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Annette does NOT have physic, which contributes to her being absolutely awful. My experience with Maddening is that almost every mage contributes to a 2-shot on units, and they rarely double unless attacking knights due to either having bad speed growths or heavy-rear end magic. They're fairly combat identical except for a few exceptions like Sylvain (who actually has good speed + light magic to conceivably double with, is the best tank-mage by a large margin, and tankier than a lot of physical units at that) or Lysithea (duh). So it comes down to being accurate enough to land consistently and secondary benefits. Dorothea is great because she has range manipulation in Meteor and Thoron, and Physic if you need it. In fact I consider having Physic to be a baseline of 'usable mage', and if you don't have it you better have a drat good reason why you don't. Lysithea gets away with it due to her spell selection allowing her to pick and choose a spell to one-shot..... cavalry, pegasus knights, mages, and swordsmen, as well as break a full monster defense square if you need to. And also having Warp in her back pocket, which can save you headaches on occasion. Like warping in a Wyvern Knight to kill a problematically placed Meteor or whatever mage and canto-ing away. Annette... can waste a turn to Rally someone for minor gain. Her spell selection also means she's stuck at 1-2 range without equipment, and hits less hard on maximum output due to her top spell being Excalibur.
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Jun 18, 2021 00:29
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McTimmy posted:Non-students can get 0-state level-ups. Shamir is like a magnet for them for me. Jesus, I thought that the game rigging students to always at least get two stats would mean faculty would at least be rigged to never get zero stats... Keldulas posted:Annette does NOT have physic, which contributes to her being absolutely awful. Concurring with pretty much everything here, though you did forget to mention Constance, who has both an eclectic mix of black magic (Sagittae, Fimbulvetr, Bolting, and Agnea's Arrow), and access to Rescue—both of those combined more than make up for her lacking Physic, I feel. I still think she's at l east tied with Lysithea for "best unit in the game" due to how easy it is to get her going and the power she contributes to basically any possible group composition. Her only weakness is her lack of supports compared to base game units—even then, she still has A ranks with important units like Edelgard, Ferdinand, and Mystery Man.
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Jun 18, 2021 00:40
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 Update 103. (SSLP Test Poster version here.) Phew, this is a long one. Quite a few supports, lots of new monastery dialogue, a very long paralogue, and an after-action for auxiliary battles. With that, I hope you all enjoyed this rapid burst of updates! I'll be going on vacation starting tomorrow and ending the Sunday after next. I think this is my first vacation in, what, four years...? Yeah, that sounds about right.
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Jun 18, 2021 00:55
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Rea posted:Concurring with pretty much everything here, though you did forget to mention Constance, who has both an eclectic mix of black magic (Sagittae, Fimbulvetr, Bolting, and Agnea's Arrow), and access to Rescue—both of those combined more than make up for her lacking Physic, I feel. I still think she's at l east tied with Lysithea for "best unit in the game" due to how easy it is to get her going and the power she contributes to basically any possible group composition. Her only weakness is her lack of supports compared to base game units—even then, she still has A ranks with important units like Edelgard, Ferdinand, and Mystery Man. The huge thing is the eventual 4 charge bolting that conceivably will kill units. It makes it excellent for pulling enemy formations and forcing them into your killzone rather than the other way around. I think she's tied with Lysithea as well but I'd rate Claude/Edelgard/Catherine above them.
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Jun 18, 2021 00:58
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Rea posted:With that, I hope you all enjoyed this rapid burst of updates! I'll be going on vacation starting tomorrow and ending the Sunday after next. I think this is my first vacation in, what, four years...? Yeah, that sounds about right. Hope you have a wonderful time.
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Jun 18, 2021 01:02
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Rea posted:Her only weakness is her lack of supports compared to base game units—even then, she still has A ranks with important units like Edelgard, Ferdinand, and Mystery Man. The problem is that all those supports are on Black Eagles. BL she does have Mercedes, but unless you recruit her or Ferdinand, she has no supports on Golden Deer other than her fellow Wolves. In fact, Balthus is the only Ashen Wolf with supports in the Golden Deer. The rest are all Byleth/Eagles/Lions/each other.
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Jun 18, 2021 01:03
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I didn't get the DLC for the game, cause I wasn't sold on the narrative reasons for it existing and otherwise I don't really adhere to 'spend money to make game easier on myself'. Just looking at the spell-lists at least, Hapi is in the important respects, female Dark-Magic Lindhardt, which essentially means she's an upgrade to a character I already consider perfectly useable. Constance adheres to the swiss-army knife aspect of mages with that stuff, which indeed makes up for her lack of Physic. Analyzing her without having used her myself is more difficult due to the modular nature of her benefits, but I liked using Hannumen previously when I had to replace an ailing Dedue in my lineup, so I find it likely that I'd use her a lot, too. I'd say that she definitely gives a drat good reason to use her despite her lack of Physic.
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Jun 18, 2021 01:16
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Interesting detail on this paralogue: you don't get this paralogue simply for being in part two of Azure Moon with Annette and Gilbert alive. They in fact need to have at least a C or B (not sure which) support with each other to activate this paralogue. If you decide that Annette is better off without Gilbert (reasonable) and never have them interact, this paralogue never pops up. Combined with the Aegis Shield in part one, the Sword of Zoltan, Felix's other special toy, and Mercedes' other special item, there's something of a theme of the Blue Lions having at least theoretically important items hidden behind optional objectives. Also, Sylvain can make good use of Crusher. In my experience he often winds up with a reasonable MAG even running him down physical classes, and so Crusher can serve as a bolt axe with double meat if Sylvain's shaping up that way (or anyone else so inclined). Funny thing is that Edelgard would probably make terrific use of Crusher but can never get it (Flayn cries in Arrow of Indra). Cythereal fucked around with this message at 01:26 on Jun 18, 2021 |
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Jun 18, 2021 01:23
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Cythereal posted:Interesting detail on this paralogue: you don't get this paralogue simply for being in part two of Azure Moon with Annette and Gilbert alive. They in fact need to have at least a C or B (not sure which) support with each other to activate this paralogue. It's C, seemingly—the paralogue showed up on the calendar before I'd gotten the two to B.
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Jun 18, 2021 01:26
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I think it's because the C support is the first concrete case of their family relationship on the route. It's not super difficult to puzzle out but it's certainly possible to not even realize the two are related without it.
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Jun 18, 2021 01:55
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ApplesandOranges posted:I think it's because the C support is the first concrete case of their family relationship on the route. It's not super difficult to puzzle out but it's certainly possible to not even realize the two are related without it. Gilbert straight up tells you that he's Annette's father in part one if you question him while looking for Flayn during her disappearance. Posting this mostly for Annette's expression. https://twitter.com/daneicole/status/1377594115580329987
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Jun 18, 2021 01:56
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So now that we've seen Crusher, it's time to talk about one of the many weird things about this game that came out recently (the gallery explaining this has a few spoilery images, so I'll refrain from posting it): Crusher has the wrong Crest Stone in-game. If you zoom in on Crusher's model, you notice that it doesn't have the Crest of Dominic....but rather, the Crest of Daphnel. Conversely, Luin has the same issue; its Crest Stone is none other than the Crest of Dominic. Now, one might wonder if there was a last minute Crest swap or something like a coding screwup, but I lean more to the "we screwed up coding stuff" reasoning. Primarily because, Fire Emblem Heroes corrects this oversight as seen below:  Of course, the other reasoning does have some legs to stand on. If the crests of Daphnel and Dominic were swapped, it'd probably help explain why the resurrected Dominic wields a magic-focused axe and a magic-focused Crest while being a Wyvern Lord, a physical-focused class, in Verdant Wind's final map. Plus, as we've seen, the magic-focused lance (the Arrow of Indra) is extremely rare and hard to come by, so having Luin be magic-focused would give it an interesting niche amongst lances early on in the game.
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Jun 18, 2021 02:08
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Gilbert says somewhere it was Lambert's father who knighted him. Baron Dominic is Gilbert's older brother. Weird having a faceless NPC being the theoretically more important one. And how much more reasonable than Gilbert he is. Also, there was either some sort of miscommunication or just plain overlooking things going on with the writers for the paralogue because half of the dialogue directly contradicts the other half. The Dominic territory is far in the west, which is under the Empire's jurisdiction, not Cornelia and the Dukedom's. It should be tagged as Old Faerghus Territories like Gwendel's troops but it's just not.
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Jun 18, 2021 02:24
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Re: Magechat Both Constance and Lysithea stay on the A team and never, ever leave unless you like losing for some unknowable reason.
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Jun 18, 2021 05:19
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Annette made for a pretty good Wyvern Lord with Crusher. Despite pushing her through physical classes, her Mag was still better than her Str, so Bolt Axe and Crusher worked great and she could also rallybot. While Dimitri being unavailable for training is terrible from a gameplay perspective, it makes complete sense for the plot. Ch 16 spoiler: I think the optional event in chapter 16 should have unlocked him at least partially.
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Jun 18, 2021 05:53
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I still find it amusing how one of the Hero's Relics is just named Crusher.
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Jun 18, 2021 17:00
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Count Galatea is kind of a oval office as off-screen parental figures go. He's not in the top tier of bad dads but he's not a good one.
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Jun 18, 2021 18:38
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Sylvain has a lot of good lines, his win quote of "Burn until we meet again." is my favorite.
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Jun 18, 2021 23:15
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Just to double check, but Alois and Catherine don't auto-join you on AM/VW, right? Like with Shamir, sure, whatever, but Alois at least is present when you re-take Garrech Mach. It's not like it's a case of Manuela and Hanneman defecting to the other side of the War, the two are Rhea loyalists unless otherwise.
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Jun 19, 2021 03:35
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ApplesandOranges posted:Just to double check, but Alois and Catherine don't auto-join you on AM/VW, right? Like with Shamir, sure, whatever, but Alois at least is present when you re-take Garrech Mach. Correct, Catherine and Alois must be manually recruited.
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Jun 19, 2021 05:16
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If you go by the 'they were defeated in part one' scenes, I get the impression that except for Manuela/Hanneman in AM, any Church folks you don't recruit in SS/AM/VW die during the timeskip.
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Jun 19, 2021 11:47
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Cythereal posted:If you go by the 'they were defeated in part one' scenes, I get the impression that except for Manuela/Hanneman in AM, any Church folks you don't recruit in SS/AM/VW die during the timeskip.  Alois shows up at Garrech Mach in Part 2 in AM and I think VW. I have no idea how this cutscene changes if Flayn dies in Part 1, actually.
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Jun 20, 2021 05:41
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I don't think anyone can die in part 1, they just go by the ol' "too injured to fight, but can still hang out in cutscenes" series standard.
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Jun 20, 2021 13:00
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Zulily Zoetrope posted:I don't think anyone can die in part 1, they just go by the ol' "too injured to fight, but can still hang out in cutscenes" series standard. However, they don't rejoin in part 2 if that happens and get an epilogue. Almost all the Church folks, if that happens, the game says were killed by Edelgard's forces during the timeskip.
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Jun 20, 2021 14:08
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Update 104. (SSLP Test Poster version here.) Hello, I'm back from vacation! I had a lovely time visiting my girlfriend, but now I'm ready to get back to chewing through this thing. I wonder how far I'll get before NEO TWEWY releases next month. Also, fun fact, this LP turns two years old on September 5th. I've been LP'ing this game longer than I thought. There's just too much game! Too much! Ahhhhh!
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Jun 28, 2021 04:23
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 Fleche is French for arrow, but they don't pronounce it right. Or, at least, they don't pronounce it like it is in my part of Canada. But I guess having a character named "Flesh" would be really weird.
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Jun 28, 2021 04:35
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Dimitri almost did an oopsie there! ...I wonder what a Fire Emblem Geneva Convention would actually look like, given the existence of magic and the seemingly more common presence of toxins
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Jun 28, 2021 04:44
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And here we have one of the dumber missteps in Azure Moon, Randolph's execution. I'll grant that it definitely sells the darker tone of the route...if it was treated as a proper sign of how serious things are in this route. But it's not. It's instead the first step taken by the game to help Dimitri get out of his current murderous mentality. Yes, this genuine war crime (executing a defenseless prisoner) is treated for all intents and purposes as Adan doing the right thing. Because that's how one always helps a friend overcome mental illness, preventing them from committing a war crime by committing the war crime yourself. And unfortunately, this is not the first incredibly dumb action taken by Azure Moon.
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Jun 28, 2021 04:46
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AradoBalanga posted:And here we have one of the dumber missteps in Azure Moon, Randolph's execution. I'll grant that it definitely sells the darker tone of the route...if it was treated as a proper sign of how serious things are in this route. But it's not. It's instead the first step taken by the game to help Dimitri get out of his current murderous mentality. Yes, this genuine war crime (executing a defenseless prisoner) is treated for all intents and purposes as Adan doing the right thing. Because that's how one always helps a friend overcome mental illness, preventing them from committing a war crime by committing the war crime yourself. And unfortunately, this is not the first incredibly dumb action taken by Azure Moon. So your solution to this, given what the game gives is... to let Dimitri torture Randolph? That's somehow less of a war crime? That's less of a bad thing than letting the mentally ill man give in to his worst impulses? Really? Edit: And while I"m at it, how is invading the monastery benefiting Randolph? His nation benefits from squashing all resistance to their conquest, but what does he or his family gain that isn't "more territory for us to rule"? Melomane Mallet fucked around with this message at 05:48 on Jun 28, 2021 |
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Jun 28, 2021 05:32
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Dang, Bernie is getting seriously Str blessed. She's right up there with Balthus and Alois.
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Jun 28, 2021 06:01
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Melomane Mallet posted:So your solution to this, given what the game gives is... to let Dimitri torture Randolph? That's somehow less of a war crime? That's less of a bad thing than letting the mentally ill man give in to his worst impulses? Really? The Fleche and Randolph scene before the map show why Randolph is here- because reports say the Knights of Seiros have established a base here, and might have allied with a vicious, murderous bandit, so he's attacking GM because it's become an enemy base again. As it turns out, the reports were accurate; GM is an enemy base, and the Knights have joined with a vicious murderer. Randolph just underestimates the strength of the opposition, and winds up getting mercy-killed-before-he-gets-tortured-to-death for it. As for "what other solutions could there be?", how about "stop Dimitri (by force if necessary) from having any interaction at all with the prisoners"? The only options aren't just pure trolley-problem "commit a war crime" or "let your boss commit an even worse war crime", there's also the option "stop your boss from committing a war crime". And honestly, given how only one character in that scene was planning on premeditated war crimes, if someone in that scene did need to be killed I'm fairly sure Randolph wasn't that person. Shinji117 fucked around with this message at 06:59 on Jun 28, 2021 |
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Jun 28, 2021 06:48
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Shinji117 posted:The Fleche and Randolph scene before the map show why Randolph is here- because reports say the Knights of Seiros have established a base here, and might have allied with a vicious, murderous bandit, so he's attacking GM because it's become an enemy base again. As it turns out, the reports were accurate; GM is an enemy base, and the Knights have joined with a vicious murderer. Randolph just underestimates the strength of the opposition, and winds up getting mercy-killed-before-he-gets-tortured-to-death for it. Again, Randolph specifically states he's doing this for his family; how does this benefit them? Yeah, Dimitri almost did something awful (  ); that's kind of the point -- his character arc requires him to hit rock bottom before he can work his way back up. (And please tell me you are not getting into the "mentally ill man should be put down for his own good", because, holy poo poo, that ableism).
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Jun 28, 2021 07:10
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Melomane Mallet posted:Again, Randolph specifically states he's doing this for his family; how does this benefit them? I mean, doing your job well is normally pretty beneficial to self and family, especially if your job is, say, a general in a setting like Fodlan's, where strength of arms is seen as a way to prove your worth. See Caspar, or like any of the Faerghus nobility. Or it could be that he felt a need to prove himself worthy of Bergliez, given the nature of their house. Or he could be trying to head off threats (like, say, the Church establishing a base to conduct attacks against the Empire, including his family) to his family early. Honestly, there's a whole bunch of reasons why "military leaders shows success and initiative in preventing enemy from regaining foothold" would be beneficial for his family, so honestly I'm a little confused as to why it's confusing. E: There’s a CF quote that address why Randolph would be looking for provable success. I specifically said that the best option would be to stop Dimitri interacting with prisoners (or anyone he plans to torture to death) at all. However, if we're living in bizarro Trolley-Problem land where the only options were "kill the helpless prisoner", "let the helpless prisoner be tortured to death" or "kill the mentally unwell war criminal who wants to torture the helpless prisoner to death" I'd probably go with the last option because while it's bad, if it's literally the only way to not have prisoners get killed then it's unfortunately the least--bad option. Again though, in a non-limited world confinement and, if possible, treatment would be infinitely better. A (IMO) very bad solution would be to let the mentally ill man continue to do basically whatever he wants, only preventing him from doing anything impossibly atrocious by doing very bad things that head off the incoming atrocities, all in the hopes that once he's had enough time at rock bottom he'll somehow work his way up. Shinji117 fucked around with this message at 18:18 on Jun 28, 2021 |
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Jun 28, 2021 07:38
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There's also 'Dimitri is the face of the Alliance army, for better or worse, and Byleth killing the King incumbent, no matter how justified, has ramifications'.
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Jun 28, 2021 08:16
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This is kind of the conflict-arc at the center of Azure Moon. Due to various degrees of trauma or having their own heads up their asses, the people supporting Dimitri are not doing anything to stop him. We see the resolution of this in Silver Snow and Verdant Wind, where the classmates that still follow Dimitri actively get killed by this problem, before Dimitri finally goes a step too far and gets himself killed. Azure Moon is just where the professor is involved. And I don’t blame the professor for the situation with Randolph at least. They woke up, then had to do two consecutive intense battles in short succession. Yeah Dimitri shows signs of instability, but this is the first step of straight up warcriming the professor sees, at least. So in a situation where they have to act fast, “mercy kill enemy general” is a reasonable option. I give no excuses for any action or lack thereof for events later on, but at least in this case I don’t have a problem yet.
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Jun 28, 2021 09:02
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This is pretty much the moment that killed AM for me and basically any sympathy I have for Dimitri or Adan at this point. If your boss is going to torture someone to death, killing the victim is not the correct option under any circumstance. Your obligation is to stop your boss from doing the torture. There are any number of ways to get this done and that Adan murdering a prisoner is presented as a good and proper option is disgusting. And I just don't buy that Byleth needs to kowtow to Dimitri to have a chance in the war or whatever, either given that in Silver Snow Byleth and the Knights of Seiros win the entire war on their own. Melomane Mallet posted:(And please tell me you are not getting into the "mentally ill man should be put down for his own good", because, holy poo poo, that ableism). I feel like this is a pretty bad strawman of the argument. If someone is mentally ill and attacks another person because of issues with their illness then you have an obligation to a) Stop them from hurting the person that they're attacking and b) Get both parties to safe spaces so that they can receive medical treatment. Lethal force isn't required in either situation. Edit: I think the main point is that whilst I understand it's important to show Dimitri's fall, that nobody does anything about it and that you as the main character are implicated in that failure to help really hurts the entire plotline for me. So much of this just became a chore to play afterwards because I just don't think a redemption arc is warranted from this point on. Natural 20 fucked around with this message at 10:21 on Jun 28, 2021 |
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Jun 28, 2021 10:16
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If Dimitri had made the breaking speech and then killed him then that would be messed up but something that could be recovered from. Instead we get this mess and Dimitri comes off as a complete monster and every other member of the team as an enabler. Melomane Mallet posted:Yeah, Dimitri almost did something awful ( There is a difference between hitting rock bottom and the place that Dimitri has ended up. The moment that someone starts enjoying the idea of mutilating prisoners then at that point they are gone.
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Jun 28, 2021 11:33
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As much as I defend Azure Moon, this is one scene where I feel like the writing has failed pretty hard. Dimitri torturing someone feels wildly out of character, even for this point in his character arc. Slaughtering people en masse, yes, that feels expected, even people with iffy justifications for being treated so harshly. But going one step further to actively torturing someone feels... wrong. Frankly, Dimitri at this point explicitly capturing Randolph at all feels out of character. I think something more in-character, probably, would have been Randolph trying to surrender and Dimitri killing him on the spot. I almost wonder if this scene was deliberately added to keep Dimitri and AM from seeming too good and sympathetic compared to the other factions, given that in AM everyone is otherwise well-behaved in times of war, and it contrasts how Edelgard keeps her personal hands squeaky clean while directing her armies to conquest. I feel like the writers wanted to show Dimitri explicitly, unambiguously going too far in a way that cannot be justified or defended, but the circumstances of the plot they wrote (where Edelgard is the instigator of the war and Dimitri is fundamentally caught up in trying to defend his kingdom against what the Kingdom sees to be an unprovoked invasion) worked against that desire, and this is what we got. As for Sylvain's schoolyard hijinks, you can get his B support with Dimitri in part two and not a word of it changes. Yes, this Dimitri hiding in Sylvain's room from an amorous young woman after he tried to use Sylvain's pick up lines and it went horribly wrong, forcing Sylvain to ride to the rescue as only Sylvain can. Cythereal fucked around with this message at 12:27 on Jun 28, 2021 |
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Jun 28, 2021 12:07
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Natural 20 posted:This is pretty much the moment that killed AM for me and basically any sympathy I have for Dimitri or Adan at this point. I think trying to de-trolly problem the situation is honestly underestimating what the situation is in general. What happens if Adan tries to talk Dimitri down? Dimitri doesn't listen. If he tries to physically restrain Dimitri? All his other retainers stop Adan, because they are enablers locked into a death cult mentality that says Dimitri is allowed to do what he deems necessary. The only way to stop what Dimitri is doing here is to kill him, and killing the crown Prince of Faerghus in broad daylight does not end with Adan alive or leading this army. Adan could absolutely replace Dimitri as the figurehead needed to unite the land against Adestria, sure, but that doesn't help right now in the immediate aftermath of this battle. Trying to deal with this scene in terms of stretching the story logic to invent other solutions where there really wouldn't be any doesn't really understand what the story is doing. Like, without doing too much of a deep dive here because the story's still kinda playing a little coy with the root of Dimitri's problem, he's torturing this prisoner because he considers him to deserve it, and the reasons he considers that to be true are crucial to understand in order to actually grapple with who Dimitri is as a character.
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Jun 28, 2021 12:41
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For what it's worth, I don't think it's a death cult mentality with the Blue Lions. I think it's that Dimitri is, or was, their friend. Adan's a Johnny-come-lately professor. To me, the key emotional beat of Azure Moon is this: friends don't give up on their friends, even when they do bad things and times are hard. You persist, you forgive, you try to help your friend back onto the right path. You don't abandon or give up on them.
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Jun 28, 2021 12:44
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