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The fact that they finally worked out that loving abominable translation that was "Canto" into something that at least begins to make sense in "Canter" after fifteen goddamn years automatically redeems Treehouse of any and all misdeeds. Speaking of, the fact that it just adds a set movement instead of being based on remaining movement fucks with me, but it's a pretty nice utility to have if you remember how it works.
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Apr 12, 2024 06:43
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The supports here are kind of a bad introduction that sets the tone as to what to expect from the support writing. They're near guarenteed to be the first supports you'll see. And what do we get? Really banal stuff that's not interesting in any way. Plus the Vander support sort of showcases my problems with the outfits they use in the supports. He's talking about doing various steward type activities. And he's wearing that plate mail, rather than the butler-esque outfit you see him in when in the Somniel. The farm is unfortunately one of those things that shows a rather lacking implementation overall. One animal rewards you items that'll permanently let you upgrade your weapons. The others.... they give you stuff related to temporary 1 map boosts that are really randomized in the first place. Not exactly an even setup. Unfortunately, the Somniel is one of those pain points for me that drag Engage down as a whole. It's the Post-Timeskip monastery problem of Three Houses, where the implementation makes the story suffer and the activities themselves are kind of a tedious waste of time.
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Apr 12, 2024 10:28
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CullenDaGaDee posted: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. To be fair, the top hat is also an excellent showing, and you can't have both. The meta for dress up sommie is deep and varied. I found myself messing with its costume constantly.
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Apr 12, 2024 14:30
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If the important somniel activities had been delegated to a menu a la the Path of Radiance base and the rest had been thrown in the garbage where it belongs, Engage would be a substantially more enjoyable experience. I feel similarly about the Three Houses monastery, which is at least interesting on a first playthrough but gets much worse and more tedious than the somniel is on subsequent playthroughs. Marth feels like just a boring generic sword guy emblem but is definitely extremely potent on a lot of characters, I like what he does quite a lot. Canto (gently caress you Treehouse for trying to rename it) is as always the most powerful skill in the series. Sunglasses Sommie is timeless and powerful
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Apr 12, 2024 15:47
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At this point, the image of armies of singing calvary has had a room in my memory for so long that trying to fix the mistake is offensive
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Apr 12, 2024 16:25
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Faillen Angel posted:The fact that they finally worked out that loving abominable translation that was "Canto" into something that at least begins to make sense in "Canter" after fifteen goddamn years automatically redeems Treehouse of any and all misdeeds. Fajita Queen posted:Canto (gently caress you Treehouse for trying to rename it) is as always the most powerful skill in the series. The duality of Mankind
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Apr 12, 2024 21:17
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I thought that with FEH they had introduced two separate move after action skills. Canto was the version where you could move the remainder of your movement after acting (so if you had 6 movement and moved 2, you could move 4 spaces after acting.) Canter provided a constant amount of movement after acting.
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Apr 13, 2024 00:54
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Nah, Feh has Canto. Rem. which is Canto based on your remaining movement and Canto (x) where you canto based on what x is.
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Apr 13, 2024 01:07
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They should add Kanto, a skill that allows you to capture Corrupted and unleash them as your own monsters in battle.
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Apr 13, 2024 01:09
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I love Marf :3. I would die for Marf :3. I will kill for Marf :3.
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Apr 13, 2024 01:24
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loving love Fiona Apple posted:I love Marf :3. I would die for Marf :3. I will kill for Marf :3.
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Apr 13, 2024 02:05
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Some minor housekeeping notes: I will be on vacation next week, so I will be recording the next chapter tomorrow. If you want to see something other than Celine!Celica, now would be the time to speak up. Otherwise the schedule looks like Chapter 5 on Monday, Somniel 2 on Thurs, and then either 5x or 6 depending on if the paralogue is available (I'm pretty sure it opens after C5) next Monday. There will be no update the week after that, and hopefully we should be back to normal around the start of May.
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Apr 14, 2024 02:29
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Give Celica to Chloe, just because the idea of a flying mage is really funny to me for some reason. Also because we need to see how Engages affect fliers sooner rather than later.
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Apr 14, 2024 05:45
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 Chapter 5: Retaking the Castle  Before each chapter, we find ourselves on the world map. Eventually, there will be skirmishes on some of these completed nodes, but we're not there yet. For now, we have a short description of the next chapter, along with a very rough difficulty indicator. This is how we'll be going through the game - when the main plot gets "harder" than any sidequests that we have available, we'll be taking some time off to go clear those first.   There's the castle. It's so quiet... Where are our knights? Or the Elusian soldiers, for that matter? You said they were marching toward the castle when you left. They've probably made their way inside. But then...what of the townsfolk? What of Mother?! Let's hurry.  Who's to say? Is it inside the castle? Out on the grounds? I'm asking all polite-like ─ c'mon! I'm not in the habit of speaking to lowly vermin. That's all that you are ─ the lot of you. The mouth on this one. You think I won't gut ya where you stand?!  Lady Zephia! One of our soldiers says he spotted the princess fleeing before we arrived. How curious. Did you perhaps give that daughter of yours the ring for safekeeping? ... Aw, well, isn't this tragic. We'd simply hate to resort to violence. But you leave us no choice. By virtue of your silence, we will now kill every living soul in this castle, one by one. Please, no! Look, mom, I know that you specifically sent us away so that we could escape with the ring, but what if we came back and walked directly into the enemy general's open arms? Surely, there are no flaws with this plan. Alfred! Céline! Oh, look. The kids are home. You Elusian scum! Get away from her! Hm-hm. Who's going to make us? I'm glad you've come. Now we can see for ourselves if the princess has the ring. No! Please, leave my children alone! Of course. As long as you tell me where the ring is. I... Ah. Young Céline does have it, doesn't she? We'll have to kill her, then. The prince, too, for good measure. Take Her Majesty away. We'll continue our conversation later, if need be. Unhand me!*Nelucce takes her away off-camera*  Huh? You... You look familiar. No. It couldn't be. Who are you? I am the Divine Dragon Alear. Such lies. Lumera is the last of her kind. Shows what you know. The Divine One was asleep for a thousand years. Really? When did that beastly woman have a child? Hmph. Very well. Perhaps you can tell me what happened to dear Lumera, then. I've been so worried about her since that awful battle at Lythos Castle. How do you know about that? How, indeed? You stole the rings? You killed my mother?! She died? Oh, that poor dear. Murderer! I will avenge her! Why? I didn't kill her. Though, I will say, your coming here was quite helpful ─ assuming you are the beast's offspring. You'll never take them. Never. You were after our ring. I won't waste my breath on explanations. But I will tell you this. The kingdom of Elusia has freed Lord Sombron from his imprisonment. The Fell Dragon has returned? No... Of course, even we couldn't have accounted for...you. His return must have awoken you. Show a little gratitude. You're wrong. I awoke because of my mother. Because she waited for me, all these years... A touching tale, I'm sure. Now, if you'll excuse me. What can we do? To start, we defeat these soldiers and take back the castle. I'm not going to let them hurt Queen Ève or anyone else. I was hopin' you'd say that. We're coming up on the end of the "tutorial" section of the game, and while we still have one major gimmick the game has yet to introduce, both it and the "doors and breakable walls" of this chapter lead to interesting enough design that these chapters still feel like complete ideas.  Immediately to our north, we have a whole host of dudes, including a knight, archers, fighters and a mercenary, with more just inside the doors. If you're playing even remotely aggressively, this chapter has a lot of areas where you can very easily trigger a ton of dudes crashing down on you at once, and we really only have like...two units who are capable of standing up to that. Thankfully(?), the group inside will ignore us until we break down the door, even if we put a ranged unit up against the wall to try and tempt the hand axe fighter.  The boss has a dangerous group of flunkies, most notably the pair of cavaliers who are packing 11 speed and thus capable of doubling more or less all of our physical units aside from Chloe. And Nelucce is no slouch himself, 24 ATK is strong enough to outright one-shot Framme and come within a single point of doing so to Clanne, for reference.  Finally, in the northwest corner we have a pair of chests behind a long, thin corridor of dudes (there's a knight at the start of it just off-screen). We're going to have to move fast to get these - the game will spawn a thief on turn 1, and these guys aren't in any hurry to move.  After a little deliberation, this is how we line up. Louis and Alfred are heading west through the mercenaries with a little backup from Celine. Everyone else is heading north to the doors.   There's no time to find the key! Let's use brute force to knock it down.A wonderful suggestion, Alfred. The door only has 30 HP so it isn't that hard to get through, it's all the dudes surrounding it that are the problem.   Right off the bad, Louis' iffy accuracy ruins what should be an easy kill for Celine. Alfred will be over later to poke this guy, but he's going to survive with ~2 HP and get a swing off at Celine before he gets melted in the enemy phase.  Meanwhile, Alear and Clanne deal with the knight and Vander takes a swing this archer from afar. Everyone else forms up behind them, just out of reach of the other enemies.  There's our thief, in the middle-left. Thankfully, he only moves a couple tiles a turn on this map, but we do want to get over there as quickly as we can.  Etie and Bouch whack the mercenary to our right and uh...yeah, let's go with that, Bouch.  With the candelabra in the way, we can only draw over one of the fighters, but Alear should be able to easily handle him. No point in having Vander draw the merc since he'd just get broken on the attack and not actually accomplish anything.  Hey, she got build!  The magic is nice, too, but if push comes to shove, that's what Celica is for. Anyway, these boys have lined up all neat and tidy for us down that tight corridor. You know what we do with that?  Why, we just plow straight through all of them! It won't do much damage to the knight, but it'll knock a big chunk off the rest of them and more importantly, it'll plop Louis right in the way of the thief on the other side.    Most engage attacks have cool animations. Override is just kinda...there.  Meanwhile, Alear and friends are cleaning up the central area.  Chloe picks up a big crit and a solid level. Build would have been even better, but for right now, she's golden as long as she keeps getting strength.   With Louis having gotten all up in their personal space, the knight starts coming south towards us while everyone else takes a swing at our invincible orb boy. Still better than Alfred, who gets giant fans(???) instead of orbs when he's engaged with Sigurd.  The only way this could be better is if he got more defense. He even hit his token res growth!  With all the enemies in our immediate vicinity taken care of (aside from that archer who will happily do nothing against Louis and get a javelin to the face for his troubles), our main forces line up against the door while Alfred and Celine do their best to catch up to Louis.  Now this is what we're talking about. A few more of those, and Framme might yet be in business.  Our first attempt at breaking in the door has Alear in position to take the two fighters while Clanne hits the knight and Vander heads off to the east to get the archer.  It goes poorly.  While we come up with a new strategy, Louis reaches the chests. Obstruct creates a pillar of ice on a tile of your choice, making it impassible until an enemy destroys it. The pillars only have 1 HP so they're not exactly sturdy, but they do an excellent job of cutting off routes or slowing down a foe that would otherwise have a clean shot at your units. (There's an armorslayer in the other chest)   This time, Etie breaks down the door and we let them come to us. The knight has a Ridersbane, so Vander is off dealing with the archer instead.  Congrats, Alear! You didn't immediately die this time.  We're going to need some extra firepower to properly clean this up, so let's call in Celine from the left side.  With the knight out of the picture, the rest of them fall very quickly. It's very cathartic to see like 5 blue arrows on an attack preview, even if 80% of them are useless because the first one will kill the enemy in question.  Meanwhile, Alfred and Louis get to work on this wall near the boss.   Of course, we can't have nice things for long. The archers are whatever, but as mentioned on the prep screen, these cavaliers are very scary. Chloe and Alear are the only ones who aren't going to be doubled by these guys, and they don't want to fight them for lance reasons rather than speed ones.  If we wait underneath the walls, we're just out of range of the archers, so we can draw out the cavs relatively safely. In a perfect world, I would have Bouch ready to hop in the other side, but he's just a bit too far away.  It's only Chapter 5, and we can already see that Vander is falling off hard. If not for his base 40 HP, he would already be borderline unusable, and even that's not gonna last long if he's regularly being doubled for 15+ damage a turn.  More pressing are the mercenaries that have joined us. There is absolutely no way we can take on all these guys with this formation, especially with Vander an inch from death, so we'll have to retreat a bit.  While we're dealing with that, Alfred and Louis drop the monk in the boss's entourage.  Unfortunately, Celine has nowhere to retreat *to*, and we've already used Warp Ragnarok. But we've got more than one dumb trick up our sleeve here.  One fireball isn't going to cut it; even with the bonus damage from Resonance she's only doing ~16 damage. But two fireballs for 9 damage each? Now we're in business. It does mean we'll have to eat the hit in between attacks, but better one hit than five of them.  On second thought, let's not attract the attention of the boss.  We're still gonna poke this guy so that he can't Chain Guard, but this time he gets to live. Alfred stays behind Louis rather than lose his head a second time.  Yeah, I uh...don't recommend this particular move, but don't let me stop you!  That sure is a Louis level.   We catch a huge break when Etie crits this mercenary. This isn't to suggest that it will be easy to get through another 3.5 dudes this turn, but our frontliners are in such poor shape, I don't think we would have survived the archers if we had to focus down another high-priority target.  I really tried to puzzle out a way where Vander could kill this cav, but even with Alear boosts and a Bouch backup hit, we came up a single point short. This sucks, but someone's gotta do it and Clanne has the lowest damage here.  It only took you four levels, but you finally got A point of magic. I'm so proud of you, Clanne.  So here's where I really start to panic. It's hard to tell from the screenshot, but we're one pip short of having a full engage meter, and I was really counting on using Lodestar Rush here.  And yet, from exactly 10 squares away, here comes Louis to save my rear end.   With the additional damage from Override, we're back in business. And Framme gets another good level for good measure.  Nothing left to do but bait out the last pair of cavs and paste the boss. You love to see it when the effectively weaponry comes out.  Sure, one for the road, Etie.   As usual, our plan is to introduce him to the business end of as many emblems as possible in one turn. Looky here, the runaway princess! I'll make you fly the coop again. I am not running this time. It will be you who flees for your life. Another smattering of stats we like to see, but not a lot of them. Celine will want strength once she promotes, but we're still a ways off from that.  That little red gem that was under his health bar? That indicates that he has a whole-rear end second health bar we have to burn through before he stays down for good. I think they're officially called revival stones or some poo poo, but I always call them break bars because they look like the indicators from Fate/Grand Order.  Suffice to say that he will not be getting up from this one. You invaded my castle and threatened my mother. I'll slay you where you stand! Oh, the prince of Flowerland is threatening me! I'm real scared!  I'm genuinely surprised it wasn't Louis! I guess the big damage Warp Ragnaroks outweighed the Overrides. End of Chapter  Oh, that's a relief.Well, we put in the work, we might as well go properly meet the queen.  My children, you're safe. What a relief. We have a guest, Mother. Someone came all the way from Lythos to see you. The Divine Dragon? Queen Ève, it's an honor to meet you. I'm so glad that you're all right. I've come here by invitation of Prince Alfred. Just look at you. Awake at long last. I am Ève, the queen of Firene. It is my absolute pleasure to welcome you. The Divine Dragon has come to help our country, Mother. We were just in time to rescue Céline. And get this! The Divine One summoned Emblem Celica from our ring. The legendary Emblem! Oh my, how extraordinary. Thank you, sincerely. You have my deepest gratitude. My family is safe because of you. Well, she's... She's gone. My mother passed away. No... That's awful. I'm so sorry. Some intruders entered the castle. They tried to kill me, but... She gave her life to protect mine. Oh... How tragic... I'm glad that...that I could spare your children the pain of losing their mother... My heart goes out to you... Forgive me. We've only just met and here I am, laying my grief at your feet. I just wish I could have saved her too. Divine One... While I cannot take away your sorrow, perhaps I can help you bear it. To reunite with her, and then lose her so soon... I can only imagine how painful that was. For now, allow yourself to grieve, knowing that I grieve with you. Thank you, Queen Ève. Your warmth, your kindness... It's almost like she's here with me.While the actual death of Lumera may have been played up a bit too soon, the grief aspect of it is surprisingly well-handled. Eve gets to act as the mother that Alear is very suddenly missing, and Alear gets at least a little bit of closure by ensuring that the same doesn't happen for Alfred and Celine.  Better. I'm sorry you had to see me like that. No, we shouldn't have dragged you into all this right now. I'm sorry, Divine One. As am I. But if I hadn't left when I did, what might have happened to you, Céline? Or you, Queen Ève? I'm proud to serve people in need, like my mother did. Thank you. Now, the Elusian leader... She said her kingdom released the Fell Dragon. I take it that's why the Corrupted are appearing in Elyos again. Now there's no question that the Fell Dragon's after the rings. Which means we need to hurry. Head them off before they can reach the next one. Queen Ève, your country's ring... May I take it? Of course. The kingdom of Firene gives it with love, trust, and gratitude. Thank you very much. There is something you should know, however... What? Since when? There is another ring? Here, in Firene? It was kept secret to avoid conflict. For generations, knowledge of this ring has been confined to the monarchs of Firene. However, now that the Fell Dragon has arisen, it is best to dispel the shroud of secrecy. It is commonly thought that the Divine Dragon gave one ring to each country's leader. However, Firene received a second. The Ring of the Dawn Maiden. I see... To ensure that no one would find it, the ring was hidden away far from the castle. It rests in a shrine on the Brodian border. Ah, I remember those old ruins. What? You do? Yeah. Mother took me there after Father died. She told me to keep the location in mind. At the time, I didn't know why... Now it makes sense. I was preparing you for the day you became king. So you are leaving, Alfred. Yes. I want to do my part to end this war. With your blessing, Mother, I'm going to help the Divine Dragon bring peace to Elyos. Mother, I would like to join as well. Alfred... Céline... You have my blessing. I know you will serve the Divine Dragon with honor. On one condition: Swear to me that you will come back alive. I swear it. I swear it. Thank you very much, Queen Ève. I trust that you will take some time to rest prior to your departure. The journey ahead will be arduous, but know that you are all in my prayers. May good fortune shine upon you. Huh. Aren't we forgetting somebody?  Really? You sure about that, darling?  You're shaking like a leaf. I take it you failed to obtain the ring. Uh! Apologies, ma'am! Those guys were tougher than they looked! But I─ I can tell you things! Stuff that'll help you track it down! Like the fact that Princess Céline ran off with it. The Divine Dragon has it now. Pretty good info, right? Heh... Whaddaya say? How 'bout we call it even this time around? I won't let you down again. Oh, how naive you are. After you fail me once, there is no second chance. AAH! Hmph.Well, no one can say he didn't get what he deserved. Admittedly, "The Prince of Flowerland" was a pretty good burn. RIP in piss, Nelucce.   I was expecting to get at least one. At least now we know that Lumera is dead. Yes, but there's another Divine Dragon to take her place. I can't believe that beast had a child. It does explain why she was so willing to sacrifice her life. What should we do? The battle at Lythos Castle took its toll. We're in no shape for another confrontation. We'd best lie low for a spell. Leave them be, for now. Understood.
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Apr 15, 2024 22:29
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Every time I see Clanne's portrait I think it's Fie from Trails of Cold Steel for just a second
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Apr 15, 2024 23:41
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I'll admit pre-existing bias and lack of understanding of the Engage system caused me to really underrate Louis on my first playthrough. Dude is an absolute monster with the Sigurd ring and does everything Vander wishes he could do. I need to try and use Framme seriously sometime, she's always had really explosive levels for me.
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Apr 16, 2024 04:14
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That's a good display as to why Louis is the best early-game user of Sigurd. Just hurling him in the middle of a bunch of physical enemies without caring about defense is a really useful option to have. And in the early game, he'll survive a singular mage too. It never actually occurred to me to use a Sigurd-user for the left side. I actually use Celine + Celica for the left side on my runs. Even on Maddening, she one-shots the archer when teleporting into the archer corridor, 1RKOs the axe fighter, and 2RKOs the Thief, only taking one attack in the process. The other two enemies there tend to run down to fight as long as you have anyone slightly close to the area to pull them down to the rest of the group. Then she can refill her engage meter, loot the chests, and teleport back across the wall to rejoin the main crew in the throne room. Low turns used and it only pulls away 1 unit for a short time, rather than more. Overall, I do like how differing use of the emblems can make runs of the game look really different, even this early on. Story-talk, say hello to the 'villain gets away for no reason!' hour. However you play it, the boss here always ends up in a dogpile situation where he's surrounded by the bulk of your army. And he gets away when at zero because........ Map circumstances/story events disconnect are really kind of annoying. No effort into it, not even a 'SMOKE BOMB' or something.
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Apr 16, 2024 05:26
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Yeah, that's how the story works, might as well try to get used to it. At least it goes both ways, the villains have a hostage when you show up, she gets "taken away" before the battle, and is safe and unharmed when it clears up.
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Apr 16, 2024 05:35
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Okay sure Louis charging through a line of enemies is cool, but have you considered.... warp Louis
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Apr 16, 2024 14:53
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The hallway set up perfectly for sigurd is so good
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Apr 16, 2024 15:36
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ApplesandOranges posted:Okay sure Louis charging through a line of enemies is cool, but have you considered.... warp Louis This is what makes Celica arguably the only Emblem to get worse with Bond levels, at least if you're using her for the Warp more than the Ragnarok. Ragnarok is one of her Engage weapons, and is always used for Warp Ragnarok... But if you don't have it unlocked with Bond levels, then the user will switch back to their normal weapon after the Warp Ragnarok, while a high-Bond user will keep Ragnarok equipped. It's a niche case, though.
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Apr 16, 2024 17:05
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There's a later emblem that has some of that same problem that I'm sure is going to cause a conversation when it appears. While Sigurd is better, there's only one of him. So the idea of Warp Louis or something isn't as silly as it sounds. The unit warped will most likely be more durable than your mages after all, so if the unit they zap dies to the Ragnarok + counterattack, the move could still have merits. Granted, it's for gimmick runs or if you're doing a run where you absolutely don't want to use Celine in any shape or form whatsoever.
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Apr 18, 2024 01:33
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Ah, Zephia. The latest version of the "Lategame boss who shows up early, but delegates the fighting to someone the heroes can actually beat before heading off to do something unimportant. Occasionally is seen to act surprised by the result." Others have the excuse that they don't actually meet the protagonists until the chapter where they're actually fought. On the other hand, it's believable right now that Zephia would want to compare notes with her boss about Alear.
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Apr 18, 2024 16:29
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I think saying that Zephia is a lategame boss is a bit of a spoiler there.
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Apr 18, 2024 18:26
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The Somniel, Part 2  Who might you be?  And I am Pinet, a clothier. Pleased to meet you. I'll cut right to it. Our friend Durthon wrote us and said he opened a shop at your base. And, well... We'd like to go there too. We'll be a real help! I can strengthen your weapons. My clothes and accessories won't win you any battles, but they will catch eyes and turn heads. If Durthon vouches for you, that's good enough for me. Please, come along to the Somniel. Really? That's great! You'll be glad to have us around, I promise. Indeed. Thank you, Divine One.The remainder of our shops are quickly filled in, with one of them being far more important the other.  Pinet sells new outfits for us to use in the Somniel. If we could wear them into battle? 100% different story. But to use my precious forging material just for the home base? Heresy.  Speaking of the forge, let's really break the game open now. Exchange is exactly what it sounds like, letting us trade up and down the material scale at roughly a 9:1 ratio - someone will inevitably correct me on this, but it's something like 9 Iron to a Steel and 90 to a Silver.  Forging is exactly what it sounds like, trading ores for stat upgrades. As you might guess, not every forge is created equal - Liberation gets +2 Mt for going from 0 to +1, but +1 Mt and +5 hit for going from +1 to +2. Additionally, different classes of weapons have different sets of forges - Steel weapons tend to have bonuses that reduce weight and add some crit, whereas knives and special weapons (Levin Sword, Flame Lance, etc) strictly gain might.  Engraving gives a weapon a specific set of bonuses based on the emblem you choose. You can only have one weapon engraved with a specific emblem at a time, but you can change which weapon is engraved at any time for 100 bond fragments. Of the characters we currently have: Marth: +1 Mt, +10 Hit, +10 Crit, +5 Avoid, +5 Crit Evade Celica: -1 Mt, -1 Wt, +50 Crit Evade Sigurd: +1 Mt, -1 Wt, +20 Avoid As you could probably guess, these more or less mimic their actual stat patterns - Marth is good at a little bit of everything, Sigurd is about going fast, etc. Note that you can only engrave a weapon if the Emblem in question is actually in your party. You won't lose the engraving if they leave the party (and they will, which emblems you have available will vary as the game goes on), but you won't be able to change it until they come back.  Finally, the Arena is now open. After each chapter, we get three fights to pick up some extra experience before we move on. I usually use it to try and pick up a level when someone ended a map with like, 80-90 exp, but there's no wrong way to get some extra levels.  The game automatically uses whatever weapon you have equipped, so you may want to tweak what you're using before you jump in, and it randomly picks an opponent from among the units in the army. It will try to pick someone appropriate for whichever character is training, but the further in the game we get, the more likely it is to just give up and either give you a literally unwinnable fight or make you fight, like...Framme. I got Vander for all three of my attempts, so none of them won and I didn't get any levels.  Emblem training is a bit of a misnomer, because it's literally just buying bond levels with fragments. It doesn't actually matter if you win the fight or not, which is good because the emblems use one of three fixed stat distributions and all of them are well above our capabilities right now.   Alear is a sweet boy, but generally (and especially in these early supports) he is a black hole of personality. "Divine One" this, "Divine One" that... He really needs to get to the B and A ranks before we start getting to anything even remotely interesting.    Framme, meanwhile, gets one of the better early supports with Boucheron. Chloe's schtick about eating weird folk food is...definitely something. Not at all what you would expect from her, but she and Boucheron are the first characters to have something that resemble a personality and not just a character gimmick.  On to 5x! We'll have to make our first roster decisions, although admittedly this chapter doesn't have a lot going on. But we'll get to that on Monday.
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Apr 18, 2024 21:24
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Celica seems to be essentially making a weapon an anti-killer weapon so you can eat their attacks without worry. Unfortunately, I never found this to really be that useful. Something that wasn't mentioned is that Forging can also transform weapons into higher tier ones. So you can spend the resources to make an Iron weapon a Steel weapon, for example. It's cheaper to buy the weapon directly if you have the option, but this gets noticeably useful to get more copies of a weapon than are ordinarily available, or more impactfully get weapons earlier than when the game gives them to you. This is how you can get a really early Levin Sword, to use for Chloe's swath of destruction. It's not THAT helpful atm since she hasn't promoted, but even if you make it now it's still a 1-2 range option for Alear or a high MT weapon for Celine until Chloe takes up the blade.
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Apr 18, 2024 21:44
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Artix posted:Speaking of the forge, let's really break the game open now. Exchange is exactly what it sounds like, letting us trade up and down the material scale at roughly a 9:1 ratio - someone will inevitably correct me on this, but it's something like 9 Iron to a Steel and 90 to a Silver. The ratio is worse when you're trading up to a higher tier metal. code:Khizan fucked around with this message at 21:51 on Apr 18, 2024 |
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Apr 18, 2024 21:45
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Zulily Zoetrope posted: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. Apologies for not responding eary. Like I'm curious I had to guess via context "kingdom" is a term that means "king is the highest power in the land", and that I am aware the term for an state ruled by a prince is a "principality" i would assume via context that a queendom would consider a queen the highest power in the land, I would assume in this context: some level of Female preferred primogeniture, only females can inherent, or possibly only female bloodline inheritance. This does raise questions of "If a men can inherent can they use the title king or have to use like 'prince' or something" and "is the queen's husband refereed as King Consort or like Prince Consort or something" but I assume they are not addressed specifically since our language involving noble titles is so entrenched in gender assumptions and gender hierarchy, that these come up with Queen Regnant's and translations issues where we basically describe the one female emperor of china of what we view as the "male" title of "emperor" since the chinesse word for "empress" translates to "wife of emperor" not "female emperor" (and in fact her historical title is literally "the lady emperor". I assume from a lore standpoint, they wanted an upcoming female character to be the heir apparent over her brother and wanted to signal that since it's not immediately obvious, but then again Ylisse in Awakening seems to definitely have absolute primogeniture (no gender preference since emmeryn was queen over her younger brother).
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Apr 18, 2024 23:02
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I wanna say you can also roll an emblem as your opponent in a normal arena fight? I won't 100% swear to it though.
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Apr 18, 2024 23:04
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weso12 posted:
And further muddying the waters is that in some real life instances, a reigning female monarch took the title of 'king' to emphasize that she's the one in charge, the best known example probably being King Jadwiga of Poland.
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Apr 18, 2024 23:07
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ApplesandOranges posted:I think saying that Zephia is a lategame boss is a bit of a spoiler there. Ahem. Narcien Zephiel Ursula Valtar Callech Riev Petrine Jarod Aversa
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Apr 18, 2024 23:26
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Please. Zephia has a cool hat. Everyone knows people with cool hats are safe from death.
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Apr 19, 2024 02:18
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I would hazard a guess that the arena does a win/lose check before deciding who you fight, and gives them appropriate gear to force that result. Vander has some of my favorite supports in the game, honestly, because he's old enough to be world-wise but not so old that he's inflexible. In a game with worse characters he'd flip out at any insubordination and learning to compromise would be his character beat, but he's just a very understanding guy.
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Apr 19, 2024 02:51
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Artix posted:The game automatically uses whatever weapon you have equipped, so you may want to tweak what you're using before you jump in, and it randomly picks an opponent from among the units in the army. It will try to pick someone appropriate for whichever character is training, but the further in the game we get, the more likely it is to just give up and either give you a literally unwinnable fight or make you fight, like...Framme. I got Vander for all three of my attempts, so none of them won and I didn't get any levels. So! From doing some experimenting, the character you fight in the arena is *not* random! When you go to the Somniel, who your opponent is has already been decided. If you pick, say, Alfred to fight, save, the next opponent you fight will always be the same regardless if pick Alfred again or not. The *one* exception is if you choose the pre-determined opponent: game decides Chloe is your opponent, you chose Chloe as your character, it will pick another character to replace her. It's really only noticeable if you're save scumming for support levels!
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Apr 19, 2024 04:19
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Things in the Somniel are all predetermined, who you fight in the arena, which bond rings you pull, the results of cooking something. The only way to get different results is to advance the RNG in some way.
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Apr 19, 2024 05:02
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Cythereal posted:And further muddying the waters is that in some real life instances, a reigning female monarch took the title of 'king' to emphasize that she's the one in charge, the best known example probably being King Jadwiga of Poland. I think most of the times this occurs their document of rule says that the ruler is a king, but does not specify that the king has to be male. (Also sometimes is a weird issue of translation where the word we regularly translate as "Queen" or "Empress" in that language basically only exclusively means "Wife of King" or "Wife of Emperor" where as the english context allows both the context of "female ruler" and "wife of ruler".) Mid-Game three houses spoiler Fire Emblem Three Houses kind of does this with Edelgard being refereed to as emperor, but that might be partially translation with Japanesse titles possibly having that same "the word that typically translates to empress means "Wife of Emperor" in japanesse" and partially because the "Flame Emperor" is a mysterious figure that is gender ambigous leaning towards male presenting initially and they didn't want to completely tip their had that it is edelgard and changing terminology midway through the game would feel weird. Not quite sure I needed to spoil tag something heroes outright spoils but just incase.
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Apr 19, 2024 06:24
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I think it's just the easiest amd fastest way to make it clear that the ruler of Solm is typically a woman and it's passed down the female line.
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Apr 19, 2024 18:02
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Chapter 5x: Budding Talent  Before we continue on to the secret shrine, let's take a quick detour over to this little island. Most of the game's sidequests are directly related to our emblems, but this is one of the two that are just there for us to tackle whenever we choose. Both of them give us a new character, so we might as well tackle them as soon as they're available, starting with this one.   And you're looking chipper today! I told you that cold would be gone before you know it. Thank you, Jean. You didn't burn yourself or anything preparing it, I hope. You worry too much. I'm old enough to manage a simple pot of tea, I assure you. Hm-hm, it makes me happy to see you growing up so fine.So we have the town doctor and his son, the latter of whom doesn't seem to be entirely trusted yet. No prize for guessing which of the two is our new recruit. Hm? What's going on out there?  These guys all bounce up at the same time, like they choreographed it or something. It's very cute, for a trio of corpses. What the devil are those beasts?! This will get ugly. Jean, go and hide! I'll take care of bringing people to the clinic.*Sean leaves the scene* This way, everyone! If you're unhurt, then assist someone who's injured! We must pull together! I know Father told me to hide, but how can I? I have to do my part too!  Get moving! There's shelter at the clinic! Keep your wits about you, everyone! I'll patch you up once the crisis has passed. We can't stand idle with the Corrupted on the loose. Let's save those villagers! A short and sweet intro for a short and sweet chapter, but we've got a couple decisions to make on the roster before we start.  The enemies in this chapter are kind of scattershot, there's a lot of stuff without any real unifying theme or structure to their formations. Here in the southeast corner we have fighters up close, a cavalier and mage behind them, and then an archer on either side in the back.  The northeast corner has fewer, but no less variety of troops, although it does have the boss and a lot of hedges. Seeing as the boss is an archer, we'll have to approach him carefully so he doesn't constantly run around with an extra 60 avoid.  Finally, directly to our north is the village itself. Sean (and Jean, who appears on the first turn) will spend their time healing anyone who gets attacked by the Corrupted, so as long as you get up here before they're being attacked on all three fronts, it is extremely easy to keep everyone alive.  Vander and Clanne drop for Celine and Louis, both of whom are just better at doing their respective jobs. Otherwise it was a toss up between benching Alfred or Etie, and Alfred won the coin flip. Chloe would have been coming regardless, but she's trying out the Celica ring for fun.  Father, I'm here to help! If we split up, we can treat everyone! Jean?! I thought I told you to run and hide! I can't stay hidden away when there are so many who need my help! After all, Father, am I not your son? You taught me that a doctor does whatever is needed! My lessons have sunk in, I see. Very well, then! Come and give me a hand!  Jean is...rough. We'll talk about him later, but right now our priority is getting up there before too many corrupted start attacking villagers.  We immediately spread out and cover the choke points. Celine (and Framme, later) are going to head north around the house while the rest of the gang heads east. It would be nice to have Chloe finish off that fighter, but Louis is just far enough out that the archer can sneak a shot behind him. For now, everyone just advances.  You can tell which enemies are "supposed" to go after the villagers, because they have weird weapons like this Slim Sword. Then again, lots of enemies have weird weapons on this map; there's a Surge, Poleaxe, and Armorslayer all floating around if you aren't paying attention to enemy equips.  Framme ate the axe hit for Celine, so let's repay this bandit appropriately.  Yeah, that'll do! You'd think 4 build wouldn't cut it, but Liberation is ridiculously light and can be forged to be as strong as a Silver Sword by the time we're done.   Meanwhile, our first taste of Celica Chloe and I have to say, I approve. The wing ornaments are a neat representation of her pegasus while engaged.  Even Alfred gets in on the fun. Most of the fun toys are way too heavy for him to use effectively, but when you only need to hit once, that doesn't matter as much.  We get a rare sighting of Sword Celine to handle this mage. Surge can't hit from range, but her fireball would only do 3 damage, so we'll get up close and personal.  This guy is no threat, but the cavalier conveniently blocked by the Corrupted's hand has an armorslayer, and even Louis fears those when he's under half health. Fortunately, he won't move, so we can swing by and kill him at our convenience.  One unfortunate side effect of running a physical unit with Celica, even one with a decent magic score, is that you just don't have those last couple points of oomph when you need them. I would love to Warp Ragnarok the archer, but we're about 5 damage short, and Chloe will certainly eat poo poo between the mage and archer when he survives.  Chloe, Alfred, and Bouch all have ranged weapons equipped, so the mage gets to pick his poison. He chooses poorly.  This peg knight is a problem, but she's the only one advancing right now and we got here quickly enough that Louis can turn his full attention to her as soon as he javelins this fighter. Sean actually ran outside the village to heal Louis, which I appreciate since Framme sure wasn't gonna catch up anytime soon.  For whatever reason, none of these guys near the boss move except for the boss himself. Since her engage is about to run out, we might as well burn Warp Ragnarok while we have it.   With the peg knight dealt with, the chapter is effectively over. The boss is more annoying than dangerous, and everyone else can be killed at our leisure since they either don't move or won't actively attack us.  With that said, let's get ourselves a child soldier. It's not safe here! You should be running! I can't. I'm the local doctor's son. I won't leave until I've helped the injured! Huh... You've got a lot of heart for a kid your age. All right. Let's join forces and save those villagers! I really appreciate the help. My name's Jean. Now come on ─ there's work to do! Base Class: Martial Monk Class Type: Qi Adept Personal Skill: Expertise - Doubles class growths. Base Stats: HP: 19 (50% + 0%) Str: 4 (20% + 20%) Mag: 5 (20% + 50%) Dex: 10 (35% + 0%) Spd: 7 (40% + 0%) Def: 4 (25% + 20%) Res: 8 (20% + 40%) Luck: 3 (25% + 20%) Build: 3 (5% + 0%) The game would like me to tell you that Jean is your Est - the classic, extreme growth unit that needs a lot of help to get started, but once they do, they're very good. But that's not really the case here? Obviously he's going to be a few levels behind Framme, but he can easily get those first couple levels on staff exp and because of how Expertise doubles class growths, he'll get a lot of magic to start out. After that though? Jean is basically a blank slate - if you move him into something like Fighter or Knight, suddenly he has a 60% strength growth. Move him over to Mage, and he becomes a walking magical nuke. Whatever you decided to do with him, Jean will be good at it - the only question is whether it's worth putting the resources into him to get there.   There's not much I can do with it, at any rate. Better it should go to a soldier like yourself.*Received an Energy Drop.*  Louis gets in position to bait the boss. He can't hurt us, and from this position he can't get to a shrub to attack us either. I've got better things to do than try and smack a guy with 80 avoid.  Solid. She's going to want more speed since she literally can't get build as a monk, but as long as she keeps getting magic and HP, we can make it work for now.  I probably mentioned this before, but engage attacks can't miss, so you can take your 32% hit chance and shove it.  We're saved! And it's thanks to the lot of you. I'm glad no one got hurt. I was a little worried there. You can't know what this means to us. We decided to give you this to show our thanks.*Received Surge, Pure Water*  End of Chapter  Come now, Jean. Give the nice people a proper thank-you. Oh, right. Thank you for saving our village. We saved it together. You did well today, Jean. Oh! I introduced myself to you, but I never asked your name, did I? Well, there was a lot going on. I'm the Divine Dragon Alear. The Divine Dragon?! From the land of Lythos?! Oh, please forgive my rudeness! Don't mention it. Like I said, there was a lot going on at the time. I've been on a journey to defeat the Fell Dragon and bring peace to the world. The whole world? Wow. If it's all right with you, Divine One, can I come along and help?! Jean! What's gotten into you?! My dream has always been to become a doctor so I can save people. And that hasn't changed. But with monsters running rampant, I might die before I can do that. Look what just happened! At the Divine Dragon's side, I think I can learn to fight and to heal people at the same time. That's all very well for you, but what about the Divine Dragon? You'd just be a burden. Oh, I wouldn't say that. Not if what he did during that battle is anything to go by. If Jean wants to come, I don't mind. Though I understand why you'd be worried. What? You're actually allowing him to go? Father, I told you, you don't need to worry about me. It's not like I'm never coming home. In fact, when I do return, I'll be a first-rate doctor. You'll see! How quickly they grow up... Of course, Jean. Be a good boy, a hard worker, and an attentive student. And come home safe. I will! Thank you, both of you. I can't wait to start working alongside the Divine Dragon! The feeling is mutual, Jean. I have a hunch that I'll be leaning on you a lot in the days to come.That's a pretty short chapter, so let's do a little cleanup in the Somniel before we go.  We cash in a bunch of our iron ingots to get Liberation up to +2 and then go wide to make a lot of Javelin +1's and other basic equipment.  Chloe gets an okay level in the arena. Celine should have, but got smoked having to fight Chloe and Alfred came up about 10 exp short.    While Chloe and Boucheron have something that resembles a personality, Alfred...does not. His whole schtick is about getting physically stronger, and the game is going to do its damndest to make sure you don't forget it. Celine is also pretty one-note, but at least the game goes a lot of different places with her tea obsession. Reminiscing with Chloe is a very different support than the international politicking that she'll do with later characters, even if the framing is the same. Next time: Chapter 6 and another emblem
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Apr 22, 2024 21:30
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I'm actually quite fond of Jean since this game tends to weigh class bonuses a lot more than your typical FE game. You get him into a class like Berserker, and he's pulling in (30% * 2) STR growth on top of his base, which can end up making him a force to be reckoned with. Although... yeah, getting him there might take a little bit of work.
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Apr 22, 2024 21:47
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At least this game has the decency to give you Jean early enough that he isn't a total liability while you get him built up. It's a nice change from the usual Ests showing up too late to really shine.
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Apr 22, 2024 21:53
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