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I have always named the litte guy Marf to go with my divine dragon StAngelo, I see no reason to change this tradition.
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Apr 8, 2024 05:37
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Marf :3
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Apr 8, 2024 07:36
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Let's not even pretend we can call it anything other than Marf :3.
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Apr 8, 2024 16:48
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At this point, I don't see how another vote will actually make a difference, but you folks nailed the name right out of the gate. Here's another one for Marf :3.
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Apr 8, 2024 17:15
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Marf :3 is the only real choice.
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Apr 8, 2024 17:37
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Marf :3 is better than my name of Ruffus
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Apr 8, 2024 17:45
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 Chapter 4: A Land in Bloom   What a beautiful place. Isn't it? And no sign of the Corrupted, so that's good. That was quite a trip, crossing the sea all the way from Lythos. I hope you're not worn out. I'm fine. Good, good. Listen, I'm sorry for twisting your arm to come with me. Alfred, it's all right. I wanted to come. How about before we arrive at the castle, you tell me more about this kingdom of yours? Happy to! Let's see... Firene is one of the four nations of Elyos, in the southwest. Our people value peace above all else. We haven't seen war for centuries. You must come from a long line of capable leaders. That's kind of you to say. Peace doesn't always come easy. Mother had to hammer out a nonaggression pact with our neighbors. The pact says there won't be war between us, Solm, and Brodia. Right ─ Solm, the Queendom of Freedom and Brodia, the Kingdom of Might. You've got it. Solm is an open-minded country. They've always had good relations with Firene. He's always launching attacks on Elusia to expand his own territory. I take it Elusia isn't in the alliance. No. Honestly, they're so far away, we don't interact with them too much. We know it's snowy there, with long winters... And that some Elusians worship the Fell Dragon. The Fell Dragon? It's troubling, I know. But...people can believe what they believe. Sorry... I didn't bring it up to turn you against Elusia. It's not them I hate ─ it's the Fell Dragon. Him and the one who killed my mother.A surprisingly nuanced take from Alear for a guy that didn't know anything about the world a chapter or two ago, but I guess "Actually yeah, gently caress them and their entire country" doesn't exactly vibe with the tone the game is setting.  Oh, sure. It's the "Ring of the Caring Princess." Doesn't look like anything special. Until I met you and Marth, I thought the Emblems were legends. I can't wait to tell my sister they exist! She'll really be knocked for a loop. You have a sister? Yeah ─ the princess of Firene, Céline. She's at the castle with Mother right now. Princess Céline. I look forward to meeting her. Just call her Céline. I'm sure you two will get along great. Something's off. What is it? I think there might be trouble ahead. Ah, I understand that look of despair. He's realized that the camera has moved to an overhead view, and there's only one thing that can mean. The Corrupted. They're everywhere. I can't stand to see them overrunning this peaceful town. I have to drive them away. Divine One, will you help me? Of course.Meanwhile...   Princess Céline. I beg you to make your retreat. We'll handle this. More of the fiends might be on the way. Hurry! Louis! Chloé! You can't possibly expect me to─ It is our sworn duty to protect the princess. We will hold the line for you as long as we must! You have to leave. If you should fall here, who warns Prince Alfred of the invasion to come? I concede the point. But I'll return for you both. Please hold out until then!*she leaves*  Apologies, Chloé. Might I say, I'm a bit disappointed I didn't get to see you run off with Her Highness yourself. A knight should never leave his princess's side. The sooner we win, the sooner that will come to pass. What say you, Chloé? Shall we? Yes! Let's! And so we come to our first prep screen. As with many early-game maps, there aren't that many decisions we need to make here - we don't need to bench anyone to get under the deployment limit, and we have no real reason to be shuffling inventories yet. That said, we do need to decide on a home for Sigurd, and for a single chapter we might as well just slap him on Alfred.  Again, we'll do the full deep dive after this chapter once we're back at home base, but the short version is that Sigurd boosts Dex, Def, and Build, with a fixed point of Move. Gallop is the skill that boosts your move by 5 while engaged, and being a Cavalry-type unit means Alfred gets a +2 to that, pushing him up all the way to 13. This is less abusable for us, because we have to be concerned with trivial things like "not getting swarmed by 50 dudes and immediately dying," but is still extremely handy to have in our back pocket.  Anyway, let's get the lay of the land. To the east, a soldier and a pair of knights being backed up by an archer and a pair of soldiers just offscreen on that bridge. As we saw with the boss of last chapter, knights are not to be taken lightly, even with the benefit of effective weaponry.  In the north, we have a lot of high-mobility enemies. A pair of axe cavaliers, a sword peg knight, and a knight to keep you honest.  Alfred, Boucheron, and Alear will be leading the charge north. The remainder of the army will head east to rendezvous with Louis and Chloe.  Speaking of, they've found themselves in a bit of a pickle. Chloe can take maybe one shot from the archer, and there's a pair of mages off to the east. It's not hard to see what the game wants from you here, but we'll deal with that in a second.  Base Class: Knight (Lances) Class Type: Armored Personal Skill: Admiration - If there are two female allies within two spaces, Louis takes -2 damage. Base Stats: HP: 30 (75% + 20%) Str: 13 (40% + 15%) Mag: 0 (0% + 0%) Dex: 11 (25% + 10%) Spd: 3 (25% + 0%) Def: 16 (50% + 30%) Res: 1 (0% + 0%) Luck: 4 (25% + 0%) Build: 8 (15% + 5%) Louis has one job, and that is to be goddamn invincible against physical attacks. Certainly, this is at least partially because IntSys made knights insane in Engage, but even without the class bonuses, Louis is just a really loving good knight. 16 defense is enough to shrug off just about anything outside of bosses in the early-game, and he is both strong and accurate enough that he can get away with being a one-hit wonder, especially if he hits that 25% speed growth enough to not be doubled by literally everything. The last time a unit like this was this good out of the box is probably Oswin, and where Oswin was primarily carried by his massive bases, Louis has the benefit of his growths being exactly where he wants them. So yeah, he's pretty good.   Base Class: Pegasus Knight (Lances) Class Type: Flying Personal Skill: Fairy-Tale Folk - If there is a male and female ally within two spaces, Chloe deals +2 damage. Base Stats: HP: 26 (75% + 5%) Str: 8 (25% + 10%) Mag: 4 (35% + 5%) Dex: 13 (40% + 10%) Spd: 13 (55% + 10%) Def: 5 (30% + 0%) Res: 9 (25% + 10%) Luck: 10 (25% + 10%) Build: 5 (5% + 0%) Chloe is a lot like Clanne, in that her growths don't really match the class she's in. Her default promotion adds Staves to her repertoire, something that helps to get some utility out of that magic growth and a flying healer is never a bad thing, but suffice to say that the error bars are very wide. As we saw last chapter (and will continue to see in this one), it's very easy for a mixed unit like Chloe or Clanne to get nothing but their other primary offensive stat, and we're a long way from getting something a Flame Lance or Levin Sword to take advantage of it. Chloe can very easily turn into a flying death machine, especially if she gets moved to a dedicated physical class to offset her low strength growth. She can just as easily be forced into strictly being a support unit, especially since she absolutely does not have the build to use the heavier lances if she gets strength-screwed. One side note: you may notice that groups of units that come together tend to have...synergistic skills, for lack of a better way of putting it. Obviously, there are far more female units in the game than just Chloe and Celine, but it's also not a coincidence that Louis' skill is perfectly suited for him to be deployed with them, considering our lack of options right now. Alear's whole group is similar, with Clanne, Framme, and Vander all getting bonuses for being near Alear. It'll be less common as the game goes on, but it's a neat idea when they do it, and later groups of retainers do tend to have similar types of skills, even when they aren't directly synergizing like this.  Céline? What are you doing here? I thought you were with Mother. I was, but... Alfred, the Elusian army is marching on the castle. What? Why? I cannot say. Before they arrived, Mother sent me to warn you. But then we were ambushed on our way to Florra Port... Louis and Chloé stayed behind so that I might have a chance to escape. Please, we must hurry back to them! Absolutely. Yes. Mother gave it to me. Why do you... Goodness gracious! The Divine Dragon?! You're here, you're...awake! May I say, it is truly an honor! The words... They're coming to me... Care for us, Emblem of Echoes!  I am Emblem Celica. I detest violence...but I will always fight to defend the innocent. Thank you for answering my call. So...this is the Emblem that was in Firene's ring. Emblem Celica. How marvelous... Divine One, with your blessing ─ and hers, of course ─ I would like to fight by Celica's side. I must protect the people of this village and ensure Louis and Chloé's safety.  Well, it's better than letting the AI try and keep Louis and Chloe alive at least.   Base Class: Noble (Tomes/Swords) Class Type: Mystical Personal Skill: Gentle Flower - All allies within two spaces recover 50% more HP when they use an item to heal. Base Stats: HP: 22 (50% + 0%) Str: 7 (35% + 5%) Mag: 9 (25% + 10%) Dex: 9 (30% + 5%) Spd: 10 (45% + 5%) Def: 5 (30% + 5%) Res: 7 (40% + 10%) Luck: 11 (50% + 20%) Build: 4 (5% + 0%) On paper, Celine is in the class that Clanne desperately wants, because you can call her a mage with a sword or a mercenary with tomes, and neither is all that wrong. In theory, she has the bases to make either work, but in practice, she is far too squishy to see a lot of direct combat and her 4 build means anything that isn't a slim sword will weigh her down. Barring an extremely good set of level rolls, she's pretty much destined to be...well, Clanne, right down to having nearly identical growths and slightly better bases. She does get Ignis as a class skill, allowing her to add half her strength or magic to an attack (whichever is the off-stat), but that's about it. Whether or not that's enough to justify her use, I'll leave as an exercise to the reader.  On to the map itself, our most pressing problems are with Chloe and Louis, so we might as well start with them. Chloe is just strong enough to take out these mages in one go, and it pulls her out of archer range for good measure. Louis goes to the village behind her and gets a cool 2000 gold for his trouble.  On the eastern front, we have an axe knight and a soldier immediately bearing down on us. Magic hits them hard, but crucially, not hard enough to actually get a kill.  Equally obnoxious, the soldier has just enough HP to survive a swing from both Vander and Etie (who does another 10 damage).  This is a weird setup, but I think we can make this work. The soldier should see that Etie can't counter and go after her, which Framme will chain guard. The knight can suicide into whomever he wishes (probably Clanne), and we're just out of range for the other knight and archer. With no other real options for attacking here, Celine gets a javelin from the village.  To the north, we'll engage in some Boucheron shenanigans. Not only do we get to break this guy, Alfred's follow-up will get a bonus hit.  Or at least, that was the plan. gently caress 'em up, Bouch.  I don't remember if this was implemented in Three Houses or not, but a small detail that I like is that when you have fortifications like this on the map, an enemy that takes position in one will show up on it at the start of combat. Do your best, little archer.  As expected, the soldier takes the bait on Etie, and Clanne takes one on the chin, before giving us the most Technically True statement possible.  If you didn't immediately save the villages, the game gives you a...let's call it a "subtle reminder" about the mechanic. Who doesn't love a good village pillage?   Alear, where did you get that? It was in the Ring Vault. Vander found it after the battle at Lythos Castle. Why? Do you know what this is? The Draconic Time Crystal. An artifact capable of reversing time itself. There is a limit to its power, but still, it could give us a keen advantage. Time Crystal, huh? So it's not just a pretty piece of jewelry. Relax. Since we have it, I suggest we put it to use.Spoiler: It's the Divine Pulse. You get 10 charges per map to go back and redo moves if things end poorly for you. Note that RNG is preserved - if you get killed by something or miss an important attack, it will happen again until you change the actual sequence of events leading up to it.  We've got friends closing in fast, but once again, Chloe is just strong enough to deal with this mage. Surge is a unique spell, slightly stronger than most magic and guaranteed to hit, but only at melee range. Also crucial: this bush she's standing on is just out of range for every single enemy in the immediate area minus the pegasus, whom Louis will be dealing with.  Back with Team Alear, we can whack this guy and steal his hand axe, which we promptly give to Boucheron. With double the range, he effectively triples the area that he can contribute to a backup attack, making his chip damage add up that much faster.   Look, Framme's level wasn't that great either, but at least she got Str/Spd. What the gently caress am I supposed to do with this, Etie?  There's a couple knights coming this way, so let's bust out our new toy, shall we? Celica comes with a number of magic benefits, but the one we care about right now is "Warp Ragnarok."  First we need to pick a target. We need to be within two tiles of an enemy, but otherwise can go anywhere within a 10-tile range.  Once we have our unfortunate victim decided, we come to them and shove massive chunk of magic damage down their throat. It's like Bolting or Meteor, but with a more personal touch.     It's very satisfying, or at least it would be if Celine wasn't a single point short of killing these guys.  Chloe heads south to finish the job, while Louis takes up position in the choke point. He misses this attack, but that's not really the point here. Thanks to the windmill, neither the archer nor the cavalier can get past, so they'll just ineffectually bounce off his armor.  Clanne is also just shy of a kill here, but that's fine. Framme patched him up, he can take another hit if he needs to.   Did Alear need to use hand axe backup shenanigans? No. But Alfred did, and it's fun to set them up.  It turns out, that soldier had a juicier target than Clanne. Let's see if we can salvage this.  The time crystal allows you to go back several turns and select any specific point that you want to jump back to. Our story went awry when Celine overextended, so let's go back to that.  This time, Chloe hangs out in the river where no one can reach her. The soldiers will live...or one of them will, anyway, but Chloe lives to fight for another turn.  We're losing ground, are we? Well, that's easily remedied. Release the Corrupted! A pair of knights spawn between us and the boss, heading toward Alear's group. Not having a mage in that group is going to be rough.  From here, we're more or less just cleaning up. Alear and co will (slowly) wear down the knights, as the rest of the group cuts up through the middle of the map. And along the way, we can make a reunion happen. Chloe, I am relieved to see you're all right. You too, Princess Celine! I was able to find Alfred - and the Divine Dragon, no less! After that, the Divine one summoned Emblem Celica from within my ring. A noble dragon, summoning ancient spirits to save the day... That sounds just like a fairy tale! It does. Now that I have this power, let's give this story a happy ending, shall we? Let's do it. These pegasi that spawn behind us are pretty rude, though. Funny, but rude.    We get a handful of levels as we take out the trash, some of them better than others. Alfred getting speed is good, but he's going to need a lot more of it if he's going to hang on to a roster spot.  Lance Power is at least slightly more interesting than Sword Agility because generally lance users are either fast enough that they don't mind losing a bit of avoid, or are so slow that they were going to be hit anyway, so it doesn't matter either way. Is it good? No. But as far as basic emblem skills go, it at least has a niche for someone like Louis.  This mage makes approaching the boss require at least a little care, since the two will be more or less on top of each other. With a patched-up Chloe, though, we can neutralize him pretty easily.   Sometimes, you just want to absolutely ruin a boss's day. Say what you will about how overpowered Emblems are, whether they overshadow the actual units they're attached to or not, but drat does it feel good to make a man just melt. I would have won, you know... If they'd given me real soldiers... End of Chapter   Alear, you gotta pay more attention. This is like the third time in four chapters that you've been attacked after routing the enemy, it's just embarassing at this point.    Thankfully, someone is watching our back.    It was nothing, really! I only did what anyone else would do. Are you here by yourself? I am. I saw the fighting and thought I could help. You're braver than I am. I can't stand the Corrupted. I was so startled I couldn't think. You really did save my life. I see... Oh, I haven't introduced myself yet. I'm the Divine Dragon Alear. Veyle... Might I interrupt? What is it? Even with the Corrupted gone, it may not be safe for her out here. Perhaps we should escort her home or to an inn. That's a good idea. Hey, Veyle, do you live around here? She's gone...Our mysterious savior, gone as soon as she appears. Rest assured, this is not the last we'll see of Veyle as the game goes on, but it'll be a while before we get any real answers.  Céline, did you see a girl pass this way? Small with long hair? Barefoot? No, I'm afraid I didn't see anyone matching that description. OK, thanks. Did you need something? I wanted to thank you. Alfred told me that you accepted Firene's request for aid. And your help in the battle was the difference between victory and defeat. Thank you, truly. Don't mention it. Alfred and I are friends. I was happy to help. Friends? He said that? Imagine speaking so casually with the Divine Dragon... Please, allow me to apologize on his behalf. There's no need to put me on a pedestal. I just woke up, and the world is new to me. I make mistakes like anyone. Is that so? I thought surely the Divine Dragon would be an all-seeing, all-powerful being. But here I find that you are rather more...human than I expected. Perhaps we can be friends. Then what do you say, Céline? Friends? I would be honored.
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Apr 8, 2024 22:28
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Wow. Even by the standards of this franchise Celine has a really stupid outfit. Also, another mysterious waif with two-toned hair, let's all pretend to be surprised when she turns out to be another dragon.
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Apr 8, 2024 23:30
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Celine does have a niche, and it's that it's possible to get a levin sword very early in the game, which she's perfectly built to use. It's not enough to carry her long-term, but it gives her a big power spike right at the start of the game. She also does respectably as a monk, with her balanced offensive growths, but you unfortunately aren't able to make more monks for a very, very long time. And Chloe in my experience is never not a monster in human form.
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Apr 8, 2024 23:44
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My first Chloe was very good, my second one spent almost the entire game as a staffbot until I finally got her a Flame Lance and she was...okay after that, but by that point killing things wasn't her job, it was just a nice bonus when she could snipe something.
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Apr 8, 2024 23:56
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Louis and Chole are aces, they join strong and stay strong. I am glad Armor Knights in this game are genuinely good at their role, and with Emblem Rings like Sigurd you can easily fix their wack movement. Everyone else having nerfed Move in this game though does help them out a bit. Just out of curiosity, do you plan to do any major reclassing or do you want each unit to try and stick to their designated role?
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Apr 8, 2024 23:57
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Ah, here are the first 3 good early game units you get. These three will save you a LOT of headaches by the power they bring in the early game. I actually consider their carry effect to be better than Vander's, the actual Jeigan. Celine: Starting off with the weakest of the trio, she's basically Clanne +. Speedy mage with somewhat anemic magic and an oddly high strength growth that'll come to no use. That sounds awful, and it hinders her, but the important part is that at an equal level she basically has a stat advantage where it counts. She's more durable to the point where she often survives an extra hit, and has more magic to work with. That's a crucial difference to allow her to Warp Ragnarok to just make things easier on you (there's a very strong opportunity on the very next map). She falls off like a sack of bricks off a cliff later on, but is immensely useful in the early stages. Later-joining character that is just flatly superior to an early recruit (in this case, Clanne), may be a recurring theme as time goes on.... Louis: So the majority of your units have been frail and bad at taking hits up to this point. Thank you, brick wall, for your timely intervention. Just like Alfred, he'll be doubled by most everyone. Unlike him, he won't be getting murdered because of that. He even has enough HP to survive a mage double (though he certainly won't like it) early on. And due to the armor knight passive being immune to breaks, he doesn't fear Axe users. In fact he tends to like them since they'll still attack him due to still doing a little damage. The one problem he has on Maddening is that he's TOO durable against a decent number of enemies. On Maddening, if a unit does 0 damage, they ignore the unit. To get around this, you'll end up loving to see a backup unit in a crowd of regular units. Backup units will still walk up to Louis to setup the backup attack, and will still try to smack him even if they're doing 0. Then others, even if they do 0, will attack Louis anyways due to the backup chip, allowing Louis to do a nice softening set of counter-attacks. And yes, he's Alfred + in function, again. Chloe: The goddess. High growths, good bases, but with offensive stats that tend to lag a bit. If you toss her the Marth ring, then suddenly you have a psychotic doubling machine, with the extra half-doubles generally giving her double damage to one-round a great deal of things. And makes her a good counter vs axe units when engaged. Even if you don't, she'll still delete mages happily for you, weather the storm of numerous sword units, and be your only flyer for the early game. Oh, and her passive is really good as a controllable way to just... increase her damage. For free. On a unit that often doubles. That sounds fair.... However, there's a secret that's an extension of the Marth ring. She really, really, wants to switch to Swords. The Levin Sword just calls out to her, with her magic growth. And as Cythereal mentions, you can get an early Levin Sword. She's by far your best candidate for the first Master Seal, because unpromoted flyer class growths are awful and the promoted ones are among the highest growths in the game. Switch her to Swords for a Sword/Staff flyer, and suddenly you have a death machine. Use Iron/Steel for a mage, and zap everything else. Watch the body count rise. Enjoy.
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Apr 9, 2024 00:26
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Artix posted:My first Chloe was very good, my second one spent almost the entire game as a staffbot until I finally got her a Flame Lance and she was...okay after that, but by that point killing things wasn't her job, it was just a nice bonus when she could snipe something. As I mentioned in my post, Chloe is weird in that she really rather use Swords. The reason why she sucked with the Flame Lance there... is because Flame Lances are AWFUL. They have 3 less MT, 10 less Hit , and have 5 more weight than a Levin Sword. It's like we're back to FE4 with non-sword weapons being inferior for no reason.
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Apr 9, 2024 00:31
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Celine has two very odd niches. Her promoted class is one of two mages with a proc skill, with the other one being pretty... not good. It's also the only Mystical class with Swords, which means she can use Lodestar Rush with Greatswords to annihilate anything she looks at. Neither of these are outstanding, but they're things for her to do. Celine!Lord just has pretty poor class growths overall; she's more consistent as either Sage or a phys class, though I tend to get lucky with her. Chloe and Louis are both monstrous right out of the gate, though as mentioned Chloe will want to go Sword Falcon over Lance Falcon. Celica is... probably the worst emblem in the game. That's contentious because Emblem Leif is extremely player-hostile, but Celica is just in the wrong game. As soon as Warp Ragnarok stops being able to outright one-shot things, it's just a tool for putting yourself into very bad situations. Seraphim is her saving grace, since unlike Awakening where "effective against Risen" only meant Entombed and Revenants, "effective against Corrupted" means literally any Corrupted enemy.
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Apr 9, 2024 01:02
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Faillen Angel posted:As soon as Warp Ragnarok stops being able to outright one-shot things, it's just a tool for putting yourself into very bad situations. Personally I find it very useful as a repositioning skill that happens to require an enemy to work. Self-warp can be a very powerful trick, completely leaving aside the attack, especially if you put Celica on someone with staves.
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Apr 9, 2024 01:08
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I think the common jeigan comparison for celica is pretty apt. She's really strong when you first get her, but her role later in the game has fallen off hard, where very few magic units can survive warping off on their own, the warp doesn't kill, and enemies are chunky enough that her other talents don't get to shine as much either. I'd definitely put her above Leif because she has that early game utility, though.
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Apr 9, 2024 01:13
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Celine and Chloe are two of the most versatile units in the game. It's not immediately obvious but the same growth percentage in different stats can either be good or bad. For example, a unit with 35% strength growth has above average strength growth, but a 35% speed growth is pretty sluggish. This is partly because class growths skew a little bit more towards providing more strength or magic depending on the class. Celine as a result can hit pretty hard in a more physically focused class or can stick with magic and target foes typically lower magic defense. Chloe will be devastating with magic and magic weapons and can leverage her extremely high speed to be effective in physical classes as well. Really Chloe is in contention for best character in the game.
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Apr 9, 2024 01:40
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Celica is an incredible emblem early that falls off a cliff later, but it is a huge deal in the early game which makes it still good. Louis falls off as well later in the game and I’ve basically never taken him past the halfway point, but by god will he carry you there if you want. Chloe is one of the best units in the game and if you’re going to invest serious exp or resources in any of the early game goobers she’s probably got the absolute best claim to it.
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Apr 9, 2024 02:15
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CullenDaGaDee posted:Just out of curiosity, do you plan to do any major reclassing or do you want each unit to try and stick to their designated role? My rough plan is that I'm gonna call the shots until Chapter 6 or so, then we'll take stock of who's worth keeping, who might be salvageable with emblems or class changes, and who's gonna get benched the second we have viable alternatives. Hard is not that hard, as long as we don't do anything really stupid I should be able to accommodate at least a few requests.
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Apr 9, 2024 02:33
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I've used these three the entire game. Louis may as well be invincible against physical attacks, especially with Ike. Chloé is an engine of destruction, I gave her Sigurd so she could get anywhere on the map she ever wanted to be. I didn't think of Marth but that seems great too. Meanwhile my Celine... wasn't that great, mine ended up with kind of unflattering stats on both sides. But she still had her niche. Beyond obviously Alear, they were the first units I didn't bench for better ones as soon as I could.
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Apr 9, 2024 03:02
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Chloe is ridiculous enough that any of the emblems could be useful, you could even justify Celica for the movement and the option to use Seraphim vs Knights or something before the advent of the Levin Sword.
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Apr 9, 2024 03:44
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Celine's outfit is fabulous and I will absolutely die on this hill.  She is kinda unfortunate as a unit but if you invest hard in her and/or she gets really good level ups, she fills some weird unique niches rather well. Not at all good past the earlygame on a fixed growths maddening playthrough but here she might just turn out excellent. Sword Gryphon Chloe is great, Wyvern Chloe is great, weird builds like Martial Master Chloe are great, Chloe is just great. She's one of the best early fliers in the entire series in my opinion and that's a class of unit that's almost always good at minimum. Emblem Celica falls off pretty hard but if nothing else she's a statstick for mages that can provide the occasional effective engage weapon attack, and considering she's one of like 3 total non-DLC emblems that give mag, that's worth it if nothing else. Lances, in general, are in a really weird position in Engage. They're in the middle of swords and axes one the speed/hit/accuracy vs damage scale, which means they don't play well to either extreme, and they just have less utility options than either. Axes get more effective weapons, Swords get the far superior Levin Sword to the awful Flame Lance. When given a choice, there is no character in the game that wants to have lances over any other option, other than the classes that are restricted to them. You'll still want one or two characters able to take advantage of the lances you do get, because resources are limited and the game gives you several solid ones, but the Well makes that much less of an issue.
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Apr 9, 2024 04:17
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Timerra will is the ultimate form-over-function pick for me in Fire Emblem and I'd have a hard time convincing myself not to use her in spite of everything working against her.
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Apr 9, 2024 04:20
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I get it's probably a realish term but for some reason that's probably tied into deepseeded sexism the term "Queendom" isn't something I can take super seriously Also like my funny thing about my and Celine and her ability to use swords is that when I used it, I would use it with Levin swords even though she know uses Tomes (breaking axe users and arts protection mostly), I feel like she falls afoul of game developers over valuing how useful it is for a character to be a mixed attacker (hint it's never as big as you think, because one will be better then the other like 90+% of the time, I almost never used a sword with Robin in awakening for that exact reason). I have an irrational like of Clanne despite being objectively bad, like I usually make him Axe Mage Knight or something.
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Apr 9, 2024 06:11
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Artix posted:My first Chloe was very good, my second one spent almost the entire game as a staffbot until I finally got her a Flame Lance and she was...okay after that, but by that point killing things wasn't her job, it was just a nice bonus when she could snipe something. That's because the flame lance sucks. Chloé is excellent if she's the first unit to promote and handed the early Levin sword.
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Apr 9, 2024 06:45
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weso12 posted:I get it's probably a realish term but for some reason that's probably tied into deepseeded sexism the term "Queendom" isn't something I can take super seriously. i immediately noticed that Firene is described as a kingdom despite its current monarch being a queen, so the fact that Solm isn't just another Kingdom is a deliberate choice. I forget if the game ever elaborates on that, though. Also Céline's greatest power is having a ridiculous outfit and you should never reclass her for something as measly as strict mechanical superiority.
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Apr 9, 2024 11:53
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Iunno, she looks really funny as a Warrior, the mismatch is fantastic.
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Apr 9, 2024 19:34
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I remember thinking it would be nice if any units in this game had any bloody build
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Apr 9, 2024 21:53
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Nissin Cup Nudist posted:I remember thinking it would be nice if any units in this game had any bloody build This is why I champion Clanne unironically; his entire build being focused on Mage Knight, which is +3 build and also a skill that gives speed, means he can hold heavy weapons with little to no penalty. Also Bouch. Gotta love the Bouch.
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Apr 10, 2024 00:12
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Intermission 2: The Somniel  Before we head back to the Somniel, we need to handle a little bit of Very Important Business.  Forget "pet the dog," you can just take the dog with you. This is probably someone's pet, but if the Divine Dragon says times are tough and he needs Fido for the war effort, are YOU going to say no?  We could adopt other animals if we were so inclined, but there's not really a reason to unless you have a personal attachment to one, for reasons that will make sense once we get back to base.  Hm? Name's Durthon. I'm an armorer. And this here's Anisse, purveyor of goods. We saw you tradin' thumps with those things. Figured you might be in the market for supplies. Yes. If you need, we'd be happy to provide you with quality weapons and items. Anything to defeat those creatures. They pose a terrible threat to traveling merchants like us. How would you feel about moving to our base? You can sell your wares from there. Ahem, Divine One... What? We don't have any facilities. These two could be a good addition. You're gonna let us open shops at your base? If you'd like to. We'll need plenty of weapons and items from here on out. It's a haven. You won't find any creatures there. You got yourself a bargain! Can't wait to do business together. Thank you for this. I will do my utmost to ensure you receive the finest items. What, did you just have that in your pockets or something? You've been holding out on us, Vander!  Back at base, lot of things are now open to us, but we'll start with one of the most important ones. Emblems are capped every five levels until you go back to the Somniel and have a Bond Conversation. It is good that we can talk after I spent so long silently watching over you, Alear. I know what you mean. I'm really glad to have you at my side, supporting me in person. Okay, so... "conversation" is a strong word, but they are all unique for each combination of characters and emblems, so that's not...nothing...? More importantly, BL5 opens up skill inheritance, a core part of how we break the game over our knee.  Durthon and Anisse have opened the armory and item shop respectively in the main plaza. These are the only shops that we get in the game, so they'll update their inventories roughly every 3-4 chapters (usually coinciding with when we clear a country's story missions).   At some point in the near future, we'll want to grab that Illuminate staff (or at least a torch or two) but for right now we'll just grab that spare hand axe and javelin.  To the east of the main plaza, strength training is now available.  Each of these has a short minigame that gives you a small boost to Strength, HP, and Dex respectively. It's kind of comical how the game frames this as some sort of decision you have to make, because +2 Strength is way more impactful than +2 HP or +2 Dex will ever be, and there is literally no reason to not do push-ups every single time.   South of the training yard, we have the stable. Here, we can select up to five animals to laze around the yard, each of which will give us a different present every time the Somniel gets refreshed. Cats give you fish, chickens give you eggs, etc. It's a cute little system, but dogs give you ingots for forging, so there is no reason to not have five dogs at all times.  Inside the cafe, we have the donation board. You can send a big chunk of cash to a country to get bigger rewards from the after-map exploration and unlock new animals for adoption. It is very important not to overextend yourself with donations; even the first level of donations costs a cool five grand, and we only get money when we finish up a country. That said, L2 is pretty cheap in the grand scheme of things, and getting double rewards for ingots is absolutely worth the expense in the long run.  Finally, we have the ring vault. Here, we can do skill inheritance and create Bond Rings, both of which are critically important.  Skill inheritance allows you to pick up an Emblem's skills for yourself, provided that: A) You have reached the required bond level for that skill (minimum BL5 to inherit skills at all) and B) You have the SP to afford it. You get SP with each action you take in battle (or by using a consumable), but only if you have a ring equipped, so it can take a long time to build up for something expensive like Break Defenses at a cool 2000 SP. Note that there are multiple levels of the same skill - Sword Agility 2 outright replaces Sword Agility 1 if you inherit it, but if you inherit a low-level version of a skill, it knocks the cost of that skill off the price of the higher-level version. For now, we're going to pick up Avoid +10 because it comes with no drawbacks and we already get Perceptive by having Marth equipped. It's a cheap one if we choose to move on from him, though.  So if you need a ring to get SP and learn skills, what about everyone who doesn't have an emblem? Enter Bond Rings.  These are generated via an in-game gacha and serve to showcase some of the notable side characters from each game, complete with their original art (within reason, Marth uses Shadow Dragon art and Celica uses the Echoes art). These bond rings give small stat bonuses and allow the user to collect SP even if there aren't enough Emblems to go around. Higher levels give better stats (and very rarely come with their own skill), but given enough bad rings and bond fragments, we can eventually merge our way up to an A or S ring. So with all that out of the way, let's finally talk about our Emblems.  Marth Stat Boosts: Dex (1-4), Speed (1-4), Strength (1-3) Weapons:
Inheritable Skills:
Engage Skills
Marth is all about getting in extra hits and not getting hit in the process. Almost all of his skills give avoid bonuses (especially if you're doing the attacking), and he thrives on units that are either already fast, or just fast enough that they need one little push to get over the doubling threshold (see Alear in Chapter 1). Unyielding is okay as far as survival mechanics go, but it'll be a looooong time before we see the upgraded versions of it, and 20% healing isn't gonna cut it against anything that can actually hit the person with Marth's bonuses on a regular basis. Of the characters we have now, Alear is still probably the best candidate to use Marth, but any physical unit with even passable speed would love to have him.  Sigurd Stat Boosts: Def (1-4), Dex (1-4), Build (1-3), Move +1 Weapons:
Inheritable Skills:
Engage Skills
Sigurd is a little weird, but ultimately all about movement and how you choose to utilize that. Canter lets him get in and out of trouble with relative ease, Momentum encourages you to strike at far targets for a bigger bonus, and Gallop is the equivalent of putting on 6 pairs of boots at will, with all the tactical options that opens. You'd be hard-pressed to come up with a unit that doesn't want a little extra movement in their back pocket, but Sigurd generally matches best with units that are already mobile to take advantage of Momentum (Alfred, Chloe, etc) or are capable of surviving without any real support. Taking a unit like Louis and letting him zip around the battlefield with 10 move is not only hilarious to see, it lets him get to chokepoints long before the game expects you to be there and he doesn't really care about having friends with him unless he runs into mages.  Celica Stat Boosts: Magic (2-5), Res (1-4), Strength (1-3) Weapons:
Inheritable Skills:
Engage Skills
Celica is our first magical emblem, and while she's very, very good in the opening sections, she has a bad habit of falling off pretty hard later on, mostly because the stuff she does just doesn't scale well as the game goes on. Marth has big chunks of his kit devoted to getting extra hits and boosting avoid, Sigurd has huge movement buffs and can hit multiple enemies in a line... Celica mostly just Hits A Dude Really Hard With Magic™. That's not to say that's a bad skill! You can get a lot of mileage out of "hit a dude real hard," but it can't be the only thing you can do, and that's where Celica meets her downfall. For now, she'll primarily be used to patch up units that have failed to get any magic on their own. There won't be a ton of competition for her, but Tome Proficiency opens some interesting doors for class changing if we were so inclined. Chloe probably wants staves more than she wants tomes, but she can absolutely make it work as a flying mage for a couple turns. Naturally, Clanne, Framme, and Celine would all appreciate the extra magic that Celica offers (and it would give Framme a real attack for good measure), but she can only go to one of them, and some of them are in deeper holes than others. *coughClannecough*  Finally, on the south side underneath the Somniel, we have...this.  Ah, so you have found it at last. Vander? What do you know about this little one? Not much, unfortunately. It began to appear shortly before you awoke from your slumber. Queen Lumera once said it is something of a guardian spirit for the Somniel. She claims to have played with it in her youth. She did?! So this creature has been alive for a very long time. You know, I do feel a sort of...affinity toward it. It seems to have taken a liking to you as well, Divine One. Would it please you to care for it? If it is truly the guardian spirit of the Somniel, doing so may bring some manner of benefit. What a great idea. Now that I've met it, I'd like us to be friends. Let's see... I'll call you... You did this, thread. I hope you're happy.  It's nice to meet you! I hope you like your new name, Marf :3. It looks well pleased. Don't forget to say hello to it when next you see it around. But let's be real, I know what everyone's here for re: Marf.     A couple supports for the road. I do not suggest either of them, but they're in the video.  Prep screen! I've taken the liberty of moving Sigurd over to Louis for now, both because he is absolutely hilarious with him and because I'd really like for Louis to at least get a cheap Hit +10 skill from him. He's right around 80-ish hit on most enemies, in the "just inaccurate enough for it to come up on a regular basis" zone.
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Apr 11, 2024 21:24
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I've already recorded Chapter 5 and I intend to keep Sigurd on Louis at least long enough to get a +Hit skill on him. I have no strong opinions on what to do with Celica though, Clanne finally got his first point of magic and neither he nor Celine is really impressing that much. I'm going to default to leaving her on Celine until some of the better casters join, so if you'd rather see something different, now's the time to speak up before I do Chapter 6 and Jean's paralogue.
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Apr 11, 2024 21:29
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I have to imagine it’s a very small number of players that didn’t immediately put the shades on Sommie when they first got the chance to.
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Apr 11, 2024 21:35
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I definitely forgot that the shopkeepers had names within, like, a chapter or two of them showing up. Tellius merchant crew they ain't.
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Apr 11, 2024 22:32
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As for Marth emblem, easily the most important thing he brings to the table is Mercurius. It's a strong weapon and double exp (and SP gain) is really really powerful if you know what you're doing. Due to the way exp works in this game it's not worth it to keep Marth on one juggernaut unit for half the game, exp gain falls off too hard if you're ahead of the level curve. But it really helps to make certain units shoot ahead. Or it gives characters who are behind catch up really fast. Or it helps characters hit SP targets for really valuable skills. The obvious best recipient of Mercurius right now is Chloé. She can be one of the best units in the game if she receives an early promotion and giving her access to Mercurius is a big part of her getting there. But basically anyone in the party can get a big boost from having double exp for a while.
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Apr 11, 2024 22:43
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I'm finding it far more hilarious than I probably should to see "Adopt" used as an A Action
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Apr 11, 2024 23:08
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I'm gonna be completely honest, I just slapped Canto (it will never be Canter, you can't make me) on half of my units as a default pick. It's just always useful, especially for Backups and chokepoint management.
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Apr 11, 2024 23:47
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I was really glad when game updates made it so you could unload your trash in the well for decent odds at getting extra SP scrolls in return. Certain skills like Canter just being too good made it really frustrating at how limited your ability to get SP independent of gains alongside EXP, as there are a lot of skills I'd like to buy but you can't overinvest lest you screw yourself out of better skills later on.
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Apr 11, 2024 23:55
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Marf B3
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Apr 12, 2024 00:52
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Marth can feel a little bland compared to some of the other emblems, but he really is quite solid. In particular, the collection of stats he provides is about as good as you could ask for a physical unit. I think he performs very well on Boucheron as Boucheron's higher base strength and backup bonus gives him a really strong Lodestar Rush. He's one of those units that often times needs that extra push to double until his speed growth starts rolling, and he can use two weapon types for break defenses when Engaged. Sigurd would be a pretty mediocre emblem if it weren't for one skill. It's very easy to overextend with Gallop and Override needs help to kill enemies after the early game. Canter and Canter+ are such game changing skills and open up tremendous flexibility in your strategies. If you have the SP and bond frags, it can be worth it to have it on every member of your primary team. I usually put him on Chloe to start as she appreciates the extra build and damage boost from Momentum. Celica is one of the weaker emblems but has some handy tricks that emerge later on, especially with Echo. At first glance Resonance seems like an altogether worse skill than the Magic+ equivalent (outside of specific low hp strategies) but there is a difference! In engage there are three major ways to increase the amount of damage you do to an enemy with a weapon or skill. You can increase strength/magic depending on the weapon, you can increase attack, or you can increase damage. Obviously increasing strength or magic is only useful when you're attacking with an appropriate weapon type. Attack bonuses do not care what type of attack you are using and will add to your final magic or physical attack value. However when a skill says that it boosts damage, it is adding the damage after attack - defense calculations have taken place. While the boost from the Magic+ skills can be negated if the enemy has sufficiently high Resistance, Resonance will add 2 true damage (3 with Resonance+) per hit.
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Apr 12, 2024 02:03
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I like Marth on Framme, since between scrolls, Break Defenses and Divine Speed, she can get out a stupid amount of attacks. If she's got enough attack to do an appreciable amount of damage, she will blender whatever you point her at. It's not the most optimal use of him I'm sure, but it's hella fun.
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Apr 12, 2024 04:46
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