Board 8 > SaveEstelle/LeonhartFour in Different Houses: Far From Houses Edition [SELF]

(+) Yeah! (+)

Happy birthday to Squall

FFVIII HD so close
---

Ughhhhhhh had a post half typed up and lost it

Chapter 4 and Chapter 5 free time beated. Waiting for my Switch to recharge since my roommate's moving out tomorrow and has his TV packed up :(

Ch 4: Wrecked all of these tomb raiding western church dudes and stole a dark seal from the dark knight with Petra right before finishing the chapter so I could avoid him murdering me (though I guess it wouldn't really matter since I'm on causal). Rhea continues to blatantly hint at being lawful evil and apparently next month's mission is to kill Sylvain's brother.

Free time: Felix's dad is here too; interesting. I'm now pretty overleveled have all of my units in intermediate classes (seems kinda unavoidable though if I want to grind skills and supports in time though?). I also think I now have all C supports between the Black Eagles and finally got a few C supports with students I have yet to recruit (Leonie, Lysithea, Ingrid, Lorenz) so hopefully I can get some of them soon.

---

Ch 5 mission: Whoops, crit on the boss with Byleth and missed Sylvains battle dialogue with his brother. Afterwards the sword turns him into a monster which we have to defeat. I refuse to give the lance back to Rhea (which loses support with her), but in return I gain support with Edelgard for telling her about it. Edelgard then reveals that she wants to destroy the goddess and the societal elevation of crest bearers above the rest of humanity.

Ch 6 beginning: Flayn has gone missing; the mission this month seems to be a search and rescue.

Skimming back through the topic, I pretty much agree with SaveEstelles Black Eagle rankings except I would drop Bernadetta down several spots.

---

FE3H Black Eagles Chapter 7 complete.

Gonna mostly omit Free Time because I don't think anything much important happen. Other than styling on everyone in the fishing tournament. lmao everyone challenging me and losing to literally the first fish i catch. Marianne and Ashe recruited so I now literally have 13/24 of the students in my class. Literally over half the school. That said, I completed those paralogues I mentioned I had.

Paralogue (Ingrid and Dorothea): how the hell did investigating this guy bring us into a volcano. i want the backstory on this. I split the party up as usual. I was tempted to see if the reinforcements were truly infinite or if they'd stop eventually, but I got bored around Turn 15 and just ended it. Got some cool items from this. Ingrid got a Hero Relic, Dorothea got a ring that gives Luck+4 and per-turn regen. Got another per-turn regen ring from a chest too. Not bad.

Paralogue (Shamir and Alois): Okay this one required some work/thinking and even a reload to change my initial deployment locations because I wanted the style points of not letting anyone in the town at all. Don't know if that changed the rewards any but I wanted it for me. The main issue being the occasional wyvern that didn't care about fighting my units, just making a straight shot for the town. They also hit like trucks and are pretty tanky. Still, once I altered my deployment to account for this it worked out well.

Mission: Seeing as I have over half the students with me they really should have just combined the Blue Eagles and Golden Deer tbqh. I assume the "[Faction] General" units are stand-ins for the ones I recruited. I laughed at the beginning of the month when I could temp recruit thinking "oh man are they really gonna let me do this for the mission or will they limit it to other stuff i do this month" to my pleased surprise, they wouldn't let me deploy Annette here. Though she also wasn't fielded by the Blue Lions which is a bit silly. Anyway, my primary mission here was to have Petra steal anything not nailed down. Both Dimitri and Claude had Evasion Rings and Dedue had a Shield. Because I'm a jerk I mostly split my team so that my recruits faced their former houses, unfortunately no dialogue as far as I could tell. Got a little concerned when Dimitri and Dedue finally got fed up and Leeroy'd the Golden Deer but thankfully Claude stayed put and I eased up my own offensive to keep them tied up with fodder so Petra could catch up to them. Blue Lions did enough though that I got a message saying they were getting a stat increase. I got the most kills by a mile though of course, lol. Got all the items and had Edelgard beat both House Leaders again for fun.

Post-battle dialogue with Edelgard and the class was sweet.

Looks like Chapter 8 will have us investigating again. Shoutouts to the clutch professor EXP from having the first instruct day before the first free day. At first I was mad because motivation is shot across my team from last month, but answering the question just barely pushed me to the next rank (B+). I was sure it was going to stop just under 200 short but it somehow made it.

~~~

Oh since we're talking rankings.

Black Eagles rankings so far: Edelgard >> Hubert > Petra > Dorothea > Linhardt > Caspar > Bernadetta > Ferdinand

Good group though and they all have their strong points. Edelgard is just the best, Hubert is a very intriguing character, I especially love his interactions/supports with Byleth and Edelgard. Petra is great. Linhardt at his best would have a shot at 3rd but he often isn't. Dorothea is pretty solid. Caspar is pretty good. When Bernadetta's issues are treated seriously she's great, but too often it isn't I feel. Ferdinand has his moments too.
---

Pretty sure Blue Lions can recruit the most people overall
---

Now on chapter 16 of Golden Deer. Flying armada still rules the skies, archers be damned.

Also, Lorenz has made the same turn Ferdinand did for me during Black Eagles - initially pompous but damn if he hasn't grown on me as I see more of his supports.
---

Felix/Bernadetta top tier support convo chain
---

so uh Andrew Luck just retired

that was unexpected
---

was it though
---

I mean two weeks before the season yeah

Also Annette pass your Gremory exam darn it

How do you keep falling with a 75% pass expectancy
---

Apparently save scumming those doesn't work unless you reload from the previous week

---

I'm pretty sure I've gotten it to work before, but maybe I'm misremembering.
---

I've tried savingscumming with whiffed 90+% exams. It definitely doesn't work if you save just before the exam. I haven't tried saving the week before and reloading but just waiting until next week does seem to change the result.
---

LeonhartFour posted...

so uh Andrew Luck just retired

that was unexpected

...huh. I didn't see that coming but maybe I should have?

~~~

Chapter 8 just finished my explore session, rest of the month's free days will be fighting because ahhhhhhh too many things.

Recruited: Annette, Ignatz, Hanneman, Manuela
Reached B Support but need them to approach me: Sylvain, Mercedes, Lorenz
Reached B Support a while ago but I need time to pass for the support to play: Leonie

All that's left is Raphael, who is at C support, and by default is my temp recruit. I've got at least a C-support with everyone but Rhea, and a B support (or waiting on time to pass) with damn near everyone too. soon i will have all the people.

Stopped on the second free day for now. I now have 4(!) Paralogues available (Sothis, Felix, Hanneman/Manuela, and Ignatz/Raphael) + a Quest Battle + Rare Monster Appearance. Plan atm is to do the Rare Monster and Quest on this day, then Sothis and Felix's paralogues on the next. curse only having 3 free days this month.
---

Eh, you get rare monster battles all the time.

It's tough having to make these choices when you only have 1 or 2 points to spend at a time.
---

Leonie's B support won't happen until after your last chance to recruit her, IIRC.
---

Leonhart4 posted...

Eh, you get rare monster battles all the time.

It's tough having to make these choices when you only have 1 or 2 points to spend at a time.

Do you? This is only my second one!

Mac Arrowny posted...

Leonie's B support won't happen until after your last chance to recruit her, IIRC.

=o

that is unfortunate.
---

Yeah, they become increasingly common as the game goes along.
---

Whoops, looks like I was wrong about Leonie
---

I'm averaging like 4 hours per chapter

Seems super high, but I don't really see how I could cut it down much below three without just skipping a bunch of stuff. Just exploration alone takes forever...

---

Yeah, it takes a while, especially once you find lost items and you have to run all over the place trying to figure out who they belong to.

Haven't had much time to play the last couple days, but I'm pretty sure I'm near the end now. Hopefully I can finish off my Blue Lions run today.
---

given how careless everyone at the monestary is with literally everything they own, its a wonder anyone trusts any of them in military battles
---

LordoftheMorons posted...

I'm averaging like 4 hours per chapter

Seems super high, but I don't really see how I could cut it down much below three without just skipping a bunch of stuff. Just exploration alone takes forever...

That's a lot lower than my 6 hours average. >_>

The Mana Sword posted...

given how careless everyone at the monestary is with literally everything they own, its a wonder anyone trusts any of them in military battles

Byleth is around to fix everything so it isn't a problem.
---

As you keep playing you'll learn little optimizations to speed things up during explore. You'll develop a routine or just plain find some things useless and not do them, lol
---

Blue Lions Chapter 21 complete

It got to the point when I was supposed to choose who I wanted to give Jeralt's ring to, and I was flabbergasted to see Gilbert as one of my choices. I ended up going with Mercedes just because I chose her before at the tower, but I find it hard to see any of them as love interests for Byleth for whatever the reason.

They definitely made you work for victory in the battle because of the seemingly never-ending reinforcements. I never really came close to losing (although a couple units nearly got down to 0 HP), but man, it took a long time to get to Hubert.

Also, Edelgard went full Altima with her transformation.
---

Blue Lions playthrough complete! I doubt I could squeeze in another run before FFVIII HD drops, so I'll probably put it down for now, which might be a good thing considering how much of a time investment a single playthrough is. Don't want to get burned out.

Final Blue Lions rankings: Felix > Dedue > Dimitri > Ashe > Mercedes > Annette > Ingrid > Sylvain

Last battle was fairly tough in the sense that a few of my party members got KO'd, but as has been the case for most of the game, nobody could touch Byleth or Dimitri. I just charged them straight up to Edelgard and wrecked the faces of anyone who tried to stop them.

I've been told the pairings in the ending can change. I ended up with Dedue/Annette, Felix/Dorothea, Ashe/Ingrid, Dimitri/Flayn, and Byleth/Mercedes. I kind of wanted my choice to be someone from my own house, so I went with Mercedes. I'd have probably gone for Petra or Dorothea otherwise. Black Eagles run will be a tough choice...!
---

Bah, I'm stuck in that zone where I don't really want to start on something else either, so I might just bite the bullet and drop my next playthrough partway through once FFVIII HD comes out. I'm just still really intrigued by this game so I don't want to quit playing it just yet.
---

Which house are you planning to join next?
---

I was thinking of doing Golden Deer next and saving all the Black Eagles stuff for last, especially now that I know how the story plays out.
---

Golden Deer Post Chapter 17

Woof, Dimitri got offscreen'd. Welp.
---

Team Rocket Elite posted...

That's a lot lower than my 6 hours average. >_>

man i started near a 6 hour average and it's starting to creep up >_>

~~~

Speaking of, FE3H Black Eagles Chapter 8 Beated.

Covered Free Time before so on to the fights.

Paralogue (Felix): I was a lot more worried when I first saw this map than I needed to be. I saw a bunch of green units and assumed it would be hell to keep everyone alive but they acquitted themselves... passably. There was one guard who comically just abandoned his civilian to attack someone and I had to bail them out but otherwise they mostly behaved. Unfortunately, once they started escaping the soldiers doubled back to attack the boss and so did Felix's dad so I had to put an end to things without concern for who'd get the boss EXP. Everyone lived and yes Extra Large Bullion i am not poor anymore. Also a Relic for Felix but it looks kinda... not great. The defense and half damage stuff is cool, but 6 Weight? no thanks.

Paralogue (Sothis): that was a lot of monsters. I spent most of this fight trying to even out EXP distribution. Did a fairly good job of it. This map wasn't as tough as it looked. Or maybe Lysithea and Shamir are just that good that they can just waste a bar of life off the monsters in one round.

Mission: ah more green units. This turned into a bit of a mess as developments caused me to like change where I was sending people 3 times. Saving the civilians and getting the chests were obvious goals, but then Death Knight just dropped in like "yo herd there was a party" so I had to break Byleth and Edelgard off from what I had them doing to meet him. Actually used the Sword of the Creator for the first time all-game to attack him since everyone got bottled up at a chokepoint. That's 3 Death Knight appearances and 3 Death Knight kills. Edelgard got it this time though. Had to Divine Pulse at one point because I learned that upon saving the last civilian, Jeralt goes mobile again and could get to Solon in two turns and I was not ready for the map to end yet (DK was still up and so was a chest, plus a few stragglers I wanted for EXP) thankfully I had Marianne by the last one so I just kept healing him and letting him get attacked. But eventually he had a existential crisis and ran into Solon's range so I had to save him, but thankfully I was prepared by then. The church soldiers all died though, they had no regard for their survival unfortunately.

DK and Solon (knew i couldn't trust you tomas, not an option to invite to a meal? clear sign of a villain... jeralt) peace out, and Flame Emperor pops in to tell us "whoa hey this **** was not approved" then he realized he was in a Fire Emblem game and tried to use the Talk command to recruit us. Anyway then he left and Rhea "surprised" us with the news that the goddess's name is Sothis. Also there's a Christmas Ball coming up. oh and the monastery is being infiltrated *again* and that's our mission.

Jeralt tripped even more death flags too and honestly he's beating the odds making it out of Remire's zombie apocalypse so there's no way he survives another deployment with us, he promised to tell us stuff and that can't be allowed. Also I am probably overthinking this but I started finding it very creepy during the Rhea convo when Sothis would offer commentary and then my dialogue options were parroting her. The first time, no big deal, she was asking good questions. The second time though? The "They must be stopped" option right after she declared that set off alarms. It doesn't help that Hubert's B Support actually touched on this a bit too closely
---

bah ran out of characters again.

2 more Paralogues opened up and argh still only 3 Free Days this month. Really going to need another month with 4 Free Days or more Battle Points.

Anyway, the team is now mostly at Level 20 now (three at 19) but Byleth's skill levels are so trash he can't even apply for any Advanced Class yet lmao. Threw him into Thief for the time being since he mastered Merc. Neither could Lysithea pre-Mission 8. Edelgard remains the shining light of our army because she could accomplish it, albeit needing to pass a 66% chance. Haven't checked (or re-checked Lysithea, no way Byleth got there in one fight) after the mission though so not sure on the others. Shamir was immune from this problem because she was a hacker who joined in an Advanced Class at Level 11 lol.
---

In Ch 7 now. All students are up to at least C support (besides Hilda), but I havent gotten anyone outside of my class to B or recruited anyone yet.

---

Augh three paralogues and two quest battles

when do I get up to three battles per week?

---

I'm at Professor Level B+ and still only at 2 so... I dunno. I've prioritized quests over paralogues because the paralogues helpfully tell you when they expire and quests don't* and I'm unwilling to test if that means they don't.

*Barring the few labelled "This Month Only"
---

I think Im gonna risk one paralogue/one quest

Ill tell you if it turns out to be a huge mistake!

---

A+ is 3 battles
---

Augh

Do the quest battles let up at least? If not its looking like I might need to start battling twice a month...

---

There was only 1 Quest Battle in Chapter 8. Stopped before I explored for Chapter 9 so I can't say for it.
---

Hrmm
Hope there's enough time to do all quests/available paralogues (I assume I need to do all of them before the timeskip?)

---

Quest Battles aren't really that important.

I did both on my first run but I only recruited 4 students.
---

I know they don't give anything important, but I'd be a little annoyed if I had an incomplete quest list

---

Made my first non-auto student recruit (Ingrid)! Also got Lysithea and Lorenz to B, but they refused to join (I guess because Byleth's faith/reason are E+/E...)

Huh, I was able to get Ashe at C support (accidentally asked him while meaning to give him a gift).

---

I had no problem getting all the Paralogues and quest battles in by the deadline.
---

Ingrid has some laughably low recruitment requirements. I got her before Chapter 6 with no support levels and only a minimal investment in Flying.

My guess is since she tends to be a Pegasus Knight, they wanted to allow players fair access to a flier.
---

Yeah, she was definitely a flyer for me. I turned Petra into one, too.
---

I don't know what to choose for NG+ bonuses. I almost feel like getting your professor level as high as possible immediately pays the most dividends, but maybe I'm wrong.
---

How much renown does NG+ stuff cost? Need to know how much to save.

And yeah that sounds right likely correct to me

---

It depends on what you're talking about but it looks to generally be 400-500 points per level of the thing you want. You do get a nice renown boost for starting a NG+ file, too.
---

What other stuff is there to buy? I know you can transfer support, but is it per character or per level or what?

---