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Cythereal posted:My take on him is about the same as yours. A late-joining cavalier with good stats (mine had Mozu for a mother) and no real place in the army except for using Gallant to further boost one of my many potent front line women (in my case, I stuck him with Velouria). Bogart posted:Imo, using an Entrap staff makes Forrest's paralogue nice and relaxed without having to worry about the axeman they send to gank him. Easy XP and bond and weapon levels. Sure, it's ONE OF THE ENTRAP STAVE USES but it's the elixir problem. Better to use them and get suboptimal benefit than to wait for benefit that might never come.
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Oct 30, 2021 20:57
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  Rampant urbanisation and deforestation has yet to drive foxes into the cities of the world of Fates, so we must instead intrude on their habitats to see them. I can't say I'm too happy about the prospect.  Oh no! If only Garon had given us an army instead of like a handful of guys. If we can't handle a few thousand enemy soldiers I'm not sure why we even invaded in the first place.  Unfortunately the detour we took passes through the Kitsune village, and they are somewhat wary of outsiders thanks to the many poachers who hunt them for their fur. I wish we could have just dealt with the soldiers...  Because this chapter suuuuucks. It's a giant rout map in the mountains with lots of rough terrain and relatively few natural chokepoints. Every single enemy here is a Kitsune, all of which have high movement in rough terrain, so it's a lot harder to establish chokepoints across bridges and forests when they can move through them easily. This map feels like they took the worst aspects of all 3 routes and combined them into one. It's got Birthright's wide open map design, Conquest's brutal enemy skills, and Revelation's stupid and irritating gimmicks.  The gimmick of this chapter revolves around their ability to create illusions. Enemies can choose to use their turn to create an illusion, causing them to be unable to be attacked until their next action. They can't do this twice in a row and they have to use their one action per turn to do so, but this does allow them to approach your units without any danger to themselves, allowing large groups to quickly surround you with nothing you can do in retaliation. This is not the only reason why this chapter is such a nightmare, but it's one of them. There is counterplay, but it's counterplay that encourages you to play in the most boring way possible, and that is deploying an incredibly small (perhaps even only one unit plus a support partner) army that is barely threatened by the kitsune and can just end turn their way through the entire map.  Every single enemy (besides the one right at the start to teach you how illusions work) comes with the Beastbane skill, which doubles the might of their weapons against beast units... Which will include all the horse mounted units that the average player probably has a lot of. Every single enemy in this little group at the top right of the map has the Life And Death skill, so they'll deal and take 10 extra damage in combat. So this one Nile-Tails has 42 effective might.  Meanwhile everyone here on the left has Pass. Guess what happens when you combine Pass, the ability to almost entirely negate the movement penalties of terrain, and the ability to create illusions? The answer is pain.  The boss himself is small potatoes all things considered. He's tucked away in the corner of the map and his stats aren't too much higher than everyone else's. He'll debuff himself with his Beaststone+ every time he attacks.  It took me a few tries to figure out how much exactly I wanted to cheese this chapter... As you'll soon see, the answer is "a lot". It is not worth doing properly, it is not fun.   I had to cook 5 meals in a row before Silas decided he wanted any. He gets +2 speed from the meal, as well as extra HP and def from the tonics I gave him. He'll need them...  Kaze also gets a much overdue promotion. He's not going to be entering combat, but going Master Ninja increases the quality of the pair-up bonuses he gives. I had 2 spare seals and probably should have done this earlier.  I am absolutely low-manning this chapter. When enemies can walk right through your allies and then turn themselves intangible with illusions, units who can't consistently tank hits become a liability. Fliers are the secret to this map - when flying above the peaks they can't be hit by anything, allowing them to take breaks to heal or tactically retreat to influence the movements of enemies. One mistake I did make was not deploying healers - I could have easily brought both Jakob and Felicia and then paired them up with Camilla and Beruka so they could hide away in the mountains and fly down whenever my units needed a top up. Shigure's a great fit for this chapter if you've recruited him, he can fly, heal, and potentially rally speed if he's hit level 5.  All enemies on this map deal only physical damage. You could easily deploy someone like General Benny and tank the entire chapter, taking like 5 damage at most from the strongest attackers. Wyvern Lords are great here because they have high defense and can easily retreat to safety. Peri's not using the Beast Killer here because I want to raise her axe rank above E. She might break it out if she needs it.   Some units from the left and right sides of the map will aggro instantly, but otherwise no group will approach until someone enters their range. None of this initial vanguard have Pass or LaD, so they're not too threatening.  It's a good strategy to deliberately not provoke any other group until they've been defeated. I feel no shame in doing this chapter the lamest way possible because this is the lamest chapter.  Silas can sit on the mountain tiles while Elise gives him bulk from the inaccessible peak tiles. The mountain tiles also have the bonus of boosting Silas's avoid...  The initial wave might be weak but I still don't want to fight them all at once. I'll split them up between my two combat units...  Not only do all the enemies have high skill and speed, the Nine-Tails also have innate class bonuses to crit and avoid. So you will both struggle to hit them and frequently face 2-5% crit chances against them. Bronze weapons are helpful if you want to not go insane.  Peri can safely retreat to these peaks whenever she's low on health. Unfortunately all she has to heal with is this one Concoction she's just used.  Corrin may be near useless in this map thanks to her beast weakness, but I have a cunning plan that requires her...  Which as you probably guessed involves Vow of Friendship. She just needs to take a single hit to drop her below half health, then she can swap back to Elise and retreat.  Waiting on peak tiles allows Peri to bait one unit at a time, but unfortunately peaks are surrounded by mountains that give +20% avoid to her attackers. It's quite hard for her to hit anything even with Heartseeker.  Putting Corrin in front for a turn meant that Elise had to eat an attack when they swapped. She might be good for providing boosts to Silas with her skill, but as a combat unit she's nearly useless here. High avoid and res means she can't hit anything and can barely hurt what she can hit.  Maybe Elise can't damage the enemies in combat, but she can hit them with Savage Blow.  Even this one group of enemies has been somewhat troublesome for my two units. Peri can at least move back and forth between peaks to bait enemies away from Silas to keep the heat off of him.  It was at this moment I realised I really should have brought a healer. Silas only has a single vulnerary, and there are no more in my convoy. My plan was for him to heal damage back with Sol, but he needs to actually learn that for my master plan to work.   At least he's slowly getting closer to unlocking it. Quick Riposte will help him cut through enemies a little faster so they can spend less turns harassing him.  My amazing screenshotting skills didn't quite capture it, but Good Fortune is actually useful here - a chance to heal 20% of his HP can save him from death. I can and will hit end turn multiple times in a row to cheese out heals until he gets Sol. Shoutout to my last playthrough of this game where I spent almost 300 turns in this chapter building up axe rank for a Wyvern Lord Selena that very, very slowly healed her HP up with GF in between every single combat encounter.  Peri unfortunately has no such skill. This is why I should have brought a healer! With her health so low she's not going to be good for any more combat this chapter, which means no more axe rank : (  The initial wave is finally down, and I may have spent a very large number of turns waiting over and over to heal Silas back to full. These guys all have Pass but when Silas is the only unit they can attack anyway it doesn't matter.  All the modifiers he's got add up to an absolutely huge amount of damage. Unfortunately OHKOs don't build guard gauge as fast as doubling does.  Illusions in this situation do nothing but waste my time and allow Silas extra turns to proc GF, but they're still annoying. Kitsune won't bother with them if they can kill you, but if they can't hurt you they'll stall as much as they can.  At least they have a bunch of cool loot to drop. Corrin will like this.  This exact position is the best camping spot. Nobody can get Elise and she can be adjacent to Silas to buff him while also slinging spells at enemies to build tome rank and activate Savage Blow.    About time! Both the defense and Sol. Good Fortune is too helpful right now so I'll get rid of Shelter instead. I must remember to put it back at the end of the chapter...  I had to wait about 25 turns for the 3 procs I needed to heal Silas to full HP. His luck isn't high enough for a luck% heal to be very reliable...  But now I can lure the LaD squad. I absolutely would not want to face them without Sol to top me up.  Thankfully the unpromoted enemies don't hit very hard. For some reason this chapter has level 20 unpromoted units despite the last one having everything promoted - I guess they wanted to show off regular Kitsune as well as Nine-Tails?   Ohhh yes. Big damage + Sol = big slurp. Even Silas's slightly over 30% activation rate isn't quite reliable, but it is enough to keep him alive without much danger.  Unfortunately unpromoted enemies are worth 1 EXP to him at this point, and his sword rank over B won't carry over to MN thanks to lower caps. At least he's building support with Kaze.  Move Silas, hit end turn a bunch. Thrilling gameplay I know. This chapter sucks, it's not my fault!!!  But what if illusions made it even worse? What does this even achieve just attack me please   This is another perfectly safe spot to fish for SB procs. Turns out there's quite a few of these in this map.  72 turns and I am finally engaging the boss. I feel a little shame.   Peace.   Silas is now hugely overleveled. Kaze also managed to steal a quick level...   This could be a tragic and emotional moment were it not established multiple times before that we can bash an entire army with deadly weapons in the heat of battle and not actually kill them. Instead it just looks like Azura really hates foxes.  Well I completely failed in my quest to raise Peri's axe rank. At least Silas got Sol? Next time: wind
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Oct 30, 2021 20:58
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midnight lasagna posted:This could be a tragic and emotional moment were it not established multiple times before that we can bash an entire army with deadly weapons in the heat of battle and not actually kill them. Instead it just looks like Azura really hates foxes. After this map I would agree with her as I would be quite happy to track down the actual village and put them all to the sword because gently caress those rear end in a top hat foxes.
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Oct 30, 2021 22:10
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Tbh, my impression of Azura is that she's kind of an rear end in a top hat in general who would rather get thousands of people killed than admit any secret that might make her look bad or her feel uncomfortable.
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Oct 30, 2021 22:12
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This is unfortunately the problem that Conquest map design encounters. When you're trying to do tons of gimmick maps each time, you're going to get some results which are... awful. Kitsune Hell is kind of interesting in managing to stack all these terrible factors together to create something really putrid.
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Oct 30, 2021 22:36
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This map can be soloed by Benny with a master seal and a beast killer. It's usually how I handle this map because gently caress it.
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Oct 30, 2021 22:39
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I've no idea why I thought that Kitsune Lair was just a joke and not the actual stage name. Anyway, this looks like an awful map and I'm impressed it got approved.
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Oct 31, 2021 00:29
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Fates loves it's gimmicks but they really should have left this one out Even if you remove the annoying enemy becoming untargetable mechanic it's a pretty dull map where you only fight a bunch of the same enemy. Narratively it adds nothing. We didn't need to fight the kitsune, they just added it because we fought the wolfskin in Birthright and the writers are too married to the idea of having the two main routes parallel each other.
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Oct 31, 2021 00:35
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And both routes would have been better without the wolfskin/kitsune maps. Both exist just to have Kaden and Keaton as enemies because they couldn't join the army for some reason.
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Oct 31, 2021 00:58
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Kitsune hell is an annoying map. That said I would rather play a hundred kitsune hell maps than one of the next one. gently caress the wind map.
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Oct 31, 2021 01:14
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Walla posted:And both routes would have been better without the wolfskin/kitsune maps. Both exist just to have Kaden and Keaton as enemies because they couldn't join the army for some reason. To be fair, kitsune and werewolves both in the myths tend to be giant assholes.
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Oct 31, 2021 01:14
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I guess I'm in the minority where I don't really hate the kitsune map? I just gave Beast Killer/effective weaponry on Benny and Camilla and they were quite good at weaving through the mess. The real danger here is if you want to deploy Azura. You'd want a four-way escort around her at all times if you want to bring her. Walla posted:And both routes would have been better without the wolfskin/kitsune maps. Both exist just to have Kaden and Keaton as enemies because they couldn't join the army for some reason. They didn't even need to have them as enemies - Nyx is never encountered during Birthright, for instance.
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Oct 31, 2021 01:24
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Eh, part of the big selling point was pick who your friends are and who you have to kill because you didn't pick them. They seemed to like the idea a lot considering they turned around and did it again in three houses So having to kill the other sides party is fine, what makes this so dumb is that 1) the map itself is bad somehow being ball bustingly hard to play normally and yet boring as sin. 2) the story does a big "WHYYY?!?!?!!" moment about the whole thing despite them pissing away the conceit literally almost everywhere else so the fact that you killed them is undermined. The same way it was when they did the same thing with scarlet.
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Oct 31, 2021 01:51
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ApplesandOranges posted:I guess I'm in the minority where I don't really hate the kitsune map? I just gave Beast Killer/effective weaponry on Benny and Camilla and they were quite good at weaving through the mess. Your point about Azura is the exact reason why this map is terrible. With Pass and Illusion, you can’t use defensive or offensive interference to keep squishies safe. And yet, because they’re all largely the same enemy, the same enemy, a solution applied to one generally works with the whole crowd. So you end up with this really boring map because there’s a narrow band of solutions, and all the solutions tend to slow it down. It’s also too loving big so it drags on badly.
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Oct 31, 2021 02:12
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The funniest parts of the route split to me are still the one map on Birthright where you fight Benny and Charlotte out of nowhere and I'm pretty sure they don't even have death quotes, and also the fact that Nyx doesn't show up in Birthright at all despite being in the premonition. I feel like the game underutilized the Capture mechanic. I think being able to capture certain route-exclusives could be fun; obviously you wouldn't be able to grab the royals or plot-important characters, but there are enough characters who could qualify as free agents.
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Oct 31, 2021 02:42
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I think they intended for people to start with Birthright; its difficulty is similar to Awakening, it has the 'infinite grind' option, and several CQ characters are just mini-bosses or don't appear at all. You also finish the prologue after spending 2-3 turns with the BR royals, so they're 'fresher' in your memory. Shura also joins way later in BR than in other routes so in CQ you might be more tempted to keep him around so you can play with him more.
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Oct 31, 2021 03:10
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That definitely feels like the intended path, but for me all it did was sour me on Fates entirely and I couldn't finish Conquest, which was just a kick in the pants.
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Oct 31, 2021 06:23
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 Finally, a Mess Hall big enough to seat my entire army. Now this building feels actually useful instead of being pointlessly luck based!  Speaking of luck based, I can upgrade the Lottery too. Supposedly it gets better odds at higher levels, but I just upgrade it to spin it twice in one sitting.   Oh! Well that was definitely worth it. On one hand Secret Books are probably the worst statbooster overall, on the other hand I won't waste any time hoarding them because I know exactly who they need to go to.  I hope Elise doesn't get travel sick from reading all these books from the back of her wyvern.   Oh and I'll work my way through a tiny bit of my stat booster backlog while I'm at it. Goddess Icon for Peri, Talisman for Corrin.   Silas gets an A and a B support because he was the only one who did anything last chapter.  Finally, at long last...Those stat drops might look pretty drastic, but the access to 1-2 range will help him out immensely. His res also gets a nice boost. Master Ninjas also get a cool +5 to all 4 of hit, crit, avoid, and crit avoid, despite being able to wield two different weapon types.  Unfortunately I used my one Arms Scroll on Elise so he's stuck with E knives and therefore cannot actually proc Sol with them yet. At least he's got an insane 163 hit! Enemies are going to struggle to dodge any of his knives.  Now that the Mess Hall seats everyone there's really no reason not to cook before every battle. I get more milk each chapter so I'll just make a speed meal before each one unless the situation calls for something specific.   Camilla's a good enough chef. Iirc the two best chefs in CQ are Jakob and Peri, but in order to guarantee they'll appear I need to buy an Accessory Shop and give one of them a chef's hat, a thing which costs a huge amount of a specific castle resource. As well as the DVP required to buy and upgrade the shop in the first place...  ...oops, I should have done that after I took pictures of everyone's stats. Oh well, I'll just not do them this time around! They take too much time anyway.
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Oct 31, 2021 11:07
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Azura can't hate foxes, her support with Kaden is like the only time she's a genuinely enjoyable character.
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Oct 31, 2021 15:48
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Blaze Dragon posted:Azura can't hate foxes, her support with Kaden is like the only time she's a genuinely enjoyable character. Her supports with Keaton are also pretty fun because she plays the sitcom straight man to Keaton being zanier than usual.
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Oct 31, 2021 16:02
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Kitsune hell isn't the worst map in the game but it's up there. It does herald the beginning of the dumb part of conquest though where almost every map is just utter hell.
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Oct 31, 2021 16:29
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Walla posted:This map can be soloed by Benny with a master seal and a beast killer. It's usually how I handle this map because gently caress it. Faillen Angel posted:The funniest parts of the route split to me are still the one map on Birthright where you fight Benny and Charlotte out of nowhere and I'm pretty sure they don't even have death quotes, and also the fact that Nyx doesn't show up in Birthright at all despite being in the premonition. Blaze Dragon posted:Azura can't hate foxes, her support with Kaden is like the only time she's a genuinely enjoyable character. Cythereal posted:Her supports with Keaton are also pretty fun because she plays the sitcom straight man to Keaton being zanier than usual. Natural 20 posted:Kitsune hell isn't the worst map in the game but it's up there.
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Oct 31, 2021 18:30
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  Time for the blowy chapter. Corrin tries to convince the Wind Tribe to let her by without fighting... Will she succeed? The answer is obviously no because otherwise this would not be a chapter.   Fuga is neutral on the war but has a strong stance against the misuse of swords. Funny that one of the most difficult battles in the entire series is some random guy giving us a test of character. For all the resets and ended runs this chapter has caused players over the years I hope at least one member of the Wind Tribe dies when they hit 0 HP. Preferably one of the Onmyojis with Counter.  Laslow is here to build supports with Xander, Kaze's here because his support bonuses are too useful for me to leave him behind. He might also open a chest or two.  A seize chapter! Haven't seen one of those in a short while. Fuga's Wild Ride is a map that's wide open to fliers but very cramped and full of chokepoints for grounded ones. All you have to do is defeat the boss and then steal his seat, but there's a lot going on to make that very difficult. For the record, I think this chapter would go from being one of the most infamous to generally well liked if this game had divine pulse. The actual mechanics are quite fun, and it's weird and unique in a way no other chapter is. There's a lot of freedom in how you can approach it, unlike the crappy Revelation version where your army consists of Corrin and a handful of joke units. All of its problems (goes on too long, requires planning in advance which is difficult to do without prior knowledge or memorising patterns, has some kaizo-ish reinforcements) would be pretty much irrelevant if you could turn back time a few times. Unfortunately that's not a thing in this game so one mistake can mean a restart and "it's not so bad if you have the wiki open" is a bit of a hard sell.   Yellow winds blow your units up 5 tiles at the end of enemy phase, orange ones send them down. Fliers are both less and more susceptible to winds - they can easily fly back if they get sent somewhere dangerous, but grounded units can potentially avoid being moved if they have no valid destination they can land in, while fliers will always get pushed unless they're right at the top or bottom of the map. Winds cycle follow the same pattern every few turns, which is as follows (thanks some random post on gameFAQs): Turn 1: |_ _ _ _ _ _ _ D D D D D _ _ _ _ U U U U U _ _ _ _| Turn 2: |_ _ U U U U U _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ D D D D D _ _ _ _ _| Turn 3: |_ _ _ D D D D D U U U U U D D D D D U U U U U _ _| Turn 4: |U U U U U _ _ _ _ _ U U U U U _ _ _ _ _ U U U U U| Turn 5: |_ _ _ _ _ _ D D D D D _ _ _ _ _ D D D D D _ _ _ _| Turn 6: |U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U| ...it doesn't quite work without a fixed width font but you get the idea. Each character represents a column, D is a down wind, U is an up wind, _ is no wind.  Hayato is a stationary midboss. In Normal and Hard he's barely an obstacle at all and can easily be walked around, in Lunatic he's got a Hexing Rod and becomes a big no-go zone you have to deal with carefully.  Fuga himself is somewhat of a pain. Despite his high stats I never found him to be particularly dangerous, but what he does manage to do is be very hard to kill quickly thanks to his speed and avoid. Flying over to him and killing him quickly to seize and end the chapter is a viable strategy, but taking him out might take a while. His platform is also a very dangerous place to stand if you haven't cleared it of enemies so rushing him for an emergency clear can be tricky if you can't take him out on player phase.  Oh and this is Conquest so there's staff jerks everywhere. Some of these Priestesses have Freeze, some have Lunge. A unit left just on the edge of Fuga's platform might find themselves lunged all the way over to the boss and then frozen in place.  There's also a lone Silence user here on the left. She's not so bad but you still have to watch out for her.  Oh and these three dickheads have Counter. Somehow, out of all the enemies in this game with it, they get me the most. I don't know why.  This chapter has some proximity based reinforcements that it really helps to know about beforehand. My crappy diagram shows what zones trigger them and where they appear. The red zone makes some Onmyoji appear from the bottom and Falcon Knights from the right, the yellow zone makes a bunch of fliers appear from the top left and a large group of Omnyoji and Spear Masters appear on the boss's platform, and at the start of turn 4 a few Great Masters appear where your starting location is.  Oh and last of all you can use dragon veins to cause the wind to blow instantly on your turn instead at the end of enemy phase, moving not just your army but the enemy as well. On Normal mode it only moves the enemies. It's not just useful for moving units - you can activate it early to prevent the wind from blowing at the end of the turn, allowing you to not have your army be moved at the end of their turn so long as they're not in range when you activate the vein.  Here's the game to sum it all for me. Worse games would let you figure all this out on your own and get you killed when it happens.  Elise takes Kaze to immediately head right and take out these Spear Masters. All 3 of them have seal skills so it's best not to let them survive an attack... In fact, pretty much every enemy on this map has a seal skill. It kind of sucks?  There's some Kinshi Knights just above them who could snipe a flier if you're not careful. I'll be dealing with them much later.  There's nowhere below this bridge for any of my grounded units to be blown to, so the wind won't affect them. If this were Thracia then they'd all be blown off the bridge straight to their instant deaths.  The reason why I don't give Elise a Speedwings despite her constantly being just short of doubling without help is because she's likely to hit her speed cap quite quickly without any help. I know prioritising long term possibilities over short term gains is a Bad Fire Emblem Tactic, but my brain is unfortunately just wired that way.  Peri's unpaired because Xander's making friends with his other retainer, so she can instead fly around to participate in dual attacks. Nina gains EXP, Peri gains axe rank. Two birds with one stone!  Hmm. They can't all be winners I suppose.  This skill is a winner though. A Luck% chance of finding a Gold Bar at the end of her turn for the first 7 turns of a map. If I'm lucky it'll help turn a tidy profit!  These Falcoknights move turn 1, but only for the purpose for forming a protective barrier around Hayato. Why they don't just start next to him at the beginning of the map I don't understand.  You have to be careful with winds that blow upwards, they might send you into reinforcement spawning zones. They won't arrive unless you end your turn there which will give you a turn to potentially escape, but you might end up fenced in between enemies.  I swear Dragon Fang only ever activates either to deprive another unit of EXP or to allow someone I don't want to to attack Corrin. I'm removing it the first chance I get.  Oh come on, I just changed you to a class with much better growths! Don't go pull a Niles on me.  At least this was effectively a +3 increase to strength thanks to this skill.  Entering the platform this Onmyoji are on will cause reinforcements to appear, so I'm instead going to bait them over from this little corner here. Turtling can be tricky on this map thanks to the wind's tendency to blow you from your safe position to the middle of a big group of enemies, but moving slowly and keeping your units grouped together is still a good way of keeping safe.  Being a big dumbass and not paying attention to damage numbers is also a good way to get killed. Thankfully my IRL luck stat is very high.  Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger.  The winds are starting to blow my units upwards. There's some reinforcements I'd like to wait out first, but I'd also like to clear out some of this area to make things safer.  Now the entire map is covered in wind. During these turns I think it's best to just try to keep everyone alive. The wind patterns are easier to deal with at the beginning of each 6 turn cycle...  Good, please aim your Silences at Camilla. She doesn't care.  These tight corridors are really good for dual attacks, especially since fliers can fly over bottomless pits to stand next to your grounded units.  End of turn 3, here come a few fliers from the top of the map... There's a Swordcatcher and a Kinshi in their ranks to complicate things.  And here's a bunch of Great Masters. They're not particularly powerful, but they do have a Silence staff and some seal skills.  I should probably send someone like Silas up to distract these guys, I don't want them descending on the rest of my army.  Unfortunately I also need him here to take out the GMs. I need to make use of dual attacks to take them out quickly and not get slapped with various debuffs.   Leo is not helping in my attempts to show that he's underrated. I might just bench him when he unlocks Forrest. Corrin's good as always though!  Nice, but hard to use when you're paired up nearly all the time.  That's half of my army blown upwards. As long as someone can move over to the fliers to distract them I'll be fine...  A flier would easily do the trick were it not for this jerk. Kinshis really are the worst.   Silas grabs Nina for some bulk and rushes over to be a distraction. He doesn't particularly fear bows.  Unpaired fliers are good to have around for your units to escape with. Azura is very useful in this map but also very vulnerable to fliers and wind shenanigans.  Oh! Well this is my fault for not paying attention to the wind patterns. Looks like Silas is going on a journey deep into enemy territory.  At least his Bronze Dagger debuffed them enough to let him double. Unfortunately it won't let him activate Sol.  The whole squad's rushing up to help him. One unit getting blown into enemy lines is a disaster, my entire army getting sent there is an ambush.  May as well commit to the assult and stay in enemy territory, even if it will trigger reinforcements to appear. No more Silences from you!  Camilla is fast.  This is what the map looks like right now. It seems manageable so far, but reinforcements will arrive and the enemy's position is well fortified at the top.   Indeed, here they are! One of those Onmyoji's has Counter so watch out for him.  Treasure chest 1 obtained. This Rescue staff is 1 of 2 in this route and it is absolutely vital that you get it.  The reinforcements will of course move the moment they appear, hoping to trap you between them and the units you just aggro'd. I'll send a flier over there to deal with them...  Very satisfying : )  Unfortunately these two are going to get blown upwards. They can move the turn after they do, but they'll have to choose between either being in Hayato's Hex range or the range of a bunch of enemies in the top left corner...   Cool levels.   Lunge and Shelter are both great skills I'm bad at using. I'll give Lunge a try...  Yeah this isn't ideal. They can both move downwards to escape this big pile of units right next to them, but then they'll both be potential hex targets... I think I'll risk the hex.  Lol "nice" aim Hayato  Unfortunately I now need to take out his flying bodyguards and they're stuck in range of his staff still. I'll send people in who I don't quite mind eating a debuff...  I guess her streak of super good levels had to end eventually.  I'd rather have Silas paired up with Corrin, but at least he can switch to Nina both to let her have EXP but also to provide her as a target for hex rods instead of himself.   Magical Xander and Jakob level.  Okay, everyone's going to go on the offensive next turn. I need the top corner clearing out and someone might eat a hex but I'll take it. (they got Xander)  20 HP is all he needs though. Let my fliers be free!!!  Nina's had so many great levels but I wouldn't actually consider her "good" yet. Maybe making her a Merchant was a mistake.  This one guy is in range of all my units but can't be targeted without someone getting in range of even more. Thankfully I have a plan...  The plan was to have Corrin kill him and raise her dual guard gauge. Thankfully a DFang proc didn't screw me over for once!   ...she was supposed to get hit and enter VoF range though. Unfortunately being hit with a hex does not count for that.  Now how'd you end up all the way back there? Please come back I miss you  Okay, plan 2 to activate VoF. This time it'll work...  Elise is getting pretty fast now. I'm pretty happy with my decision to make her a Malig Knight!  That's treasure number 2. The last one is a measly Dragonstone+ which I don't particularly care about. I'll grab if it I can I guess.   Now to send this stupid kid to the shadow realm. He's no danger without any hex uses left but he's still annoying thanks to his Wane Festal.   Luna can be a bit scary but you can't hit what you can't see. I forgot to screenshot his stats, but he's got Vantage, Luna, and some other skill I forgot.  Silas doesn't appear to be anything in this screenshot.  He's a ninja now, he gets ninja levels. More skill = more Sol so I guess that's okay.  Now to break this tricky formation. There's a Priestess with Enfeeble here, along with some more with Lunge if you get too close. All the other enemies have seals of some kind... Ideally you'd want to ORKO every enemy here somehow.  Felicia hits level 15 and gets Tomebreaker. She's being more useful than Leo at this point...   Wait did I heal her or did she never get hurt in the first place? Silas can't make the ORKO now god dammit  There I've left you in danger, now go get injured. It doesn't feel very progressive for me to use my strong female protagonist's misery to motivate her husband to do all the work somehow.   Okay now I can send Silas in... Or not, because he can't ORKO the pair at the back who will slap seal str on him and prevent him from KOing anyone else. I really wish I had a unit with rally strength.   Thankfully it is possible to lure some of the guys over without luring a bow user so I had Camilla do that instead. The wind is just a minor annoyance at this point.  I might have to do it a couple of times to lure out the Spear Master pair. All these other guys keep getting in the way...  Oops! I forgot that defensive formations are a great place to hide dual weapon users. My bad for not assuming every single enemy formation would have one of these assholes to complicate things. Thankfully they attacked when she had a guard...   Camilla gets a very Camilla level and caps her speed! Malig Knight's one big weakness is its low caps. I'll swap her over to WL as soon as she hits level 15, where she should be able to grow a point or two more...  Okay NOW I can do my master plan to have Silas kill everyone on enemy phase. Although everyone does appear to have been killed already.  ...or maybe not, the Enfeeble that hit him made him slow enough to not double. And now he's going to get lunged...   ...and then frozen. At least he didn't make it all the way to Fuga's platform, that means the reinforcements won't trigger.  Oh and then he got blown down here anyway. I should start paying attention to the wind, I'd kind of forgotten about it.  Standing here will stop some of the reinforcements from arriving. Leo's not particularly useful and Xander's been hexed so those two are stuck on stair duty.   Time to begin my assault. I'll swarm Fuga and end the chapter next turn if I have to, but I'd like to rout and get the last chest if I can.  And here are the reinforcements. There's a lot of them, and one of them has Freeze. Kind of mean if you're not expecting it.   Silas got blown downwards into the range of the Kinshis guarding the chest, but he'll get blown back up next turn. D rank knives all in one chapter! If only Peri could get her axe rank up this fast.  Elise has reached the point where she can one-shot enemies with the Bolt Axe with the right support partner. I'm going to have to rely on her one-shotting certain enemies next chapter, although she will have the Lightning tome to help her do that.  Now I can finally clobber this guy. It'll be tricky - his personal gives him a boost to avoid when he's not at full HP and he gets a big boost from his throne.  Thankfully I've got Heartseeker to lower his avoid a bit. His steel weapons also lower his effective speed...  He'd better give me good EXP and levels for all the trouble this chapter put me through.   Bam! I guess Ophelia's good level streak is over now. That's okay.    Clean up a few loose ends...  And at long last I am done! Lots of stalling there at the end to get people into position. Finally the streak of miserable chapters is over.   Your approval is meaningless to me, I wish I had killed the both of you. Next time: i TOLD you dog
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Oct 31, 2021 18:30
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midnight lasagna posted:Huh, is that with a level 15/1 Benny? I know his defense is high at base but I didn't think he'd be that bulky. Yeah, just give him a defense tonic and have some concoctions in your inventory. A crit can still gently caress him over but generally he can turtle through the map just fine with Corrin in defense stance. No real comment on the wind map. I don't find anything about it fun or interesting. I'm not above lowering the difficulty to phoenix mode just to get through this map and turning it back up afterwards. The Stairway is a slog as well, but the rush of sibling maps afterwards us awesome.
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Oct 31, 2021 19:09
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It's kind of funny to me that your Camilla is actually behind on most of her averages. She's a couple points ahead on Speed but she'll reliably cap that anyway, and missing a chunk of HP and Strength is a little bit of a pain. She's still great, though, because she's Camilla.
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Oct 31, 2021 20:44
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 Oh, I've got a spare one of these. I guess I could forge it... Actually, I've got a lot of spares of things. I should start forging more stuff.      Iron Knife, Steel Sword, Steel Lance, Iron Bow, Fimbulvetr. The Iron Bow's a +2 that came from combining Niles and Nina's two forges. If I have to deploy Niles again he's going to have to make do with the Steel Bow.  Level 3 of both kinds of shop unlock after Chapter 20. The difference isn't nearly as significant as the one between levels 1 and 2.   Brave weapons are now available, but they're a bit too expensive for my tastes right now. Bows are on sale and I did briefly consider buying the Crescent Bow (kind of a brave bow except the debuff it gives is different), but even with the cheaper price I'm not sure I actually want it. A Brave Axe might be useful next chapter but I'd rather wait until a sale.  Stat boosters are now on sale from the Staff Store but they're not worth buying for this price unless you really really need the boost and tonics & a meal won't cut it. If anything you'd probably have better luck boosting stats with an Eternal Seal, a super expensive item that increases your level cap by 5.  Corrin's got Defender, now I want her to grab some Swordmaster skills. More magic + speed isn't quite a good tradeoff for everything else, but she should get an innate bonus to crit and avoid too. She'll be sticking with this class until she gets Swordfaire at level 15.   I learned to do this after I took stat screenshots this time. Gunter seems to keep cooking weird stuff for some reason? Units can cook effects other than the ones they usually do, but Gunter just seems to be giving me a random one each time. This is normally associated with Odin or Ophelia.           
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Nov 1, 2021 08:56
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I see why Leo is at severe risk of being tossed in the dumpster, he is just not shaping up. Ophelia standing there all superior in the ways that matter doesn't help at all. He may be able to Nosferatu better if he reclassed maybe? Being Leo, he's still a reasonable filler member since his personal weapon means he's not taking weapons away from anyone else at least....
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Nov 1, 2021 09:26
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Leo and Xander are generally very susceptible to being Speed-screwed if you're unlucky. Xander can usually kinda make do with his high Def, but Leo's a bit shakier on that front. Honestly Leo's not a bad unit, it's just that Dark Knight doesn't give him enough strengths to work with (being on a horse is bad for kitsune map and the horse mobility isn't as important on a lot of mid-game maps due to illusion gimmick or wind gimmick or you have to funnel your army close together anyway), and the growths are kinda wonky for Leo's bases.
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Nov 1, 2021 10:29
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   Forgot to post them, here's the 3 supports I unlocked last chapter. All of them are C rank. I should probably be making an effort to support Corrin with everyone, thanks to her personal skill she can be an excellent support partner for anyone she's got at least C with and can fill in for their usual support partner if deployment slots are tight.
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Nov 1, 2021 11:12
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I appreciate your forged weapon names.
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Nov 1, 2021 14:32
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ApplesandOranges posted:Leo and Xander are generally very susceptible to being Speed-screwed if you're unlucky. Xander can usually kinda make do with his high Def, but Leo's a bit shakier on that front. This was my experience with Leo. He was... okay. Good MAG, iffy HP, woeful SPD. Honestly, none of my Conquest mages turned out well. Leo was slow. Ophelia and Nyx were made of glass. Elise couldn't hit the broad side of a barn. Felicia and Forrest (mother and son respectively) joined late and struggled to be more than staffbots. Odin was just bad.
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Nov 1, 2021 14:35
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I wonder how much longer my updating streak is going to last now that the chapters are getting harder. I'm having a lot of fun and I have way too much free time thanks to my current living situation, but some chapter is going to cause enough resets to make me take a week long break just to sulk.Walla posted:Yeah, just give him a defense tonic and have some concoctions in your inventory. A crit can still gently caress him over but generally he can turtle through the map just fine with Corrin in defense stance. I'm very much looking forward to the sibling maps... Except Ryoma's. I want to try and rout both sides before defeating him and that is absolutely going to make me tear my hair out. theshim posted:It's kind of funny to me that your Camilla is actually behind on most of her averages. She's a couple points ahead on Speed but she'll reliably cap that anyway, and missing a chunk of HP and Strength is a little bit of a pain. Keldulas posted:I see why Leo is at severe risk of being tossed in the dumpster, he is just not shaping up. Ophelia standing there all superior in the ways that matter doesn't help at all. Obligatum VII posted:I appreciate your forged weapon names.
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Nov 1, 2021 18:46
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  Time to climb a load of stairs! Unless I'm mistaken, I swear you go up these stairs in both Conquest and Birthright despite going in opposite directions in either route. I want to make a "are we to believe this is some kind of magical stairway" joke but I'd just embarrass myself if it turned out I remembered wrong and you do go down the stairs in Birthright.   Oh hey, Faceless killed all the guys! Nice of Iago to replace what could have been a diverse army of mixed attackers with a map full of the same enemy type. I'm sure this will be an easy chapter!  Yeah it won't be. Or maybe it will if you cheese it... The Eternal Stairway is an escape map where everyone has to escape, not just Corrin. It's a releatively straightforward route to the top geographically speaking, but along the way are not only an army of Faceless with high stats, but a large number of Stoneborn to harass us with powerful long range weaponry. Not counting the ballistae that the enemy could potentially steal from you in Chapter 10, I think this is the first time you'll deal with long range attackers in Conquest? There are two ways to deal with this map: one is to deploy an entire army of your strongest units and muscle your way to the top, the other is to deploy only Camilla and Corrin (or Corrin and someone else if they themselves are a flier) and BLJ your way up the stairs as fast as possible, hopping between dragon veins to freeze enemies and reach the top while engaging in as little combat as possible. The latter way is quicker, safer, and possibly your best option if your army isn't well equipped to deal with this map. It also deprives you of EXP and is a bit lame. Reinforcements will spawn alternating from the top and bottom each turn. They don't give any EXP and are there to encourage you to move fast or get overwhelmed.  The boss is the one Faceless paired up with another Faceless. He's got high stats and some nasty skills but is otherwise underwhelming... He's also not really in the way of anything, so unless you want his Arms Scroll you might end up fleeing straight past him.  Otherwise the map is mostly full of these guys. All with the exact same stats, Savage Blow, and then a different Breaker skill. They hit very hard, are surprisingly fast, and are quite tough to take down... And unlike the Kitsune from two chapters ago, they can reduce your HP with Savage Blow even if they barely scratch you otherwise. Trying to cheese the map by deploying only Benny won't work here.   These enemies are what turn the chapter from free EXP to a potentially gruelling slog. Stoneborn are extremely bulky physical attackers with 1-5 range, who make up for their low movement by hitting you from a distance. Their one weakness that is their attrocious speed is negated by Wary Fighter, making them require multiple hits or brave weapons (or lucky crits) to take down. Their massive attack power makes it very easy for them to OHKO units like Azura, and while they are inaccurate you really don't want to risk the potential game over. Oh and they also heal HP every turn with Renewal and have Heartseeker. I think these guys were maybe a little overtuned. At least they don't have Countermagic?  These dragon veins are what make the chapter bearable. There's 5 of them in total (6 in Hard, 8 in Normal) scattered across the map. Each one freezes all enemies in place for a turn, allowing you to distance yourself from encroaching Faceless and limit the attack range of the Stoneborn. Unless you're flyskipping the chapter you'll likely be spending more than 5 turns escaping, so make sure to save them for when you need them. As much as I love this gimmick, I think it's part of why this chapter is so hard if you don't have your army built a certain way. Suddenly discovering you need royals in order to not die can be a bit of a shock if the only one you trained was Corrin... The three royal prepromotes at base level are just about bulky enough to not die, and Elise as a Troubadour could still potentially contribute, but they'll be much less useful without EXP investment here  Here is everyone. Ideally you'll want your units unpaired to maximise player phase offense and give yourself oppurtunities to pair up and retreat. Beruka's a special guest here to hopefully give Camilla Fighter access at some point. I had a spare team slot...  The red danger zones of the Stoneborn are a big ugly eyesore that severely limit where you can put your units. Freezing them limits their range significantly, but you can't activate a dvein every turn realistically.  Here it is, here is the one reason I made Elise a wyvern: dealing with these jerks. Lightning absolutely shreds Stoneborn and doesn't care about Wary Fighter at all. It took a tonic and a meal for her to be able to do this without a support partner, but she can just barely achieve it. Having her to instantly delete them will make things so, so much easier. If you don't have Malig Elise you can give Lightning to Leo or whoever your best magic user is. Camilla might be able to make the 2HKO with a magic partner and some boosters, but I'm not so sure. Otherwise your best bet is to pile on them with regular Brave weapons or fish for crits with killers. The Blessed Lance deals effective damage but not a great deal.  Savage Blow helps weaken enemies but unfortunately the AoE is based on Elise's position, not the position of who she attacked. She is now in range of the Faceless, which can be a problem...  ...as I discovered on my first attempt. Even with a Horse Spirit she can only take one attack without someone to help buff her defenses somehow.  Camilla swaps Elise's weapon and contributes minor chip damage. Thunder is weak but SB helps her damage output a bit more.   Peri can finish the job with her Blessed Lance, but she can also kill with her forged steel and that method doesn't lower her defenses. Blessed weapons lower your defenses by 3 each which make them not ideal for surviving enemy phase... They do also raise your HP at the end of each turn when equipped. ...why did I not give her one in the Kitsune chapter : (  Nice! She needs no help doubling here but more killing power is cool.   Finally! I keep saying Lunge is a great skill and it is but I keep forgetting to use it so I may as well get rid of it.  Ferrying Jakob over here to keep everyone alive is the last part of my master plan. It took help from Silas and Azura to do it, but with his boost to their bulk I can keep them alive without having to use a freeze this turn.  You don't need to engage the Faceless that start behind your group, but I'm hoping I can activate VoF here... I also needed someone to stand in front of Azura.  Profiteer's finally kicking in! I'm gonna be so rich!!! Or maybe not, 250 gold per bar is a bit lame.   Shredding your attackers on enemy phase is important because Savage Blow racks up damage even against your tanky units. Xander cannot ORKO without a crit, so Faceless wear him down fast.  Even with WL's high bulk and Jakob's help the Stoneborn still hurt.  Reinforcements arrive from the top... Next turn they'll arrive from the bottom, and then the pattern will repeat infinitely.  This is a short chapter so I'll show what the map looks like at the end of every turn. I've made a little progress towards the escape area...  Lightning lowers Elise's mag and skill by 2 after each use. She recovers at a rate of 1 per turn, but she'll soon lose the ability to get 2HKOs and have to wait a turn before she can do it again. A support partner could help her but I decided I'd rather give Camilla one.  Leo is unfortunately the dud royal right now and on charge of vein duty. Camilla might have to start grabbing the ones higher above me if Leo can't reach them in time.  There! Much less danger. I'll use these turns to move my army closer and surround the Stoneborn so I can take them out.  Monsters have 0 luck and therefore garbage crit avoud, so fish for crits whenever you can. Whacking Stoneborn with Killer Axes isn't a bad strategy if you've got no competent magic users. Gamble is actually useful here!!!  Wow, that's every stat except speed! Weird for a Swordmaster. I have no right to complain about this and yet I want to anyway.   Good, but not good enough to replace my other skills. Corrin can keep it in her back pocket for when she needs to fight Ryoma...   Don't neglect to take out enemies when they're frozen. Approaching the goal is more important than EXP, but you generally want to be taking out the enemy in front of you whenever you can.  Brick wall vs brick wall. Xander seems to like getting random crits but he never once got one against a Stoneborn.   No use leaving one of my best combat units on the back lines. I thought Peri would be slaying foes left and right but the Blessed Lances cuts into her bulk a bit too much.  These enemies really did not need Renewal in addition to everything else they got. Incidentally it's a good idea to make sure only units who can counterattack are in range when they're frozen, you want to damage them at every oppurtunity.  Turn 3 and I'm making good progress! Reinforcements are coming from the bottom now but they won't bother me much.    Ophelia's already got the entire Nohr literary canon in her arsenal and yet I still want to buy her Mjolnir too. That crit rate could go even higher!  Elise unfortunately needs either prior chip damage or a turn to recover. Her skill dropping each turn also makes her slightly more prone to missing...   Leo's too far behind now, it's Camilla's turn to work her blood magic. That's 2 veins gone, 3 left...  One day I'll get her to D axes. Just gotta keep grinding at it.   Elise kills a regular Faceless and unnerfs her own stats.  As you can see here, it gets a little crowded when you keep freezing the reinforcements. At some point I'll have to deal with them all...  Time to take out the big rock lads. These guys threaten even my bulkiest units, and they only have 5 less hit than the normal ones.  Only 2 left now, and one's right at the top next to the boss. I'd better hurry up and thin out the Stoneborn.   ...some units are better at doing that than others.    Just! As soon as Xander's king he'd better outlaw these things.  It... might be difficult muscling through all these guys. I can go around but that wastes time!   The next vein is all the way on the left but I really need a freeze or else these guys I've been ignoring all chapter will start getting up in my business. What to do...  It's okay, there's a small patch where they can't get me!  At least you can bait Stoneborn over to you when they're not frozen. With all my army here I can just pile on them until they're dead.  Okay I really need to do something about all these guys.  I also really need to do something about my terrible planning ability. Azura, help please...   Offering accepted.  Azura helped. This side looks so much nicer now!   Shame I get no EXP cutting through the reinforcements, they're nice and easy targets.  Light at the end of the tunnel! Quickly everyone, go towards the light!!!  Okay, next turn I can activate this vein and then I'm done. It's a little crowded right now...  Nearly there!!! You know, this chapter is quite fun when you've got the resources to deal with it. Less so when you don't.  Pls let me have this glowing spot thank you good bye  Got it! Camilla's in a bit of danger here but I've got an army to bail her out.  Just have to wear the boss down...  It's only a matter of OH NO WHY'S HE ACTIVATING A SKILL  It's fine! It's fine.  Okay Camilla could be killed next turn and Xander's on 3HP, Jakob please save me with Enfeeble  Stab! Give me your Arms Scroll.  Precious stats.  Okay now the boss's flunky kills both Peri and Xander. Or maybe just Peri, I worked it out and thanks to Elise and Chivalry, Xander only takes 2 damage...  If only Felicia knew what her support with Peri was like.  Everyone's alive, just barely. Now I can take my sweet time routing for EXP.    Two more kills for the road. I don't think Nina's going to double anything before I reclass her back to a Bow Knight.   I have 70 stars, let me up the stairs!!!   And then a literal faceless goon kills Lilith. It's entirely possible you've forgotten she's a character and not just UI decoration like Anna was in past games... It's like if Clippy sacrificed himself to save you. Somehow this is only the third most stupid plot death in Fates. Next time: Time to actually invade Hoshido
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Nov 1, 2021 18:47
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midnight lasagna posted:The enemies are strong enough now that Nosferatu Leo would likely get doubled and killed. A shame, I was looking forward to using him. He is definitely still good filler though, Brynhildr hits hard and Heartseeker is nice if nothing else. You DO have that speed wing... and another one you could buy if you were really determined to fix up the terrible Leo speed situation.
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Nov 1, 2021 18:59
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The fact that Elise wasn't credited for the MVP there is the real crime. I mean, CMON game. Also she is an unholy beast at this point.
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Nov 1, 2021 19:04
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Peri's sad face appearing to cry a tear of blood will never not make me giggle.
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Nov 1, 2021 19:05
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Ugh christ this chapter when I wasn't running Xander or Leo. And I badly felt I needed the experience so bypassing wasn't an option.
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Nov 1, 2021 19:30
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Wait, that's how Lilith goes out? They kill her to inject drama into this waste of time chapter? Ugh.
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Nov 1, 2021 19:57
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Cythereal posted:Peri's sad face appearing to cry a tear of blood will never not make me giggle. Is it not her mascara running? Either way, I like that detail too.
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Nov 1, 2021 20:13
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| # ? May 28, 2024 08:09 |
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Leo doesn't seem THAT bad. He's slower than Ophelia but with his actual ok strength and resistance couldn't he be a high mobility mage killer?
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Nov 1, 2021 20:26
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