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Shiny777 posted:That's in Rev. Ugghhh, that map. No amount of Boots is worth playing that map "properly" imo. The only reason why it's not the worst map in the game is because you can skip the gimmick with barely any consequence. I'm glad I'm not doing Rev or else I'd feel compelled to have to show it off...
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Feb 10, 2022 12:12
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Time for Chapter 21: Farting Balls attempt two. This map is fairly short and easy when you don't deliberately trigger a lava trap and endless reinforcements... I really should be doing this before every map from now on, I have enough fish and rice to last me forever. Everybody gets speed + defense +1, and the sour flavour gives all the girls +1 skill for... some reason.  This time all my high movement units are at the front, so they can dash ahead and eliminate all the problem enemies faster. Setsuna has swapped Hana for Kaze for a little more bulk, and Azama is now attached to Reina so he can get to the front lines faster. Otherwise I'm bringing the exact same people.  Lunatic mode fixes a character's levels as soon as they join you, so I've seen most of these before already. Mozu is really committed to this Basara joke. This is her ninth magic proc...  Swap is a skill that lets you swap places with an ally, taking up your turn. Extremely useful in Fire Emblem Heroes due to how crowded the maps get with their small size and most units only having 2 move, not so useful but still nice in regular FE games. It is however a skill I tend to forget about and mostly trigger by accident, so I might end up removing it at some point for my own sanity.  Stoneborn are weak enough that Azama can almost take them out with his Bolt Naginata, but not quite. Maybe I should have paired him with Hayato for the extra magic instead? I wonder if I could justify Azama briefly dipping into Onmyoji for magic + 2...  I made a lame pun about In Extremis last update, but I forgot to explain what it actually does. It's this. Basically a less powerful and more finicky Wrath, a skill that does not exist in this game. Still nice though, and it stacks with the crit boost from killer weapons.  Ideally I would be able to combine this skill with a 1-2 range weapon with high crit, as well as Vantage... Unfortunately Scarlet can't use any of those things. If only she didn't die immediately in Revelation, then I could build a Vantage In Extremis + Mjolnir Scarlet to tear apart entire maps on enemy phase.  A much better first turn. There's no huge rush, but I do think there is a turn limit on how long you can wait around before the magma trap will trigger even if you don't activate any dragon veins. I don't know how long it is though, this map's gimmicks are poorly documented.  Activating the correct dragon vein spawns in a bridge and 0 lava or reinforcements. There's no real indication of where the bridge will appear, so if you don't know in advance you might accidentally screw yourself over if you're not careful.  Here's the guy who killed Azama last attempt. Thanks to the Guard Naginata and a meal, he literally cannot hurt Mozu. Killing him with a crit is very satisfying. He might smell like a goat, but he does not smell like a GOAT.  Engaging Stoneborn at close range gives you a cool cinematic camera angle. Rinkah and Kaden are still stuck in these mediocre classes I put them in to get skills, ideally they'll earn enough EXP to be done with them in this map...  The Venge Katana is a Hoshidan weapon that deals extra damage on counterattacks. It also has the magic ability to become 2 swords when used by a Swordmaster. Dual-wielding katanas is Dumb, but it is also Cool.   Rinkah has no interest in getting HP off of Oni's 20% growth, but somehow Basara's 20% growth is much more appealing to her. Future Sight's an alright skill if you've got room, but a luck% chance of getting more EXP on a kill is not at all reliable.  Mozu is suffering no fools this map, not even the Stoneborn can hurt her. Oboro doesn't even have a weapon, she's just hanging around with a bucket of popcorn.  A few of the enemies here are packing killer weapons. Normally that's something you'd have to watch out for, but killer weapons have no effect on that which cannot die.  Here's vein number 2. There's 3 of these in total, so if you're guessing at random then the probability of getting all 3 of them right is... I don't actually know. I googled a probability calculator but then I got bad memories of failing Statistics and decided I didn't care.  Here's an example of how opening up a bridge could screw you over. This bridge appeared a long way away from the vein, and there's a bow user who can now cross it... If you'd made activating the vein the last thing you'd done that turn and had left a flier here, they'd be screwed. The obvious solution is to not do things you don't know the outcome of right at the end of your turn, but I still don't like it when you're not told explicitly what's going to happen when you activate a thing in a game like this.   I said Good Fortune wasn't a great skill, but Rinkah only got the EXP for this level thanks to Good Fortune... Rend Heaven is much more useful on a mixed attacker like Rinkah, she can match the weapon she attacks with to the attack stats of her opponent for maximum potential damage.  I said last update that you might be able to skip this map with a flier, but the later islands are absolutely crammed with bow users to shoot them all down. All enemies here besides the Stoneborn have yumis, so if you send a flier over they'll need to switch to a grounded partner to avoid getting destroyed. Or maybe just fly past them all...   The density of archers here is so high that these mages are forced to attack Mozu at 1 range. Incidentally, these Snipers and Onmoyoji seem to be the only enemies capable of hurting her.  I'm not making you a Basara, Mozu. I'm not doing it. I'm not!!!   Seal Speed is a very cool skill, and combined with Seal Strength and Defense it means any enemy that attacks Mozu is going to turn themselves into a sitting duck. Underdog can go, Mozu's so overlevelled she's become an Undergod.   I like these levels much more than the ones he was previously getting, can Kaden stay as a Blacksmith?  Here's an example of Rend Heaven finally doing something. Adventurers have mixed attacking stats, so regardless of what you're using Rend Heaven is guaranteed to increase your damage at least a little. Mozu crit this guy immediately after and made the activation irrelevant...  This is unfortunately what happens when you combine the unit with the lowest growth total out of all 1st gen characters with a class that has bad growths. The Dragon Herbs will help fix this.  This bridge spawns very far away, forcing you to take the long way around to reach the boss who's hiding just above you. This is a Defeat Boss chapter, so killing him ends the map...  This enemy formation is quite scary, unless you've got a great physical tank like my Mozu. Even Ryoma would be a little intimidated here, there's a lot of enemies with high power and WTA against him.   You could however ignore them entirely to scale the cliff with a flier and snipe the boss. Mozu's not strong enough to handle it on her own, but if she had help...  Let's give this lovely map the sendoff it deserves. Crit please!   No crit. That's okay. I remember this boss quote being an eyerolly LotR reference, but apparently I remembered wrong.  ...oh. Everything's on fire. Is this punishment for skipping the bridge? I don't remember this happening.   All you've done is saved us the trouble of cremating your corpse. This was meant to be a kill for Caeldori that Setsuna was just setting up, but that's okay. She is the main character of this LP, she deserves the occassional killsteal.  Bad map, but now it's over. The worst part of Birthright is over... sort of. From now on it's less "boring" and more "gruelling", especially on account of me not having Ryoma. There's one map in particular that has so many reinforcements that it's possible for them to stop spawning just because no more enemies can fit on the map...  How convenient! There was a cave behind the waterfall that allows us to warp skip directly to the capital. This game sure likes to make comparisons to the Nohrian Castle and Hell, and this burning hellscape being a direct shortcut to it feels like one of them.  Takumi still suspects we have a spy among us, even though Flora died a few chapters ago. Who could it be??? It's actually not obvious. Next time: A "bandits attack" map in Chapter 22
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Feb 10, 2022 12:12
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 If you blindly guessed on each and every one of those statues you have a 12.5% chance of getting through the map unscathed! (0.5 ^ 3)
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Feb 10, 2022 15:09
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 For some reason I'm reading Azura's dialogue here in the same way as Anakin's "I hate sand" spiel from Attack of the Clones. I like red meat more than fish, although the red meat I do like also tends to be super processed stuff like hamburger meat. This game has an incredibly large amount of pointless incidental dialogue like this... I wonder if this type of stuff is fun to write, or if it's just busywork that's hard to make interesting? "What would this person say if they were an NPC handing you an item" might be a good character writing exercise.  The annoying thing about reclassing units for skills is that you have to reclass them back, which means it'll cost you at least 2 seals. If you're after skills from more than one class it's generally optimal to string your reclasses together so you only have to reclass back a single time... I can't think of any other classes Rinkah particularly wants to dip into though. I also can't help but think she's judging me on the bottom screen.   Looking at Rinkah's reclass options, she seems surprisingly okay as both a Master Ninja and a Mechanist. I know her strength is uncharacterisatically blessed, but that's still more power than I expected her to have... Come to think of it, I'm really short on Shuriken users. Maybe I should make someone a ninja?  Felicia's been Rhajat's support partner for a while, and now they're at A. Light magic doesn't exist in this game, Rhajat! Not that I mind. Some people don't like the removal of the magic triangle from Shadow Dragon onwards, but I don't miss it. Mages barely cared about WTA or WTD when fighting each other and light magic was mostly just anima magic but worse.          My core roster of units has dropped to a mere 9 people. There are still some hangers on like Orochi and Kaze who aren't benched, but they've mostly been delegated to pair-up duty and I'm not giving them any EXP if I can help it. As soon as I'm done with the next chapter I am going to start recruiting some kids. Midori seems like an obvious first choice seeing as Mozu is her mother, but I did user her in Conquest already...  Scarlet Wyvern Lord (HS: Outlaw, Knight) A+ Support Partners: None Personal Skill: In Extremis (+30 crit when at 25% of max HP or below) Pair-Up Stats (C B A S): Str Spd Def Str+Skl Growths (With Default Class): HP: 30% (40) STR: 45% (60) MAG: 20% (20) SKL: 40% (55) SPD: 50% (60) LCK: 40% (45) DEF: 25% (45) RES: 20% (20) Vive la révolution! Hopefully it lives longer than Scarlet, who dies in a cutscene in Conquest and dies in a different cutscene in Revelation. I've never really used Scarlet outside of this playthrough, and even then I'm not sure how valuable my experience here is since I've definitely been misusing her with some of my questionable class choices. But speculative analysis is fun. Scarlet is a prepromoted wyvern-riding character who joins just in time for the game to start getting a little tougher. She's no Camilla, but Scarlet's got a lot going for her that other characters in Birthright don't have - she's strong, she's physically resistant, her speed is good, and she has access to 3 different Nohrian class trees including her default Wyvern Rider one. Characters like Subaki and Hinata might have good bulk too, but unlike them Scarlet's got stats in other places to supplement it further. She's also one of your few axe users by default, and if you're not using Rinkah then she's got basically no competition for all the cool clubs you'll find. For whatever reason Scarlet doesn't get the same poor treatment that non-royal prepromotes like Reina or Shura do with their stats - Scarlet's bases are easily on par with a 20/1 unit, and her growths are fairly standard too (her growth total is 270, which is the same as Peri), and very well placed for the most part. An effective 60% growth in both strength and speed as a Wyvern Lord is amazing, and Scarlet's decently likely to cap both her strength and her speed at level 20. Even without a support partner she should be able to double and one round a large number of enemies. Her physical bulk is great too, with a very solid base of 22 and an effective defense growth of 45%. Prior to Chapter 23, the only physically attacking enemies that will threaten Scarlet will be bow users, and it's not too hard to keep her away from those. In Extremis is a very cool personal skill that can boost Scarlet's crit rates to near 100% with a Killer Axe or Great Club. Having to be at 25% health or lower isn't ideal, but Scarlet's bulky enough that she could potentially take a hit from an arrow to drop her to near death and then fight only physical enemies that barely damage her at all. It could potentially work well with Vantage or a class with reliable 1-2 range like Master Ninja, although Scarlet would have to marry a Corrin with specific talents for those. Wyvern Lord's an excellent class for Scarlet, and there's no need to take her out of it if you don't want to. 8 move, the ability to fly, and Nohr-exclusive skills such as Rally Defense are all excellent. Malig Knight is not a bad reclass option for Scarlet - her magic base and growths, while not good, are decent enough for her to deal good damage with the Bolt Axe. Her non-magical stats will be made worse as one though, so if you're not taking full advantage of her reliable 1-2 range as one she's better off as a Wyvern Lord. Great Knight could work as a temporary reclass if Scarlet needs to ditch her bow weakness, but besides the Luna skill it's just a worse WL. General is a waste of her good movement and speed (although I'm sure she could solo entire maps as one if you gave her a Javelin and Wary Fighter). Bow Knight and Adventurer might be worth dipping into for skills if you want, but they're not good long term clases for her. Unfortunately as a non-royal prepromote, Scarlet doesn't get to support anyone who isn't Corrin. Her stats and reclass pool are good enough that potentially not having any support partners doesn't hurt her too much, but it does count as a downside. You'd think she could support Ryoma at the very least... Pros
My Rating: Deserves better than Corrin
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Feb 11, 2022 13:44
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Gay Fates is supposed to add new supports for all the Corrinlovers, isn't it?
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Feb 12, 2022 01:41
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Bogart posted:Gay Fates is supposed to add new supports for all y the Corrinlovers, isn't it? It added a fair few options for them, yeah. Don't recall what else Scarlet got from it or know what else might have been added for her since I last played with it, but I know it gave her a Ryoma support and she makes a pretty solid mom for Shiro.
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Feb 12, 2022 04:50
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In Extremis is doubly funny when you combine it with the Great Lord's final skill, Awakening, which is +30 to Hit, Avo, Dodge, and Crit at below half health. I can't even call it Pay To Win because we never got to buy the DLC that lets you grind it out. Stupid impending Switch release 
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Feb 12, 2022 10:45
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I'm not going to lie, that Great Lord final skill is kind of offensive to me? I was on board with In Extremis being a nerfed wrath cause, sure, that's what they wanted to do. And then they had planned to release THAT.
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Feb 12, 2022 11:33
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Berserker Scarlet with Death Blow and Awakening would be ugly. It's all possible to get, but the grind would be insane.
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Feb 12, 2022 14:00
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Bogart posted:Gay Fates is supposed to add new supports for all the Corrinlovers, isn't it? Shiny777 posted:It added a fair few options for them, yeah. Don't recall what else Scarlet got from it or know what else might have been added for her since I last played with it, but I know it gave her a Ryoma support and she makes a pretty solid mom for Shiro. In addition to being able to marry F!Corrin and Ryoma, between the base mod and the unofficial continuation/add-on, Gay Fates also gives her romance/support with Felicia, Oboro, Orochi, and Jakob with a P/C support with Dwyer. I admittedly haven't seen much of them in action because that would involve playing Birthright again.
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Feb 12, 2022 17:15
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LiefKatano posted:
Faillen Angel posted:In Extremis is doubly funny when you combine it with the Great Lord's final skill, Awakening, which is +30 to Hit, Avo, Dodge, and Crit at below half health. I can't even call it Pay To Win because we never got to buy the DLC that lets you grind it out. Stupid impending Switch release Jadecore posted:In addition to being able to marry F!Corrin and Ryoma, between the base mod and the unofficial continuation/add-on, Gay Fates also gives her romance/support with Felicia, Oboro, Orochi, and Jakob with a P/C support with Dwyer.
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Feb 13, 2022 18:18
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  Scaling a burning waterfall, we arrive in Nohr's capital... Somehow. I'm not really sure I understand the logistics of it. The "hidden capital" refers to the last letter of the chapter's title, which is actually an uppercase i.  Maybe that's because we killed everyone. I'm not sure I'd want to go outside much if I lived in eternal darkness. It's probably quite cold too...    Silas, who has been benched throughout the entire journey, gives Ryoma a brief lesson about the country he's invading. Ryoma knows almost as little about Nohr as we, the player do! Perhaps Fates's worldbuilding only seems bad because none of the characters actually know anything about the world they live in and therefore can't talk about it in any detail.   Bad characters? I'm playing Birthright, my army is already full of bad characters! Dohoho. The game has made it clear we've only got a small invading force, but if we're getting mugged in the street for a sword then this army really must be tiny.  This map is a giant open field with an almost entirely symmetrical enemy formation kinda just scattered about. I was right, the Rainbow Sage was misleading us... his map led us straight into Awakening!!! Shura and his merry band of like 70 dudes counting reinforcements are rather annoying, although they're still not as bad as the chapter after can potentially be. As you can see by the map on the bottom screen, there is literally 1 tile that's not in a danger zone to start and it's the one Kevin's starting in. This is absolutely the sort of open field enemy spam map where Ryoma would be helpful...  Shura might seem scary if you look at his stats, but his 3 range Spy Yumi hurts him way more than it helps him - he can't double using it, and since it only works at 3 range you can really easily defeat him on player phase without counterattack. He will debuff your strength and speed by 3 each with his Highwayman skill if he attacks you, so watch out for that. On turn 7 he and the units around him will move slightly southwards and arrange themselves in a slightly more threatening formation, although they still won't aggro until you enter their range. The map might not last long enough for you to discover this if you just throw Ryoma at him.  The enemies might still be underleveled and there may still be a few level 20 unpromoted dudes scattered around, but there are also these Berserkers and Berserkers suck. Incredibly high might combined with an innate +20 bonus to crit is scary. Ideally you'll want to dispose of these guys on player phase where you can avoid their attacks, or just by sending Ryoma at them. Ryoma solves most of your problems.   Any enemy without sufficiently high luck fears for their life when engaging a Berserker... The abundance of these in the lategame is what makes finishing Birthright so miserable. You're only going to see more of these.  There are seige weapons at the top and bottom of this map. A launcher (fires shurikens and debuffs you) at the bottom left, a Fire Orb at the bottom right, and then two Ballistae at the top. These are annoying, but not because they're hard to deal with - they're annoying because they make it difficult to tell where is safe to stand and where isn't. If an enemy can use a seige weapon then it'll be factored into their range when you turn danger zones on, making it kind of difficult to tell if you're in danger of being attacked by certain enemies or not.  This is what I mean. The red highlight of this Maid's attack range on the map is larger than normal because she's next to a Launcher, which can force you to count squares if you don't want someone in range of her attacks but don't mind them being in range of the Launcher, because the danger zone on the map only shows the latter.  There are also these dragon veins which I've never used ever. Do they just heal your units, or do they heal the enemies as well? I honestly have no idea.  But first, meal time... Felicia is absolutely the last person you want to see here, the meals she makes debuff your stats unless you're lucky enough for her to roll a random effect instead of her usual one.  Thankfully this time Felicia was possessed by the spirit of Odin Dark and made this meal which also increases magic. "Chosen-y" is normally the effect you get when Odin or his daughter cook something, but other characters can randomly make it themselves.  Time for the map itself. The blue deployment squares make a little skull shape here... That's pretty cool. And a bit forboding.  Currently I am sandwiched between the enemies at the top and the enemies at the bottom. Some of the top enemies will aggro immediately, and the ones at the bottom will assault my army with ranged attacks... Taking out the bottom enemies to secure some space seems sensible.  This was literally the first action of the map and I just reset it so Rhajat could hit because I have no integrity whatsoever. Berserkers can be surprisingly evasive, especially when it is very important that they die.  Unfortunately a restart cannot change the outcome of this level. Rhajat's resistance is goldy and her defense isn't bad with the Horse Spirit equipped, so she's my best unit for handling both Berserkers and Dark Mages at the same time.  They might not look it, but almost everyone is safe here - the Dark Mages can't attack them directly, they can only pelt them with the Fire Orb. The Fire Orb is innacurate and weak so that's okay.  Meanwhile, Mozu takes the Dual Naginata and walks straight at the enemy units. Even the Berserkers can barely hurt her, and she'll have double WTA thanks to her dual weapon... It is important that she keep them away from the rest of my army for as long as possible.   Mozu is unphased by these weaklings. Her luck is naturally high and the Spear Master class gives her an innate bonus to crit avoid, so she doesn't even have to fear a crit.   Unfortunately Mozu can only be in one place, and on the side she cannot be on a load of enemies are approaching. The Adventurers aren't very strong, but their bows mean I can't tank the Berserkers in front of them with Scarlet...  There's also these wizards skulking around in the back alleys. They'll reach us... Eventually.  No magic? That's a shame. I liked making the same Basara joke over and over.  The +20% avoid from Scarlet's Lucky Seven counteracts the -20% avoid penalty from her Bolt Axe, giving her a surprisingly high dodge rate against these mages. Dark Mages aren't very accurate...  Things are pretty safe down here now. If I let the Berserkers come to me, I can take them out on player phase. It's a little easier said than done though, they are quite fast and hard to double.  One of the Dark Mages was carrying this, although he didn't have the rank to use it. The Dragon Spirit deals effective damage against wyverns and Corrin, and it has fairly high might, but it also halves your magic temporarily after use. I am going to sell it, the effect it has is too niche and the debuff feels like way too much to justify using it.  Rhajat is my second best hope against Berserkers and even she has to roll the dice a little when taking a hit. Kaden wouldn't be so bad for this if he were in his normal Nine Tails class, it has an innate boost to crit avoid.  Reinforcements will regularly appear at the bottom and attempt to claim the seige weapons there. So long as your army is close to them you can very easily defeat them before they move.  Tasty Maid EXP for Scarlet. She hasn't gained a single point of magic yet... it might be possible that my theorycrafted Malig Scarlet idea is not actually good in practice.   Savage Blow damages enemies within 2 tiles of the enemy you just attacked on player phase. It's nice in Conquest, a little less useful in Birthright where chipping enemies isn't quite as important. Still more useful to me than Lunge, a great skill I never remember to use.   Skill for Rhajat and Azama, two units who sorely need it. I think my Rhajat might actually be a little skill blessed, but my Azama definitely is not.   Something I just realised is that generic Maids have more defense than resistance. Looking at the class's base stats, they do indeed start with more defense but their resistance growth is 5% higher. Interesting. Caeldori's been running with whoever she can find spare as a support partner for a short while, since I've been pairing her usual partner Orochi up with Rinkah these last few chapters. Without someone to help her speed and magic, Caeldori's not really doing as well as she could. I don't know why I'm still pairing the two together, Rinkah's got her clubs back so she doesn't need her magic boosted to make her combat viable.  Oops. I think this Adventurer had his strength sealed by Mozu so he's only got 7 effective points in it, but the huge might of a silver weapon multiplied by 3 for effective damage still adds up to a huge amount. I can't rememeber if I sold my Silver Yumi or not...  These Adventurers are annoying me a little, I can't have Caeldori tank these mages with him lurking about. Mozu's physical defense might be good, but even with a Guard Naginata I think the Sorcerers would 2-shot her.   Setsuna however can tank those mages, and she's not the only one who can one-shot with a bow. Now her resistance is even better! I wonder if me giving her all the boosters will allow her to cap anything that isn't speed...  Rinkah can just about dodgetank the Sorcs on her side, although it is a little risky. I'd be more comfortable risking hit chances like this in a game with a full on 2 RN system, but I don't have much choice so I'll risk it.  It was worth it, she crit on the first hit and got an extremely cool level. I think Rinkah caps defense at 35? It's not implausible that she could reach it...   Death Blow grants +20% crit when attacking on player phase. Not the most reliable, but it is extremely cool and when combined with the 55 base crit of the Great Club you can get some truly insane numbers. Future Sight can go, it's nice but not helpful for combat.  Swapping Setsuna to a Dual Yumi makes her all but invulnerable to magic users. Sometimes I wish Close Counter existed without DLC in this game like it does in 3 Houses. And speaking of 3 Houses, I wish Bernadetta could ride a Kinshi.    That's the last level Kaden needs to earn as a Blacksmith. Salvage Blow gives a unit a luck% chance of obtaining an iron weapon after defeating an enemy on player phase. It can potentially be a nice source of income, or a way of getting the resources for high level forges. It's worth much more to him than Seal Resistance is anyway...   The reinforcements have dried up, now only the top enemies remain. Reinforcements will appear from the top on turn 7, and the existing enemies will shuffle their positions a bit, a weird thing that I don't think I've ever seen happen in any other chapter. Luring some of the enemies over now should make them easier to deal with later.  The enemies are starting to readjust themselves... The Fighters have all moved in front of the dragon vein. I have no idea why they do this, but they do.  Pairs of reinforcements will also start showing up. They don't just appear, they get to walk in one at a time.  Lastly, Shura steps forward and the enemies at the top move to claim the ballistae. Why didn't they just arrange themselves like this from the start? I guess it's kind of neat that they move like this, but I don't really get the point.  Fortunately the arrows aren't worth worrying about if you're not a flier. Mozu can just walk up to these enemies and take them out...  Mozu baits the left side, Rhajat baits the right with help from a Rally Luck from Azama. I'm going to feed this Dracoshield to Setsuna.  Oh, look who I've accidentally baited! Fortunately Coldsteel the Adventurer is stuck with a crappy bow that makes it difficult for him to take advantage of his own great speed.  He does reduce Rhajat's speed with his personal skill though. Hang on, he said it wasn't personal!  With the bulk of Shura's army lured out, I can now move in to mop them up. This strength gain once again makes it harder for Caeldori to activate Progidy...  The Great Club is Cool, but it is not always Good. 81% crit is extremely funny but a 58% hit chance less so, and contrary to old rumours there is no FE game in which rolling a crit guarantees a hit regardless of accuracy.   The Spy's Yumi has no 2 range, so there's nothing stopping Setsuna from shooting Shura free of retaliation. It's not a great weapon to use in an open field like this one...   Just have to shove Setsuna out of the way. Ballistae weapons can't kill, but this one could have hit Setsuna and reduced her HP to 1, allowing a Maid to finish her off. Thankfully Rinkah pushed her out the way of her, although it ended up not mattering.   Nothing but EXP left now. Scarlet finally got magic! All those reclasses were worth it!!!  Wait, why haven't I won yet? I killed all of the enemies...  ...oh. This guy is just hanging out and not moving. He's not worth any experience, but he does have money that he drops.  Stop that.  I don't even think he was in Shura's gang, he was just some pickpocket lost in an alleyway. But now we've put him to justice, by murdering him!!!  If I had just used Ryoma I'm sure I could have finished this in 3 or so turns. Maybe a couple more to take out the enemies at the ballistae.  Shura can tell us of a hidden passageway into the castle, but we have to pay him first. Does anywhere in Nohr not have a hidden passageway leading to it? This entire country must be hollow like that one planet from Futurama with all the secret tunnels it has beneath it.   We also get some backstory for Shura. He's from Kohga, a country that was destroyed by Mokushu, a crime Hoshido didn't do anything to stop. Ryoma said he'll fix things though so all is forgiven and Shura's going to join us. I wish Shura and Scarlet could support, they're sort of opposites - Scarlet and her country are victoms of Nohr's imperialism, but Shura's country was a victom of Hoshido's isolationism, leading the two of them to rely on the opposite country to survive.   Turns out all the Nohrians live underneath the capital because the city itself is full of Faceless and bandits. Ryoma sees all these happy people and gets halfway through a sentence that could possibly have ended in him saying not all Nohrians are scum, which Kevin sees as remarkable progress.   Oh and Elise is also here, along with her nanny who is a Professor Layton NPC. This is all very plot important.  On that cliffhanger, time to leave these tunnels to go pick up the kids from daycare. I've got 5 different paralogues to handle - Kevin and Scarlet just haven't unlocked theirs yet. The next chapter is a fairly huge increase in difficulty, so I've been saving these both for grinding purposes and to make sure all the kids join at a high level. I might not do them all in a row, but I'm definitely going to do at least 2 or 3 now. Ryoma and co can just chill in the sewers for a bit...  Thanks to Birthright's slow level curve, these children are going to be the highest level units in my army. Those Nohrians will be no match for my child soldiers! Next time: babies
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Feb 13, 2022 18:19
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Those are some nice stats on Midori. Basically joining you already as an endgame unit.
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Feb 13, 2022 19:37
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Everyone living underground because the capital is overrun with the lategame version of the Chapter 1 brigands along with monster zombies is sure a way to sell your country as sucking.
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Feb 13, 2022 20:32
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Actually, given that she's the mascot of the thread, I'm kind of surprised you haven't married Setsuna and Corrin.
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Feb 13, 2022 20:34
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There's something to be said about Ryoma, next-in-line ruler of Hoshido, not knowing about Nohr's living conditions, another thing to be said about him dumping the entire Hoshidan coffers in Shura's lap, and yet a third thing about learning both of those facts in sequence, but I'm not sure what any of those things are.
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Feb 14, 2022 02:45
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Faillen Angel posted:There's something to be said about Ryoma, next-in-line ruler of Hoshido, not knowing about Nohr's living conditions, another thing to be said about him dumping the entire Hoshidan coffers in Shura's lap, and yet a third thing about learning both of those facts in sequence, but I'm not sure what any of those things are. I've seen more than a few fanfics which decide that this "something to be said" is: Leo: Ah yes, King Ryoma, sovereign of Hoshido, whose left and right hand men were both spies, was unaware of how poor living conditions were in his nation's longstanding enemy. Please forgive me if I find that hard to believe.
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Feb 14, 2022 02:54
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Considering everything related to Shiro, I think the thing to be said is that Ryoma is incredibly godawful at every part of his job that doesn't involve swinging a magic lightning katana at things. Unfortunately for everyone else, it turns out that's a skill you can coast on pretty hard in the right circumstances.
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Feb 14, 2022 03:11
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Wait, how is Midori a level 10 mechanist already without the use of that offspring seal first?
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Feb 14, 2022 03:43
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Keldulas posted:Wait, how is Midori a level 10 mechanist already without the use of that offspring seal first? The stat screen updates to show you what you’ll have in your target class while you’re using a seal, before you confirm the choice.
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Feb 14, 2022 03:53
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Mighty Midori!
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Feb 14, 2022 18:41
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Cythereal posted:Actually, given that she's the mascot of the thread, I'm kind of surprised you haven't married Setsuna and Corrin. I did briefly consider it, but then Scarlet would be left with nobody to support her, and I really wanted to show her off. I think if I had supported Kevin with Setsuna I would have given him Oni Savage as a talent to get her Death Blow, although that would conflict with my rule that prevents him from seeing combat...
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Feb 15, 2022 20:30
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  Time to obliterate Birthright's already bad pacing by doing a load of child paralogues. I'll probably limit myself to two or three per story chapter, these maps are had to commentate in any interesting way. In fact I also did Midori's paralogue in my playthrough of Conquest, and it was boring then too! I only used Kaze in the first place so I could get the Dragon Herbs for Setsuna.  These maps are so short that I'll just combine the map itself with all the My Castle stuff. Midori's going to be my first real shuriken user, which means she won't have to compete for resources with anyone else... Which means I can forge all my spare shurikens into one giant ball of death.  Kaden's gotten the skill I wanted, so he can be a Nine-Tails again. He'll miss the extra bulk a little, but it's nothing a Beastrune cannot fix.   Now that Kaden and Rinkah can provide useful class pair-up bonuses to one another again, there's no real reason for me to pair Rinkah and Orochi together. Which means this support probably won't be going past B. Rhajat and Caeldori hit their A support, which means I could have them swap classes... Caeldori would prefer to stay as a flier and can't activate Rend Heaven with a Bolt Naginata, while Rhajat wouldn't want to lose her tome access, so there's not much point in doing so.    It's about time these two got married. This one particular exchange is most of what I remember from their S support...    It's true, you had like 8 maps to come up with something better than this. Poor Kevin, his marriage shall forever be defined by his wife dunking on his lame proposal. At least she said yes!  Now for the map itself. Kaze sent his only daughter on a long and dangerous trip to get herbs that will make Setsuna even more powerful... Don't let Midori know that this was the sole purpose for her existance. Or maybe not the sole purpose, her mother is Mozu so she's going to be insanely powerful as well.  This map is a long, snaky path down which you must chase a boss who's running away. If she reaches the end and escapes then you lose, but it's fairly easy for fliers to move over the trees and cut off her escape. It's also possible to burn down forest tiles to create paths through the trees to reach her sooner, but with only Kevin capable of activating dragon veins that approach might be a little harder than usual.  Candace is nothing special in terms of stats, but she does actually have a unique character model. Because of this she actually cannot be reclassed with a Heart Seal unlike other generics can be. Not that she's particularly worth capturing anyway.   The power of enemies in paralogue chapters (except Mozu's) scale with your progress through the game's story chapters, and the scaling is the exact same regardless of path. In Conquest this makes the shared paralogues a nice reprieve from enemies with deadly skills, and in Revelation the paralogues are about on the same level as the regular enemies you face in the story... In Birthright however, the paralogue enemies climb far above the regular enemies you face towards the end of the game. This is good if you want EXP, but it also means the enemies you'll face will be much tougher than what you're used to. These Berserkers are much scarier than the ones I was just facing!  Like look at this guy. Those stats are extremely high, except his speed and luck. I could capture him with Orochi and he'd be one of my best units... Thinking about it, I wish I had done that. Maybe I can grab an enemy in the paralogue after this one.  Here's Mighty Midori, a nice freebie to complement the Dragon Herbs we'll be getting this chapter. Midori's stats are normally pretty underwhelming, but with Mozu's Aptitude boosting her growths she'll be much better than she normally is.  Everyone gets the usual fish and rice meal, and all the girls get +1 magic from the sour flavour. All my offensive magic users are girls so that's ideal, but a single point isn't very much.  My usual strategy here is to fly ahead of Candace, KOing enemies for EXP and then targetting her to finish the chapter either just before she escapes or if I'm feeling overwhelmed and need to end things to save someone who's in danger. This is going to be one of those maps that's almost entirely level up screens with very little interesting happening. Sorry! Kevin will struggle to activate the dragon vein on his own without being overwhelmed, so I'll be relying on fliers to intercept Candace rather than using the veins to burn the trees. My grounded units can still rush forward to fight some enemies, but they probably won't catch up to her.  The Kaden/Rinkah power couple is back together again, and those are some absolutely insane pair-up bonuses. A Rinkah in Oni Chieftain will give these to anyone she's married to, so Rinkah is in high demand as an S rank partner!  Unfortunately these Berserkers are also strong, and Kaden doesn't want to fight more than one at a time. He can be defensive with the Beastrune or evasive with the Beaststone, but he can't be both at the same time...  Berserkers do however also have an innate penalty to their crit avoid combined with low luck, so they are very vulnerable to being given a taste of their own medicine. 28% I'm pretty sure is Mozu's unmodified crit rate with the Dual Naginata...  I think this playthrough might end up being a Mozu solo instead of a Ryoma solo towards the end. The peasants are rising up!   Both of Midori's promotion options are neat, but for combat I'd rather she be a Mechanist. Both classes are somewhat bulky, but thanks to Mozu Midori's growths lean towards speed, so as a Mechanist she's still kind of fast but fragile... Or at least her defense is a bit low compared to her speed. Her bulk's probably better than most of my units regardless.  Midori will inherit Ninja as a reclass option from her father, so when she levels up she'll unlock any Ninja skills she doesn't have already as a Mechanist. Because Mozu is her mother, she can also inherit Villager skills from Merchant... She's already inherited Apitude from Mozu however, so the only other skill she'll get is Underdog, a skill she'll find difficult to make use of in Birthright where the enemies are so low level.  She's capped her yumi rank already, but shurikens are what I'll be using Midori for. I could reclass her to be a Master Ninja, I already have Setsuna for yumis and having another katana user would be nice...  These enemies are much stronger compared to what I'm used to, I kind of took for granted that Scarlet could tank two General hits but 20 damage is over half of her HP. These enemies are scary!  I do however have a small handful of super powerful units to thin them out a little. I missed Kaden's effective damage, and he's gotten it back just in time for super rather horse-heavy maps...  Yep, Kaden's good again now. Although he can't use his magic stat as a Nine-Tails...  I've decided I don't actually want to activate these, all they'd do is let a bunch of powerful enemies through to kill Kevin. If Kevin died Scarlet would be sad, and youtubers wouldn't have any more music to set their videos to.  Honestly I'm a little scared of this map, I might have to beat Candace early to wrap it up. There are a lot of Berserkers and only Mozu's capable of tanking more than one at a time without risk.  Thanks to Rally Luck Scarlet can handle a single one at a time without too much risk, although +8 luck only amounts to 4 more crit avoid. With so much HP and speed these guys are surprisingly hard to take down.   Sometimes I forget that these two are married and should be paired up for extra bonuses. Now that Setsuana is all powerful she might be wondering if she can do better than this guy who can't land a hit and is a jerk to everyone.  This type of level is something he has in common with Setsuna at least. I might consider spending a Secret Book on him, his accuracy is a bit problematic.  Magic! But not much else. Scarlet's looking a tiny bit RNG screwed, she at the very least should be a little faster...  Oops! This map has a few fliers I tend to not notice, so this happens a lot. Thankfully Kevin is here to adminster aid and Midori can shoot him down next turn.  Oh dear, I thought Candace's bodyguards didn't attack your units and only followed her... Good thing Mozu had that dual guard up. Mages are unfortunately her one weakness right now.    An uncharacteristically bulky level from Setsuna, a mediocre level from Kaden, and a great one from Rinkah. Could Rinkah hit that 35 defense cap?  Yeah I think I've had enough of this map, that looks like a scary formation of enemies and I don't really want to advance any further. Time to snipe Candace and end this!   Caught up with you? I was ahead the whole time... I practically left a red carpet of corpses for you.  I'm going to have to start pairing Orochi with Caeldori again, her weird growths have caught up with her and now she's a bit too slow and a bit too weak. The Onmyoji class gives +4 speed from pair-ups, even though Orochi herself is super slow.  These are of course for Setsuna. She must reach her full potential...  Delicious EXP, and some scary enemies. There are some paralogues coming up I'm actually a little worried about... Mitama's in particular has a few Berserkers and can be a little scary. I might save that one for a little later.   Yes... YES!!! These stats... Aren't really better than Mozu's. In fact they're kinda just better than average, although for Setsuna at least they are kinda high. I might have to start buying boosters to make Setsuna reach her true potential.   Midori looks a lot more like Mozu than Kaze, honestly. That ointment isn't for Mozu's pain - it's for her enemies. I think from now on I'll have Kaze serve as Midori's support parter. As a Mechanist he'll boost her strength and defense, so maybe I could make her a Master Ninja without worrying about losing either of those stats?  Midori Apothecary (HS: Ninja (Kaze), Villager (Mozu) A+ Support Partners: Selkie (Diviner?), Kana (Variable) Personal Skill: Lucky Charm (Skills dependent on luck have a flat +20% increase to their activation rate) Growths* (With Default Class*) [Base] *and aptitude HP: 47.5% (67.5) [45] STR: 47.5% (67.5) [35] MAG: 15% (15) [5] SKL: 62.5% (72.5) [55] SPD: 55% (65) [35] LCK: 57.5% (62.5) [50] DEF: 42.5% (52.5) [30] RES: 35% (40) [20] See previous analysis Outside of gimmicks taking advantage of her personal skill, Midori's normally one of the worst kids - her base growths are distributed rather poorly, with way too much investment in skill and luck. This Midori however has Mozu as a mother, so she's good at everything thanks to Aptitude. I don't really have much to say about her besides what I said in my Conquest run - her stats are normally bad, but Good Fortune stacks with Profiteer to make her super good at picking up Gold Bars if you make her a Merchant. It also lets you make some gimmicky builds with Miracle if you really want to. This Midori in particular will be super powerful thanks to Mozu, but so will any child of hers. Merchant is good for gold, Mechanist is better as in combat thanks to shurikens, Diviner from Selkie doesn't really help her at all besides Rend Heaven for skills. That's all I have to say!!! Next time: Kana! Or maybe Selkie.
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Feb 15, 2022 20:30
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One time I tried making Midori a Witch for funsies. Made Orochi her mom, made her inherit Tomefaire, lotta effort went into it. She had a 60% magic growth and was still behind in it. That's my story.  In this Paralogue I usually try to box Candace in with three or four units and then use the rest of my dudes to leisurely rout the map. Nice of IntSys not to give her Pass.
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Feb 15, 2022 21:29
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I've had three Midoris so far. The only good one was Azura!Midori, who wound up a really solid falcon knight - my other Midoris have ended up really slow, but Azura patches that very nicely and lead to a rock solid physical unit.Ventadour posted:One time I tried making Midori a Witch for funsies. Made Orochi her mom, made her inherit Tomefaire, lotta effort went into it. Yup. I did this in my current game of Revelation and have had the same experience.
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Feb 15, 2022 21:53
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Azura!Midori has worked out well for me too, yeah. Pity that Kaze doesn't do any favours to Shigure.
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Feb 15, 2022 22:04
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I will always believe in Jakob-dad Shigure. Passing down Rally Res or Inspiration along with access to wyverns is too good.
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Feb 15, 2022 23:52
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  It is time to Pick a Hunter and Prey. These kids keep finding ways out of their daycare dimensions, does this mean the other residents of the deeprealms can escape too? Are Hoshido and Nohr at risk of being taken over by other worlds that can raise soldiers from infants to adults in a manner of days? The implications are worrying.  I haven't upgraded the arena from rank 1, not because it's a bad idea or anything but because I'm too lazy to do more than one battle in a row. There usually becomes a point in Fire Emblem games where preparing equipment and resources and stuff before a chapter stops being fun and starts being tedious. I've been putting off doing a massive inventory reshuffle for a while... Death Blow and all other player phase exclusive skills activate in the arena, making certain classes really good at winning consistently. Although the best way to win is still to pair up a level 1 unpromoted weakling with a super strong unit who can OHKO their opponent with a dual attack.  Today's chef is... hmm. Setsuna you are very nice and all but your "I'm sure we'll be fine..." voice clip makes me think we are all about to go to the hospital for food poisoning. I'm starting to run low on rice, so maybe I won't waste resources on the usual speed + defense meal.   Fish I've got plenty of, I can waste that. Thankfully Setsuna lucked out and got a random effect instead of whatever bad thing it is she usually does. Men like bitter food and women like sour food, apparently.  Selkie could do that, although unfortunately with Rinkah as her mum and her available A+ support options the only way for her to learn to fly would be to marry Shigure or Kiragi, and both of those kids come from royals who are verboten with my ruleset. Unless as a Nine-Tails she can spin her tails around like a helicopter?  Selkie was raised in a paradise free from the horrors of capitalism or the inevitability of death, that is until Geisha Ronald McDonald came along to open a chain of restaurants selling Kitsune burgers. Kaden I think you might be the worst parent yet.  This map is a gigantic mess of terrain that can be hard to parse, especially with danger zones turned on and covering the map in red. If you look at the bottom screen you can see this is actually a tightly structured map with lots of walls and chokepoints, but at a glance it just looks like open fields to me...   Maybe it's just a me problem, but I have a really hard time telling what tiles are what in the 3DS games somtimes. Those mountain tiles don't look at all like mountain tiles to me! All I see is a big open field with some trees.  Daichi might be the least threatning boss in all of Birthright. I could maybe see him having some utility as a tank if you captured him considering his high HP and mixed bulk, but his complete lack of skills and terrible speed and offenses make him really non-threatening. In fact you could probably farm him for EXP quite easily, just surround him with units who have at least a tiny amount of resistance and slowly plink at his health with your weakest attacks.  Selkie herself starts out right in the open far away from your army, but don't worry - as you can probably tell by the danger zones on the map, the Snipers next to her don't move. Selkie will run around attacking stationary Snipers at random until you recruit her, although how effective she'll be against them depends on how early you do this paralogue. They themselves aren't any danger to her, but if left to her own devices she might wander into the range of an enemy that can hurt her.   Not all the Snipers here are stationary however, so pay attention when moving your fliers. Flying Kaden over to her position might still be the best way to recruit her though.  My fliers will rush for Selkie, most of my grounded units including Kaden will walk north to recruit Selkie after the enemies have been thinned out a little, and Mozu will stay behind to defeat most of the enemies at the bottom. Poor Azama doesn't have anybody to pair with since Setsuna would for the most part rather fly on her own, and the magic boosts Great Master gives are of no help to her.  Setsuna can fly so far with the boots that she can almost reach Selkie by turn 1. Maybe I should have paired Kaden up with her? Selkie won't be much use in combat as a green unit, but as soon as she's recruited she can use her Offspring Seal to promote and gain 10 levels.  Almost all the enemies here have green weapons, so Mozu can take her Dual Naginata and go to town. I should really promote Oboro at this point, I've been consistently fielding her as Mozu's support partner for a while now.  Mozu might be overleveled by the main campaign's standards, but in these paralogues she's earning EXP just as fast as anyone else. I think in my efforts to not resort to Ryoma soloing I have turned this peasant girl into a new Ryoma. If education is not liberating, the dream of the oppressed is to become the oppressor...  The Master Ninjas here have 32 speed, which makes them extremely hard to double. Kaden with Rinkah's help is the only unit I have right now who can, although if he's just going to crit them to death then there's not much point.  Time for a Midori test run. She seems pretty good! Midori's not quite as powerful or as bulky as Mozu, but what she does have going for her that her mum doesn't is reliable 1-2 range.  Taking out 3 enemies is enough to secure the starting area, which was previously entirely red. I couldn't even see the cliffs to the west of that Hero, I thought he could move further than he can...   Most of the enemies here can barely exceed single digit hit against Mozu, but her one big weakness is weapon triangle advantage. Her HP is still so small that the enemies that can consistently hit her leave a mark, even if they don't do all that much damage.  Oops, did I aggro the entire right side of the map? I think I did... Mozu can handle Berserkers just fine with the Dual Naginata, and she can tank a mage or two with the Guard Naginata, but she can't do both at the same time.  Selkie is on the move... And oops, I think I lured an Oni Chieftain right over to her. Not that it matters, I can take it out before it moves again.  Selkie can't double and she couldn't kill even with the Death Blow crits she inherited from her mother, but Selkie's making a solid effort. I think I'd prefer she not kill and steal my EXP.  As long as Mozu avoids the range of these magic users then she should be fine to tank, although there's only so much space for her to retreat into.  The Hero from last turn has had his offense debuffed into nothing by Seal Strength, so he's no longer a threat. I think the debuff from his Silver Sword might be hurting him too, although I'm not sure if they stack?  Now how do I take this guy out? It should be a simple case of flying over to him, but...   This Sniper from the south and the stationary one above him have locked down almost every square surrounding him, besides the one Setsuna occupied and failed to secure a KO from.   Scarlet doesn't quite have the stats to kill the stationary Sniper without a crit. What to do...  Then I remembered I could have Caeldori fly Orochi over to steal the kill and it wouldn't be the end of the world if she got EXP. I did invest quite a bit into her after all. Unlike the fliers she won't die instantly to an arrow hit.  I swear Orochi never gets magic as often as she should. As an Onmyoji she now has an 85% magic growth, which in my mind means she should get magic 100% of the time always. As a Sorcerer she could reach 90%...  Oh the Sniper is dead as well. Thanks Scarlet!  Speed! Good job Scarlet, you're a little lacking in that.  I think Rhajat can face down all these enemies at once, she's got a Horse Spirit and Rally Luck and there's a forest tile for her to stand on. If her physical defense were just a little higher she'd be even better than Mozu at tanking.  I've still yet to see a single Rend Heaven proc that was necessary. This one would have killed when a regular attack would not have, but then a crit made it redundant anyway. I just want to prove this skill is useful!  Boo. At least it's the best stat in the game.  That's the big hit she had to avoid, Rhajat is safe. I hate Berserkers so much, maps are decided on whether or not they hit or crit you at like 20% chances.   Now here's a kill I needed Rend Heaven for! Sorcerers are how you get the truly big numbers, they have super high magic stats to turn against themselves.  Mozu meanwhile is hiding a single tile away from any magic user that could hit her. You know, as a Basara she'd have higher resistance and HP...  With all the south enemies either lured away or gone, Selkie is free to play on her own without any danger. It might be a little while before Kaden can get to her.  Mozu, on the other hand... She's 2 tiles away from the mages and can outrun them this turn, but she could really do with some help right about now.  She'll be safe all the way out here with her friends ready to pounce on her enemies next turn. Thanks to the Sun Festal Kevin can heal her just out of harm's way. I've been forgetting he can heal and not just be an accessory to Scarlet.  Rhajat meanwhile is still mopping up enemies to the north. Her stats are looking pretty good despite the occassional bad level.  Azama, Scarlet, and Midori were all waiting just out of danger range to clear out Mozu's attackers as soon as she lured them over. Midori's skill and luck are so high that weapon triangle disadvantage means nothing to her accuracy.  I'm still on the fence about turning her into a Master Ninja. There's no real rush, it's not as if I'm going to be using her sword rank as one so I don't have to worry about getting a head start on building it...   The task of cleaning up the stationary Snipers has somehow fallen to my lance using fliers, who are having a little trouble hitting them even though they can't move. I can't believe Caeldori cannot compete with a unit who's been fed like 90% of the stat boosters in the game.   Kaden knows what happened in Conquest's Chapter 19, and here's here to make sure that never happens. I miss how in Awakening you could recruit almost every single child with Chrom, Fates only lets you pick them up with their father.   RIP Selkie's unique outfit, she had it for all of 5 minutes. I wish the later joining kids would have unique outfits for their promoted classes too. Selkie's speed and resistance stats might be excellent, but inheriting Rinkah's low strength growth is not ideal for her... She's also got 10 magic she can't do anything with. I wonder if Nine-Tails were ever meant to be magic users in this game?  With most of the moving enemies gone, this map is nothing but free EXP. A crueller game would have the Snipers start moving as soon as Selkie is recruited.    Some fairly standard levels, I think. Caeldori really needs the speed, she's been stuck on 20 for a while. At least with Orochi once again supporting her she's not as slow as she used to be.  You can't even hurt Selkie with your 24 might. Why's a guy who hunts Kitsune using magic?  I was hoping for a Death Blow crit, but Selkie hasn't managed a single one all chapter. Nine-Tails get an innate boost to their crit too...   If I can't get Selkie to kill him I'll just feed the EXP to Setsuna. That's her speed capped! 34 feels a little low for her...  Another paralogue down! This map was kind of fun for a change, although I won't deny that I am hoping I can get this LP over with soon. I do love the mechanics of Fates for the most part, but I may have misremembered how much they can make up for Birthright's lame map design and somewhat dubious unit balancing.  I don't know about Kitsune Hamlet, but there's The Lion King if you want Lion Hamlet. Supposedly Kaden's the chief of the Kitsune, but he doesn't seem too interested in keeping that job.  Selkie's support chain with her mother has her wanting to put on makeup but then deciding she wants war paint instead, which fits quite well with Rinkah. Parent/child supports always have the child saying pretty much the exact same thing, with the parent's dialogue written around it to match their own personality. Sometimes it works, somtimes it doesn't.  Selkie Kitsuna (HS: Diviner (Kaden), Oni Savage (Rinkah)) A+ Support Partners: Rhajat (Diviner), Midori (Apothecary), F!Kana (Variable) Personal Skill: Playthings (All adjacent enemies take 5 damage at the start of this unit's turn) Growths (With Default Class) [Base]: HP: 27.5% (37.5) (35) STR: 27.5% (37.5) (30) MAG: 15% (15) (15) SKL: 42.5% (57.5) (35) SPD: 50% (70) (55) LCK: 47.5% (57.5) (60) DEF: 37.5% (37.5) (30) RES: 35% (55) (50) Selkie is a hyperactive kitsune girl who both looks and talks like she came right out of 2002 era Deviantart. I personally always liked her as a character a lot more than Velouria, but as a unit I've never really had any idea what you're supposed to do with her. Selkie and Velouria from Conquest are both physically weaker, faster versions of their father. The problem with Selkie is that while Velouria is a weaker and faster version of a unit who's already incredibly tough but struggles slightly with speed, Selkie is a weaker and faster version of a unit who is already a bit too weak and doesn't really need to be any faster. All the problems your avaerage Selkie has are problems Kaden has already, just made worse. With the right mother Selkie can still be a better version of her father, but just by her base growths alone she doesn't really have a lot going for her. For some reason Selkie doesn't get her own Beastrune like Velouria does, so she's going to have to compete with her father for it too, and she's even more in need of it to boost her physical stats and bulk than he is. If you don't want Selkie to compete with her father for resources, you could always reclass her into something else. Thanks to her 15% base magic growth and potentially having a magical mother she could probably do okay in a mixed class like Basara, although it's hard to see her being anything more than decent. Rinkah's influence has made my Selkie's strength worse while not touching her magic, so maybe I could make her a Basara or an Oni Chieftain? I don't really know what to do with her... More likely than not she'll end up being stuck as a support partner for one of her parents. Sorry, Selkie! Out of all the units in this game you are the one I have the least idea of what to talk about. midnight lasagna fucked around with this message at 12:03 on Feb 21, 2022 |
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Feb 20, 2022 13:21
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I've had two good, if very different, Selkies in my games. Sakura plays well with Selkie's alternate class and gives her shrine maiden to boot, and while she doesn't elevate Selkie's MAG enough to hang out with the serious casters, Selkie's still going to be faster and a bit more resilient than her peers. Azura on the other hand makes for a blindingly fast and fairly strong Selkie with access to the sky knight line, and Selkie has a great native RES. This is what I'm running in my current Fates game, and Selkie the kinshi knight is a fixture of my A-team.
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Feb 20, 2022 14:19
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midnight lasagna posted:
I just wanted to say this is one of the funniest things I've ever read in an LP.
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Feb 20, 2022 15:03
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Selkie! Probably my favorite Hoshido character. She deserves the world. You're generally not wrong about her mechanically, but if her other parent is properly strong they generally make sure her relevant offense is always plenty good. And she's very speedy and skillful. So you'll just generally end up with a good and reliable unit with wider skill and class access than her dad, who really doesn't have the chops to make Diviner stuff work for him regardless. On my most recent Gay Fates run, I made her other dad Benny, which gave her some nice family supports... at the cost of basically getting rid of her highlight, because she and Benny actually have the same hair color. It also gave her some nice beef in Str and Def, obviously. I find it generally IS a good idea to have her swing into Basara for a little bit, because her tendency to double and usually perfectly solid skill mean she'll trigger Rend Heaven plenty, which can definitely help if her offenses aren't overwhelming. It also does something fun with a VERY slight mechanical niche she has. Namely, there are only two characters in the game who can provide a +3 Luck support bonus: Anna and Selkie, with Selkie being the one with way more support options even if Anna has wider reach with a support hack. Basara is the only class to provide +5 Luck in pair-up support, and unlike Anna, Selkie's got Basara access built in. As such, if you want to run some sort of weird luck-based gimmick build, especially on a child unit like Midori or Kiragi, Basara Selkie is the support partner who can provide them the biggest boost.
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Feb 20, 2022 17:29
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For some reason my Selkies are always shitwreckers that put Kaden to shame. Dunno why, her base growths are a bit shaky on the offense, but she always comes out super strong for me. I like Selkie a lot.
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Feb 22, 2022 16:40
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Jadecore posted:Selkie! Probably my favorite Hoshido character. She deserves the world. Benny!Selkie is weird to imagine. I did the numbers in and that gives Selkie 42.5% HP, 35% STR, 7.5% MAG, 42.5% SKL, 32.5 SPD, 47.5% LCK, 42.5% DEF, 47.5% RES. She'd almost have as much defense as a Kitsune as she would speed... It also doesn't affect her stats quite like I'd expect, her strength only increases by 5% while her resistance is almost exactly the same. Her skill goes up quite a bit too. I assume she's like the FE equivalent of this.
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Feb 22, 2022 18:00
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  Time for the second and last of the paralogues I already played in my Conquest LP. I was tempted to skip this update and just post all the levels my army gained, but it's short enough that I may as well show it off again. I very much understand why that one Fates LP I keep linking to never made it all the way through Revelation...   It seems more common for my units to cook with random effects than it is for them to give what they usually do. The "dedicated" flair gives a load of boosts to your Corrin, which will be incredibly useful for my healer who's not allowed to see combat. Normally Rhajat cooks this, so I can only assume she used some dark magic to influence Kagero's cooking.  The trick is she sticks her Bolt Naginata into the fishery and electrocutes them all at once like Homer does in the Simpsons movie. Did you know that movie is almost as far away from today as it is from the first ever episode's release date?  Oh poo poo, I completely forgot this guy joined my army!!! Shura is... okay, I think. He's decent filler, but while he joins here at a much higher level than he does in Conquest he's also not got as much of a niche. You've already got Takumi and Reina (and Setsuna, I guess) to shoot bows, and 3 different ninjas to open locks. What's more important is that he's got a Beaststone+. I was wondering when you get one of those.  The Beaststone+ is the stone equivalent of a silver weapon, and in addition to being more powerful it also provides much more exaggerated versions of the regular Beaststone buffs and debuffs. Stones can't be forged and Kitsune are somewhat lacking in offensive power, so unlike regular silvers I tend to value these more. They also don't come with a crit avoid debuff like regular silvers, which is nice!  Anyway, Kana. Kana is just Corrin but a baby, and absolutely not old enough to be fighting in a war. I think she even shares voice lines, or at least a voice actress with one of the options for F!Corrin?  She starts the map as an uncontrollable Feral Dragon, similar to what Corrin did in Chapter 5. Because she's not actually recruitable in this map, her stats and inherited skills will be determined as soon as the map is cleared, not during the map itself, so make sure you don't accidentally learn a new skill and mess up her inheritence! The idea is that her stats are much higher than the enemies, but as you progress through the story and this map gets tougher she'll soon hit her stat caps and be weaker than them relatively. Hopefully I can clear out this map fast enough that they never get a chance to reach her.  This map is just a big open field, despite the patterns of the rice paddies on the floor making it look as if it should have verticality. There are 6 groups of enemies that will all aggro in turn, and then a large number of reinforcements that will start appearing from turn 7 onward. I'm going to try and rout the map before they show up.   The boss is for some reason siginificantly weaker than some of the other enemies on this map, I'm not sure why. He's not scary on his own, but the enemies he's with will all aggro with him.  On the left are a group of Onmyoji and a group of Swordmasters. Dealing with them is fairly easy so long as you have a single unit who can counter them, just leave them in range and let them get to work. A high enough level Ninja could probably take the left side by themselves.   The Snipers on the right can be dealt with with either a magic user or a bow user of your own, but the Spear Masters can be a huge pain - they've got big attack and defense, and their leader has Seal Defense to make surviving them even harder. Rinkah should be able to handle herself against them, but they'll still be tough to take down...  You can also use various dragon veins to fill and drain moats to create and remove walls at will. They won't block the Falcon Knights, but they'll slow down everything else and let you create chokepoints on the bridges.  Midori will take the mages, Rhajat will take the Snipers, Rinkah will fight the Spear Masters, and the idea was Scarlet would take the Swordmasters but I forgot to give her a Dual Club.  I discovered Rinkah had the Dual Club when she got herself killed fighting enemies she should have WTA against. I then restarted and completely ignored this information that I had learned, keeping the Dual Club in her inventory...  Snipers get an innate +10 hit and +10 crit, which can make tanking them a little scary. A 1% chance of being instantly obliterated isn't the end of the world so long as it only happens at the start of the chapter.  Really I'm just happy to get to play a map with Dusk Falls as the BGM again. Pause whatever random Kevin Macleod song I picked and listen to this instead, I think it's my favourite map theme across the entire series.  It takes 2 points of luck to reduce the enemy's crit rate against you by a single point, so Rhajat's not safe just yet. Luck feels much worse in Fates than it does in other games, it's easier to rely on weapon or class bonuses to reduce crit chances.  Midori's dodge chances make me think I should go all in and make her a Master Ninja, the extra speed and +5% to avoid would be enough for her to reach dodgetanking levels I'd be comfortable with. High speed and consistent dual guard activation does go a long way towards tanking in this game, sometimes even more than good bulk does.  It seems like right now there's nowhere on the map where Scarlet would wait and fight Swordmasters but not any other enemy type anyway, so my plan was a bust right from the start. Midori could probably handle them by herself...  My plan to have Rinkah take the Spear Masters was also poorly thought out, but she beats the odds to make it work anyway. I didn't actually know the Great Club has its might quadrupled on crit like killer weapons do - it's a good thing too, she wouldn't have killed this guy without 2 crits at 4x strength!   Two very good levels, especially from Rinkah. She could do with a skill stat more like Midori's.   These Falcon Knights get easier to handle the further you are from the game and the more super effective tools you have access to. They were definitely a huge issue whenever I tried doing this map pre-Chapter 10 in past playthroughs. Considering these enemies are semi-transparent until you hit them, Setsuna nailing one with an arrow is quite impressive. She seems like the type of Sniper player who would make random innacurate shots with the Huntsman and accidentally nail a cloaked Spy every single time.  These Priestesses don't have any weapons, which makes them easier to deal with but also means they won't defeat themselves by suiciding against your units. It probably also makes killing them a war crime.  Scarlet's not going to be able to defeat these Swordmasters with a weapon she doesn't have, so instead she can help Mozu with magic potshots instead. A foolish mistake, challanging a Hoshidan farmer to combat in a rice paddy......  I truly have never seen a Rinkah like this. She has to hit that defense cap or I'm going to be disappointed now.   Accuracy's starting to become a real problem for Azama. Do I make him a Sniper so he can grab Certain Blow? Maybe I could do that after I recruit his daughter, I am a bit short on heals right now.  Kaden's back, baby! He's good again. Awoo.  My inventories are so disorganised that I've long lost track of who owns what. Discovering Mozu had this Beast Killer to help kill Falcon Knights was like finding spare change in my coat pocket.  Mozu must be nearing her strength cap now. She might have already hit it? I'll have to check...   If you don't manage to kill an entire group as soon as you lure them over then they can start to swarm your army faster than you can get out the way. It's pretty lucky that Rinkah survived her assault on the Spear Masters at all.   Rhajat seems to be doing well enough despite more of her levels being bad than not, but Setsuna's not really got any more stats to gain now she's capped her speed. Worse stats across the board were the one consequence of not making her a Sniper.  Turn 5 and almost all the enemies are dead, and Kana hasn't even moved. If I can kill the boss and his friends in the next 2 turns then this map will be done before Lloyd and Llewyn and their lloser friends show up.   Rinkah here is a Horse Spirit, please solve this map for me. I would send Mozu but her only 1-2 range option is a crappy Javelin.  The boss can be a bit slippery with Duelist's Blow, but he's otherwise not scary. I don't know why they decided he should be weaker than the generics in his map.  I've long forgotten what stat boosters I did and did not use on her, but 28 strength and 20 magic are extremely impressive for Rinkah. With tonics she could easy solo the halves of the remaining maps that Mozu isn't soloing herself.  Rinkah didn't manage to actually kill anyone, but that's because the Horse Spirit is pretty weak. Now my other units can dive in to take kills for themselves...  What a greap map for levels. I think Setsuna was the only disappointment...   A nice finish to an okay map. This late in the game there's not much strategy left besides "put the good units in range of the enemies."  Oh you're worse than grounded, you're conscripted! Kevin inviting you into his army makes him a better dad than if he'd abandoned you though, probably.  Non-dragon Kana's stats are quite a bit less impressive than they were before... Kana unfortunately is nowhere near on the same powerlevel as Awakening's Morgan, and Kevin didn't have much stats to pass to her. They're not bad, they're just not particularly good, either. Kana inherited Gentilhomme from her dad, and Lucky Seven from Scarlet. Gentilhomme isn't hugely impressive but is otherwise a male exclusive skill, and Lucky Seven is just nice to have in general. As a dragon her avoid will be lowered significantly which might cancel out Luck Seven's avoid boost however.   While Conquest's Nohr Noble class uses tomes and leans towards magical stats and speed, the Hoshido Noble class is more focused on physical stats and uses staves. Medicore magic combined with the weak healing power of Hoshido's healing rods mean they most likely won't be all that effect as healers, but they can still use the Rescue stat at base. Incidentally, the Hoshido Noble class has the highest base strength out of all Hoshidan classes. It does only have a 15% strength growth though, putting it 5% behind the Oni and Apothecary classes.  Hoshido Nobles also get a different set of skills. Dragon Ward is similar to the Guard skill from Radiant Dawn, but it's rather unreliable and generally something I forget exists. It does at least unlock earlier than Aegis or Pavise, and unlike them it works for all types of attacks. At level 15 they learn Hoshidan Unity, which gives a 10% increase to activation rate for all skills, just like Rightful King from Awakening. So at level 5 they get a worse skill than Draconic Hex, but at level 15 they get a much better skill than Nohrian Trust. It balances out! Except not really because it takes much longer to reach level 15 in Birthright than it does any other path.  Kana Nohr Princess (HS: Troubadour (Kevin), Wyvern Rider (Scarlet)) A+ Support Partners: Midori (Apoethecary), Mitama (Shrine Maiden), Selkie (Diviner?)) Personal Skill: Draconic Heir (Heal 10% of max HP at the start of your turn if you have a Dragonstone equipped) Growths (With Default Class) [Base]: HP: 30% (45) [30] STR: 40% (55) [35] MAG: 25% (35) [30] SKL: 40% (50) [40] SPD: 47.5% (57.5) [45] LCK: 42.5% (52.5) [45] DEF: 25% (35) [25] RES: 22.5% (27.5) [25] See previous analysis Wow, turns out Kana's base growths and Scarlet's base growths are very similar, she's barely changed them at all... I don't really have anything new to say about Kana, she is for the most part Corrin but worse and with no Yato access, although she does make a slightly better user of Dragonstones thanks to Draconic Heir. Birthright's big open fields full of enemies are in some ways kinder to Dragonstone users, although their lack of 1-2 range does also hurt them more. The Hoshido Noble class is both more and less suited to dragonstone usage than its counterpart - they have less magic for offense, but also higher HP and physical defense for tanking. I don't tend to use dragonstones past the midgame so Kana often ends up getting benched whenever I use her, but maybe I'll make an effort to try her out in this run? I'll leave the Kana opinions to people who actually use them, I don't really have much to say.
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Feb 22, 2022 18:00
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Finally, a fellow Dusk Falls appreciator!
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Feb 23, 2022 00:39
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 For how many free rods this game keeps giving me, I still seem to be running out. Spamming bad staves for EXP is something I do compulsively in FE games, but in Fates the EXP from doing that falls off fast once your units have promoted. I know that units get less EXP from healing units of a lower level than themselves, but even when healing someone of the same level you get like 3 EXP per Bloom Festal use at higher levels.   Kana, why do you need money? You're like 8. Is she paying off the families of the bereaved flowers? Scarlet claims we don't harm the defenseless but the number of weaponless staff users in rout maps says otherwise.    Azama reaches an A support with Kaden in which he tells him he hates him. A little concerning he's saying that considering he married Setsuna, who is completely immune to sarcasm or any sort of insult at all. He's also got a B support with Rinkah, although I'm not sure how that happened. I love Azama, he sucks so much. Some of the best Fire Emblem characters are terrible.    I said this before, but I do really like Rinkah and Selkie's supports. Selkie's saying pretty much the exact same thing she says to any mother, but this feels like a very natural conversation for the two to have.  Oh and Midori doesn't want to get in the way of her dad's job (which is giving her support bonuses and nothing else). A lot of supports today! I thought they'd all dried up.  I'm going to do Chapter 23 next, so the great inventory sorting must go underway. Mostly this consists of unequipping everyone, selling all the crap I don't use, and then probably giving them all the same stuff they had before. Weapon durability not being a thing helps somewhat at least, usually by this point in a campaign I've got inventories full of random weapons with only 3 uses left each.  I sold all of these without thinking, oops! I did say I would promote Oboro to help Mozu get more pair-up stats. Although it's only an extra point of strength and skill she'd miss out on, and that's not really going to change much.  I'm not going to use any of my silver weapons or weird niche items like this. The next chapter will be absolutely full of wyverns, but this weapon is way too inconsistent to use.  And then there's things like this. They're cool, but I just don't have the space for them! Rinkah and Scarlet have way too many clubs to hold already. I really need a third club user. Birthright really needs a third club user...   Setsuna must be appeased with offerings, so this is where all the money is going. I don't really think 10,000 gold for a stat booster is worth it unless you absolutely cannot reach an important threshold without one, but the goal of this LP is not to make sensible decisions. There's no way Setsuna will ever hit her HP cap of 50, but maybe she'll hit her strength cap of 27?  The Setsuna tax means I can't really buy new weapons to forge, but I can at least mush all the ones I already have together. Rhajat doesn't even need a physical weapon, I just have spare and don't think they're worth much if I sell them anyway. She did ask for something to stab someone with and you can't stab with a scroll.   A forged Iron Club is only as strong as a regular Iron Axe, but at least it's also slightly more accurate? I knew about the 5 extra crit, I didn't know they had a slightly better chance to hit too. I guess that's pretty neat. Rhajat still probably isn't doing anything with her naginata besides attacking healers for slightly more damage. It can't even activate Rend Heaven...             A somewhat overdue team status update. Setsuna's got her speed capped already, and my other units must be getting close to some of their caps by now... I think there's only 8 or so maps left, counting the child paralogues I haven't done? There's also Invasion 3, but I'm not sure I can be bothered. I am definitely starting to get burned out a little, but honestly this LP has been so fast and loose that putting out an update every now and then is just a fun distraction, even if playing the game's gotten a little tedious. I don't mind seeing this all the way to the end, although now that my IRL work hours have increased I might not be swimming in free time as much as I was. I am now at least very, very sure I am not doing Revelation. As much as I'd like to see it LP'd, I don't think anyone should. It's not very good! Next time: Camilla
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Feb 25, 2022 15:57
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  Kevin's stealth mission into Nohr continues as he takes yet another secret passage leading directly to Garon. It must be really easy to assassinate this guy, there's practically a highway directly from his throne to Hoshido.  Not personally, Kevin has taken a vow of pacifism. But he will absolutely heal and support his friends as they kill Xander and Garon.  A correct statement, Kevin and Elise are in fact not going to be hurting anyone. I do appreciate that Elise is trying to solve this all without violence, even if her plan is obviously not going to work out. She won't be joining our army but she will be hanging around from now on.  Good thing we've got Elise, because I hate sewer levels and getting lost in dungeons. People complain about them, but in all honestly I'm all for 100% linear dungeons. My sense of direction is terrible and I don't like getting lost, but I also don't really like the JRPG standard dungeon layout with constant forks in the road that lead to treasure chests that force you to constantly try to guess which path is the correct one, so you can ignore it to go down all the other ones first.   Oh, it's these guys! Elise's retainers I kind of ignored in my playthrough of Conquest. Arthur did end up marrying Elise, but he never really got to fight anybody. Them snitching on me is their revenge...   Camilla please don't talk about murder in front of your younger sister, you're making her upset! Also please don't actually murder us either. Elise may be willing to listen to reason, but Camilla knows that every single chapter needs a conflict or else it's not a chapter at all.  Here it is, Chapter 23. I advertised this as the point where Birthright gets good again, but I feel as if I mistook "gets good" for "gets difficult" - I kinda forgot how much of a slog the last few chapters were. This map is a huge difficulty spike, and it is also the point of the game around which people tend to give up on their other units and start just throwing Ryoma at everything. Every single enemy you face from here on out will be promoted, and Nohrian promoted classes tend to be very bulky and hit hard.  Camilla herself is a big part of why this map is so rough, but it's not her stats - they're barely above what they were last time, and in fact I think are almost identical to her base stats when she joins in Conquest's Chapter 10. The Brave Axe can be a slightly scary weapon, and her mixed attacking stats are good, but if you can handle the massive amounts of enemies the map's throwing at you you can probably handle Camilla quite easily, her stats are comparable to the generic Malig Knights you'll face...  This is how she gets you. Camilla has access to 3 different dragon veins to target 3 different areas of the map, hitting all of your units for 10 damage each. She can use these as many times as she wants, although she can only target one area per turn. I'm not sure if Camilla tries to set up kills or just damage as many of your units as possible, but regardless you generally want to assume any unit in her blast range is going to start enemy phase with 10 less HP than before.  The first time she uses a dragon vein on an area she'll also destroy all structures like this one, meaning units who were hiding behind them might suddenly become exposed. Camilla always attacks at the start of enemy phase, so you may as well treat these crates like they don't exist and assume all enemies in a corridor will get to move unobstructed.   Beruka and Selena are also here, and they're paired up with one another. Aggroing either them or Camilla will aggro every enemy on the map. They do get a slight boost from being paired with one another, and they are both packing brave weapons, but they're really not that scary at all. Boosted HP and strength aside, Selena's stats are almost identical to what they would be as a level 1 Bow Knight if you promoted her instantly. Her and Beruka are probably the least threatening enemies here...   Every enemy with a portrait on this map does in fact have a brave weapon. Arthur can't use a Brave Axe as a Hero unfortunately, his axe rank can't go that high. At least he's also got Swordfaire... Effie and Arthur will stay put until Corrin talks to them, at which point they turn into green units. There is no reward for sparing them and they will most likely die near instantly after you "recruit" them, but I like to do it anyone just to give the enemies someone to attack who isn't me. If this were Conquest they'd have much bigger and nastier skillsets. Arthur would be packing a Killer Axe to go with his Brave Sword, as well has Certain Blow and Death Blow... Effie would probably have Quick Draw and Wary Fighter, and maybe a Beast Killer or a Killer Lance for good measure.    The enemies without portraits are the real threat. There's no more level 20 Fighters to fill out the enemy's ranks, it's all promoted units from here on out, and they hit hard. Even Ryoma might start fearing for his life if you don't load him up with tonics and meals, repeated lance hits can eventually wear him down. Unfortunately these enemies are still rather low level, so they won't give much EXP...   In preparation for this chapter I have Reina prepare me a meal, and then immediately frisbee the plate into the garbage because it turns out she's exactly as bad a cook as Felicia. "Noxious" flair gives +1 strength and magic at the cost of -1 to every other stat. I could have tried this over and over until Reina rolled a different effect, but I don't really have the rice to waste for that. I guess nobody gets to eat today!  I was going to do this earlier but forgot. Master Ninja comes with an intrinsic +5% boost to hit, avoid, crit, and crit avoid, as well as being faster and more resistant in exchange for worse physical stats. The bulk difference isn't huge, so I figure the potential to dodge tank makes up for the slightly lower defense...  Ninjas are also cool. That's the real reason. Please don't refer to yourself in third person Midori, that's a localisation thing midnight lasagna hates so so much.  Kana's here for healing support, but I'm not bringing Selkie - I want Rinkah and Kaden at peak performance, so they're pairing with each other. This is a very chokepointy chapter, so a lot of my units here won't be seeing much combat... I mostly want rod users topping up juggernauts like Mozu and Rhajat.    The game is telling you to talk to Arthur and Effie with Elise, except Elise is hiding in Kevin's coat pocket so that means he has to talk to them instead. That shouldn't be too hard with Scarlet to ferry him over.  Birthright's map music is good again, so pause Kevin's original tunes for a moment and listen to Alight (Storm) instead. Unfortunately due to Fates's dynamic music that changes as you go in and out of battle, you'll only get to hear this incredibly intense theme an annoyingly small amount of the time. The non-combat version just isn't the same...  Camilla's fire blasts can't get you in these tiny 1 tile corridors, so you'll want as much of your army hiding out here as possible. Or rather, you'll want your frontliners hiding here - the blasts can't kill your units, only weaken them, so if they're not facing combat this turn it doesn't really matter if they're getting burned so long as you can heal them up later. Mozu however would very much like to start each enemy phase with full HP, considering how little she has to begin with...  In a turn or two enemies from the top are going to charge my starting position, so I need a few guys to take on them while Mozu holds off the enemies from the left. Unfortunately there's no area safe from Camilla's fire blasts between me and them...  I'll keep my army bunched up together for now. It might look like there's crates and stuff blocking off one of the paths to the left, but they'll be destroyed immediately by Camilla.   And there they go! RIP to all of the rats hiding out in Nohr's sewers.  10HP wouldn't be much in previous games, but Fates is unusually stingy with its HP growths. Thankfully Rhajat and Kaden, two of my best tanks, have a lot more HP than my other units...  Mozu however would lose a third of her max HP in an instant if she were to be hit. There's lots of axe users here, but there's also a lot of magic users, so the Dual Naginata could get Mozu killed very quickly. The Guard Naginata is safer, even if it does limit her ability to dodge axes like she normally could.   Things are looking quite crowded already, and they're only going to get worse. Hopefully I'll only have to manage two different chokepoints, but there are some Wyvern Lords ahead that can fly over the water and ruin my plans.  Mozu is of course getting only 3 EXP per kill, and that's from the higher level enemies. Of course if I were soloing the game with Ryoma he'd have to rout the entire map to level up a single time.  I'm confident Mozu can consistently survive a single round each time, but she needs healing every single turn. This damage does slowly add up over time. Dark Knights can be annoying, but thankfully for Mozu they're the easiest foe to handle on the map. Hanging out in this corridor does also mean they can be forced to attack her at 1 range if there's already someone standing where they want to attack from.  Rhajat's a pretty good mixed tank too, but she's not perfect. She can fairly easily take a sword hit or 3, but as soon as the Great Knights arrive with lances she's going to be at risk of being 2HKO'd, and since she'll easily 1 round them, she'll be freeing up space for the enemy to attack her again after every battle.  Here come a lot of guys from the north. The first few turns of this map are the worst, since most of the enemies start moving towards you immediately. But if you can survive them and not push forward too far until the reinforcements dry up, you should be okay...  Retreating back into this corridor will force more enemies to have to engage Mozu at 1 range, but it will also mean less room for my other units to hide out in safety. The Wyvern Lords behind me are making it harder and harder to keep all my worse units out of combat.   Thankfully I remembered I have like 10 Rescue staff uses left, so I can have her overextend and then Kana bring her back without any danger.  Almost without any danger, anyway... You don't choose where units end up after you rescue them, so Setsuna's ended up right back in enemy range. I think there's a formula that decides which tile a rescued unit will appear in but it changes in each game. I've got to do something about this or this Bow Knight's going to pop her in a single shot.  The constant 10 damage each turn means my healers are getting a lot of EXP. Azama's no longer the monster he once was, he merely feels on par with the rest of my units.  Blocking Setsuna with Midori is the best option I've got. I do now slightly regret reclassing her, but I'm sure she'll be bulky enough...  Thank you enemy Great Knight for standing in the way of 2 range attacks like a useless idiot. Was it trying to set up a dual strike? I don't think the enemies know those don't work against paired units...  A very good thing he did that too, or else Midori would have been toast. She's too weak to KO any of her attackers, so she's not in danger of clearing out more space for others to have a shot at her.  Now to somehow tank all of this poo poo while being constantly burned alive by Camilla. This map sucks!!! I wish Ryoma were here.  My initial positioning stupidly put Kaden away from the front lines, so he's just clearing out stragglers instead of choking the point like he could. With Rinkah's help and the Beastrune he makes a pretty great tank, and his avoid is still pretty high too.  Unfortunately Kaden's levels are back to being terrible. Weird how his HP stat is so high, he's never someone I've thought of as being bulky.   The Gentilhomme boost from Kevin is my best bet at keeping Midori alive. With a Brass Shuriken she won't be critting anyone, so as long as she's only taking 2 attacks per turn...   I don't know how I could ever survive Fates without dual guards, they are so very nice and helpful. The difference they make to a unit's bulk is immense...   With Midori's chokepoint now too crowded for anyone else to get in, the enemies all line up to die to crits at the hands of Mozu. I'd really like for her to get just a little more bulk, she's not quite at the level where she could solo entire maps by herself, but she's close!  Things are in fact looking a lot better than before. Reinforcements will start appearing soon, but the rest of my army can clear out all of these units this turn, leaving only the reinforcements and units who won't aggro until I enter their range.  And here they are. Mounted enemies will appear from the right for a few turns, then wyverns from the top and bottom of the middle corridor, and finally Sorcerers all the way on the left. There are also some reinforcements who won't appear until you approach Camilla, but I won't have to worry about them for a while.  I have so many units taking damage that Kevin's had to reprise his role of healer just to keep everyone topped up. I think he's now one of my lowest level units.  Salvage Blow nets me its first item drop. Unfortunately I have like 0 sword users besides Kana and E rank swords Midori, so I don't really want this.  With the rightmost corridor almost entirely cleared, I can now advance forward. I would like to recruit Arthur, but he's going to get piled on by reinforcements immediately and I would rather he die doing something useful, like charging into Camilla's room to bait all of the enemies there.   So I'll hide in the safe corridors and fight off these reinforcements while Arthur's still red. A few of these wyverns will be spawning in each turn, and the Maligs will wear down Arthur fast.   Malig Knights are Mozu food when forced to attack at 1 range, and Midori can easily dispose of them too. Midori's not quite as overleveled as everyone else, so she is at least gaining a little EXP from all this!   Caeldori's been getting a lot of EXP from this. I appreciate the physical bulk on Midori too.  Lethality has a Skill/4 chance of killing a foe instantly. Even with Midori's insanely high skill it's not really good, a 9% or so chance to kill is not at all reliable, and in Fates you sometimes would rather attack an opponent as many times as possible to build dual guard gauge rather than kill them in a single hit, so offensive skills aren't great in the first place. If you want reliable damage you're better off with Luna or Rend Heaven...  Lethality is however Cool so Midori can have it. Golembane is not cool, Stoneborn are super rare and Mechanists may as well not exist in Birthright. Time to administer some bad medicine!  A few turns later and now the Sorcerers are coming in. They're the only unmounted enemies in this map, so they'll take a lot longer to reach us.   My units all push forward into the middle corridor and are blasted immediately. I don't need to keep healing them back up every time they take damage, but it is good EXP!   May as well take out the sorcs before I talk to Arthur too. Rhajat makes fairly quick work of them.   Misunderstanding all cleared up, now go and murder your fellow friends and countrymen. Good thing Elise is Legally An Adult or else this might still count as a statutory kidnapping. Talking to one of Elise's retainers will turn the other green as well, so it doesn't really matter which one you pick. I usually go for Arthur but Effie's lower movement can make her easier to approach.  This Malig Knight witnessed the whole thing and still chooses violence. Thanks to Arthur's terrible luck and personal skill he is extremely vulnerable to crits, so if you really want to keep him alive you might have your work cut out for you.  Brave hero he is, he still chooses to charge recklessly ahead... Effie appears to be staying put though, maybe she needs an enemy to attack her before she decides to be a hero too.  Reinforcements will appear as soon as you get close to Camilla, so once again I'm going to employ the coward's strategy of hiding in the corridors and baiting enemies out slowly.  Caeldori is definitely feeling the effects of having Orochi as a mother, her stats are all over the place now. Her skill luck and resistance are great, but they're also not particularly valuable...  Putting Rhajat here will bait Beruka and Selena, and therefore every enemy on the map. Once Camilla aggros, she won't bother with her dragon veins anymore...  Oh, and there are the reinforcements. They spawn in the instant you enter their associated area, which can screw you over if they spawn in as you make your last move in a turn.  Arthur's making some contributions of his own. It feels wrong to see him using swords, even if they do feel like a more heroic weapon. I'm impressed this Arthur managed to raise his sword rank so high.  Every single enemy on the map has now aggro'd, even this one Strategist I had forgotten about. Arthur survived his fight against a Strategist, can Effie do the same?  Selena didnt' choose to attack Rhajat, weirdly enough. Camilla is in range for someone to snipe her, but I'd rather not push too far forward... This is a rout map and not defeat boss.  RIP Arthur. I think he's dead, anyway. It's not clear.  Seeing that "x2" on the combat window is always scary, even it's part of a dual attack that's being blocked. Camilla was Midori's mother in a past life, I'm sure if she knew that she would surrender...  An enemy borrowed a dual attack off of her to harass Midori, but Camilla decides to dethrone this new challenger to best units in Fates. It's not a very good attempt though.  This Effie has no Wary Fighter, but she does at least have barely enough HP to tank two strong magical hits. I'd rather she win this encounter, I don't want to have to walk all way back over to the right to deal with this guy.  Sure.  I definitely believe that! Mozu's only gotten stronger since last time, Selena I think has barely grown at all.  This Strategist made the fatal error of attacking Effie and leaving her alive, a mistake she is promptly punished for. I hope this makes up for me not using Effie at all in my Conquest LP.   Goodbye Selena! Azama must be approaching his strength cap by now.  Royalty is an outdated concept, and wyverns are so last season. The lovely green archers are rising up!!  I'm sorry, Kevin has replaced you with a new Malig Knight. You made a mistake not killing Scarlet in Chapter 13!   Go home, Beruka. This is how a real retainer fights!  23 turns for Chapter 23. How fitting. I'm glad to have this map out of the way...  Elise has joined our army, will you join us too? Leo could have done the same and saved us a lot of trouble, but he decided to bugger off immediately after making a truce with us.   Unfortunately her combat injuries have turned Camilla into a Victorian era noblewoman, and with that comes slight insanity and constant fainting spells.   According to the DLC Selena was sent to this world specifically to save Kevin from Anankos, but she doesn't seem particularly interested in doing that. Maybe it's bad writing, maybe she's just really into her new role as Camilla's retainer. If Camilla dies then who else will bear the burden of Severa's mommy issues? Now to put the plot on hold again to go pick up some more children from interdimensional daycare. Will Pickle Man be the decent sword user I've been missing all this time?
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Mar 2, 2022 16:27
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This map just tends to result in a lot of corridor turtling thanks to Camilla. It's an okay map, I guess?
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Mar 2, 2022 18:14
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I dislike it heavily myself. Fates already has problems with making unit juggernaut stacks the best tactic in any given situation. This map amplifies it with tons of aoe damage. Since HP is so bad in Fates, it can push a lot of units to 1HKO range, which discourages their use and limits your tactics. So it’s best to have a unit that’s not really taking damage in the first place, hence the Ryoma thing. The fact you can do nothing to stop her bombing you every round until you fight her means there’s very little reactivity to the map.
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Mar 2, 2022 21:53
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| # ? May 1, 2024 15:48 |
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  Time to recruit the most boring child in yet another dark and dreary rout 5000 Faceless map. At least all of these maps are easy... I guess I'd rather get a load of free EXP than beat my head against something like Conquest's Eternal Stairway over and over.   Kevin's allegedly the leader of this army, so he should acquaint himself with his troops. I wonder, was Setsuna's weird falling into traps gimmick a result of the writers not having any better ideas for all her supports, or did they decide that's what they were going to base her character around right from the start? It's just such a bizarre and specific thing and it gets old extremely fast.  Azama also managed to get a B support with Mozu from healer her so many times last chapter. Listen Azama it's funny when you make fun of bad characters but if you continue to antagonise Mozu you are going to end up a stain on the floor.   I bet a grain of rice on this battle and I want it back. These low hit rate arena fights are the worst, especially in older games where units are at risk of dying and you have to try to work out on the fly how good your unit's odds of survival are. Sometimes skill is important!   I hope nobody knows that Kagero's screw up cost everyone else half of their dinner, it's just fish today. "Daring" sashimi makes me think Scarlet tried making blowfish sushi. Good thing she cut it right!   Time to pick up Hinata Junior. Hinata is a bit of an idiot and does not seem aware of how time passes in the deeprealms, although honestly he's no worse than the other fathers. Having ignorance as an excuse arguably makes him the least terrible, he didn't abandon his son knowingly! IIRC the devs said in an interview or an artbook or something that Hisame was originally written as Hinata's brother, but they made him a second gen unit on account of there being way too many Samurai already. Given that he's now older than his own father, they are kind of like brothers now? How existentially horrifying.  Yeah it's another one of these. This map sucks, but it's short and it's also optional so I can't complain too much. Hisame starts out in the open and it's your job to rescue him before he's pummeled to death, but the Waste tiles give this map more structure than it appears to have at first glance. They're very hard to see on the top screen, but if you look at the bottom you'll see this map is actually quite cramped and corridor-ish. Your units can move through waste tiles, but only very slowly. I think you've got at least 4 or 5 turns before Hisame's in any trouble...  This Faceless can only move 1 tile to the right despite having 5 move, for example. If you have a few fliers you can clean this map out very quickly, otherwise it might take a little while.  Hisame has inherited no skills from his parents, and his stats here are literally just his averages rounded up to the nearest whole number, so I don't think he inherited any base stats from them either. I do have almost no sword users at all and with Hana as a mother his growths should be at least okay, so for once I don't think I'll be benching him. The Faceless are however 12 levels higher than he is, so I'll need to recruit him ASAP.  The boss is hiding all the way in the corner. He's got 69 HP and some big numbers, but he's nothing special. Vantage, Counter, and Inspiration (allies within 2 spaces deal 2 more damage and take 2 less) could mess you up if you're not paying attention, but otherwise he's just a slightly bigger Faceless.  Otherwise it's standard Faceless chapter fare. All of them have 1 or 2 skills each, most of which are not particularly threatning. The occassional X-breaker skill might trip you up but otherwise you're not required to pay too much attention.  Hinata's going to hitch a ride with Setsuna to reach his son, otherwise it's just a standard move units towards enemies and hit numbers against numbers situation. I won't complain too hard, Mitama's paralogue is up next and that one I do remember being annoyingly difficult.   These Faceless might not be all that powerful, but they are annoyingly beefy. I don't think any of my army are capable of KOing them from full health without crits.  Even Kana gets to help! I don't think I have any space in my party for her as a combat unit, but she deserves to get to be a dragon every now and then. She's bulky and quite hard hitting which is especially valuable when she's hitting the enemy's res, but not being able to double or counter at 2 range as a dragon sucks.  20% hit is funny, but I'm mostly surprised that Rinkah even got that high using the Great Club against a unit with Axebreaker. Those numbers are what Berserkers in FE6 usually look like, almost no chance at all to hit but if they do you're getting crit from full health to nothing.  Setsuna's been loaded with stat boosters to the point that close combat is just about viable for her now. 46% avoid is impressive considering she's using a steel weapon! I guess that's Hinata helping.  Hitting a 25% strength proc is very cool, this is just about the best I can ask of Setsuna now she's capped her speed. I need to have her go through Sniper to get Bowfaire... It's a shame she can't support Oboro to get Lancefaire.  Hisame reached on turn 2, easy. Fliers can't usually fly over walls in Fates for some reason, it's annoying.   Hinata's not a jerk, I'm sure he would be a good dad had he not left his son in the rapid aging dimension for too long by accident. Hisame's thing is that he talks and acts like an old man despite his young age, but if they really wanted to lean into the horror of the babyrealms they could have made him actually an old man who aged 60 years between Hinata's last vist.   Hisame's stats are normally very average, but with Hana as his mum he's stronger and faster than he'd normally be at the cost of his physical defense. He can lean into that further as a Swordmaster, or he can fix his bulk slightly as a Master of Arms. Normally I'd go Swordmaster, but I've complained about a lack of axe users a lot and he'll start with almost a C rank in clubs. Somebody needs to use all the weapons Rinkah and Scarlet can't carry! Although I think I sold half of my Throwing Clubs...  His HP is looking very nice, but that defense is quite shaky for how high level he is. That single point of magic he gained came courtesy of Hana, she gives him a 5% magic growth. I'm sure he'll make a powerful Great Master with that....   Unfortunately Hisame's safe starting position is also very hard to escape from, so he'll have to spend a little while wading through wasteland before he can reach any enemies for some father son combat bonding.   Extremely nice levels from Kaden and Caeldori. Caeldori's stats are so bizarre, I've said this before but from just her stats alone it would be really hard to guess what class she was, they're distributed really weirdly.   The only reason I'm not hitting srart to skip Scarlet's combat is that she's got a one in four chance of getting Nohrian on your butt on each crit, and I've yet to hear her say it yet. Besides being a "medieval on your rear end" pun it doesn't really make any sense for her to say it so I'm sure you could argue it's not good localisation, but it is very funny.  In fact I think I might give Scarlet the Killer Axe and fly her right to the far side of this map so I can end it as soon as possible. Otherwise I'll be waiting forever for these enemies in the corner to catch up with me and I might not have routed everything before the reinforcements arrive.   Is that Mozu's strength capped? I would be surprised if it wasn't... Lancefaire gives +5 damage when using lances/naginatas (unlike Awakening's Lancefaire which gives +5 to either strength or magic, depending on what stat the weapon you have equipped uses. This unfortunately means you cannot equip tomes or magical weapons to boost the effectiveness of your staves in Fates), which is extremely nice to have. With this Mozu could deal decent damage with the Bolt Naginata even as a Spear Master and not a Basara. Certainly more than she would with a Javelin that cannot attack twice...  That is not a cap! Mozu's only getting warmed up. Spear Masters have better caps than I expected.  The Killer Axe does lower the wielder's avoid by 10%, but Lucky Seven more than counteracts it. Unfortunately Scarlet cannot double the boss even with Kevin's help, but if she were to crit...   ....then she'd kill him in one hit. Counter doesn't activate on enemy phase, but even if it did it wouldn't have saved him. And she still didn't get to say the line!   Speaking of not skipping animations, I'm still watching Midori's in case she gets a Lethality proc. With her base skill alone she's got a 9% chance, so it's not too unlikely. I just want to see blood!!!  Basara might have the highest growth total of any class but Rhajat doesn't care. At least HP is nice.  Just three enemies left now. I think reinforcements are about to start showing up, so I'll need to end this soon.    Byeeeee.  And there we have it. From turn 6 and onward Faceless would have started coming from the stairs scattered around the map. I wouldn't have been in any danger, but dealing with a bunch of enemies appearing all over a map that's hard to move around would have made this drag on much longer.   At least with his parents on the bench Hisame wouldn't have to worry about being orphaned in his 20s. Hinata names his weapons like Owain does (he even has a support with Odin in Rev!), and Hana found Hisame's private diary from when he was a young boy. I think I like Hisame with Hana's hair colour, it's boring but it looks nice.  Oh and these two hit an A support too. All these poor children with their pointlessly traumatic upbringings...  Hisame Samurai (HS: Oni Savage (Hinata), Monk (Hana)) A+ Support Partners: Kiragi (Archer), Asugi (Ninja), Shigure (Sky Knight)) Personal Skill: Calm (Gain +4 skill and res for 1 turn after selecting "Wait") Pair Up Stats (C B A S): Def Str Def Str+Spd Growths (With Default Class) [Base]: HP: 37.5% (47.5) [50] STR: 47.5% (57.5) [40] MAG: 5% (5) [0] SKL: 42.5% (57.5) [40] SPD: 47.5% (67.5) [40] LCK: 25% (40) [25] DEF: 25% (25) [30] RES: 25% (35) [20] Hisame is a young man who acts like an old age pensioner, with similar hobbies to boot. For some reason the localisation decided to focus on his vegetable pickling hobby far more than any other of his traits, so in 90% of his supports all he does is talk about pickles. They localised my personality into a pickle, Hinata! Wackly pickle obsession aside, Hisame is boring. Samurai is a class that is already super common in Birthright, and his growths are extremely even across the board before factoring in his mother's influence. I guess Hisame's kind of a midpoint between Hinata and Hana statwise? I really have nothing interesting to say about him or any new unit at this point, I guess you pick whichever promotion boosts the stats his mother hasn't given him or reclass him to an Oni if you want one. I don't think I've ever had a particularly great Hisame, but he is at least competent filler. Instead I've got some fun trivia: Hisame has the lowest growth total out of any second generation unit in Fates and the 6th lowest growth total in the entire game, beating Nyx and his father by 5% and losing to Subaki and Selena by 5% too. Growth totals aren't a great way of assessing a unit's usefulness and his low total is probably more indicative of his lack of "wasted" growths in stats like magic or resistance than it is of him being a bad unit, but I thought it was interesting. Incidentally the kid with the second lowest growth total is Shigure, and the kid with the highest is Asugi, who draws with his father Saizo for best non-Aptitude boosted growths in the game. Which means an Asugi with Mozu as his mother could inherit Aptitude to have the highest total out of anyone. Therefore the highest growth total possible belongs to Mozu!Asugi as a General, who will have a grand total of 487.5% growths with 70% HP, 72.5% STR, 37.5% MAG, 77.5% SKL, 60% SPD, 67.5% LCK, 62.5% DEF, 40% RES so long as he has Aptitude. Neat. midnight lasagna fucked around with this message at 19:52 on Mar 6, 2022 |
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Mar 4, 2022 15:54
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