[complete] A small Maniac play log

[ping]

On 6/24/2023 at 2:44 AM, Uscari said:

Unfortunately, I don't think your team has the durability to outlast clash,

On 6/24/2023 at 8:02 AM, Aircalipoor said:

Clash is tedious, but your units are bulky enough to take a few hits and strong enough to clear a quick path.

Getting conflicting messages here I do think that my team is decently bulky, with Ike, Marcia and (especially) Jill at their Def caps, plus a handful of Sol Paladins. Clash obviously throws a ton of enemies at you, but in surprisingly manageable chunks as long as you're concious about "activating" groups that don't start aggressive. Dare I say that the enemy distribution is actually well-designed, despite the map itself being very Awakening-like (...he says confidently, never having played Awakening)? It mostly suffers from PoR's sllloooooowwwwwww animations.

Chapter 26: Clash!

Spoiler

• Support: Ike/Reyson (B), Jill/Mist (C), Tanith/Reyson (B)
• Jill: Secret Book (Skl 23->25)
• BEXP: Soren (16.98->17, 7 BEXP) - HP, Mag*, Skl*
  • Jill (19.93->20, 31 BEXP) - HP, Skl*
• 140 BEXP remaining.
• Forge: Silver Axe (+5 Might, +20 Hit) - 9848 gold

With how much Jill is doing in this late stage of the game, I thought it was worth spending 4000 gold (and a bit of BEXP) to give her consistent +6 hit.

The dice roll to start the map. I believe this is the lowest the hit chance gets, with 20 Res / 78 hit being the lowest roll the Sage can get. This one in particular is a good target for a disable because he's the only one that doesn't start the map with his siege tome equipped. Soren can do this from 15 range while staying out of most enemies' ranges - one Steel Axe Warrior and the Longbow Sniper, but I never had the former hit Soren, who can also stay within Ike's support range to improve his odds.

The general tactic: The two closest Warriors go down to a bit of a group effort, with the group then forming a bit of a wall , all with 1-2 range equipped. Titania goes further to the southwest, which exposes her to a lot of enemy phase combat. She isn't entirely safe, especially at low biorhythm, since she relies on a couple dodges and/or Sol procs to survive, but I've messed around with this first turn a bit and Titania didn't die a single time. She only has a regular Hand Axe equipped, since a little bit of chip goes a long way to set up an easy kill, and she actually has two turns to distribute it.

Finally, Mordecai smites Jill upwards, which allows her to canter into range of all three melee Paladins coming from the north, thanks to the boots. As an added bonus, she's very likely to one-round them with an unforged Silver Lance, which Marcia obviously cannot do. High-rolling enemies can then be picked off by some scrub filler (in this case Janaff, iirc), so that's not much of a problem, either.

Everybody else just stays out of enemy range. Reyson uses a Laguz Stone.

All that preparation allows for a full clear, including the Meteor Sage spawning next to the Paladins.

Turn 3, everybody swings a little bit southwest, clearing the enemies that Titania has been playing with the previous turns. She has also been drawing the Blizzard Sage from the SW closer, which allows Jill to kill him this turn, too. I believe Ike is so close to her because he killed a Swordmaster with the Brave Sword, but this obviously also means that a couple of enemies went uncountered on EP3.

Still, sufficient clean-up, a stolen Bolting tome, and some units that can rescue/drop Volke out of danger.

And one unit that can easily engage all ten Wyvern reinforcements while one-rounding half of them on EP with a forged Silver Axe - three survive with low HP, and two carry 1-2 range.

Kieran takes over clean-up duty here, allowing Jill to clean up the remaining Blizzard Sage and the Sleep Bishop just east of the boss. Another benefit is that this draws a number of Paladins, reinforcements and some of those spawning near Bertram, towards Jill, which makes approaching the boss that much easier. With an unforged Silver Lance, Jill one-rounds some of them - no weapon triangle advantage because I didn't think of giving her an unforged Silver Axe instead, so the chance to one-round was lower than vs. the Palas on turn 1.

Also, Jill wore down her Silver Axe forge against the Wyvern Lords to three uses, so Mist hammernes it back up.

Unfortunately, this is the point for my obligatory stupid mistake: I didn't realise that the Brave Sword Swordmaster quadruples Boyd. In my defense, I believe this is the first 28-Spd SM I've come across, but this still would've been a pretty dumb reason to lose the attempt. Luckily, the Steel (? - iirc) Sword + Short Axe Paladins can't attack him from melee range, and Boyd manages to dodge one of them.

After that, the map is basically done, though, apart from the boss kill. I'm lucky and Jill dodged a 60 while chipping, which allows Marcia to take the kill safely, without another Ward boost, with a basic Silver Lance. Kieran and Tanith provide the +hit bonuses to get to 100 with a basic Silver Lance.

So, that's Clash! - 8 turns, basically a rout (one cat in the SW survived). FEWOD mentions Sage reinforcements spawning on turn 7, which didn't happen (despite the Bertram kill happening on turn 8), so that's either a mistake on that site or Maniac actually dials down the reinforcement frequency compared to Normal/Hard. I'm sure that there would've been some extra staves and/or siege tomes to steal, but eh.

 

The Team:

	Lv	  HP  Str Mag Skl Spd Lck Def Res
Ike	20/16.17  54   26*  8  27* 28* 22  24* 17   (+7 HP)
Marcia	21/20	  48   23* 10  26* 28* 17  24* 21   (+7 HP, +2 Def)
Jill	21/20	  51   27*  3  26* 27* 11  27* 12   (+2 Spd, +2 Def, +2 Skl, +2 Mov)
Tanith   */16.19  35   18  14  21  25  21  17  18

Titania  */18.24  48   23   8  25  25  20  22  17   (+2 Str)
Astrid  21/20	  39   25* 11  26* 27* 22  22  19
Kieran	21/15.05  47   26*  4  17  27* 15  23  14

Boyd	21/14.06  56   27   2  25  24  15  18   8   (+2 Spd)
Volke   18/4.97	  37   22   3  25  21  10  11   6

Soren	18/18.13  44    3  30* 28* 18  13  11  28*
Rhys	21/11.33  33    2  29* 19  16  19  10  30*
Mist	10/3.68   21    6  15  11  18  12   8  10
Elincia	 */2.46	  28   10  12  16  19  15  11  15

Mordy   5.00	  47   18   2  10   9  11  16   6
Reyson	10.33	  28    1  14  16  18  20   6  22

Haar	 */11.75  47   21   8  19  17  12  20  10
Geoffrey */11.48  43   18   9  17  19  12  21   9
Ranulf   9.58	  46   19   4  17  17  13  17   6
Janaff   8.61	  39   13   5  15  17  16  11  10

 

On 6/24/2023 at 8:02 AM, Aircalipoor said:

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

I will say that Jill's +4 Str over Marcia still is quite useful. Killing some Wyverns on EP is quite a lot more useful than damaging all of them, and I don't mind that Jill was able to do a lot of work without using a forge, too. I'm still leaning towards Marcia > Jill overall, though, despite recency bias, since on top of her midgame advantages, Marcia still has the advantage of +9 Res (well, +7 on average) to distinguish herself in the lategame. Obviously, Jill is still the better unit overall right now, but it's worth noting that she isn't better in every single aspect. Being safe against long-range tomes and status staves isn't nothing.

[Uscari]

Well done, it's very clear that Jill with rigged levels and boots can decimate this map when given the proper equipment. That sleep bishop is often what prevents 8 turn routes like this, but if you can manage to dodge and close in that makes a huge difference. I don't personally feel like Marcia even compares to Jill. Her mid-game advantage isn't very important because the mid-game is the easiest part of this difficulty, and she's overkill in that portion of the game. Jill's strength in the late game I feel contributes far more to successful playthroughs, because you really need every stat point. 

What really makes Jill better than Marcia however is the defense, hp, and weapon triangle advantage. Taking 4 less damage from lance using wyvern lords on every turn makes a big difference, and there's no way Marcia could have handled them safely by herself. Having said that, still I agree Marcia's very high resistance compared to other non-magic units gives her a potent niche.

Also I just want to clarify that I wasn't saying you didn't have the durability to beat it, I just meant you didn't have the durability to huddle in a corner and kill all the reinforcements before proceeding, which is how I normally handle clash. Still, I clearly underestimated just how independent Jill can be when it comes to handling all of those scary enemies to the north, I definitely overestimated how many of those wyvern lords have 1-2 range. This has convinced me to invest less in handaxes and more in 1-range forges in future playthroughs.

The next chapters should be a bit easier. Chapter 27 is only difficult at the start and if you sleep/siege tome the thieves at the start, you can prevent them from opening the top part of the map and proceed at your own pace. You'll want to bring two units capable of siege/status staves usage. Chapter 28 is pretty much the chapter where you can farm exp and kill everything. Laguz aren't very scary with their 1 range, no canto, and lack of speed. The final chapter is arguably harder than this one is, but since this isn't an ironman run, there are some well established strategies to clear it quickly, such as Wrath-Resolve Ike, which is not only quick, but very fun to watch.

[ping]

14 hours ago, Uscari said:

I don't personally feel like Marcia even compares to Jill. Her mid-game advantage isn't very important because the mid-game is the easiest part of this difficulty, and she's overkill in that portion of the game. Jill's strength in the late game I feel contributes far more to successful playthroughs, because you really need every stat point. 

Good point that the midgame isn't as tough as some of the earlier and later maps, although I still rather come to the conclusion that Jill vs. Marcia is pretty contested on Maniac. Without my BEXP rigging, Marcia's Spd advantage is a lot more pronounced since on average, Jill just barely hits the Spd cap even with a Speedwing. And while her attack power is lower than Jill's, Marcia can still one-round a fair number of enemies (notably Paladins in Clash!) with a forged Silver Lance.

[Aircalipoor]

Three chapters left and 27 is giving you trouble? The sages are the most annoying along with chapter 25, but its otherwise simplier du to the terrain allowing chokepoints whenever convenient.

 

 

4 turns with 6 units in 10 minutes.

Edited July 15, 2023 by Aircalipoor

[Uscari]

Yeah, I also find that the map isn't too difficult if you can prevent the thieves from opening the doors to the 2nd half of the map, and if you can survive the first wave of enemies that rush you.

If the thieves do open those doors, it will be somewhat tricky clearing all the rooms because siege tomes will be covering every inch of the map, but if you can stop them, you can pretty much exhaust the siege tomes one-by-one at your own pace.

[ping]

Appreciated However, it's more a matter of my easily distracted mind going places (specifically Europa Universalis and then Dragon Age Origins).

Spoiler

I present: A White Sheep that bites back.

And deep, meaningful, morally grey dialogue.

"I seek to understand the dog. We fight alongside each other and I must discover the strength of his heart." - Sten of the Berisaad

But coming back to PoR, I've made two attempts thus far, with the first one failing because I forgot to bring a Restore staff, while the second one...

...didn't like my forgetting the long-range tome guy in the eastern treasure room. Nothing that can't be fixed by more intelligent positioning and/or a Ward staff on Jill, though.

I'm not looking for a completionist approach this time around. Apart from the Resolve scroll and maybe the Laguz Axe, I don't really care that much about the treasure I can get, so I'm just shoving everything up the western hallway with Ike as the rear guard, killing the nearby Swordmaster and a handful of cat Laguz so that my squishies are safe. Worked perfectly fine in that attempt - the only somewhat dodgy part is breaking into the treasure room, since nobody reliably one-rounds the generals in there.

I could stick around longer and get the other chests pretty easily, too, even without Bolting/... usage, since the thieves apparently only open the door and then immediately flee down the stairs without grabbing the treasure. Also, the enemies hidden in the rooms don't get an action on the enemy phase that the thieves open the door, so you have three full turns to position yourself right outside the western door, which is quite doable.

So, depending on how the BK fight will treat me, I'll probably get the chapter done later today, or maybe tomorrow.

[ping]

Here we go:

Chapter 27: Moment of Fate

Spoiler

• Support: Elincia/Geoffrey (C), Jill/Haar (C), Mordecai/Ranulf (C)
• BEXP: Volke (4.97->5, 5 BEXP) - HP, Str*, Skl, Spd
  • Boyd (14.06->15, 269 BEXP) - HP, Skl, Spd, Lck, Res
• 116 BEXP remaining (if I didn't make a mistake, I forgot to write this down)
• Forge: Silver Axe (+5 Mt, +20 Hit) - 9848 gold

As I said, I didn't bother with a "all treasures" clear this time, going for a full shove left instead to make sure I get the Resolve scroll for Ike (and, since I had the actions available for it, Bolganone and the Laguz Axe in the adjacent chests). I opened again with a little dice roll - Soren casting Sleep on the Bolting sage in the centre room. If this attempt hadn't worked out, I maybe would've experimented with a Sleep on turn 2 - as is, the Sage got one cast in during the last enemy phase, i.e. when there was a lot of combat happening already. But since the chance would've only been around 70 at best, it was probably for the better to make the turn 1 cast.

Anyway, with a little bit of weapon trading (Titania taking Jill's +5 Axe for a short while), all the Warriors to the left are immediately dispatched on PP1, with Marcia having the time to pick up Soren and, thanks to Reyson, help him keep up.

Meanwhile, Ike stays back a bit to get rid of some of the enemies coming from the center - one Swordmaster and, more importantly because of their 9 Move, four cats in total on the first two turns.

All in all, it's not terribly difficult to get everybody near the door by turn 3. During the enemy phase, the thieves on the other side open that door, so this is the necessary if you don't kill/disable/block them somehow.

Despite everybody (minus Ike) being around, I do not have the firepower to reliably clear the room immediately. A crit on a General, or Soren proccing Adept, or mayyybe Volke not stealing the Bishop's Sleep staff would do, but alas. The General throws his Spear at Rhys, which allows Ike to take the kill on the next turn.

This is the set-up to clear the map on turn 6: Jill is easily in range to kill the boss (she one-rounds, obviously); Reyson and a number of Paladins are close enough to provide somebody to kill the boss in case he procs Miracle (which he doesn't) and seize the throne. Volke and Marcia (who brought a Chest Key) can grab the Laguz Axe and, just because I can, the Bolganone tome next turn.

Against the MPID_BLACKKNIGHT, I decide to go with the "surely, BK won't trigger Luna twice in a row" gambit on turn 2...

...which works juuust fine. (One) Wrath and Adept proc for Ike, no Luna for BK. I'm not sure how the percentages work out here - if retreat was an option, this obviously was a stupid play, but I don't know how good it is to take these risky attacks to fish for a Wrath crit if you only care for a win.

Mend brings Ike up to 37 HP, which is very necessary since BK does get a Luna proc on his EP attack. Ike kills (well, "kills") on the counterattack. Hurray!

Money may look a bit low, but I do have some stuff to sell left. I think I should be able to afford another two forges.

The Team:

	Lv	  HP  Str Mag Skl Spd Lck Def Res
Ike	20/18.15  56   26*  8  27* 28* 22  24* 19   (+7 HP)
Marcia	21/20	  48   23* 10  26* 28* 17  24* 21   (+7 HP, +2 Def)
Jill	21/20	  51   27*  3  26* 27* 11  27* 12   (+2 Spd, +2 Def, +2 Skl, +2 Mov)

Titania  */18.80  48   23   8  25  25  20  22  17   (+2 Str)
Astrid  21/20	  39   25* 11  26* 27* 22  22  19
Kieran	21/15.92  47   26*  4  17  27* 15  23  14

Boyd	21/16.18  58   27   2  26  25  17  18   9
Volke   18/5.10   38   23*  3  26  22  10  11   6  

Soren	18/19.16  44    3  30* 28* 18  13  11  28*
Rhys	21/12.44  33    2  29* 20  17  20  10  30*
Mist	10/3.92   21    6  15  11  18  12   8  10  (BK fight only)
Reyson	10.93	  28    1  14  16  18  20   6  22

 

[Shadow Mir]

8 hours ago, gnip said:

But coming back to PoR, I've made two attempts thus far, with the first one failing because I forgot to bring a Restore staff, while the second one...

...didn't like my forgetting the long-range tome guy in the eastern treasure room. Nothing that can't be fixed by more intelligent positioning and/or a Ward staff on Jill, though.

Doh, I missed! 

How is chapter 28 gonna be?

[Uscari]

Adept + Wrath is a pretty solid BK killer combo, although I never go for it because I don't find Nasir to be much worth it.

I will say that some have said using the Knight Ring on Ike can make this fight a lot easier. Luna doesn't proc in 2 range, but wrath/adept does. Using the canto from the knight ring to keep Ike at 2 range from the Black Knight ensures he doesn't get screwed by a Luna proc.

Rushing this map is scary because of the sleep bishops and siege tome sages but if you have people up front with sufficient res/luck/hp (Marcia and Titania) to take the hit, you've got a pretty good chance of them missing or at least not killing you.

The next map is easier if you're willing to sit in a corner and let the beasts come to you, but if you insist on rushing it, it might be the hardest chapter you've done so far, because they do throw a ton of highly accurate, high movement targets against you in a short period of time, along with a more than a few long range siege tome/status staff users.

[ping]

3 hours ago, Uscari said:

Rushing this map is scary because of the sleep bishops and siege tome sages but if you have people up front with sufficient res/luck/hp (Marcia and Titania) to take the hit, you've got a pretty good chance of them missing or at least not killing you.

With the centre Bolting Sage disabled, you can actually avoid a lot the siege tome usage thrown at you. I believe I got hit once on EP1 (the guy in the left hallway), once on the penultimate enemy phase (the left one in the upper central room), and then twice again on the last enemy phase (the right one in the same room, plus the hitherto sleeping one, but nobody was standing in both of their ranges).

I haven't taken a look at the next map yet, but I'm certainly curious to see just how many Laguz it'll throw at me.

[ping]

Chapter 28 - Twisted Tower

Spoiler

• Support: Boyd/Titania (A)
• BEXP: Titania (18.80->19, 80 BEXP) - HP, Str, Mag, Skl*, Spd, Lck, Res
  • Kieran (15.92 -> 16, 25 BEXP) - HP, Def
  • 211 BEXP remaining - no useful level-up available.
• Skills: Ike (-Adapt, +Resolve)
• Forge: Silver Bow (+5 Mt, +10 Hit) - 14016 gold

I think this is a pretty good representation of the map.

Although, more realistically, the crucial spot is the five dragons with their ranges overlapping with the three long-ranged tome users at the left edge of the map. I tried to position everybody just outside of the forward sage's range and then bait two siege tomes with Boyd (who they love to target), with Ike and Tibarn taking the point.

As you can count, the northern Sage is seventeen tiles away from Boyd. And as you can see, Ike got a lucky crit on one of the two dragons attacking him.

Unfortunately, I screwed up on the next turn - specifically, I didn't tell Tibarn to go to a certain spot...

...so instead of making sure that Astrid could only be attacked by one dragon, he attacked some harmless bird further to the north. As a result, Astrid needed either a Sol proc or one dodge to survive, and got both. Lucky me.

Thanks to that, finishing the map was an easy task - punching through four tigers isn't all that difficult, with Titania (Laguz Axe) and Tanith (Flame Lance) one-rounding, Astrid and Nasir (with his last point of transformation gauge) combining to kill a third, and... I don't remember who exactly got the fourth. Anyway - you can spot Reyson in the bottom ready to dance for Ike and three other characters, so Jill can take a slight risk and preserve two forged Silver Axe uses.

The beginning of the map isn't as interesting, which is why I kinda skipped over it. Soren took out the two long-ranged sages hidden in the trees; Marcia and/or Jill took them out before the Sleep status expired. For the first turn, Jill (via Rhys) and Kieran (via Pure Water) grabbed Res boosts to avoid getting slept, but after that, I basically just used Restore, as the entire team was getting into the ranges of the two Sleep Bishops.

The biggest danger in this part of the fight honstly comes from the enemy birds using the trees to threaten your squishies. Because of the threat of Sleep, you can't really kill them unless Jill/Marcia/Tanith can canter back over the trees, which makes protecting your squishies tricky at times - especially when both Rhys and Soren are slow enough to be doubled.

As a final side note, I use the remaining Hammerne uses to repair another two Silver Axe forges. I'm going pretty all-in on those for the final map, as opposed to Hand Axe forges, since (1) forged HA's don't one-round and (2) unforged HA's tend to be enough to set up kills on player phase.

So, there we go. Next stop, Ashnard.

The Team:

	Lv	  HP  Str Mag Skl Spd Lck Def Res
Ike	20/19.68  57   26*  8  27* 28* 22  24* 19   (+7 HP)
Marcia	21/20	  48   23* 10  26* 28* 17  24* 21   (+7 HP, +2 Def)
Jill	21/20	  51   27*  3  26* 27* 11  27* 12   (+2 Spd, +2 Def, +2 Skl, +2 Mov)
Tanith	 */17.65  35   19  14  22  25  21  17  18

Titania  */20	  50   24   9  26* 27* 22  23  18   (+2 Str)
Astrid  21/20	  39   25* 11  26* 27* 22  22  19
Kieran	21/17.47  49   26*  4  17  27* 15  25  15
Boyd	21/16.95  58   27   2  26  25  17  18   9

Soren	18/20.00  44    3  30* 28* 18  14  11  28*
Rhys	21/14.62  34    3  29* 21  18  20  12  30*
Nasir	18.87	  56   20  11  23  22  17  24  27
Reyson	11.73	  28    1  14  16  19  21   6  22

 

[Uscari]

Impressive that you cleared this in just 8 turns. I'm surprised Tanith with only 14 magic 1-rounds those laguz using the flame lance, I guess that goes to show how low their res really is.

Clearly I underestimated the use of having 2 fully trained flyers and Tibarn to help clear the more dangerous enemies on this map. I'm so used to seeing them as Paladins without Sol that I miss their potential on maps like these, especially with boots.

How you managed to move Reyson this far forward in 8 turns to get the sieze without him dying is a mystery to me. I guess since pretty much all non-1 range units are magic based, it's not that dangerous as long as he's covered.

For the final map you may have the right idea to go with silver forges instead of handaxes, because Ashnard moves I believe on turn 9, and you are incentivized to push hard in 1 direction to set up a spot so Ike can fight him 1v1. By this point in the game I'm pretty much out of forges because I used them all to deal with Clash. I would not have used hammerne on the forges though, I would have used that on the siege tomes instead. Can be very nice to snipe Dragon's on the final map with bolting.

I can't remember if you gave anyone the Savior skill, but if it's available I would advise taking Wrath off of Ike, and giving him Savior instead. If Ike carries Soren with Savior skill equipped, he'll enjoy that sweet 22 avoid from his A support without putting Soren in danger. You stack that avoid with the bushes and the extra speed you get using Resolve, you'll have an Ike with like 130 avoid, high enough that axe users can't hit him, and all others have like a 5-10% chance. You'll also find that against most enemies, Resolve + Ragnell is enough to 1-round pretty much all the enemies, so wrath becomes a bit overkill.

I've actually tested this strat and have found that Ike + Soren can take on the whole of the final map by themselves by stacking avoid this way. The only threat to it is a Deadeye archer on the right side of the map that has very high hitrate and could put Ike to sleep.

Speaking of which the final map has a lot of enemies with generic skills, Wyverns with adept, Generals with guard, Swordmasters with Astra...the good news is that most of them are on the right side of the map. I recommend pushing left so you have more time to prepare for them.

 

[ping]

7 hours ago, Uscari said:

I'm surprised Tanith with only 14 magic 1-rounds those laguz using the flame lance, I guess that goes to show how low their res really is.

She is a bit Mag-blessed, actually (10 base, 35% growth), and it's pretty tight even so, so your surprise at her one-rounding isn't surprising. She did the same thing in Clash!, too, which she entered with 12 Mag (with 4 level-ups, so that was also ahead of the curve) and came out of with 14: Mostly one-rounding tigers, but on both maps, some tigers would high-roll HP/Res and survive with like 2-3 HP.

7 hours ago, Uscari said:

How you managed to move Reyson this far forward in 8 turns to get the sieze without him dying is a mystery to me. I guess since pretty much all non-1 range units are magic based, it's not that dangerous as long as he's covered.

The hawks and ravens are still a bit of a problem for him, since they tend to threaten the areas behind your frontliners, but yeah - almost everything being 1-range makes it far easier to wall him off consistently.

7 hours ago, Uscari said:

Speaking of which the final map has a lot of enemies with generic skills, Wyverns with adept, Generals with guard, Swordmasters with Astra...the good news is that most of them are on the right side of the map. I recommend pushing left so you have more time to prepare for them.

Yeah, shoving everything left is my initial plan, too, although I've only looked at the map thus far. A Sleep on the siege tome user by the fountain, and then see how much of the map I can ignore.

I think I'll keep Wrath/Resolve on Ike for the time being, hoping for a faster Ashnard kill than Soren's support would allow, but the Saviour strat does look interesting. They do have their A support anyway.

[ping]

Endgame: Repatriation

Spoiler

• BEXP: Nasir (18.87->19, 52 BEXP) - HP, Str, Skl, Spd
  • Boyd (16.95->17, 17 BEXP) - HP, Str, Spd, Lck
  • Mist (3.92->4, 13 BEXP) - HP, Str, Mag, Spd, Lck
  • Kieran (17.47->18, 193 BEXP) - Skl, Def
  • Tanith (17.65->18, 127 BEXP) - Str, Spd
  • Ike (19.68->19.70, 9 BEXP)
  • 0 BEXP remaining.
• Energy Drop: Boyd (Str 28->30)
• Secret Book: Kieran (Skl 18->20)
• Forge: Silver Axe (+5 Mt, +20 Hit) - 9848 gold

Another chapter, another fight started with a sleeping long-range tome user.

Otherwise, the first two turns are basically just shoving everything to the left side of the map. Of interest is Reyson using a Laguz Stone on turn 1, and Mist surviving a Blizzard from the Sage in this general area. She dodged anyway, but her HP+Res would've been sufficient, too.

The first Rescue use on turn 3 isn't exactly the greatest skip of all time, but with the top left Wyvern squad being a pressing issue, I thought it useful to get another offensive powerhouse into the mix. Plus, well, I haven't used any of the three uses yet, so, might as well.

The second Rescue use on turn 4 is a more important one.

It allows Jill to rescue Ike and drop him into Ashnard's range. The downside of this is that both the nearby dragons are going to go up the stairs, but... well, I didn't know that would happen when I dropped Ike, but there will be some room for manoevering, anyway.

The first Ashnard kill comes on the next enemy phase - the sequence was [EP4 - Ashy misses, Ike hits] [PP5 - both hit] [EP5 - Ashy hits, putting Ike in W/R range, Ike gets a Wrath crit].

I make a mistake here - first of all, I probably should've tried and killed one of the dragons while W/R is active, but also, Soren's Physic doesn't actually put Ike out of danger. Angry Ashy deals 31 damage (82 disp. hit), the upper left dragon, who Ike cannot run away from, 22 damage (65 disp. hit), so Rhys needs to whip out Ashera's staff anyway.

Doesn't matter though, Ike gets a hit+crit (22+66 dmg vs. Ashnard's 80 HP) immediately. Victory!

The turncounts:

• Prologue - 4 turns
• Ch.1 - 5 turns
• Ch.2 - 10 turns
• Ch.3 - 8 turns
• Ch.4 - 7 turns
• Ch.5 - 6 turns
• Ch.6 - 15 turns
• Ch.7 - 12 turns
• Ch.8 - 8 turns
• Ch.9 - 17 turns
• Ch.10 - 11 turns
• Ch.11 - 8 turns
• Ch.12 - 9 turns
• Ch.13 - 10 turns
• Ch.14 - 5 turns
• Ch.15 - 7 turns
• Ch.16 - 9 turns
• Ch.17 - 28 turns
• Ch.18 - 11 turns
• Ch.19 - 5 turns
• Ch.20 - 8 turns
• Ch.21 - 17 turns
• Ch.22 - 5 turns
• Ch.23 - 8 turns
• Ch.24 - 7 turns
• Ch.25 - 8 turns
• Ch.26 - 8 turns
• Ch.27 - 8 turns
• Ch.28 - 8 turns
• Endgame - 6 turns

...for a total of 274 turns, if I'm not making any mistakes. Notably high, compared to what I think my usual pace on hard mode is, would be Ch.2 (Rescue), Ch.6 (A Brief Diversion), and Ch.9.

Unit statistics:

0 kills - Mist, Brom, Nephenee, Zihark, Sothe, Makalov, Tormod, Devdan, Reyson, Ulki, Calill, Tauroneo, Largo, Elincia, Tibarn
1 kill - Ranulf
2 kills - Mia, Lucia, Bastian, Geoffey
3 kills - Ilyana, Rolf, Muarim, Janaff, Haar
4 kills - Stefan, Nasir
13 kills - Shinon
14 kills - Oscar, Lethe, Mordecai
16 kills - Rhys
18 kills - Gatrie
21 kills - Volke

...and after that is where the "units that were actually used primarily for their combat" part of the list begins.

As far as the characters before this are concerned, I think that considering my penchant for BEXP rigging, Mist still would've been the better staff bot than Rhys thanks to her better mobility (and, to a lesser extent, survivability once she catches up in levels). This is especially true once Soren got the staff rank to use first Physic and then Silence/Sleep - before that, Rhys's higher Mag was a significant boon, but with Soren ready, I don't think that having a second high-power Physic was all that relevant anymore. And as an offensive staff user, Soren with his higher Skl (and eventually Mag, if only thanks to the power of cocaine) also ended up stronger than Rhys.

Reyson is part of the zero-kill crew, too, of course, but I don't think I need to explain his qualities. I found that Laguz Stones were even more valuable in this playthrough than on Hard, since some of the lategame maps really require a lot of player phase action to remove a full group of enemies from the map.

Tanith wasn't that great in this specific playthrough - partly because I didn't make use of her reinforcements, but also because her stat deficiencies are highlighted a lot more with rigged Marcia and Jill fluttering about. I do appreciate her uncontested usage of the Sonic Sword and Flame Lance though, especially because her above average Mag stat allowed her to one-round tigers in Clash! and Twisted Tower.

Soren's kills are honestly almost exclusively fed kills to level him up, or some random enemy that somebody else didn't one-round beforehand. As a combat unit, he turned out awful, thanks to a Spd stat SEVEN points below his average. I was considering a Thunder forge for him in Twisted Tower to let him hit enemy dragons hard, but dismissed the idea almost immediately because he wouldn't have doubled anything with it. His value in the lategame came exclusively from staff usage, most importantly Sleep staves with which he had a significantly higher hit rate than Rhys.

Kieran was equally screwed on his Skl stat, although that's obviously not the same level of character-ruining as -7 Spd. Still, lower hit rates and Sol proc rates were a bit of a problem, which probably made him the weakest paladin I used in this run.

Astrid was better, although she suffered a little bit from her low HP stat. But she caught up to the team pretty quickly (she promoted during Day Breaks), capped Spd one map after that, and was consistenly a good unit after that. Her access to high-tier bows was quite useful, and her high Skl/Spd/Lck made her pretty reliable even without supports.

Boyd did fall off a little bit, to be honest, even though he finished this high in the kill list. I certainly didn't help him by dropping him on several maps with few deployment slots, but his lower Def and (especially) mobility wasn't really made up by his offensive stats, which were good, but not really better than those of, say, Astrid or Jill, either. He only capped his Str for this final map with an Energy Drop and BEXP level, and his Spd was a bit questionable at times. (Come to think of it, I forgot his +2 Spd from a Speedwing in the last two stat line-ups)

Classic Ike experience: He never really stood out to me throughout the game - his earlygame was pretty good, but that was about it until he got the Ragnell - but he still finishes close to the top of the kill rankings. But honestly, he was mostly a filler unit that you're required to field for the majority of the game, and even with the Ragnell, he was still held back by his low mobility.

I think Titania benefitted from her relatively low XP gain, in a way, since it made it easier for her to finish maps close to a level-up, and thus get a very high ratio of BEXP levels. She didn't even start out with particularly great level-ups (only +1 Str in her first 7 level-ups), but with an Energy Drop and some nicely rigged levels, she stayed competitive throughout the game. A bit worse than the other paladins in the second half of the game, sure, but I don't think I ever fielded her out of favouritism (...well, except for the part where I benched Oscar super early).

Super dominant midgame unit, felt her lower Str cap and slightly lower might on lances towards the later stages of the game. I think chapter 20 is when Jill started to pull ahead of her as the most powerful combat unit on the team, but Marcia was still entirely relevant for the rest of the game, even though she lacked the one-rounding power of Jill and the paladins.

Benefited mightily from BEXP abuse, for sure. She hit her Str/Spd caps at Lv.14 / in Ch.22, which means that she was +4 on her Str and +3 (+2 from a Speedwing) on her Spd at that point. Thanks to that, I do think she was the overall better unit in this playthrough, especially because of the vaguely parabola-shaped difficulty curve of the game. Her ability to one-round stuff that nobody else could (e.g. several Wyverns in Clash!) in addition to her mobility was just amazing.

 

 

[Uscari]

Congratulations! Very clever to use the Rescue staff to skip significant hurdles of the final map. I guess it doesn't matter how well Ike deals with everyone else if he can just kill Ashnard 1v1 before they even arrive!

 

Now that you've beaten Maniac Mode, what do you think of the difficulty? Did you enjoy it? Did you find it a slog?

Edited July 31, 2023 by Uscari

[ping]

11 hours ago, Uscari said:

Did you enjoy it? Did you find it a slog?

Yes.

I said in another thread that PoR MM would be excellent if there was a x8 speed-up button on the emulator. PoR enemy phases are insanely slow in the later stages of the game, so while I had a lot of fun figuring out good openings for the maps, it's also annoying that it takes like 20 minutes just to play the first two turns of a map.

The result is that, despite enjoying myself, I don't know if I'll play through MM a second time, as opposed to, for example, the GBAFE games, which I do revisit once in a while. There's also less of an incentive because using low-tier units in PoR in general. It's too easy because, well, one can just BEXP them to greatness, but it also makes the game even slower if you don't have Jill hacking through a group of wyverns on enemy phase, or if you're using too many non-mounted units and can't outmanoever the enemy.

[Aircalipoor]

If you play it again, you could chose Fixed Mode. It doesn't allow rigging (though you can technically exploit the bexp system), so get a better glimpse of a units average performance rather than their class caps.

Also watch the speedrun. Tons of strategies and units are rather abundant and most of the methods are surprisingly reliable and replicable, even fitting efficiency and LTC occasionally.