Board 8 > Fire Emblem playthrough topic

(+) Yeah! (+)

Watching out for weapons that have something like 36 effective might against specific dudes tends to be a good idea.

--
We clasped our hands, our hands in praise of a conquerors right to tyranny
In Punk We Trust

Well my other plans for today didn't quite work out so let's see if I can't get a few chapters in before I have something else to do.

Part 3

Chapter 3-P

We've upgraded a bit. Suddenly I have a team where most of the people are competent. Scary thought.

Spend a brief period in the menu reassigning skills. Shinon loses Provoke and Gatrie gets it because...well I shouldn't need to explain why I want the general to be targeted more than the archer, even when the archer in question is strangely durable. Soren gives up Adept so Mia can take it because skills whose activation rates are determined by speed kind of make more sense on the 28 speed girl than the dude with 18 speed.

We've got darkness to deal with, and a small army of beast laguz on the eastern side who could probably solo the map if I let them. They are annoying for one reason though - Skrimir needs to arrive at the seize point to end the map. He gets distracted by enemies sometimes and doesn't move as quickly as he could, and worse, if he's out of range when you kill the boss, one of the cats/tigers might step onto the square and just sit there until their transformation runs out, at which point they'll finally move. This is extremely annoying to have happen to you.

Yeah the laguz kick some major ass on their turn. And with how ridiculous my team is, it's not even fair for the enemies. They deserve better than being wiped out without putting up much of a fight. Really. My healers can't even get any experience because my units are dodging everything. Eventually I do start taking a bit of damage. Yay? Titania ends up standing next to a Horseslayer dude who was previously hidden. That's worrying until he just attacks Ike instead for some reason.

The end of this map gets really clogged up, especially when the laguz start reverting to humanoid form and taking up space uselessly. Their injuries do at least give Rhys and Mist something to do with their lives though. Oscar pokes at the boss a few times then runs off and Ike takes the kill. Skrimir takes the seize point this time without his buddies getting in the way. I am very grateful.

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Mistake you're making - overlooking the fact that we might not want to be saved.

Chapter 3-1

Even the game agrees with me that Skrimir is an idiot. Now if only it would agree about everyone else...Especially these guards who get fooled by a "we're here to deliver you food" routine. Come on now.

Fog of war rout with a time limit. Fun times. Although with all these torches, the "fog of war" aspect is fairly minor.

The southern village here has a guy who will give you a Blue Gem because he thinks he's hiring you to defend the city from the laguz. What an idiot. The central village thinks you *are* a laguz and gives you something to bribe you into not eating her. Do I even need to say it? Or it has a special conversation for Boyd, Rolf or Oscar, but I did that last time so I'm not doing it this time.

Shinon now has a Crossbow to carry around so he can at least chip stuff if he needs to on enemy phase. Nothing amazing but it's still kind of cool to have. Mia is putting Adept to good use, combining it with Vantage and critical hits to inflict a ton of damage on things while suffering no real harm herself. Oh yeah, Lethe and Lyre are NPC units here. I let them wander around but they don't achieve much besides being stupid. Lyre in particular is absolute garbage, she's like...Wendy-tier. She manages to get herself killed by suiciding into a general. Good going.

Ike and Mia do manage to take some real damage, sadly, but it's not like I can't heal them. I make AMAZING use of my mounted units here by BRILLIANTLY having them go up the forest path on the west side, taking full advantage of their mobility by putting them on terrain where it's neutered. The boss charges into Titania, who has no problem 2HKOing him so I guess it was brilliant after all. Reinforcements show up and douse one of the torches, making me a sad panda. Lethe suicidally charges into a mob of 1-2 range enemies so she went down without even chipping them. I guess I'd be sad to see her go if I had a catgirl fetish, but I don't, so good riddance to bad rubbish.

Boyd gained a speed point earlier in the chapter and it saved from getting doubled for the kill when some enemies came out of the darkness at him. Every now and then I love my luck. Mist actually kills something! So does Rhys! I needed their chip (plus Soren) to kill things Gatrie, Mia and Shinon had weakened for me. Should have done it in reverse order I guess, but no big deal really. Gatrie and Soren team up for the final kill of the battle, and I had three turns to spare. I don't like this chapter much, but it went pretty smoothly.

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Mistake you're making - overlooking the fact that we might not want to be saved.

Chapter 3-2

We a brief conversation between Tibarn and Naesala. It involves talk of betrayal. I bet that won't lead to anything.

I pass out some more skills and a bit of BEXP gives Titania HP, Skill and...Resistance?! Sometimes I hate my luck.

A bunch of people join me here, notably Haar and Neph. I'm not even going to deploy Ilyana and Brom because they're lamers.

This is a fairly wide open map with a handful of forests and swamps to slow movement down. With a lot of enemies rushing you early, the bulk of the fighting happens in wide open fields where you just kind of have to rush in and kill as many things as possible at once. This games Canto isn't quite as amazing as it is in FE4, but it's great and I make full use of it to pick off enemies and retreat to safe ranges, Haar in particular having a field day dodging thunder sage ranges. Most of the team goes south, while a few units head east to see which group can get to the boss first.

Mia is following in the footsteps of the Dawn Brigade in terms of activating skills when it's entirely unnecessary. An enemy is low enough on health for her to kill in one hit? Adept critical! And Gatrie is ridiculous, why is a General this fast? Who knows.

Southern group makes it to the boss way faster, fyi. He gets lured a bit earlier than I would have liked, so the map ends before I get to kill as many enemies as I had hoped. Oh well, really not a big deal. Neph and Haar take chunks out of the boss and Oscar gets the kill.

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Mistake you're making - overlooking the fact that we might not want to be saved.

And now to continue

Chapter 3-3

I am so utterly shocked that that betrayal they talked about happening last chapter did indeed happen!

Hooray random stuff from the base menu. It shouldn't be so fun to make decisions about supports and skills and BEXP but it is. This is probably why I take an eternity to have anyone even leave home castle in FE4, too busy trying to get items and arenas perfect.

There's a big dramatic battle going on and I get stuck with the duty of burning supplies in a camp. Oh well, I guess you can't expect NPCs to have done something like this. Or anything else that requires a brain. Or strength. Or even just a warm body. Or a cold one.

Battle begins, Neph, Boyd and Oscar combine to kill some nearby enemies. Haar starts flying around to burn things. This map is a pyromaniacs dream. Everyone else makes a break for the door and gets stuck on the general there briefly, but that will be dealt with soon. Gatrie decides to double and kill an Elwind-wielding sage because generals doubling what's supposed to be the "speedy" type of magic user makes total sense. Ike has things he actually can't double on this map. Oh no, he's suddenly only "the best" instead of "the bestest"

Haar breaks down a door and gets Cancel off on it. That door won't try to slam shut on him again, no sir. I murder a random senator because he has a White Gem and I didn't bring Heather along. I like money almost as much as I like murder, so this is win/win for me.

Titania is kind of overleveled right now. She has no trouble killing enemies and she keeps dodging so she never needs to retreat for healing. She's almost at promotion already.

In any event, this is not a tough map at all. There's some reinforcements, but not too many, and the turn limit is twice what you actually need even when you're not being super-fast. It gives you 15 turns and I completed it in 7.

--
We clasped our hands, our hands in praise of a conquerors right to tyranny
In Punk We Trust

I murder a random senator because he has a White Gem and I didn't bring Heather along. I like money almost as much as I like murder, so this is win/win for me.

And exp, so it's a win/win/win.

Gatrie being faster than Ike? That's never happened to me before. Interesting.

--
~Halo There is no Crane, only Scarecrow!
http://img195.imageshack.us/img195/3739/scarecrowq.jpg

Chapter 3-4

This game's fascination with buried treasures becomes a complete dick move here, because there's the only other copy of Ike's current personal weapon, Ettard, buried randomly here. Still not as absurd as finding Stefan later is (or finding the Hero Axe/Pursuit Ring in FE4) but annoying nonetheless.

I like how Ike says that time is a factor in this battle, and then it doesn't actually have a turn limit. I also really like the music that plays on this map.

The ballistas on this map are a nuisance because they like to stop your healers from getting to the front lines where they're needed. I guess the enemy forces probably think I'm a nuisance too, but **** them. The presence of thunder sages is also an issue for Haar, since they're the one thing that can actually kill him without a small army of back up, but it's not too hard to wall him off from them until I can get Ike or someone to remove them.

Ranulf being forced on this map is a mixed blessing. On the one hand, he's fairly powerful. On the other, cats revert to human form faster than other laguz for some reason, and it gets really annoying to have him need to fall back all of a sudden when he's been helping the group push forward. The NPC laguz do some pretty good work killing enemies and then drawing ballista shots though. Which is especially helpful when these ballista are adamant about landing critical hits on almost every shot. It's kind of ridiculous. They're not even Killer Ballista, just Iron. Range, not crit, is supposed to be their specialty!

Eventually I get Gatrie, Ranulf and Neph up to where the first ballista is to take its user out. And then horsies get screwed over by the ledges, but that's okay. Gatrie reduces a general to 1 HP, levels up, and gains the point of strength that would have let him kill it. Thanks, game.

In the end it's just a matter of finding ways to kill enough enemies at a time while not exposing yourself to too much damage potential. Gatrie goes off to duel the boss, I used the Ilyana item ferry trick to transfer Celerity to this group and he's been making great use of it to put his durability to good use on the front lines. Neph kills the other general, I get the Ettard, and Ranulf and Ike "arrive". Yay I won

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Mistake you're making - overlooking the fact that we might not want to be saved.

From: ShadowHalo17 | #156
Gatrie being faster than Ike? That's never happened to me before. Interesting.

Oh. Ike is still faster than Gatrie, it's just that there were a few enemies (Swordmasters) Ike couldn't double, and I commented on that while I was thinking of how funny it is that Gatrie can double certain enemies.

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Mistake you're making - overlooking the fact that we might not want to be saved.

Chapter 3-5

It's a chapter called Retreat! and it consists of...a siege? Not that I'm objecting since I like defend chapters and all, but I'd expect a little more escaping and a little less standing and fighting. Oh well.

Lots of enemies everywhere. Man, how do I always conquer castles in Fire Emblem games? I'm always outnumbered, and yet here I am defending one, outnumbered, and I'm going to win.

I spread my forces out to clog all the entrances to the upper portion of the castle. With height advantages on all the ledges and the ability to toss my tough units onto the staircases, it's pretty easy to cut the enemies off from being able to approach. Reyson's presence helps a lot with getting people into position quickly and letting my healers keep on top of everything. The middle area becomes Ike's playground, as he just destroys everything that approaches him.

Rolf is deployed here solely to shoot stuff with the ballistas. What a champ, poking things irrelevantly.

As fun as this chapter is, I don't have much to say about it. It's a siege, I slowly advance and mow things down.

Well. By turn 6 I've cleared away the enemies who are charging and I'm starting to move down. Ideally I'd like to steal the Energy Drop from the boss, but reinforcements might make that hard to pull off. I have a sneaking suspicion that little path in the north east corner will spawn enemies some day, so I keep Oscar and Titania close enough to it to cover it if need be.

On turn 6 enemy phase, Oscar gets hit for the first time all map. Dude is kicking some ass, his damage is a bit shaky but he's just refusing to even consider dying. As if he saw me type this, he leveled up and got HP, Strength and Defense (and Luck). "You damn right I won't die, and I can fix my damage issues too!"

I didn't even notice before that there's a dude with Meteor on this map. "Oops". All he does is make Gatrie block a giant chunk of flaming space rock with his face. Wait, no. He blocked it with his shield.

I decide to abuse the Battle Save feature a tad by trying out a super aggressive strategy to set up stealing from the boss. It leaves Reyson, Heather and Mist all exposed to an enemy, and I'm kind of relying on the AI behaving (ie, previously stationary units remaining stationary) to make it work. Of course, every other enemy on the map acts before the threatening ones, so I get some suspense before discovering the outcome of my "master plan". And it works out like I planned, but the boss...runs away? Huh, didn't see that coming. I manage to steal successfully and keep everyone alive with a bit of clever Reyson/Shove/Rescue work, but I don't manage to kill the boss because of his sudden burst of cowardice.

And that little side path never did get used for anything :(

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Mistake you're making - overlooking the fact that we might not want to be saved.

I didn't even know there was another Ettard in the game... Interesting.

I also never even attempted to steal from the boss of that level, I'm not nearly skilled or strategic enough to pull something like that off.

--
~Halo Give into the Night.
http://a.imageshack.us/img443/8466/shadowhalo.png

Chapter 3-6

The chapter I've been dreading. The return of the Dawn Brigade. Fog of war, swamp, powerful laguz enemies. This could get "fun" fast.

So this is where the plot gets into one of the big arcs that people tend to be split into either despising or thinking it's pretty good. I don't feel too much like starting that debate, but feel free to if you want.

Before the battle, conversations happen that give people cool toys. Jill gets a Brave Axe. Edward gets Caladbolg, the sword that boosts Luck of all things. Leonardo gets the Lughnasadh, a bow whose name I will never spell correctly unless it's already in front of me to copy. And Nolan gets Tarvos and its defense boost, because he's awesome. I have Edward promote with a Master Seal because he had already capped Strength, Speed and Skill, so why not? I also use BEXP to get Jill and Nolan promoted. It's not ideal, but they need it. Jill gets Paragon for this chapter, while Nolan takes Beastfoe. Edward will probably get Paragon in one of the next two Dawn Brigade chapters, each of these three will get to play with it at least once. After what feels like ages of buying and selling items and generally doing preparation, finally I'm ready to fight!

Hey, Volug works like a normal laguz now. The transformation gauge is a bit limiting, but with Olivi Grass he'll do okay, and his fully transformed stats are pretty nice.

The overkill returns! Zihark's very first attack is with the Brave Sword, and he pulls off Adept and a critical on the first hit. Poor kitty never stood a chance. So to start out, everyone moves to try to fill in the gaps surrounding the starting island. I try to keep my support pairs together as much as I can, but the fact that I can't see combined with the fact that there's very strong enemies out there and the fact that there's a swamp and the fact that I just slipped this in to see if anyone noticed it means that it's a little awkward, since I have to choose between keeping pairs close and killing enemies and keeping myself safe.

The NPCs here do a pretty good job, oddly enough. They keep dodging and getting crits and then the bishops Physic them and they keep on going. Speaking of NPCs and good jobs, the Black Knight shows up. He's still the same old invisible bastard as ever. Don't need his help this time around though.

Nolan gets dropped to 3 HP because he gets surrounded, I had to use trading to switch his Crossbow out for his Steel Axe so he wouldn't awesome himself to death. Dude tanked three hits. Without Tarvos up. Nolan is awesome. Jill with Paragon is getting like 40 EXP just with chip. What a great skill. And I swear Zihark thinks the Brave Sword is an uber-Killing Edge, every time he brings it out he crits on the first hit.

And that's about all that happens. We move back and forth killing things as they come to us. This went a lot more smoothly than I had anticipated.

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Mistake you're making - overlooking the fact that we might not want to be saved.

From: ShadowHalo17 | #160
I didn't even know there was another Ettard in the game... Interesting.

I also never even attempted to steal from the boss of that level, I'm not nearly skilled or strategic enough to pull something like that off.

The Ettard is buried on the square north of the northern ballista.

It's not all that hard to steal from that boss as long as you move forward when you can. Ike and Gatrie and Haar destroy enemies so hard that they can pretty much just waltz forward and you just have to make sure Reyson and Heather are walled off and you're fine. Doing it before the very last turn is another story, I'm sure it's possible but I definitely didn't see the opening to do it.

--
We clasped our hands, our hands in praise of a conquerors right to tyranny
In Punk We Trust

...This is a very fast playthrough. I don't think I cleared FE10 in less than 15 days.

--
"The U.S. should detonate all its nukes on its own soil."-Terran [Evil Republican]
Play Der Langrisser.

Chapter 3-7

Back to the more powerful team! This map looks rather familiar, almost as if I just fought here or something.

I go on a hardcore BEXP spending spree before the chapter begins because I have tons of it and a lot of people have capped enough stats to make it viable.

Hooray fighting against the Dawn Brigade! Fortunately they don't die if I KO them here. They can eat up uses of valuable weapons though, so I'll try to kill them fast when I bump into them. The enemies here aren't all that aggressive, so I'm going to have to charge if I want to see any real combat here. I set up a kill for Mist unintentionally, which is kind of cool. Oh, and Janaff and Ulki show up. They can fly around doing cool things for me.

Everyone moves south. That is really all there is to say about this map <_<

I guess I could point out that Haar went west instead and pretty much solo'd that side of the map, with the occasional trip back to the main group for healing.

Zihark gets owned hard by Janaff, Nolan is awesome but even he can't handle Haar, Jill gets shot down by Shinon (arrows are supposed to be effective against dracoknights, damn it. Jill got punished for daring to break tradition). Haar completely crushes the underleveled Aran in one hit. Then the Black Knight starts charging and I back off a bit because I don't want to kill him yet. And probably couldn't. Not that it matters, since his mobility is pathetic. On the final turn, Haar promotes to Dragonlord. Now he's even more ridiculous than before, especially because that +2 speed means he's gone from doubling some things to doubling most things.

That chapter would be a bit more exciting if you didn't get to 100% dictate the entire pace. As it is you can just take as many or as few enemies on at a time as you want, and they never try to push you at all.

--
We clasped our hands, our hands in praise of a conquerors right to tyranny
In Punk We Trust

From: SubDeity | #163
...This is a very fast playthrough. I don't think I cleared FE10 in less than 15 days.

Insomnia helps a lot with finding time to play video games <_< Plus I'm the type of person who either doesn't do something, or goes hardcore on it and devotes a ton of time to it. I don't do the "sit down and play for half an hour here, half an hour there" thing very often at all. It's either don't play at all for ages or play for hours on end.

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Mistake you're making - overlooking the fact that we might not want to be saved.

You absolutely won't come close to killing the Black Knight, but you need to attack him with Ike in that chapter for Lehran to join you later. (2nd playthrough only)

Normally it's done by ferrying him there with Haar, dumping him just outside BK movement range on T11, hitting him with a ranged weapon and getting Haar to rescue him so Ike doesn't die.

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Ashera staff is fun.

Chapter 3-8

So apparently these caves are dangerous or something. There's lava and fire. Will we fight a Balrog? I hope not, I always have a tough time reacting to those quick crouching jabs.

Also, I officially apologize for that terrible joke. Please don't hurt me.

I dislike maps with damaging terrain. Let's just get that out there. Anyway. I send Oscar, Titania, Shinon, Gatrie and Rhys down the east path while Ike, Mia, Haar, Neph, Mist and Reyson take the west side. The paths meet up before long anyway but I figure I should mention it if for nothing else than giving an idea of who I'm using. Titania kills the nearest enemy so she can get the last 3 EXP needed to promote to Gold Knight. Because I wasn't dominating enemies hard enough before. They get the mastery skill Sol. This was a good skill back when it was just the HP-drain effect, the tripled damage is a bit ridiculous. Then again, most FE10 mastery skills are insane. Oh yeah, Ranulf is still forced. I forgot he was deployed until I noticed him on the map <_<

Oscar has gotten over his "never get hit" period now. He's decided to block...hostile gusts of wind? with his face. He also can't double enemy generals here. GATRIE can do that. Okay it's not that bad actually. The one general he failed to double was apparently some magical freak with more speed than any of his fellow mooks. He's still failing pretty badly compared to the rest of the team. Might have to bench him if he doesn't pick up his game, much as I'd hate to lose Titania's support partner.

I feel like my write ups are getting a bit lamer. These chapters are just kind of uneventful. Not necessarily bad, but Ike's team is very powerful and doesn't get in trouble much, so nothing really surprises me into scrambling to save myself.

There is a pretty dense cluster of enemies at the very south end of the map. That's kind of exciting. It contains two Druids, which are enemies you don't see very much of in this game. Quite the change from Sacred Stones, where it felt like every enemy magic user was a Druid/Shaman or a monster that used dark magic. Things get hugely backed up when the enemies come charging forth, but half a dozen of them take lava meteor rock things on their heads, which helps me out a fair bit by softening them up. Not the best positioning ever there, guys. Ike destroys the boss with a crit and hits level 20. Yay, no more improvement for Ike until part 4. With 50HP, capped strength, skill and defense, and 28 speed, I don't think he cares.

I neglect to notice that a certain set of tiles is floor, not cliffs, and Ranulf eats a double Worm that drops him to 9HP. I'd care so much more if it didn't mean my healers actually get to gain EXP. That's the most interesting thing to happen all map long.

--
We clasped our hands, our hands in praise of a conquerors right to tyranny
In Punk We Trust

From: nintendogirl1 | #166
You absolutely won't come close to killing the Black Knight, but you need to attack him with Ike in that chapter for Lehran to join you later. (2nd playthrough only)

Normally it's done by ferrying him there with Haar, dumping him just outside BK movement range on T11, hitting him with a ranged weapon and getting Haar to rescue him so Ike doesn't die.

Yep, but I didn't feel like bothering with all that fuss for a character to join me in the final chapter when I don't really want him because I'd rather he be dead anyway <_<

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Mistake you're making - overlooking the fact that we might not want to be saved.

Chapter 3-9

Hey, it's another of those random jumps to another group of characters, this time to the Crimean Royal Knights. They are no longer gods amongst unpromoted slobs and now have to struggle to save a little village from being burned down.

This is very much not a pleasant chapter. The enemies are awfully powerful for how little potential any of these units ever had to gain levels. It's as if the developers didn't realize they weren't actually playable between 2-E and now. Anyway. Marcia flies north to do stuff and Danved follows, taking out a Swordmaster with a Killer Lance critical along the way, since only they and Calil can actually go up ledges. Speaking of Calil, she neglected to use her Meteor tome back in 2-E precisely because I wanted to have it for helping out on this map. Astrid, Kieran and Makalov combine to kill another Swordmaster, and Geoffrey takes out something with the Brave Lance because that's pretty much the only truly "legit" offensive option I have here. Unless my NPC mooks count.

My strategy here is pretty much "rush the boss". I need to clear a path to him as quickly as I can, the burning buildings can burn away for all I care. I'll fix them when I can but I'm more interested in just winning. Thankfully the early going is actually proceeding quite smoothly, with my team taking no real damage and enemies falling quickly. Unfortunately as soon as I say that Danved and Makalov take fairly substantial damage from being hit a mere one time. Not good news.

God Astrid is just depressingly terrible. She manages to only 4HKO enemies at best, doesn't double (gets doubled by most enemies, in fact), and has no enemy phase anyway because she's locked to bows. Why the hell is this character in my game? Her best use here is standing on top of a ledge so characters who don't suck can go off and do useful things.

I make it to near the top area without too much hassle, but that's a lot of enemies to try to deal with at once, and my NPCs are being stupid beyond belief. Well, if you've been reading about how stupid everyone in this game is, maybe it's NOT beyond belief for you. It ends up working out somehow, although part of that is Calil Meteor nuking a guy and then gaining +1 skill and nothing else on her level up. Glad to see I'm getting some advancement here.

A bunch of reinforcements show up, but I just throw everyone I have at the boss to bring him down. This went WAY better than I expected it to.

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Mistake you're making - overlooking the fact that we might not want to be saved.

On that map, I always just rush the boss with Geoffrey, since he had Paragon attached to him the last couple times using him, he was much better than the rest, I think I even got him to third tier at some point between the first time using him and this map. So he pretty much just killed everything and destroyed the boss, quick and efficient.

--
~Halo Give into the Night.
http://a.imageshack.us/img443/8466/shadowhalo.png

From: ShadowHalo17 | #170
On that map, I always just rush the boss with Geoffrey, since he had Paragon attached to him the last couple times using him, he was much better than the rest, I think I even got him to third tier at some point between the first time using him and this map. So he pretty much just killed everything and destroyed the boss, quick and efficient.

I could have dumped BEXP/Master Crown into him if it had been really necessary, but I figured I'd try without. And it ended up being working pretty well.

Chapter 3-10

So I've got Ike's group back and we've got the Crimean ensemble as NPCs, while Elincia herself acts like a moron flying around unarmed. You know, Elincia's whole "lay down her sword" thing makes a lot less sense when you remember she has her army just up the hill, ready to fight to defend her.

I end up using a Master Crown on Neph because after a level of BEXP, she has capped everything except HP, Magic and Luck. Yeah, obviously going to promote her immediately. She's now pretty much a juggernaut, with stats that even Ike doesn't quite match.

I'm torn between liking this chapter and hating it. On the one hand, it's got tons of enemies and a pretty open field to fight them in, which is a change of pace from Fire Emblem standards. On the other hand, Elincia is a moron and can get herself killed to lose you the battle at any given moment.

I send a few units east while everyone else rushes into the center to try to save Elincia from herself. The NPCs draw a lot of the fire on enemy phase, which annoys me because it means they're not getting softened up/killed by my dudes. One enemy Swordmaster dodges about three straight fatal attacks from my units, which kind of annoyed me.

I'm really running low on things to comment on here <_< I'm trying to prioritize Oscar a bit here since he's fairly close to promotion, and that should solve most of his offensive woes, at least in the short-term. He grows a point of speed early on that lets him actually double some enemies, so that's a big boost already. I decide that big wide open spaces are a rarity so it's only fair that I enjoy it by forming a giant line of my units in the middle of the map, letting the enemies come to me like some sadistic game of Red Rover. It's situations like this where Ranulf struggles; his gauge decreases too much when exposed to too many enemies, and that can get him killed if you aren't careful. I just spelled "killed" as "kileld", I am clearly way too tired to be doing this.

One problem with this map is that healers and Reyson are super-exposed if they try to go anywhere near the front. That can get a little problematic, or at least it should, but I'm managing to keep anyone from getting too hurt anyway. The archers near the boss in particular are an issue for Janaff, Ulki and Reyson, they end up not contributing much at all to this map out of fear of death. Elincia is also threatened by them, which is why she loves to CHARGE RIGHT TOWARDS THEM. Why is she so stupid? Sure, she can dodge well, but why risk it?

Astrid is here, by the way. She pokes a Dracoknight for 2 damage. Honestly why does she even try? On a less stupid note, Gatrie promotes to Marshall mid-chapter. Because he totally needed to be even more invincible. To prove the point, the boss decides to approach him and fail to even hit him.

The NPCs manage to take the final kill of the map. Bunch of jerks. I win with little trouble and Elincia lives and all that good stuff.

And now I'm tired and probably going to try to sleep.

--
Mistake you're making - overlooking the fact that we might not want to be saved.

I never thought about giving a character a Crown when they cap stats, I thought it was always better to level them up through experience. I'm learning some things here, it seems.

That chapter is annoying, any chapter with Other units that depend on your success sucks, because you can't control them. I can just imagine the thought process of the developers, "we should make it so Other units just charge in without any intelligent reason or sense of logic in any way, THAT WOULD MAKE IT SO FUN AND CHALLENGING YEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

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~Halo Now you learn the mistake of challenging me.
http://img408.imageshack.us/img408/2734/hieis.jpg

I really freakin' hate stationary units that only pretend to remain stationary when units they can't one-shot come around, but when an innocent little white haired Light mage comes into range because she has nowhere else to go, that's when the guy posing as a stationary unit decides to pounce.

F*** that.

--
~Halo Now you learn the mistake of challenging me.
http://img408.imageshack.us/img408/2734/hieis.jpg

From: ShadowHalo17 | #172
I never thought about giving a character a Crown when they cap stats, I thought it was always better to level them up through experience. I'm learning some things here, it seems.

It's a bit less of a good idea in this game since everyone has such crazy growths that they'll actually benefit from levels, but if someone like Edward caps all his offensive stats, do I really want all the EXP he gets to just maybe increase his durability slightly, or do I want to promote him so he can keep improving his offense? The latter, usually. Early promotion in other games is helpful for low turn counts too, not so important for more casual playthroughs.

From: ShadowHalo17 | #173
I really freakin' hate stationary units that only pretend to remain stationary when units they can't one-shot come around, but when an innocent little white haired Light mage comes into range because she has nowhere else to go, that's when the guy posing as a stationary unit decides to pounce.

F*** that.

Yeah. This game in particular is really fond of enemies staying still until some arbitrary criteria suddenly tells them to charge.

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We clasped our hands, our hands in praise of a conquerors right to tyranny
In Punk We Trust

Let's get another one in.

Chapter 3-11

Whose bright idea was this stupidity? This chapter would be fine if it weren't for the pitfalls scattered across the bridge. I know I could look up where they are and figure out how to deal with it easily, but damn it, I'm going to charge into this blind simply to show how annoying and dumb they are.

Ike gets Ragnell here. I'm not going to go too insane with it because he's at level 20 and can't level up until part 4, but suffice to say, he's ridiculous whenever he does see combat now.

Everyone moves forward. Enemies here are even weaker than in past chapters. Honestly, this is one of the biggest problems I have with Radiant Dawn. The different groups have such wildly different abilities. Some are weak and fight tough enemies, some are strong and fight utter wimps. The enemies are adamant about attacking my stronger units for some reason, as if they WANT to die. Maybe they do, I don't know. If so, they sure do get their wish.

We do get to see an enemy using a Rescue staff to help get its buddies healed. That's actually pretty cool. Also cool is Neph, who now has Adept and decides to pull an Adept and Impale on a guy she would have killed with one regular strike anyway. I wish this skills activated when I needed their help more than when they're overkill. Partway through the map Tibarn shows up with some buddies as NPCs and also Leanne for me to use. I should probably direct them to get out of my way but I feel like it might be fun to let Tibarn completely destroy this map, most of my units are getting pitiful experience anyway. So I leave them on Roam to see how he handles it. Pretty well so far!

I hit my first pitfall with Shinon. On a random tile on the edge of the bridge. Not even in a gap. WHO DESIGNED THIS STUPID MECHANIC?! Ike also hits one, right in a path through the blockades. "Fun"

Tibarns buddies do some decent damage but also take it hard in return. Tibarn himself destroys things. Looking forward to actually using him myself! Actually it looks like his buddies aren't too bad at all, it was just a magic hit that really dented one, otherwise they're eating like 6HKO damage.

Titania hits a pit in one chokepoint and then Oscar drops into one right nexto an enemy that was blocked off from the other direction by one of those shining barrier things. **** this game. Haar does not approve so he goes and kills a dude to prove he's not taking any of this BS pitfall stuff. And then just like that Shinon hits ANOTHER one, RIGHT NEXT TO THE ONE OSCAR IS IN. This is why I didn't use a map. You don't get the proper sense of how monumentously stupid this map is when you know what's coming.

At least Tibarn and his crew block off/kill some enemies to help my trapped comrades stay alive. Honestly can I just let Tibarn solo this map? Aside from the boss with his crossbow I bet he could do it.

**** this, Ike and Haar are storming the place, screw experience gain for other units, screw everything else, I just want this map over with. Titania gets caught in another one that is positioned such that attacking a certain enemy mage is impossible until Tibarn moves. I hate this chapter, fyi. There's pitfalls and a barrier arranged in a way that I CANNOT advance at all without my flying units carrying me until the barrier wears off.

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Mistake you're making - overlooking the fact that we might not want to be saved.

At least the enemies here are fond of retreating for healing, so my dudes don't ALL get mobbed to death in the pits. But **** yes standing still because there isn't a path anyone can take until I spend ages ferrying everyone across. I love doing nothing but a tedious rescue job! Rescuing is something you should do for useful stuff, they shouldn't make it a requirement to progress in a reasonable timeframe! And do those barriers even wear off? If not I'll be extra pissed. Okay, good, they do. "Yay"

These stone ballistas are kind of funny. They only threaten Leanne and the healers, everyone else takes 1 damage from them <_<

The Ike/Haar/Tibarn show really mops up the last portion of this map. And they don't even fall into any more pits! Well, Ike doesn't, the other two fly. Tibarn clears out a Thunder sage so Haar can advance, proving once again that even as an NPC he's better than my own units. He actually gets hit by a non-ballista attack here. It does 4 damage to him. Dude is awesome.

That's all I feel like saying. This chapter is stupid, it sucks, I have no idea how when I made my big ranking of good and bad chapters in the series it didn't make it near the bottom. **** this ****, I don't even want to keep playing anymore. At least for a few hours. Or minutes. Who knows.

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Mistake you're making - overlooking the fact that we might not want to be saved.

15 minutes later and I'm still pissed. I am disgusted that an otherwise good game like Radiant Dawn features such a bad chapter, and I am angry at myself for not remembering how lame it is.

Okay. I think I'm calm now.

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Mistake you're making - overlooking the fact that we might not want to be saved.

That chapter is awful, yeah, definitely one of my least favorites in the series. And probably my absolute least favorite in FE10.

At least you've got it out of the way now. <_<

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"The courtroom is the garden of holy judgment. Those with lechery in their hearts should leave this sanctuary at once!" ~Franziska von Karma

I never had as much of a problem with that map, but I do agree the pitfalls are stupid and annoy the crap out of me.

Also Tibarn is awesome, he tears through everything and doesn't give a f***.

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~Halo Everybody run!
http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/6195/furriese.jpg

Yeah. I don't have any truly bad chapters left. 4-1 is a bit annoying, 4-E-2 and 4-E-4 are pretty underwhelming, but definitely nothing even close to that stupid bridge. What is it with bridge chapters in this series anyway? Chapter 22 in FE5 is one of the most obnoxiously impossible things ever and the only map where anyone who advises against warp-skipping is objectively a bad person, and it's a bridge too. Okay maybe that's a little harsh. They're objectively below average people.

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We clasped our hands, our hands in praise of a conquerors right to tyranny
In Punk We Trust

I want to continue this, I really do, but god that bridge left a bad taste in my mouth. Might take a break until tomorrow. Now can you imagine how pissed off Thracia 776 would get me?

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Mistake you're making - overlooking the fact that we might not want to be saved.

As much as you hate that bridge, i don't find it as bad as the Macaiah and Black Knight fog of war chapter. THAT is the absolute worst.

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~Halo Now you learn the mistake of challenging me.
http://img408.imageshack.us/img408/2734/hieis.jpg

That one is annoying for sure. But it's only two units and only one or two enemies at a time, so it goes by much quicker.

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Mistake you're making - overlooking the fact that we might not want to be saved.

The annoying thing about the bridge is that the AI is actually smart enough to put the light barriers in a place where you HAVE to fall in pits to advance. But, yeah, iraet's annoying as ****.

I never had a problem with Micaiah and the Black Knight, it's always seemed to sail past.

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*shrug*

Alright. Let's put that bull**** behind me and make some progress.

Chapter 3-12

And here's the revelation of one of the big plot twists that pretty much everyone hates.

We're back to the Dawn Brigade for a couple of chapters. They get to fend off a huge army for as long as it takes to kill enough dudes. Edward gets Paragon for this map.

My units who don't suck form a wall on the path to the south. Jill is very useful here despite her stats being a bit behind the curve, since she's the only unit who can abuse Canto to do some hit and run work. Well, Fiona could, but Fiona is ass. Actually the allied Dracoknights can do it, which is actually pretty cool. These guys contribute a fair bit of damage for NPCs.

Pegasus Knights are a bit of a problem here. Keeping track of where they can fly and when is very important. Also trying to predict when your NPC buddies will run away to heal and when they'll charge. That's beyond me to truly figure out though. Thankfully my allied generals are pretty tough, they do some good work, stealing EXP and stealing lives. And those guys on the western side use their ledge to completely own everything that tries to climb up. Good times. Weird how Tauroneo starts off way over there, but he'll stick around in case he becomes needed.

One of my Dracoknights dies early but the other kicks some serious ass. Micaiah even heals it with Physic to keep it going, because it's the only thing getting kills for me while the other NPCs are clogging up the path so much I can't advance. Zihark then blocks an axe with his face despite having his support partner right next to him. He gets 2HKO'd so he has to back off to be healed before he can risk fighting. Fortunately it happens just in time for Volug to transform and take his place.

Clog, clog, clog. The slope just gets so badly clogged up that it's hard for any progress to be made, since none of my units can even advance due to NPCs blocking off the enemies. So Jill flies off to the middle so she can try to find somewhere she can actually achieve something. Unfortunately, there just isn't a place where she can safely drop down below. So she goes down anyway because I find a square where she should only take most of her health in damage and chip enemies in return, which is still better than dying. Turns out she kills a few. Not bad at all.

Paragon on Edward was so dumb here. He barely gets to do anything because of how fragile he is, and the enemies rarely attack him when they could just hit an NPC instead.

This chapter is pretty dull really. It should be awesome, but it ends up dragging on and on and on because of all the allied units getting in the way, and by the time they all die, the map is nearly over.

--
We clasped our hands, our hands in praise of a conquerors right to tyranny
In Punk We Trust

Heh, I actually got Micaiah to level 20, I've never done that before.

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~Halo Rolling around at the speed of sound.
http://img593.imageshack.us/img593/2417/sonicspeed.jpg

I have two Seraph Robes and an Ashera Icon, who should they go to?

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~Halo Everybody run!
http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/6195/furriese.jpg

I think I had her at level 12 or 13 by the end of part 1 <_< And she's definitely not reaching anywhere near level 20 in time for her next promotion

--
We clasped our hands, our hands in praise of a conquerors right to tyranny
In Punk We Trust

I always sell the Icons, personally. The Robes...Jill is good if you're using her since her HP is kind of **** to start. And...I don't even know who else, maybe Edward so he has a chance of not dying in two hits to everything?

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We clasped our hands, our hands in praise of a conquerors right to tyranny
In Punk We Trust

God Panthera you suck at leveling somehow <.<

I've always had at least Micaiah and one other at 20 by the end of Part 1 (Usually Edward or Nolan). Usually 1-2 others halfway into 19 or so too.

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It's not like I even avoided killing enemies anywhere other than 1-6-2.

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Mistake you're making - overlooking the fact that we might not want to be saved.

Getting Micaiah to level 20 in part 1 is easy =| Getting her to 20 again is difficult, but I did it anyway. She became one of my top 5 in kills, strangely enough.

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2010 Game of the Decade Contest - some guy named Black Turtle won the guru for this
http://backloggery.com/articuno2001/sig.gif

That is strange, I usually don't focus much on her because even with all the levels, she still sucks and gets killed if an enemy looks at her.

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~Halo There is no Crane, only Scarecrow!
http://img195.imageshack.us/img195/3739/scarecrowq.jpg

Oh and selling the Ashera Icons, I remember you said the money is more worth the luck, what's wrong with luck? What exactly does it do for units?

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~Halo Now you learn the mistake of challenging me.
http://img408.imageshack.us/img408/2734/hieis.jpg

Every point of luck is +1 hit, +1 avoid, and +1 dodge (how much you reduce enemy crit by). Or it might be every two points is the hit/avoid (the dodge part is right though).

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Mistake you're making - overlooking the fact that we might not want to be saved.

I've never had a bad Micaiah <.<

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http://img149.imageshack.us/img149/2664/7b7aaa038007832d461b28c.jpg

Well I've never had a bad Edward so I guess we're special or something.

From: Panthera | #195
Every point of luck is +1 hit, +1 avoid, and +1 dodge (how much you reduce enemy crit by). Or it might be every two points is the hit/avoid (the dodge part is right though).

This makes +2 luck sound like a good thing.

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~Halo You're not the brightest.
http://img404.imageshack.us/img404/907/bandfinisher.jpg

God damn those thieves.

Stealing everything.

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~Halo Live, fight, survive, as a family.
http://img267.imageshack.us/img267/7469/batfamily.jpg

From: ShadowHalo17 | #197
This makes +2 luck sound like a good thing.

It's by far the least important stat, really.

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Mistake you're making - overlooking the fact that we might not want to be saved.

Christ FF8 got played through fast. >_> Especially for a B8 playthrough. I'll have to finish catching up on the thread when I have a bit more time.

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http://www.nbc.com/parks-and-recreation/exclusives/ron-dancing-animated.gif