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What made Boucheron work for me was turning an early handaxe to a tomahawk and tossing it on him. His ability to one shot stuff without getting hit back kept him rolling in the exp for a long while, and he easily hit the point where I stopped having to trade away from it after attacking because it tanked his speed. It was a pretty big investment early, but it was all he needed to dominate 2/3 of the game before falling off at the end. It's kind of funny seeing so many people talk about how weak he is when he dominated so hard for me. And it was fixed growths, so it's not like he got blessed or anything. Which I guess really goes to show just how powerful emblems and gear are in engage, because who gets the shiny toys at key points drastically alters their performance in a way unseen since the holy weapons in geneology.
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Apr 2, 2024 22:31
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| # ? Apr 29, 2024 20:41 |
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The Tomahawk idea sounds pretty neat actually, it leverages his one best stat into thwacking people hard. The problem that Clanne runs into is that his growths doesn't really work as a Mage, but if you want to reclass him, you really need to keep him at level 1 until you get 2nd seals. Mage will ruin him for using his physical growths due to bad allocation for that and also just a low growth total. And if you're doing that, then most of the benefits of having an early mage for damage kind of evaporate.
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Apr 3, 2024 02:15
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I like to use Clanne because he tries his hardest.
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Apr 3, 2024 02:21
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Real talk, using a character from the early game is largely down to if they turn out good quickly. Because you'll be forced to use them, like it or not, you really can't judge them by their growth rates alone.
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Apr 3, 2024 03:12
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This is all technically still part of the end of Chapter 3, but it made for a good transition point so I spun it off as a "prep" update. Anyway, yeah, Lumera! I get what they're going for, but the game falls into the trap that countless stories before it have: You just aren't going to make me care about a character you introduced a chapter ago. If this happened, say, after Chapter 10 or so when we've had a good chunk of the game to build a rapport with Lumera, this would work a lot better! It's not entirely clear how long it's been since we came to the castle (although I get the feeling it's not very long), but even if you could convince me that Alear cares because he has no memories, no connection with others aside from his retainers, etc, I still don't because she's been a walking bundle of death flags from the second she was introduced.  Intermission 1: The Funeral   It was the final service we could provide Queen Lumera as stewards. I can't believe she's gone. C'mon, Framme. Think how hard this must be on the Divine Dragon. We gotta hold it together. I'm trying, but... ...Lumera. I never thought our paths would diverge so soon. Nor I. And to leave a child behind. I did that in death... A bitter memory. I vow to protect your offspring in your absence, Lumera. If we could grant our power now... Marth. You know that's not possible without the other Emblems here. Yes, yes, I know. This is awful. Sorry I couldn't have done...something. No, Prince Alfred. Without you, our losses may have been even greater. Our kingdom is in danger. My mother sent me to ask Queen Lumera for help. All over Firene, our people are being attacked by these...creatures. Creatures? What kind of creatures? These things are like people, but...cracked, almost crumbling. The Corrupted. Oh, so that's what you call them. Yes. Corpses brought back to life. No wonder they wouldn't listen to us. They just keep attacking everything. We sent our knights out to hold them off, but it's a losing battle. My kingdom is being destroyed. Divine One...will you help us? Please, come with me to Firene. Me? What can I do? It was my mother's help you wanted, not mine. Queen Lumera is gone. You're the last Divine Dragon. We need the power of the rings to save Firene. And only you can do that. ... Sorry. I don't mean to press the topic. I'll return to Firene. We'll...do what we can. You will?! I don't want more families to be torn apart ─ more people to suffer. Even if I'm scared, I have to push through my fear. Now that my mother is gone, it's my duty to step into the role of Divine Dragon. And if each kingdom is protecting rings, I take it Firene has one, correct? That's right. Then I need to go there anyway to honor my mother's request. She asked me to gather all of the rings and bring peace back to Elyos. That's great to hear! Thank you, Divine One. Happy to help, Prince Alfred. Just "Alfred" is fine. I've been visiting you at the Somniel since I was a boy. I think of you as...an old friend. A very, very old friend. I appreciate that. Actually, I can't remember anything from before I fell asleep. Nothing? This world is new to me. I appreciate having friends who can teach me about it. I'll do my best. Can't say I'll know much compared to Queen Lumera, but I'll try. Thank you, Alfred. We can now start finding some goodies by looking for glowing spots on the post-battle map. Most of the time they're fairly inconsequential - ingredients for cooking, or a handful of bond points, but ingots are what we're actually looking for. As we'll soon see, forging weapons is arguably second only to giving a character an Emblem in terms of a power increase.  Also, we start seeing post-battle conversations that relate to the plot that's going on. This is less important for the royals since they're actually involved in the plot, but it's nice for characters like Etie and Boucheron who are going to stop existing after next chapter outside of supports. ...Unless they were the MVP of the map, in which case you get a generic "Divine One, did you see how cool I was?" conversation. That's okay, you didn't actually care what they were going to say, did you?  The Somniel would be uniquely useful. A little out of the way, isn't it? I can't imagine how we'd get everyone there and back. As a Divine Dragon, you can travel there no matter where you are in the world. I can? Indeed. Furthermore, one can only enter the Somniel with a Divine Dragon's power. Without Queen Lumera's blessing, even we stewards couldn't have set foot there. That is what makes it a safe haven. Well then, yes. Let's use it as our base. But before we depart, can you give me a moment? Hm? We'll be gone a while, so...I'd like to say goodbye to my mother. Of course. Take as much time as you need. This journey will be a long one, but don't worry. Vander and the others will be right beside me. I will fulfill my duty as the Divine Dragon. I will find all of the rings, just as you asked. And then I'll return to you, Mother. I promise.Again, this would all hit much harder if we had known Lumera for longer than 30-ish real-life minutes! But such is the peril of killing off an early-game character.  I didn't realize how...spacious this place was. It is rather quiet, I know. But it will liven up as we gain allies. We may need someone to supply us with equipment as well. Something to consider. Right. Hm? A piece of jewelry... I don't recognize it. The crystal looks unusual. Where did you get this? On the ground in the Ring Vault, after the siege. I thought it might be yours, but apparently I was mistaken. No one has come forward, so it must have belonged to an enemy soldier. I'll dispose of it. Wait. It's familiar somehow, even though I've never seen it. Then please, do take it. Perhaps it will help jog your memory. Thank you, Vander. Once we've rested for a bit, let's set out for Firene. A cute touch that I like a lot is that anytime you hit a proper loading screen, the game will have these little pixel versions of your last battle party running across the bottom. RIP Framme, doesn't get to be here because she got stabbed by pegasi.  The Somniel itself is trying to be a condensed version of the Monastery from Three Houses. It certainly gets some things right, mostly in that it is significantly smaller than Garreg Mach and provides a handy list of places that we can warp directly to, but it fails in one of the most important ways: it is stuffed with things to do, almost all of which are obnoxious, but they're just useful enough that you don't want to ignore them. Or at least, that will be the case. Right now, the only thing we can do is talk to the folks scattered around the Somniel and trigger any supports if we've unlocked them.  Whichever emblem Alear has equipped will always be in the central square. Otherwise, folks are randomly placed, and if they have an emblem equipped, they'll be nearby that particular character.  Each character also has a set of civilian clothing they wear while inside the Somniel. It's a shame that they can't be used in battle, because at least a couple of them are significantly better outfits than their actual battle clothing. Looking squarely at you, Celine.  And on the other side of that quandry, Vander would consider a tux and monocle to be relaxing, everyday attire.  You don't have to actually find a person to support with on the map, you can simply pick it off the Talk menu, and thank god for that. But if you really want to make it personal, you can? Give them a shiny pebble you picked on the way over for good measure. (I am not going to do this for every support we unlock, but I will include them in the video since they're fully voice-acted)  Oh, hello, Clanne. I was just tidying up a bit. Tomorrow's a busy day, so I thought I'd get it out of the way now. Let me take care of that. You should get some rest! That's all right. I can handle it. No, no. That won't do. I'm gonna have to insist. But... Please? You know, I waited a long time for you to wake up. And not just me. The stewards before me spent their whole lives waiting. So...please, let me do it. Honestly, truly, I would be honored to help. Very well, you've convinced me. I'll leave it to you. Thank you, Divine One. I should be thanking you for taking such great care of me. I'm very lucky to have you as a steward. You mean it?! Oh man. I'm so happy I could faint! Haha, please don't. Now that I'm free from tidying up, I'm going to get some rest.   Alright, enough of this. We'll have plenty to talk about next chapter, once the Somniel is more open for business.  Wow! A prep screen! There's not really much to worry about now since we can deploy our entire army, so the only real complication is who we give Sigurd to, and if we choose to move Marth. For this chapter, I'm going to make the executive decision to put him on Alfred, but I'll leave at least some of these strategic decisions up to the thread in the future.
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Apr 4, 2024 21:13
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The fact that most of the cast's casual clothes are like, modern casual wear gives this super funny vibe of a modern world just acting as if they're in the past. It's fun. Marth can salvage basically any bad unit singlehandedly, but that also makes his absence super felt; taking him off of Alear will make them feel worse. Which is actually super cool, but I'll save my thesis on Engage's focus on decisions for later.
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Apr 4, 2024 22:53
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Man, I have a feeling these I love you so much divine dragon let me worship you by doing your laundry supports are going to get old fast
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Apr 4, 2024 22:54
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quote:...Unless they were the MVP of the map, in which case you get a generic "Divine One, did you see how cool I was?" conversation. That's okay, you didn't actually care what they were going to say, did you? Wasn't there an update that removed/lessened the problem with MVP messages having priority over the incidental post-map dialogue? I think I remember seeing people discuss that as the game was being patched, but I finished my playthroughs before then, so I can't say how much of an effect it had.
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Apr 4, 2024 23:07
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Maybe! I don't know exactly how much QoL stuff like that has been added since my first playthrough but I definitely remember it overriding the conversations you would actually care about.
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Apr 4, 2024 23:12
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They patched it so conversations now cycle. If the character has some kind of battle comment, they'll still say that first, but you can talk to them a second time to get their chapter-specific dialogue, so you can always get the line from every character you fielded. I think it was in the first major patch, people were real steamed about it.
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Apr 4, 2024 23:42
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Oh you actually let Framme die for reals? That's... an interesting decision.
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Apr 5, 2024 00:01
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Fajita Queen posted:Oh you actually let Framme die for reals? That's... an interesting decision. Nah, he's playing on Casual. He just didn't want to bother with restarting the map since he didn't have access to turn rewind function yet. You can see her in the set up screen at the end of the map, right behind Alear.
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Apr 5, 2024 01:33
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The thing that bothers me about the support conversations (well, more than the writing, which is a pretty big strike on the majority of them), is that they're wearing their initial battle clothes in it. Most of the conversations are in the Somniel or in a village or something, and you have these comfortable casual outfits you designed, maybe use them in the downtime supports?Slaan posted:Man, I have a feeling these I love you so much divine dragon let me worship you by doing your laundry supports are going to get old fast I think there are SOME good supports, but you can write off anything that is an Alear support for sure. Also write off anyone whose entire personality is worshipping Alear (hello, Christmas twins).
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Apr 5, 2024 02:21
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W.T. Fits posted:Nah, he's playing on Casual. He just didn't want to bother with restarting the map since he didn't have access to turn rewind function yet. You can see her in the set up screen at the end of the map, right behind Alear. Oh whoops I missed that bit in the OP lol 
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Apr 5, 2024 03:29
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Keldulas posted:The thing that bothers me about the support conversations (well, more than the writing, which is a pretty big strike on the majority of them), is that they're wearing their initial battle clothes in it. Most of the conversations are in the Somniel or in a village or something, and you have these comfortable casual outfits you designed, maybe use them in the downtime supports? Framme and Boucheron have the best support line in the entire game?
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Apr 5, 2024 03:40
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I find myself at an interesting conundrum for discussing this game with an ongoing LP. There is actually a lot of interesting things to say about it, but I don't even want to risk spoiling characters and mechanics before they pop up. Good way to keep engagement I suppose, if you'll forgive the pun.
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Apr 6, 2024 02:47
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ApplesandOranges posted:Boucheron is basically coinflip from what I can tell. 40% Str growth and 55% Spd growth means there will be runs where he flops and runs where he's blessed and goes on a killing spree, similar to prior fighters like Vaike. I'd also say that Engage Maddening runs fixed growths by default. So a lot of the assessment I have comes from a perspective where everyone is completely consistent. To put it simply, Bouch as a character is at a 20% str / 45% spd growth. You can have a class like fighter *somewhat* patch that, but we'll have characters very soon down the road running 35%/45% or 25%/55% and they'll start out with stronger bases and in better classes as well. He can be fixed, everyone in Engage can be fixed because the sheer power of the emblems allows for that. But if you're sat here aggressively nerding over how good someone is, then he falls very short.
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Apr 6, 2024 18:54
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Even on maddening Boucheron is solid. He is tied with one other character for best combined build+speed growths. Engage gives enough options that this advantage can keep him relevant the entire game. I would say he's an above average physical unit all told, but with the caveat that most of the best characters in the game are casters or can go either way.
buddychrist10 fucked around with this message at 03:07 on Apr 7, 2024 |
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Apr 6, 2024 19:51
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Materant posted:Real talk, using a character from the early game is largely down to if they turn out good quickly. Because you'll be forced to use them, like it or not, you really can't judge them by their growth rates alone. It's actually about whether you're willing to focus investment on them. There's certain opportunities early characters get that later ones do not, and focusing them on a particular character can give them key advantages over later joining ones, beyond just basic stats.
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Apr 7, 2024 14:10
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Alright thread, flash vote time. You have until I post the update tomorrow (~24 hours from time of posting) to name this:
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Apr 7, 2024 21:31
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He's cute and for some reason reminds me of Hector so...Hector
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Apr 7, 2024 21:42
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Wappy Dog
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Apr 7, 2024 21:52
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Bingo
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Apr 7, 2024 22:32
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He shall be :3.
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Apr 7, 2024 22:40
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Marf
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Apr 7, 2024 22:46
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Melomane Mallet posted:He shall be :3.
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Apr 7, 2024 22:51
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Rabbi Raccoon posted:He's cute and for some reason reminds me of Hector so...Hector Hector, you say? 
jkq fucked around with this message at 23:24 on Apr 7, 2024 |
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Apr 7, 2024 23:21
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W.T. Fits posted:Marf
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Apr 7, 2024 23:26
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Marf :3
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Apr 7, 2024 23:51
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W.T. Fits posted:Marf another for Marf
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Apr 7, 2024 23:51
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W.T. Fits posted:Marf It's the sound he makes when he's eating. It's perfect.
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Apr 8, 2024 00:02
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Well that was quick and entirely expected
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Apr 8, 2024 00:13
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Marf :3
Fajita Queen fucked around with this message at 01:47 on Apr 8, 2024 |
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Apr 8, 2024 00:21
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I was gonna vote for the default name, but.... Marf :3 is too good.
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Apr 8, 2024 01:01
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It's hard to argue against Marf :3.
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Apr 8, 2024 01:07
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Just Marf wasn't compelling, but Marf :3... now there's a name for the ages
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Apr 8, 2024 01:20
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Gotta respect the heritage, that weird dog is Marf through and through.
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Apr 8, 2024 02:39
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MarquiseMindfang posted:Marf :3
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Apr 8, 2024 02:43
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Marf Santangelo.
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Apr 8, 2024 03:18
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| # ? Apr 29, 2024 20:41 |
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Tip to toe that's a Marf
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Apr 8, 2024 04:12
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