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I think it's also pretty sad that they didn't give the top tier offensive White spells to Manuela and Flayn. Manuela really would have liked it since she has a weakness in Reason and even if you devote yourself to it, her Reason learnset is pretty weak other than Bolting, which has limited uses. Flayn wouldn't be as dependent on it since the Wind spells are.. okay for her, but it would have been thematic enough.Captainicus posted:Fates characters had one alternate class, and each class had two promotion options, but there were also friendship seals and partner seals that would let you change to the class of your A+ rank same sex support partner or S rank different sex support partner. With that, each character has 6 possible max level class options. I think it was a pretty good system, all up. It's actually 8 possible max, that's if your base classes have different promotion options (to give you 4), and then friendship and partner seals give you another 4 more. But not everyone has that option. For instance, both of Benny's Conquest Friendship options give him Fighter, which he already has as a base option. So Friendship Seals are useless for him outside of Revelation, where he can access Diviner from Hayato.
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Jul 2, 2021 16:03
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ApplesandOranges posted:I think it's also pretty sad that they didn't give the top tier offensive White spells to Manuela and Flayn. Manuela really would have liked it since she has a weakness in Reason and even if you devote yourself to it, her Reason learnset is pretty weak other than Bolting, which has limited uses. Flayn wouldn't be as dependent on it since the Wind spells are.. okay for her, but it would have been thematic enough. This comes back to what I've said about the game being too open-ended for its own good. If you had to get Maneula and she was one of a limited roster, there would be more incentive to make her work. But you don't, and there's not. If you pick up Maneula, it's because you like her as a character, you want her for shipping, or you're just going "Well I've never used Manuela before, let's give it a try." 3H really struggles with some characters simply due to the abundance of superior options. Annette's another good example here in the Lions. Aside from her unique niche as a rallybot, there's no compelling reason to use her as a serious combat character (well, comedy option of the magic axe wyvern aside). Marianne, Lysithea, and Dorothea are simply better, Flayn and Linhardt are close and have better Faith lists, and even Mercedes is arguably a more dangerous mage. Dorothea especially sticks out in this regard because the skill required to recruit her is one you're almost certainly going to be pumping on Byleth regardless. Unless you're actively minimizing recruitment, there's just no incentive to seriously develop Annette in the presence of better options.
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Jul 2, 2021 16:10
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I do think Annette's better than Mercedes as an offensive mage, though, it's just that Mercedes' role as a healer gives her more presence. On paper Mercedes hits harder, but the Wind line's lower Wt and higher crit chance means Annette is better at shooting down wyverns and has a better chance of doubling. Annette's Authority boon also gives her some versatility that Mercedes can lack, and while the wyvern build might seem like a meme option, Annette gets around one of the issues some of the flying students deal with, which can be a struggle to find appropriate Gambits. Knowledge of recruitment really does break the game, because you can pick out key students and just replace all your weak ones no matter what House you're playing. When you're playing blind you probably get like, 1-4, especially if you don't have Byleth go build supports with non-House options. And then it might just be random, useless ones like Ignatz if you're playing Eagles or Lorenz on pretty much any house. A Maddening No Recruitment Run (or restricting yourself to Church recruits) would probably require a lot of knowledge and planning on hand, especially if you're not recruiting the Wolves, but I like the idea of working with that limited scope of resources and maximizing the use of your motley House of students.
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Jul 2, 2021 16:20
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ApplesandOranges posted:It's actually 8 possible max, that's if your base classes have different promotion options (to give you 4), and then friendship and partner seals give you another 4 more. But not everyone has that option. For instance, both of Benny's Conquest Friendship options give him Fighter, which he already has as a base option. So Friendship Seals are useless for him outside of Revelation, where he can access Diviner from Hayato. I can math good 
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Jul 2, 2021 16:23
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On one hand the open ended nature of the game means absolutely anyone can work because the sheer power classes can put out. Wyvern Lord being crazy strong means that even dumpster fire units like Lorenz will be able to work, even on Maddening. I think that's really important, if you like a character, they aren't screwed and you can make them work. Using your favourites gets you invested in the game and your favourites being effective makes you invest in them more. Fates' more limited system gave characters more of an identity with the classes that they had but it also meant that some characters were just irretrievably bad because they had bad growths and couldn't get into the more powerful classes like ninja etc. This was especially bad in Conquest where support ranks were limited by experience and second seals by limited cash so you couldn't experiment in characters in certain classes because you couldn't guarantee when you'd get your heart or friend seals open. It's also why I don't think poaching should be limited by house because if I couldn't use Leonie on Azure Moon I would have quit playing. On the other hand it makes a huge number of classes in the game feel unimportant because why be a Dark Knight when you can just be another Wyvern lord. But I think that speaks more to issues around class balance than necessarily that the system is wrong.
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Jul 2, 2021 17:24
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ApplesandOranges posted:A Maddening No Recruitment Run (or restricting yourself to Church recruits) would probably require a lot of knowledge and planning on hand, especially if you're not recruiting the Wolves, but I like the idea of working with that limited scope of resources and maximizing the use of your motley House of students. No-recruitment runs, in particular, would be fascinating because with only one exception (AM after having done a specific optional objective), you can't field a full party of units at endgame—all of the endgame maps have 12 deployment slots, and aside from that one exception, you'll have 11 at best. Silver Snow: Byleth, Ferdinand, Linhardt, Caspar, Dorothea, Bernadetta, Petra, Seteth, Flayn, Catherine, Cyril (11) Verdant Wind: Byleth, Claude, Lorenz, Raphael, Ignatz, Lysithea, Marianne, Hilda, Leonie, Seteth, Flayn (11) Azure Moon: Byleth, Dimitri, Felix, Sylvain, Ashe, Mercedes, Annette, Ingrid, Seteth, Flayn, Gilbert (11) Crimson Flower: Byleth, Edelgard, Hubert, Ferdinand, Linhardt, Caspar, Dorothea, Bernadetta, Petra, Mystery Man (10) Not only does that mean you don't even have a full amount of units out in the actual battle, you also just full-stop can't use adjutants if you deploy everyone into the battle. CF does depend on what definition of "recruitment" you're using, though—if it's just "recruitment during Part 1," then you can pick up Lysithea during Chapter 14, which would bring you up to 11 units. As mentioned in Update 72, she's the only unit you can do this with, since recruiting Ashe and Lorenz after they fight you is only possible if you grabbed them during Part 1.
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Jul 2, 2021 17:34
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Rea posted:No-recruitment runs, in particular, would be fascinating because with only one exception (AM after having done a specific optional objective), you can't field a full party of units at endgame—all of the endgame maps have 12 deployment slots, and aside from that one exception, you'll have 11 at best. One personal wrinkle I'd add to a no-recruitment run is 'one recruitment specifically for your dancer.' Dancer arrives relatively late in the story, and by that point you've likely already cultivated everyone in your house for their intended roles. Now, I kind of think this is what Flayn is for (CF aside), but it's a shortcut that I think would keep in the spirit of things.
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Jul 2, 2021 17:47
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Cythereal posted:One personal wrinkle I'd add to a no-recruitment run is 'one recruitment specifically for your dancer.' Dancer arrives relatively late in the story, and by that point you've likely already cultivated everyone in your house for their intended roles. Now, I kind of think this is what Flayn is for (CF aside), but it's a shortcut that I think would keep in the spirit of things. Who would you even make be the dancer for CF, jeez. I guess the least bad option is Hubert, but that means you're now stuck with Dorothea and I guess Linhardt for magic damage. Could add Byleth in if you make them a magic user. I'd normally say Ferdinand, since he has a lot of things going for him that make him an attractive dancer option, but doing that to your best defensive unit, who can also contribute significant offense, while you're so short-staffed strikes me as a really bad idea.
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Jul 2, 2021 17:56
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Rea posted:Who would you even make be the dancer for CF, jeez. I guess the least bad option is Hubert, but that means you're now stuck with Dorothea and I guess Linhardt for magic damage. Could add Byleth in if you make them a magic user. My one CF game, I made Edelgard my dancer. I thought she was going to get the Sword of Seiros like she does in every other route, and could get the Shield of Seiros that every other route gets, and my plan was to make her a tough, dodgy front liner who would rapidly regenerate HP thanks to matching her Crest with the sword and shield. Fine idea in theory, but I made errors in assuming gear availability. 
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Jul 2, 2021 18:06
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Rea posted:Who would you even make be the dancer for CF, jeez. I guess the least bad option is Hubert, but that means you're now stuck with Dorothea and I guess Linhardt for magic damage. Could add Byleth in if you make them a magic user. Dorothea no question for the dancer. She's the best support dancer in the game and the second best overall. Especially in CF. Dancer at the point you get it is a huge power spike for spellcasters. They gain two movement alongside three speed for getting into the class. They drop two points of magic but the sheer number of doubles the speed gain causes outweighs that significantly alongside the positioning advantage. A Dorothea that gets dancer is sufficiently fast to double most threats on maddening. As she falls off, which she will, she easily and quickly repositions to AoE support by granting everyone +hit with Meteor. But her drop off is less pronounced on CF because there aren't that many maps. The Beagles have a terrible magical lineup as it is, so you just lean into making your bonkers physical power all you need. In terms of considering a no-recruitment run in general. VW would be pretty easy, they have the highest concentration of the best units in the game with Claude/Lysithea/Leonie covering all your bases and their bottom end is like Ignatz/Raph/Lorenz. And they're not bad. The Beagles would be okay. Again, they don't have a bad bottom end with Hubert and Ferdinand kinda wanting for efficacy. But their top end, whilst not as crazy as VW is still really strong. Dorothea is a huge boost early. Edelgard is just crazy all game and becomes insane post timeskip and Petra, whilst not as good as Leonie because no cursed sword is still edging the top 5 units in the game. The Lions are a mess. Your best units by miles are Dimitri/Ingrid/Sylvain. The problem is that Dimitri is basically a razor's edge where he can coinflip to unsalvageable speed really easy and if you misjudge training him he can end up without Death Blow or without Authority A before the timeskip, making him utterly useless after it. Ingrid is missing her recruitment boost so she's just much weaker than she should be. And Sylvain is still great but he's not a carry you to victory character in the way that Petra/Lysithea/Leonie can be. Natural 20 fucked around with this message at 18:26 on Jul 2, 2021 |
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Jul 2, 2021 18:16
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Rea posted:No-recruitment runs, in particular, would be fascinating because with only one exception (AM after having done a specific optional objective), you can't field a full party of units at endgame—all of the endgame maps have 12 deployment slots, and aside from that one exception, you'll have 11 at best. The simplest solution would just be to allow Church recruitments, since they have basically no stat requirements (Byleth will hit the required levels unless you really ignore them). Or, if you're that worried about the power of Thunderbrand, restrict it to just recruiting Alois/Hanneman/Manuela, none of which are super strong. Rea posted:Who would you even make be the dancer for CF, jeez. I guess the least bad option is Hubert, but that means you're now stuck with Dorothea and I guess Linhardt for magic damage. Could add Byleth in if you make them a magic user. It's probably not optimal, but I imagine you could make Bernie work as a Dancer. Her spell list is workable and her damage is salvageable at any rate due to Vengeance. The main issue I imagine would be the opportunity cost of Curved Shot/Deadeye. Alternatively, just turn Petra into your Dancer and make her an insanely dodgy frontliner. Or Caspar, because he's really the worst unit on CF. ApplesandOranges fucked around with this message at 20:38 on Jul 2, 2021 |
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Jul 2, 2021 20:32
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She's probably not great on maddening, but Edelgard makes for a really good gremory if you're wanting for magic offense. She'll have enough bulk to actually take a couple hits, and she gets the three of the four heaviest hitting spells in the game for magic offense, plus she can absolutely shred enemy casters with an axe when needed. You'll have to work against her faith malus and give up on her having obscene physical stats, but most importantly you can make her keep the armored lord outfit post-timeskip and match it with the gremory/warlock casting animations and she'll look hella cool.
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Jul 2, 2021 21:43
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 Update 107. (SSLP Test Poster version here.)
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Jul 4, 2021 07:24
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Gilbert may be the worst playable dad in Fodlan, but Rodrigue takes the fuckin' cake, eats it, and then shits it on Dimitri.
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Jul 4, 2021 07:30
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The funny thing is if you actually play Felix's paralogue, it gives you plenty of reasons to completely not respect Rodrigue. The only reason that map is challenging is because of him. With him telling the citizens to evacuate in the direction of the bandits, or being incredibly easy to kill while surrounded by poo poo.
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Jul 4, 2021 08:24
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The one thing I will say in Rodrigue's defense is that the man himself is clearly badly traumatized by Glenn's death and has tried to come to terms with it by constantly assuring himself that Glenn died nobly like a true knight. Not unlike how Ingrid tries to cope with his death. But Ingrid at least has the defense of being a teenager and not being in a position for that attitude to do immense harm like Rodrigue. Another bit of trivia: Dimitri's unique weapon comes from Celtic mythology. Araedbhar translates to 'Slaughterer' and was the spear of one of the Celtic gods. Rea posted:I kind of wonder if, given Dimitri's aptitude in Riding, and series precedent with regards to lords' promoted classes (Seliph, Eliwood, Eirika, Ephraim), Great Lord was originally a mounted class, but got nerfed down to infantry for whatever balance reasons. The other version I've heard was that early in the game's development Dimitri was a woman and that Faerghus was intended to play up the pegasus knight thing, before that got mostly shifted onto Ingrid (herself supposedly based on proto-Dimitri's appearance and personality). A pegasus lord could have been interesting.
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Jul 4, 2021 12:43
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And so the death march officially begins. It is what the king demands and so everyone just blindly marches along beyond him.
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Jul 4, 2021 13:17
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About the only thing you can really say in Rodrigue's favor here, I think, is that unlike Gilbert he hasn't seen The Boar in action. He's just seeing his Other Son, battered but alive, not the feral beast who'll use them as meat shields purely for the chance to take the wrong woman's head.
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Jul 4, 2021 13:42
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Hunt11 posted:And so the death march officially begins. It is what the king demands and so everyone just blindly marches along beyond him. Is it really a death march if Silver Snow and Verdant Wind do exactly the same thing, though?
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Jul 4, 2021 13:49
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And thus Dimitri gets his Relic and Upgraded Class at a narratively terrible time because Dimitri has Areadbhar in the Gronder cutscene. Though incidently this is also the only time Felix is ever respectful towards Rodrigue and calls him "Father" rather than "old man".
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Jul 4, 2021 14:01
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Cythereal posted:Is it really a death march if Silver Snow and Verdant Wind do exactly the same thing, though? Kind of, given the fact that all three routes have the same set of maps, but the difference is in how the story is told. It makes complete sense for Claude to stabilize the Alliance and then march to Enbarr to stop the war (by having a third country invade the place, but we're not here to debate that part of his decision-making). And Silver Snow is, in theory, about freeing Rhea. The difference is that Dimitri's duty should lie with his kingdom, and from a tactical point of view it would also be the best idea to take back the Kingdom first before taking the fight to the Empire. But Dimitri doesn't care about that, he just wants to kill Edelgard. It would work a lot better if the three routes were more different. Claude could keep the part where he takes back the Alliance, then maybe he'd head over to Almyra to recruit help there before ending with Enbarr. The church could actually ignore the entire situation in the Alliance and head right for Enbarr to free Rhea, it would make sense here. Still kind of a suicide mission/death march, but it's a small group trying to free their leader. Then it's off to the Slitherers and if Rhea really wants to, she can turn into a dragon at the end. Dimitri could pretty much do what's being described here, try and chase down Edelgard, only not by doing the bridge and Ailell maps, but by actually charging off towards Enbarr until plot. That would probably illustrate the whole death march a bit better.
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Jul 4, 2021 14:15
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Cythereal posted:Is it really a death march if Silver Snow and Verdant Wind do exactly the same thing, though? It was stupid in Silver Snow as well but in Verdant Wind there was the resources to back it up. More importantly both factions had leaders who could actually make rational decisions and have not made it clear that the entire world can burn just as long as they can kill one person.
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Jul 4, 2021 15:02
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Update 108. (SSLP Test Poster version here.)
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Jul 4, 2021 18:38
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Rea posted:Why did I not actively use Alois, again? You made a lot of baffling choices this run, just saying. Not picking up Catherine, passing on the Sword of Moralta... Rea posted:Dedue did get auto-leveled, but sadly I picked the entirely wrong class for him to be auto-leveled in. He's got less Str than Bernadetta, and only "okay" Def. The NPC version of Grappler is just *bad* by comparison - 18% STR growth, which is better than the PC version with 10%, but NPC Warrior has 30% STR growth. If you can swing it, Warrior is absolutely the class you want Dedue in for the timeskip assuming you did his paralogue, the only other NPC class at that tier that comes close is Wyvern Rider at 25%. Even at the best of times, though, Dedue's missed out on a lot of training, and he's kind of marginal to begin with outside being an early game crutch.
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Jul 4, 2021 18:54
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Yeah!! He's here!!!! ...I may be the only one in this thread who hasn't played this already, but I won't let that stop me from celebrating!
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Jul 4, 2021 18:58
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The late-game Dedue problem in a nutshell. He does maybe half health to the enemies and takes nearly all his health in damage on the counterattack. Flatly unusable.
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Jul 4, 2021 19:05
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I know the common wisdom is "knights bad," but as a completely casual player (SUPER causal, I'm very bad at these games but I play because I love the story and characters), Knight Dedue did fantastic work for me by leading the charge and never taking damage ever.
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Jul 4, 2021 19:08
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Dedue is perfectly viable post-timeskip on difficulties lower than Maddening. It's hardly his fault you're playing the "I hate myself" route/difficulty combo.
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Jul 4, 2021 19:24
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It isn't, true. It's the only difficulty I find the game interesting on, though. I'll admit that Maddening does indeed make a lot of characters unusable. I'm amazed that Rea actually leveled Ashe and got him resembling functionality, even though it's obvious that he's flagging use-wise.
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Jul 4, 2021 19:31
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Zulily Zoetrope posted:Dedue is perfectly viable post-timeskip on difficulties lower than Maddening. It's hardly his fault you're playing the "I hate myself" route/difficulty combo. I think Dedue can easily be viable on Maddening, if for no other reason than he's one of the best units—certainly the best member of the Blue Lions—to act as a counter against enemy gauntlet users, who can otherwise be incredibly difficult to approach. I think leaving Dedue in Warrior before the timeskip is the correct move, since it gives him large boosts in all of the stats he cares about (HP, Str, Def). It'd certainly be better than leaving him in Grappler, like I did.
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Jul 4, 2021 19:34
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Keldulas posted:I'll admit that Maddening does indeed make a lot of characters unusable. I'm amazed that Rea actually leveled Ashe and got him resembling functionality, even though it's obvious that he's flagging use-wise. Ashe is one of the units I took into AM endgame, where he performed admirably. 
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Jul 4, 2021 19:34
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it's real annoying how dedue's survival is optional and therefore is irrelevant to dimitri's growth in the route. obviously i dont think the black man should have been fridged for the white savior, but maybe think before you make the black man optional :V
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Jul 4, 2021 20:22
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Dedue is incredibly valuable on Maddening for how useful he is early on thanks to his personal skill and ability to easily facetank even Maddening enemies, something almost no other unit in the game can do. He's one of the best Blue Lions units for that utility alone. He falls off a cliff in usability in late White Clouds and even harder now on rejoin, but he's done his job and contributed more then enough by that point. He can even still contribute well as knights make excellent adjutants.
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Jul 4, 2021 20:28
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Faillen Angel posted:it's real annoying how dedue's survival is optional and therefore is irrelevant to dimitri's growth in the route. obviously i dont think the black man should have been fridged for the white savior, but maybe think before you make the black man optional :V This. I took part of Dimitri's mental collapse being how he believed that Dedue sacrificed himself for him, completing Dimitri's failure to help Duscur and being yet another person who died because of him. And his return should have had a big impact, but it's optional so it's not.
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Jul 4, 2021 21:52
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They had a good narrative idea with Dedue's sacrifice and Dimitri's mental breakdown, but this halfway point of being able to save him or not is the worst middle point since it shoots the writing in the foot and cheapens the impact. Either he should've always died or should've always survived so that the writing can account for it for more than a sentence.
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Jul 4, 2021 22:34
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mycelia posted:Yeah!! He's here!!!! ...I may be the only one in this thread who hasn't played this already, but I won't let that stop me from celebrating! I'm blind still too!
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Jul 4, 2021 23:30
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Update 109. (SSLP Test Poster version here.) Trying to get as much of Azure Moon done as I can before NEO TWEWY is released on the 27th and I am inevitably consumed by it. With any luck, we may even finish the route before NEO TWEWY comes out.
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Jul 5, 2021 00:43
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That background for the CGs sure looks like Gronder. Azure Moon usually gets props for being the most "complete" route but there's definitely cracks if you look at it.
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Jul 5, 2021 00:47
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Rea posted:It really is sort of strange just how little alleigance Felix has to the Holy Kingdodm of Faerghus, and especially Dimitri. Yet he continues to fight with us. I guess his childhood ties to Sylvain and Ingrid are just that strong. Considering what happens to him in all the other routes? I think Felix is, fundamentally, a deeply loyal man who cares profoundly about the people around him - especially Dimitri. I think Felix truly does mean well and want to help, he's just awful at interacting with people and showing that he cares. I take him to be the kind of guy who wouldn't be that angry if he didn't care deeply. And yeah, welcome to Azure Moon. Cycles of revenge are a motherfucker.
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Jul 5, 2021 00:58
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I'm getting a very "Walking Dead Season 2" vibe from Gronder The Second, which is to say "thinking the reason that character deaths are sad is because they're happening at all" and "frustrating motives leading to conflict for no good reason". Also, Rodrigue is dead! 
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Jul 5, 2021 01:03
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