skl/Spd/Lck/Def
• Azama- HP/Spd/Lck (And Replicate!)
• Silas- Str/Skl/Lck
• Sophie- HP/Str/Spd
• Felicia- Mag/Def

Tight map, a good one by BR’s lower standards I suppose?

Takumi finally hit S Mozu, so the two are wed after the battle. Time for yet another kiddo!

Paralogue 8:

Spoiler

Map Overview-

Fliers abound in Kiragi’s paralogue. They are literally the only enemies around. The map is open, and potentially dangerous. Atk values at this point range from 33 on the level 14 Falcon Knights (some enemies are at 20), to 42 on Wyvern Lords, with a bit of Spd variance (17 on Malig Knights, 32 Spd on 20 Falcons) too because of these classes. Squishes might want to stay home, which is why I leave Sakura out for this one and Orochi, but I bring Felicia because she has Replicate, even if it’s a double-edged sword on an open map with high enemy mobility. The heavily-forested look of this map makes it hard to read what is open, what is wooded, and what is utterly impassable, the simplified map will be heavily consulted here.

A Str & Def meal is prepared for a tiny boost (Daring flair for +1 Str to everyone), but the only Tonics applied are HP/Str/Spd/Def/Res to Azama, mostly because I already had them in storage and it’d ease my worries of being overly aggressive. Between my new auto turn 1 recruit Kiragi, his dad, Shura, the very-temporary Mechanist!Asugi, and Azama and his Replicant once he gets 25 EXP and returns to his end-class of Mechanist, I will have plenty of Yumi users who find these fliers yummy. I shouldn’t be overwhelmed and lose anyone here.

Battle Start-

On Turn 1, Asugi is deployed one tile west/southwest of two Falcons, he equips an Iron Yumi and provide fatal Dual Strikes for Saizo and Sophie. Corrin moves east of those now-dead Falcons to bait two more Falcons and one Malig to the farthest east. Asugi ORKOs the westward Malig Knight nearest the starting position, Takumi the Kinshi while entering the range of the other Kinshi on the western edge of the map but stay out of a Malig Knight’s range. Felicia Replicates, Azama is ferried by Scarlet three east and one north of western edge Kinshi and Replicates to the right, in range of five enemies, 32 Def with the food & Tonic plus post-Tonic 51 HP and enough Spd to avoid being doubled is yet again safe despite being heavily exposed. Kiragi is left vulnerable to one Falcon Knight, but he is safe from everything else, and he moves northward and Offsprings to Kinshi. The remainder move around with caution mostly westward. Kiragi squeezes out a OHKO on the FK that attacked him, though Shura was on standby.

On Turn 1 Enemy Phase, Corrin injures three enemies with Sophie’s help, Azama kills two fliers that attacked him and injured another, one Kinshi moved north to attack Silas from afar. Saizo with Corrin vanquishes one wounded Falcon, Shura takes the other, Sophie the Malig. Shiro chips a Kinshi, Asugi finishes it. Takumi hitches a ride with Silas and uses Spy’s to kill the Malig Azama had injured. Azama-Replicant then separates Silas from Takumi for the next turn. Azama moves far south to bait four WLs and one Falcon, better to make enemies move on my terms than their’s.

I didn’t bring a Friendship Seal, so unfortunately, Azama won’t be replacing Potent Potion (whose subtle +1 (+2 for HP) to basically every stat has served me well) with Quixotic in this battle. Still has three levels to pick it up though. Given a 26 Skl/39% Rend Heaven activation rate without it, which could easily with it reach 60% with Quixotic I shall have to spend yet another 2k to learn it, and leave him in Master Ninja for the rest of this fight.

Azama massacres three of the four enemies and leaves the other barely alive. Shura heals Kiragi, who picks up Sophie and then OHKOs the lone FK that moved without being baited. Silas kills the near-dead WL by Azama and enters the range of an FK. I choose not to have Azama plow forward as he simply doesn’t need the EXP and I’m being ultra-efficient, he separates Scarlet and sits next to Silas instead. Asugi uses Replicate, Azama-R ferries Shiro into baiting the WL in the southwest corner, and everyone else moves south towards the map’s center.

No enemies moved of their own accord -how mindlessly easy! Shiro kills the prey he weakened, Asugi kills Silas’s bait. Kiragi separates Sophie into the range of three FKs. Felicia pairs to Takumi and then he separates her near Kiragi. Corrin trades Asugi-R a Vulnerary who trades to it to Scarlet, who pairs to Silas who equips the old Nohrian Blade for 33 Def and moves into the range of three WLs while averting the range of a Malig Knight, then he uses the Vulnerary to heal out of caution. Azama and his clone remain on standby near Silas but out of enemy range. The rest move south or east.

Silas is attacked by and chips the three WLs. Sophie kills her three FKs with Kiragi’s support. Yet again, nobody moved of their own accord. Shiro hitches a ride with Azama-R and crits a wounded WL. Ryoma gets the actual Azama to carry him next to Shiro for his own lizard kill. Asugi finishes the last of the three and Asugi-R reclasses them to Master Ninja. Silas moves into place to bait the last three enemies in the southwest, Sophie baits the last northeast FK, Takumi chats with Kiragi b/c why not?

On Turn 6, Sophie deals a chip to the FK and Takumi gets the kill. Asugi and his clone do some chips to level up, Shiro, Silas, and Kiragi poach the last baddies and the map is cleared.

After the battle, Azama returned to Basara yet again, Kiragi changed to Sniper, and I push myself yet closer to bankruptcy turning Asugi into a Butler. Candyman’s Str is 23 as a Master Ninja, pretty low, and Butler is -1 Str but with +5 Mag for a usable 19 with the relatively high Mt Flame Shuriken; 31 Spd is still fast enough for what remains of Nohr. He doesn't really need the +5 Hit/Crit/Avoid/Crit Evade of Master Ninja either. This frees the second Barb Shuriken for Azama.

Level Ups:

• Takumi-
  • Str/Skl/Spd/Lck
  • HP/Spd (And Bowfaire.)
• Azama:
  • HP/Skl/Spd/Res (And Shurikenfaire! -Str and Def are both already capped as a Master Ninja.)
  • HP/Skl/Spd
• Sophie-
  • Skl
  • HP/Lck/Def
  • Str/Skl/Spd/Lck/Def
• Shura- Spd
• Asugi-
  • HP/Str/Skl/Spd/Lck (And Replicate.)
  • Str/Skl/Spd/Lck (And Shurikenfaire.)
• Silas-
  • HP/Skl/Spd/Def
  • Skl/Lck/Res
• Shiro- Skl/Def/Res
• Kiragi- HP/Skl/Def (And Amaterasu.)

A splendid hunt that was! I should call it a “jagd”, the German word for hunting, which at least in the 17th and 18th centuries in the Holy Roman Empire, had no connotation of an active vigorous pursuit as with the English “hunt”. Jagd in that era of abundant aristocratic hunting, could include having servants round up a huge amount of game animals in a confined area, and then the aristocrat would pull the trigger and be guaranteed a hefty kill. Extremely lazy and inhuman, none of the “virtues” found in the glorious grand chase of one elusive stag the whole day through the woods -but then that is exactly what the above paralogue turned out to be. Not CQ Hinoka 2 by a long shot.

...Did Japan/East Asia have a strong hunting culture centuries ago? Maybe I should look that up actually.😆

[GuardianSing]

I finally got around to doing chapter 24, I'll show what happened tomorrow when I have more energy

[GuardianSing]

Alright, this one wasn't too complicated

Spoiler

Chrom is finally freed from his god awful great knight class

And Lucina is now a Grandmaster because I was bored.

Hopefully our fate wont fall into the shadows when we're so close to the end!

In any other FE game I'd think the same thing.

Henry almost bit the dust here which I'll admit was do to my own carelessness but other than that it was alright

 

And here are my characters as they are

Spoiler

 

On 4/22/2023 at 3:24 AM, Eltosian Kadath said:

Fun fact, these guys are a reference to the Dead Lords from the Jugdral games that feature prominently in the final chapters of Genealogy of the Holy War, and Thracia 776. Also some of the droppable weapons (like the Helswath there) are reference to the Holy Weapons of Genealogy of the Holy War as well.

I remember hearing that. It's a neat little reference considering they thought this was going to be the last FE

On 4/22/2023 at 3:24 AM, Eltosian Kadath said:

It is a little spooky seeing her face slightly less than 3% chance of death there, but instead Lethality let her turn the tables

Noire stares death in the face and gives a look that's even scarier

On 5/4/2023 at 5:20 PM, Interdimensional Observer said:

It will wait, in the shadows, it shall hide. When government of oppression gives way to anarchy, when society breaks back down, for all who can grasp it, the want for more shall be liberated. It might become corrupted into oligarchy with a militant or political bent, but capitalistic desire shall rule again, even if capitalism returns impure!

Talking about capitalism like's it's the returning of Quetzalcoatl.

On 5/4/2023 at 5:20 PM, Interdimensional Observer said:

...Did Japan/East Asia have a strong hunting culture centuries ago? Maybe I should look that up actually.😆

I suppose presumably most societies had an era of hunting in neolithic times.

Unless the ancient people in Japan didn't hunt but instead ran around the island eating nuts off of trees and using the latest technology, like stones and bowls.

[Codename Shrimp]

Btw

As some of you might know, i am on a trip atm. Will return in ~2.5 weeks then pick up whefe i left off ^^

[Codename Shrimp]

Corncob, going through strange weather and sandstorms, lands in the hidden secret tomb of Alexander the Great!

...or so he thought anyway, instead he comes face to face with the next best thing - Mommiefied Mom!

IS though people liked that PoR prison map, and they made a gimmickier Metal gear solid map!

...and this map utterly sucks - Like most Rev Late game maps. And Elevator hell is waiting for me after Yikes.

Let's finish this *yawn*

Spoiler

I summon the enemy reinforcements because honestly i am not in the mood for hide and seek

Niceeeeee

Corn Spectrum Ü

Open Sesame!

No more fastorochi?

Can't touch this

Sakura pls

Ryoma is japanese for broken Lobster fyi

Following in her Uncle's footsteps!

The implications...

This post is sponsored by Speed lvlups

Thiefs at work

Speed!

No Speed

Mood

GGz

Next: Daddy's Elevator Hell.

Edited June 10, 2023 by Shrimpy -Limited Edition-

[Dayni]

How was your trip @Shrimpy -Limited Edition-?

19 hours ago, Shrimpy -Limited Edition- said:

Corncob, going through strange weather and sandstorms, lands in the hidden secret tomb of Alexander the Great!

...or so he thought anyway, instead he comes face to face with the next best thing - Mommiefied Mom!

The gang make Corrin an orphan in the afterlife

19 hours ago, Shrimpy -Limited Edition- said:

...and this map utterly sucks - Like most Rev Late game maps. And Elevator hell is waiting for me after Yikes.

Oh no, the elevator map is probably atrocious in Lunatic.

19 hours ago, Shrimpy -Limited Edition- said:

I summon the enemy reinforcements because honestly i am not in the mood for hide and seek

I'm at this map in Lunatic Rev and my problem is not the sneaking, with Corrin having Locktouch and movement options: it's what happens afterwards where he fucking dies after opening the door.

I should probably look up what I do for that strat: a possibility now that I think about it is switching partners to the generic who I reclassed into Witch for Warp and buffing as much as possible for defences after opening the door then warping back if he survived, but the AI could just stay in place. Although, if this does work I can then actually leave the rest of the party at the start of the map.

19 hours ago, Shrimpy -Limited Edition- said:

Ryoma is japanese for broken Lobster fyi

Hard Boiled Lobster continues to break the game

19 hours ago, Shrimpy -Limited Edition- said:

GGz

Ahaha this Orochi is broken.

[Codename Shrimp]

3 minutes ago, Punished Dayni said:

How was your trip @Shrimpy -Limited Edition-?

Had fun, but not as much as icould because it was wayyyyy too hot

When are you coming back to Teehee btw?

4 minutes ago, Punished Dayni said:

ns: it's what happens afterwards where he fucking dies after opening the door.

You mean the last door yeah? That can be a bit tricky i agree

5 minutes ago, Punished Dayni said:

Ahaha this Orochi is broken.

Brokochi

[Dayni]

Just now, Shrimpy -Limited Edition- said:

Had fun, but not as much as icould because it was wayyyyy too hot

When are you coming back to Teehee btw?

The last few weeks have been hot here too, discomforting at times.

I am coming back when I feel the time is right on my part (aka: I have not made nearly enough progress on the lore stuff (I have actually gotten onto this more lately), not to mention a fair amount going on in my life). Not the most substantial answer, I know.

11 minutes ago, Shrimpy -Limited Edition- said:

You mean the last door yeah? That can be a bit tricky i agree

It's not even close either for survival, Lunatic stats be what they are, but arguably I would do better retooling the kit (if a dodging kit could work) or doing a reclass to something with more bulk.

(After having tried with a tonicing up, Corrin died by 3 HP to Mikoto. Mess Hall was not a factor, so it could work!)