[complete] A small Maniac play log

[ping]

About stealing - I was going to try getting one or two of the stealable siege tomes in chapter 21, but Rhys missing a 50% Silence on the Elfire/Meteor sage in four consecutive attempts makes me question that decision. It's honestly more of a "to see if I can do it" decision since I don't like using siege tomes all that much, anyway. But I will at least make an attempt to play the Shove minigame in chapter 22, so Volke's stats are hopefully not going to be wasted. I can see the argument for completely neglecting him, though.

Chapter 20:

Spoiler

• BEXP: Jill (10.97->11, 7 BEXP) - HP, Str, Spd
  • Astrid (8.96->9, 4 BEXP) - HP, Str, Skl, Lck, Def, Res
• 277 BEXP remaining.
• Support: Tanith/Reyson (C)
• Forge: Steel Axe (+5 Might, +15 Hit, 3844 gold)

Astrid soloed the northern part around the village, Sage reinforcements included. Some of the wyverns were baited towards the main group in the south, but otherwise, Astrid went on a little rampage. She didn't quite kill everything, since there's a group of three wyverns reinforcing on the 8th and final turn, but she got pretty darn close.

Otherwise, nothing too outlandish. Jill had to dodge one out of two siege tomes on one enemy phase because I forgot to highlight their ranges and then miscounted when Jill was to canter away after attacking, but otherwise, fairly standard "push forward, kill stuff, feed kills to Ike" business. Volke got a few steals - a Killer Bow, 13-use Physic, Shiharam's Elixir... - Reyson got two very satisfying four-unit dances in where everybody was actually able to something with their second action. Bosskill, with a bit of chip from Kieran and a less satisfying dance from Reyson, went to Ike.

The Team:

	Lv	  HP  Str Mag Skl Spd Lck Def Res
Ike	20/7.78	  48   20   7  23  21  18  21  12  (+7 HP)
Marcia	21/12.50  44   23*  9  26* 26  13  23  17  (+7 HP, +2 Def)
Jill	21/12.16  43   25   3  20  25  11  23   9  (+2 Spd, +2 Def, +2 Mov)
Tanith   */11.61  33   17  10  19  24  19  16  14

Astrid	21/13.16  37   25*  9  23  27* 21  22  16
Kieran	21/8.56	  40   21   4  16  24  14  20   9
Volke	18/1.82	  34   19   3  22  19   8  11   6

Soren   18/9.70	  39    3  21  25  17  12   9  26
Rhys	21/1.82	  29    2  23  15  13  14   8  23

Mordy	4.45	  45   17   2   9   8  11  15   6
Reyson  5.41	  23    1  11  13  14  16   2  21

 

[Aircalipoor]

What are Jills's and Astrid's weapon ranks? Soon its time for forged Silver Weapons.

Astrid already capped, I'd give her Sol. Helps her low HP.

[ping]

24 minutes ago, Aircalipoor said:

What are Jills's and Astrid's weapon ranks? Soon its time for forged Silver Weapons.

Jill is at A lances, B axes; Astrid only at B bows, C axes. At least enough for the Brave Bow. As far as other relevant weapon ranks go, Soren has C fire and C staves, but he also never got past C wind. The Elwind tome from Blood Runs Red is still around with 7 uses.

[Uscari]

Should use Soren for staff status effects due to his higher skill. That will increase the chance to hit.

I agree with Air about giving Astrid sol. She has already capped Strength and Speed, the only thing left of note is Defense and HP, and her defense is already +3 above her average when she caps. The sol procs will do more to help her longevity than the faster leveling.

I normally find this map pretty challenging due to the influx of Wyverns at the start and the siege tomes limiting my movement. Having said that, 15 turns is fairly generous, and I don't tend to have issue taking my time to drain the siege tomes and wrap around.

Another note about Volke, on the next map, there is a siege tome sage hiding behind the chest at the very top room furthest to the right. If you open the door to that room and Volke is in range, you can steal that tome without needing to inflict a status effect on the sage. It's a free 5 use meteor and you'll find it helpful. Another neat thing about siege tomes is that you can use it at the spawn to kill thieves that come in on the left side to loot the bottom left chest room. This gives you more time to rout and loot the map at a safe pace.

 

[ping]

12 hours ago, Uscari said:

Should use Soren for staff status effects due to his higher skill. That will increase the chance to hit.

Can't - still C rank. Rhys's 2 extra points of magic actually make up for Soren's +10 Skl, though. The tip about the hidden Meteor sage was very helpful, though, certainly saved me at least one (probably more, given the unreliability of the initial Silence) restart.

Chapter 21:

Spoiler

• BEXP: Ike (7.78->8, 42 BEXP) - Str, Skl, Lck, Def
  • Rhys (1.82->2, 27 BEXP) - HP, Mag, Lck, Res
  • Volke (1.82->2, 27 BEXP) - HP, Str, Skl, Spd, Lck
• 381 BEXP remaining.
• Skills: Ike - Wrath + Adept
  • Titania - remove Counter, add Sol. Astrid is going to get Tauroneo's Occult scroll.
• Forge: Hand Axe (+5 Might, +15 Hit)

First two turns are spent pussyfooting around the edge of the closest Meteor sage's range, killing the nearby halbadiers. Sothe opens the first treasure room on turn 2, with Kieran facing the two warriors inside; Titania holds off the two swordmasters coming from the north while laughing at x2 effectiveness.

This is what I kept rolling on turn 3; sometimes a bit better because the sage can roll 19 Res, or the nearest bishop can roll low on Mag, allowing Rhys to move another tile closer with Jill still able to rescue him out of Sleep range. First steal target then is said bishop for his Sleep staff, with Volke again being rescued out of the *next* bishop's range afterwards.

Next target is the Meteor tome, with Reyson helping everybody to get in and out without repercussions. And third is the Sleep staff from the bishop in the northwest, although I accept that he uses one of its charges against Jill.

These first five turns were fairly tight, with a lot of exact positioning outside of any long-range danger zones. After that, I don't try to set up these difficult steals (although I was considering trying for the Bolting from the left sage in the throne room) and only get the Meteor from one of the sages in the northeast treasure room.

Tanith skirts around the range of said second sage to kill the reinforcing thief before he can be annoying. I don't know where he tries to escape to, so I'd rather not rely on getting Volke to steal back anything from him.

I take a fair bit of time getting the thieves to the northeast and then back to the northwest (Sothe) and this treasure room (Volke). The reinforcements from the northeast are a bit annoying in that regard, since enemy-phasing a Killer Axe warrior is not something i want to do this far into a map. I end up fighting Ena on turn 16, with Ike dealing 30 damage, Soren another 10 or so, and Jill taking the kill through one Miracle activation. Could've waited another turn for Volke to get her Elixir, since he was busy getting the remaining 9 uses of the Physic staff nearby on this turn, but I think I'll manage. I don't think I've used the one from Nasir in the earlygame at all.

Took a while, but I'm happy with the outcome. Yes, a third siege tome would've been possible (especially because I ended up silencing the dude anyway, with  ~65% accuracy), but as I mentioned, I'm not very big on using these, anyway.

The Team:

	Lv	  HP  Str Mag Skl Spd Lck Def Res
Ike	20/9.42	  49   22   7  24  22  19  23  13   (+7 HP)
Marcia	21/14.34  44   23* 10  26* 28* 14  23  18   (+7 HP, +2 Def)
Jill	21/13.84  44   26   3  20  26  11  23  10   (+2 Spd, +2 Def, +2 Mov)
Tanith   */12.52  33   18  10  19  24  20  16  15

Astrid	21/17.18  38   25* 11  25  27* 22  22  17
Kieran	21/11.15  43   23   4  16  26  14  20  12
Titania  */12.49  42   19   7  20  22  16  17  13   (+2 Str)

Volke	18/2.51   35   20   3  23  20   9  11   6
Sothe	1.23	  20    5   1   7  11   5   4   0   (base)
Soren   18/12.30  41    3  23  27  17  12  10  28*
Rhys	21/4.87   31    2  26  15  14  16   8  26

Mordy	4.45	  45   17   2   9   8  11  15   6
Reyson  7.12	  25    1  12  14  16  17   4  21
Tauro	 */14.06  48   22  11  18  13  14  22  14   (base)

 

Edited June 4, 2023 by gnip

[Uscari]

Wow your jill is on fire. +4 strength, +5 speed, and +2 defense compared to average. The defense is attributable to the dracoshield, but the strength and speed advantages are very impressive. This is around the point in the game where Marcia starts to fall off, so it's good that you've trained another flyer to take her place.

Still, Marcia's impressive 18 resistance and near capped defense will allow her to pull dangerous enemies at minimal risk, and she's still the fastest unit on your team, so she'll help double enemies you normally can't double, like paladins. A forged silver lance used sparingly will keep her relevant but limited to player phase killing.

The killer axe enemy on the northeast is one of the reasons I like to train an armored knight on my team. Sometimes you can't risk dealing with units on enemy phase with cavalry because they don't have the defense to handle a crit, especially if they are axe users going up against killing edge swordmasters.

I would recommend training Tauroneo since he comes with resolve and is already at a very high level. With some KW levels he can realistically get 16 speed by the time he caps his levels, and once resolve is active he'll have 24 speed, enough to double most units, notably Wyverns. He might have slow movement but you're about to get into some very tight and narrow levels where you'll have difficulty rushing in, even with your best units. He also comes with A rank in swords, so he can get S rank pretty quick and use the Vague Katti to improve his ability to control his resolve skill activation.

Edit- Something else I forgot to mention. A lot of people might recommend using that meteor you got in this chapter to kill the boss right away on chapter 22 to clear it fast, but honestly I feel like it's worth more to just route the map, and kill the priests. The experience you get from them I'm pretty sure is worth more than the bonus experience you get, and the Ashera Staff imo isn't ultimately that useful. On paper it sounds good but 2 physic staff users is generally enough for your healing needs. Plus there is some nice loot in Chapter 22 (Spirit Dust and Sleep in particular) that is much easier to get if you take your time and don't worry yourself about sparing the priests.

Edited June 7, 2023 by Uscari

[ping]

On 6/7/2023 at 2:13 AM, Uscari said:

I would recommend training Tauroneo since he comes with resolve and is already at a very high level. With some KW levels he can realistically get 16 speed by the time he caps his levels, and once resolve is active he'll have 24 speed, enough to double most units, notably Wyverns. He might have slow movement but you're about to get into some very tight and narrow levels where you'll have difficulty rushing in, even with your best units. He also comes with A rank in swords, so he can get S rank pretty quick and use the Vague Katti to improve his ability to control his resolve skill activation.

To be honest, I don't think I have room for him. He might a decent filler pick for the Eat Rock map, what with the reduced movement on paladins, as well as Clash! with its increased deployment slots, but it's not like I'm struggling to find units to field. Boyd has been warming the bench for three out of the four previous maps, for example; Kieran and Tanith are going to sit the current map out; Stefan will get his second appearance after some very minor action in chapter 17; and I haven't even fielded Calill a single time. All of these units I think I would generally pick over Tauroneo.

Definitely very happy with my flyers, but they're obviously heavily aided by BEXP abuse.

Chapter 22:

Spoiler

• Support: Marcia/Kieran (A)
• BEXP: Rhys (4.87->5, 22 BEXP) - Mag, Skl, Lck
  • Jill (13.84->14, 43 BEXP) - HP, Str*, Skl, Spd*
  • 516 BEXP remaining
• Skill: Astrid (remove Paragon, add Sol)
  • Boyd (add Smite)
• Speedwing to Boyd (20->22 Spd)
• Forge: Hand Axe (+5 Might, +15 Hit, 5172 gold)

Two RNG rolls on the first turn: Rhys sleeps the Bolting guy (with 61-71% accuracy depending stat rolls) from just outside enemy range, and Boyd (after Marcia clears the tile he shoots from) kills another Sage with a small chance of getting crit-killed in return. He needed a Speedwing to double here and I still had to restart once because the Sage rolled 19 Spd. Avoidable with BEXP level, as Boyd wasn't terribly far away from 100 XP, but I don't really want to invest too heavily into him at this point. Speedwing doesn't count, we just have to hope that Ike doesn't get horribly screwed in that regard. Otherwise, it's not in too high demand, I don't think.

This is the set-up I ended up using - every Bishop has a target that can't counter them (and PoR AI prioritises surviving over dealing damage, good thing we're not playing DSFE here). Stefan and Ike both use a Killing Edge to fish for a proc between their crit and Astra / Adept, Astrid removes two Warriors with the Brave Bow (one on player phase, the one in the hallway doesn't move). Reyson uses one of the Laguz stones I stole in the desert in preparation for a productive turn 2. Soren can heal Boyd if he got hit. Volke uses a pure water and hides in the corner. Jill gets into position to counter a bunch of enemies in the middle part of the map. She's borderline on killing Warriors with a Hand Axe +5, and with the Full Guard, she's extremely safe.

Turn 2, Volke shoves the Bishop blocking the right room (which is why he used the pure water on T1), Ike runs into the room and also uses a Pure Water to be safe-ish against the Sleep Bishop.

I'm a bit proud of this play - Marcia kills the LHS thief by throwing a Javelin through a Bishop, and then uses the dropped Sleep staff to equip her Steel Lance instead, making sure that she doesn't kill a Bishop on enemy phase. Jill and Astrid in particular kill most non-priest enemies in the center, supported by Reyson's dancing.

With the area safe for them Soren, Stefan, and Rhys move up through the middle in order to shove some priests. I make a silly mistake here by assuming that the enemies left and right of the boss don't move - they do and both Warriors attack a defenseless Rhys (who didn't bring a tome for both inventory management reasons and Spd reasons), but he manages to dodge both of them. On the left, Marcia grabs the two chests (and Boyd kills a reinforcing Tiger, for what it's worth). On the right, the thief grabs all three chests. I probably should've had Jill or Astrid help out on this side - the enemies zone out Volke so that he can only reach the thief one turn after I would've liked him to, which meant that I didn't get the Bolganone tome. Oh no. But I wanted to get the boss kill immediately to avoid any shady EP business with the priests or surviving enemies.

So everybody just did a little combat for XP, and Astrid killed the boss. She wasn't supposed to, I only wanted her to chip him down for Jill, but hey, (4%) crit happens.

Hurray!

Pretty decent BEXP from playing nice, too - 150 from staying within the turn limit (quite easily, I might brag) and 240 from 24 not-dead priests.

 

 

The Team:

	Lv	  HP  Str Mag Skl Spd Lck Def Res
Ike	20/10.91  49   22   7  25  23  19  23  14   (+7 HP)
Marcia	21/14.94  44   23* 10  26* 28* 14  23  18   (+7 HP, +2 Def)
Jill	21/14.74  45   27*  3  21  27* 11  23  10   (+2 Spd, +2 Def, +2 Mov)

Astrid  21/17.87  38   25* 11  25  27* 22  22  17
Titania  */12.84  42   19   7  20  22  16  17  13   (+2 Str)

Boyd	21/7.45	  50   24   2  21  22  12  15   7   (+2 Spd)
Volke	18/2.85	  35   20   3  23  20   9  11   6
Stefan   */8.86	  38   19   8  27  25   5  12   9   (base)

Soren	18/13.48  42    3  23  27  17  13  10  28*
Rhys	21/6.01	  31    2  27  16  15  18   8  27

Reyson	7.52	  25    1  12  14  16  17   4  21

 

[ping]

Doublepost because I didn't expect to one-shot this:

Chapter 23:

Spoiler

• Support: Ike/Soren (A), Ike/Reyson (C), Boyd/Titania (B)
• BEXP: Ike (10.91->11, 20 BEXP) - all but Mag. Hit Def cap with this.
  • Titania (12.84->13.00, 40 BEXP) - HP, Str, Mag, Spd, Def, Res
  • Mist (1.89->10, 749 BEXP) - +2 HP, +3 Str, +6 Mag, +5 Skl, +7 Spd, +5 Lck, +2 Def, +1 Res
  • Marcia (14.94->15, 17 BEXP) - HP, Res
  • 97 BEXP remaining.
• Master Sealed Mist: [21 HP | 6 Str | 14 Mag | 10 Skl | 17 Spd | 11 Lck | 7 Def | 10 Res]
• Forge: Silver Axe (+5 Mt, no extra hit, that's almost 1k per tick) - 5766 gold

I probably didn't deserve to one-shot this, either, because I left Tanith in range of both a ballista and a Bow Pala at one point, but she gracefully dodged both of them.

Silly mistakes aside, this map wasn't too difficult to beat with the FEWOD map for the pitfalls (and reinforcement lines) on hand. I still ran into... two pitfalls, I think, thanks to the ol' muscle memory of "let's just check combat forecast real quick", but luckily with no absolutely crucial actions lost.

The map is kinda interesting in that it's much more player phase-centred than PoR generally is, with Jill and Marcia repeatedly positioning themselves so that they can snipe a ballista or sage behind the next barricade and canter back to relative safety. Like on hard mode, I set myself up right behind the line to spawn the allied paladins before charging everybody ahead before the green units have much opportunity to be in the way. Well, charge almost everybody, since Jill fell back to recruit Haar. WIth an unforged Silver Lance, she one-shot enough enemies on enemy phase (including two of the three Swordmaster reinforcements, the third one she didn't double), which allowed her to reach Haar without any trouble. Haar did have to spend one turn in a bow-using Paladin's range, but he narrowly escaped getting doubled (and I didn't check if he would've been one-rounded and he dodged so I dunno), making the whole thing quite safe.

Boss kill went to Astrid once again, this time with the Brave Bow. Unlike last chapter, she didn't need any crits to one-round Petrine, but she had to hit all four attacks with... I believe 70-ish hit. Otherwise, Jill would've already been back from recruiting Haar to secure the kill, which overall would've been the preferred outcome. But eh, they're both more or less capped where it matters.

Oh, also, Volke was around, but only stole a single Physic staff. I did get the Blizzard tome with all five uses, though.

8-turn clear, so full BEXP, which is nice.

The Team:

	Lv	  HP  Str Mag Skl Spd Lck Def Res
Ike	20/11.84  50   23   7  26  24  20  24* 15   (+7 HP)
Marcia	21/16.07  46   23* 10  26* 28* 15  23  19   (+7 HP, +2 Def)
Jill	21/16.21  47   27*  3  21  27* 11  24  10   (+2 Spd, +2 Def, +2 Mov)
Tanith   */13.02  33   18  11  19  25  21  16  16

Astrid  21/18.91  38   25* 11  26* 27* 22  22  18
Titania  */14.15  44   21   8  21  23  17  19  15   (+2 Str)
Kieran  21/12.34  44   23   4  17  26  14  21  12

Boyd	21/8.73   51   25   2  21  22  12  15   7   (+2 Spd)
Volke	18/3.52   36   21   3  24  20  10  11   6
Soren	18/14.24  42    3  23  27  18  13  10  28*
Rhys	21/6.92   31    2  27  16  15  18   8  27

Mordy   4.57	  45   17   2   9   8  11  15   6
Reyson	8.22	  26    1  12  15  17  18   4  22
Haar	 */11.10  47   21   8  19  17  12  20  10

 

Edited June 9, 2023 by gnip

[Aircalipoor]

11 hours ago, gnip said:

Forge: Silver Axe (+5 Mt, no extra hit, that's almost 1k per tick) - 5766 gold

Its not like you need money for anything else. If you forge six times you only spent 35k of your current 50k. 25 Hit may be overkill, unless you target a sworduser maybe, but +10-15 hit is also good.

This chapter is more tedious than hard, the enemies can't swarm you due to the narrow layout (or if you screw up the reinforcements). The next chapter is brutal if you don't rush it with Jill in three turns.

 

[ping]

29 minutes ago, Aircalipoor said:

The next chapter is brutal if you don't rush it with Jill in three turns.

Yeah, I already got this impression, although my first attempt failed because I underestimated ballista range (RIP Reyson), before the whole wyvern swarmery could crash down on me. It helps greatly that Jill with the Full Guard is virtually immortal, though, so I'll see if I can get both villages just out of principle.

[Uscari]

Using the dropped item to swap weapons was a clever play, I never thought to do that. Maybe you'll find the Ashera Staff more useful than I did.

Yes Chapter 24 is quite challenging, almost a mini-Clash. I have found it's best to plant someone with high survivability on the bridge to the left. I normally use a general for this, but your Astrid has 22 defense and sol, I think she could hold that bridge on her own. This will allow the rest of your group to advance north without getting flanked.

Tanith also comes in handy on this map, her reinforcement pegasus knights will help occupy the scary wyverns above the water. If you have any more sonic sword uses, this would be a good time to finish those off and take out the most dangerous of the wyvern lords.

You definitely need to move quick though, because eventually a swarm of wyvern lords spawn on the north east corner. You do not want to be trapped with them. I wouldn't go for the bottom left house until you reach Geoffrey. By that point, you should be able to quickly send Jill down to grab it before arriving.

I also agree with Aircali that you want to forge hit on these axes. You're about to deal with some very scary enemies, including swordmasters with weapon triangle advantage. Forging hit could be the difference between 50 and 75% chance to hit, or even 40 and 65% chance. It makes a huge difference especially in the context of proccing Sol.

[ping]

On 6/10/2023 at 6:06 PM, Uscari said:

If you have any more sonic sword uses, this would be a good time to finish those off and take out the most dangerous of the wyvern lords.

Oh, I still have a few. (This is what her set-up for Eat Rock is probably going to be, I didn't actually field Tanith for Battle Reunion)

Chapter 24:

Spoiler

• Support: Marcia/Tanith (B)
• BEXP: Ike (11.84->12, 38 BEXP) - HP, Str, Mag, Skl*, Spd
  • Rhys (6.92->7, 15 BEXP) - Mag, Skl, Spd, Res
  • Astrid (18.91->19, 36 BEXP) - HP, Res
  • Boyd (8.73->9, 54 BEXP) - HP, Spd, Lck, Def, Res
  • 137 BEXP remaining.
• Forge: Silver Lance (+5 Mt) - 7333 gold - I had already done base stuff when the comments about +hit came in. Definitely agree in hindsight, next forges will definitely have 10-15% extra hit.

As a general strategy, Jill blocks the bridge to the left, one-rounding Wyverns with her forged Silver Axe, protected by the Full Guard, and supported by some flunkies. Astrid helps out a little bit on turn 1 and 2, crit-killing a nearby paladin on the first (without the crit, Jill would've had to take the kill with imperfect hit rates) and cleanly one-rounding a Wyvern Lord from the group in the north (two of which attacked Jill from 2-range) with a Silver Bow on the second turn. She moved north with the main group afterwards, with Titania, Soren, and Lucia sticking around Jill. No preordained strategy with that, all of them were just able to grab a kill in the area (yes, including Lucia) despite their relatively weak offenses, so they did.

Reyson used a Laguz Stone on turn 1, since his 4-way dance definitely had some sustained use. With enemies being both very mobile and bulky, the ability to do a ton of player phase combat came in handy basically every turn.

I had two runs ended because I didn't even consider that the Iron Ballista might reach as far as it does (I am very intelligent), but I daresay that I was a lot better about not getting Reyson killed on this successful attempt. He was in enemy range only once... and the enemy in question was in healing mode.

With the ballistae out of the way, by far the biggest problem was the five-Wyvern reinforcements squad coming from the northeast - this screenshot is from after Reyson's galdr. I was fishing for an Ike proc here and got a crit - Adept would've been fine because Bastian would've been able to take the kill...

...but the crit allowed Mordecai to disrespect the map a little, which is always a nice little success.

The Wyverns spawning in the south were not a problem - Lucia was able to just get out of their range on her own while Titania rescued Soren out of it, so they all went after Jill as she got into position to get the Nihil village.

Jill also got an accidental boss kill via (unforged) Hand Axe crit. Since Rikard doesn't drop anything, I didn't set anything up in order to kill him, so this was just a welcome surprise.

And on the next turn, Marcia is in position to end the map, within BEXP limit, even. Reyson gave Astrid, Titania, and Kieran the extra movement to get some last-minute kills - not the most important thing in the world at this stage, but it did get Astrid enough WEXP to reach A Axes. She actually started the map just one or two swings away from that, but she kept using bows to one-round Wyverns or for their accuracy against enemy Swordmasters.

Mostly satisfied with the clear in the end - only real regret is that Jill went through a fair bit of her forged Silver Axe, with only 8 uses remaining. But on the plus side, the forged Silver Lance is still completely untouched.

The Team:

	Lv	  HP  Str Mag Skl Spd Lck Def Res
Ike	20/13.60  51   24   8  27* 26  20  24* 16   (+7 HP)
Marcia	21/16.83  45   23* 10  26* 28* 15  23  19   (+7 HP, +2 Def)
Jill	21/18.62  49   27*  3  23  27* 11  26  12   (+2 Spd, +2 Def, +2 Mov)

Astrid  21/19.71  39   25* 11  26* 27* 22  22  19
Titania  */14.75  44   21   8  21  23  17  19  15   (+2 Str)
Kieran  21/13.78  45   24   4  17  26  15  21  13
Boyd	21/10.43  53   25   2  22  23  13  16   8   (+2 Spd)

Soren	18/15.28  42    3  24  27  18  13  10  28*
Rhys	21/8.55   32    2  29* 17  16  19   8  28
Mordy   4.85	  45   17   2   9   8  11  15   6
Reyson	8.82	  26    1  12  15  17  18   4  22

Lucia    */12.31  36   15  12  21  23  16  10   8   (base)
Bastian  */13.49  35   12  19  21  16  15  12  20   (base)

 

[Aircalipoor]

Boyds unique ability to ORKO Wyverns  (what Paladins and Falcon Knights with their lower Str. cap can't pull off) is redundant it you have blessed Jill. I don't mind employing him, but I wouldn't do it on a run that also includes Jill. They may even compete for the same ressources (Speedwing, Draco-Shield).

Really funny to see such a shitty Soren, he is ridiculously overused in most runs I read about, usually with high Mag and Spd, Vantage, Shade and A Ike. The speedrun proves that he has too much of a bad start and movement and physical defense is important in this game.

If you have 1300 BEXP (a number you could gather through chapter 18-24), you could level Geoffrey up to level 17 to make him a valid Oscar light. He could barely ORKO even nasty 22-23 AS Paladins in chapter 26 with a forged Silver Lance. Though he sucks in chapter 25 and the game is ending very soon.

Next chapter is the hardest in endgame just because of the condition: Route forces you to engage all these numerous bulky enemies, while you can ignore a bunch of them in Seize/Arrive/Kill Boss chapters. Also shitty terrain. We'll see how this turns out, I lost Jill on one of my playthroughs there and didn't even reset because doing this chapter again is more of a hassle than 26, 27 and Ike Soloing 28 and Finale.

[Vicious Sal]

7 minutes ago, Aircalipoor said:

Boyds unique ability to ORKO Wyverns  (what Paladins and Falcon Knights with their lower Str. cap can't pull off) is redundant it you have blessed Jill. I don't mind employing him, but I wouldn't do it on a run that also includes Jill. They may even compete for the same ressources (Speedwing, Draco-Shield).

Really funny to see such a shitty Soren, he is ridiculously overused in most runs I read about, usually with high Mag and Spd, Vantage, Shade and A Ike. The speedrun proves that he has too much of a bad start and movement and physical defense is important in this game.

If you have 1300 BEXP (a number you could gather through chapter 18-24), you could level Geoffrey up to level 17 to make him a valid Oscar light. He could barely ORKO even nasty 22-23 AS Paladins in chapter 26 with a forged Silver Lance. Though he sucks in chapter 25 and the game is ending very soon.

Next chapter is the hardest in endgame just because of the condition: Route forces you to engage all these numerous bulky enemies, while you can ignore a bunch of them in Seize/Arrive/Kill Boss chapters. Also shitty terrain. We'll see how this turns out, I lost Jill on one of my playthroughs there and didn't even reset because doing this chapter again is more of a hassle than 26, 27 and Ike Soloing 28 and Finale.

Funnily enough, in Maniac LTC he is extremely valuable due to the 255 thunder tome hitting Res and picking up OHKO's with vantage other units couldn't hope to get. 

[Aircalipoor]

Obviously because of the tome.

He is still worse than Ilyana, since she has better bases and Soren can barely level-up in a fast paced early game (low exp, he deals shit damage).

[Vicious Sal]

If he was worse than Ilyana the Ltc would have used Ilyana...? 

[Aircalipoor]

3 minutes ago, Vicious Sal said:

If he was worse than Ilyana the Ltc would have used Ilyana...? 

The Chiki one did.

[Vicious Sal]

13 minutes ago, Aircalipoor said:

The Chiki one did.

And Typhoon Carter's used Soren and improves the turncount by a whopping 1 turn! 
(I was not aware of the Chiki Ilyana usage and can't say if that 1 Turn was improved By soren. But that probably means that ilyana is not better, they're just interchangable.)

[Uscari]

Hard to believe, but it looks like your Titania might actually turn out okay. She has 6 levels left to grow and has already met or exceeded her average at level 20 for Strength, Defense, and Speed. A few more good levels and she could have stats competing with Oscar and Kieran. Could be worth training her next map to see how she ends up. You'll want good paladins for Clash.

1 hour ago, Aircalipoor said:

Obviously because of the tome.

He is still worse than Ilyana, since she has better bases and Soren can barely level-up in a fast paced early game (low exp, he deals shit damage).

You seriously think Soren is worse than Illyana? He gets 4 chapters to catch up to her level, and has better growths in almost all the relevant areas. Who cares about her bases when she'll hardly ever double anything?

Even if you get a bad Soren, you still have that invaluable earth-dark support with Ike which makes the endgame much easier.

1 hour ago, Aircalipoor said:

Next chapter is the hardest in endgame just because of the condition: Route forces you to engage all these numerous bulky enemies, while you can ignore a bunch of them in Seize/Arrive/Kill Boss chapters. Also shitty terrain. We'll see how this turns out, I lost Jill on one of my playthroughs there and didn't even reset because doing this chapter again is more of a hassle than 26, 27 and Ike Soloing 28 and Finale.

Honestly chapter 25 isn't even hard. Most of the enemies that rush you are beast laguz locked to 1 range and no canto. You also have favorable geography to form a wall at the edge of the map. You can just turtle the beginning and then pull more enemies as needed, not very difficult at all. There are like 5-6 siege tomes, but that's a good thing because you can steal the sieges after using status effects on them, alternatively you can just have your sage tank the tomes. It's a slow map, but not a difficult map.

The last map is the hardest in my opinion due to generic enemies having skills, very good weapons (killing edges, rune swords), lots of wyverns, multiple siege tomes, 5-6 Dragons, and Ashnard moving on like Turn 9. So much to chew through and so little time.

Clash is a close second though.

[Aircalipoor]

31 minutes ago, Vicious Sal said:

And Typhoon Carter's used Soren and improves the turncount by a whopping 1 turn! 
(I was not aware of the Chiki Ilyana usage and can't say if that 1 Turn was improved By soren. But that probably means that ilyana is not better, they're just interchangable.)

Where is that run? In only found a Hard Mode 100% growth run, which is vastly different from maniac. Ilyana has higher mag which is important since OHKOing isn't guaranted at first.

 

14 minutes ago, Uscari said:

Hard to believe, but it looks like your Titania might actually turn out okay.

It's not hard to believe. Titania is only marginally weaker than Oscar/Kieran, 2 points in Str. and Def after promotion, 3-4 points at max level. Knight Crest fixes her speed issues. She can keep a level lead if used excessively and she could even use energy-rings and draco-shields. Sure, there are simply better units, but Titania has all the requirements to stay a top unit.

14 minutes ago, Uscari said:

You seriously think Soren is worse than Illyana?

I refer to runs in which forged tomes and low turns are assumed.

 

14 minutes ago, Uscari said:

The last map is the hardest in my opinion due to generic enemies having skills, very good weapons (killing edges, rune swords), lots of wyverns, multiple siege tomes, 5-6 Dragons, and Ashnard moving on like Turn 9. So much to chew through and so little time.

Just drop Ike in front of Ashnard and its done. It can take two turns (risky, but only one long enemy phase, so reseting is easy), and it can even be done with very high reliabilty, as shown in the speedrun video.

Edited June 14, 2023 by Aircalipoor

[Shadow Mir]

1 hour ago, Uscari said:

You seriously think Soren is worse than Illyana? He gets 4 chapters to catch up to her level, and has better growths in almost all the relevant areas. Who cares about her bases when she'll hardly ever double anything?

Even if you get a bad Soren, you still have that invaluable earth-dark support with Ike which makes the endgame much easier.

He doesn't do that much damage starting out, meaning he needs to be actively fed if he wants to have any chance of passing her up.

If I got a bad Soren, I'd drop him rather than make my team worse just for the sake of a support that's not even that great, and is slow to max out to boot.

Edited June 14, 2023 by Shadow Mir

[ping]

About Soren/Ilyana - I see her as a slightly worse replacement if you don't want to bother feeding XP to Soren in the earlygame. I did get him up to Lv. 6 at the start of Ilyana's joining chapter, but I was pretty concious about feeding him kills when possible and I didn't play the earlygame at lightning speed either, so it seems fair to assume that Ilyana will have a bit of a level lead in a faster playthrough. Plus, feeding kills to Soren is kinda annoying given his awful attack with his Wind tome.

On 6/14/2023 at 10:34 PM, Aircalipoor said:

Really funny to see such a shitty Soren, he is ridiculously overused in most runs I read about, usually with high Mag and Spd, Vantage, Shade and A Ike. The speedrun proves that he has too much of a bad start and movement and physical defense is important in this game.

-1.6 Mag wouldn't be that much of a problem, but -4.4 Spd definitely hurts his combat. With average Spd plus the Speedwing that Boyd ended up using, he would be able to double stuff, but 18 Spd really hurts. On the plus side, I might have remembered some cocaine that has been sitting in the convoy forever, which will at least make him better at using status staves than Rhys.

About the next chapter - when I played yesterday, Reyson died to catapult splash plus two rolling rocks because he did a chant from a position that didn't allow him to canto off the path. Sigh. Six turns in, I think.

 

[ping]

Chapter 25: Strange Lands

Spoiler

• Support: Bastian/Lucia (C), Bastian/Volke (C)
• BEXP: Ike (13.60->14, 107 BEXP) - HP, Str
  • Marcia (16.83->17, 57 BEXP) - HP, Lck, Def*
  • Titania (14.75->15, 71 BEXP) - Perfect minus Mag
  • Kieran (13.78->14, 59 BEXP) - HP, Str, Spd, Def, Res
  • 43 BEXP remaining.
• Soren: +4 Mag (24->28) (I completely forgot I had these flying around. Chances are that Soren will cap Mag before Lv.20, but I don't think it's super worth to throw these at a Sonic Sword / Flame Lance user)
  • Still have an Energy Drop, two Secret Books, one Ashera Icon, and one Talisman available.
• Forge: Silver Axe (+5 Might, +15 Hit, 8732 gold)

There we go. If you aren't playing this map very defensively, it's really easy to miss, for example, that the top right Blizzard Sage can actually reach pretty far to the west.  I had a few resets because of mistakes like this, which is increasingly unfun in PoR lategame, but I got a decent clear in the end - 8 turns, one stolen Blizzard tome, 4 uses left on the droppable Purge tome.

Specifically, that guy's Blizzard tome. Volke would've had an opportunity to steal the northwest Blizzard, too, although with only 3 uses because the guy actually swapped back to Elthunder in order to heal somebody, but Volke didn't outspeed. 😕 I initially had a plan to go halfway up this left path, deal with the first wave of reinforcements (5 Wyverns from the NW), then swing back to the right, maybe steal the SE Sage's Blizzard; but getting up the one-tile path with multiple non-flyers is honstly too much of a pain.

Instead, Boyd and Titania (whom I fielded specifically because of their B support) basically held the line, slowly advancing as they beat the enemies. Tanith baited the boss immediately (protected with the Full Guard from the Iron Ballista and the aforementioned SE Blizzard sage), bringing him down to 11 HP with the Sonic Sword. This works quite well with Boyd and Titania most likely leaving at least one enemy at very low HP, so the nearby Bishop doesn't Physic the boss: If every attack hits, but doesn't crit, they (with help from one of the pushed rocks) would kill two of the Warriors and the Cat (who moves before the rock pusher), while leaving one Warrior at low HP. It actually worked out like that in this particular attempt, but as long as the boss doesn't get healed, it really doesn't matter that much how fast they go through the enemies.

The nice thing about Tanith pulling the Blizzard Sage is that, with Mordecai giving her a boost, Jill can kill him and then canter back south behind the first reinforcement trigger line. Neat! Marcia takes the boss kill (she's a bit more accurate than Tanith, and neither of them doubles him anymore with Resolve active), enemy killing happens.

Noteably, I only trigger the first reinforcements on turn 3 / the start of T.4, at which point Jill can charge ahead to both kill the Purge Bishop and fight them on enemy phase.

She isn't quite as proficient at killing them as one might hope - both because Str-capped Jill doesn't actually reliably one-round enemy Wyverns (Boyd may have a niche yet, @Aircalipoor), and because she went into enemy phase with the old, 5-use forged Silver Axe, so she didn't double one of them. But with Soren finishing the not-doubled Wyvern with the newly aquired Blizzard tome and Reyson doing a four-way Chant, they still went down on player phase.

At that point, the rest of the map should've been pure mop-up work, except that I unfortunately have to report that Mist (who I fielded as a third staff user, rather useful with all the damage coming from pushed rocks and long-ranged tomes) had to dodge a Blizzard that most certainly would've removed her five remaining HP. Completely avoidable, too, I just didn't have that Sage's range marked when I thought I had, so I didn't move her out of the way.

The Team:

	Lv	  HP  Str Mag Skl Spd Lck Def Res
Ike	20/15.21  53   26*  8  27* 27  21  24* 17   (+7 HP)
Marcia	21/18.68  46   23* 10  26* 27* 17  24* 20   (+7 HP, +2 Def)
Jill	21/19.93  50   27*  3  23  27* 11  27* 12   (+2 Spd, +2 Def, +2 Mov)
Tanith   */14.55  34   18  12  20  25  21  16  17

Titania  */16.23  46   22   8  23  25  18  20  16   (+2 Str)
Boyd	21/12.32  55   27   2  23  24  14  18   8   (+2 Spd)
Volke   18/4.46	  37   22   3  25  21  10  11   6

Soren	18/16.98  42    3  29  27  18  13  10  28*  (+4 Mag)
Rhys	21/9.86   33    2  29* 17  16  19   9  29
Mist	10/2.24   21    6  15  11  17  11   8  10

Mordy   5.00	  47   18   2  10   9  11  16   6
Reyson	9.63	  27    1  13  16  17  19   5  22

 

Edited June 19, 2023 by gnip

[Uscari]

On 6/19/2023 at 2:26 PM, gnip said:

Chapter 25: Strange Lands

  Hide contents

 

She isn't quite as proficient at killing them as one might hope - both because Str-capped Jill doesn't actually reliably one-round enemy Wyverns (Boyd may have a niche yet, @Aircalipoor), and because she went into enemy phase with the old, 5-use forged Silver Axe, so she didn't double one of them.

 

 

This is why I advise training bows for Kieran. An unforged silver bow would have done the job against this guy, and a forged steel bow can kill nearly any wyvern.

Still, Boyd being able to do that kind of damage with 1-range weapons does give him a powerful niche, since it's far more common to encounter enemies locked to 1 range than locked to 2 range.

I've contemplated supporting Jill with Mist and giving Jill savior so she can rescue Mist and have a permanent +3 defense and +1 attack. That extra 2 damage might be able to make the 1-rounding more reliable.

 

Unfortunately, I don't think your team has the durability to outlast clash, you'll have to bang your head against the wall trying to clear it quickly, which will be a struggle.

Maybe give Jill Savior, pick up Ike, and rush the point, have everyone else huddle in a corner to protect Elincia. Could be worth it to give Jill a talisman and some pure waters so that the bishop doesn't manage to sleep her. It will be hard without forged handaxes to clear out the mobs, but that's the best strat I can come up with. Maybe you can do some kind of rescue + siege tome combo to get Bertram low before you finish him off.

[Aircalipoor]

Jill already struggling to ORKO threw me off. Makes her even more worse than Marcia.

Checking the enemy stats, Jill can still beat Paladins, Warriors etc., but Wyvern Lords and Generals are bulky, even Boyd can have issues, though he could get additional +5 Atk via supports.

Clash is tedious, but your units are bulky enough to take a few hits and strong enough to clear a quick path. The speedrun strategy doesn't even use Rescue, so its not even depending on specific units.