LTC FE3 Book 1 & Book 2 Low Turns Run (BOOK 1 COMPLETE)

[Espinosa]

YouTube Playlist:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbSv8zSDR9c2PIqySD-iRFF_08Wj34RfY

Completely on a whim, I decided to start an LTC through Book 1 + Book 2 of Fire Emblem 3 Mystery of the Emblem, where I'll first go for the lowest turn count in one game and then do the same in the other. The differences between these games and their DS remakes are quite striking so it's sure to be refreshing for me.

I still need help deciding whether I want to go for full recruitment or ignore everything and just go for the absolute lowest turn counts. Chapter 4 onwards is affected by this decision, so it makes little sense to plan out Warp uses and the like at length before then, so I gotta figure out what exactly what I want to do ASAP. Chapters 1-3 are played the same way regardless of the choice, as Kashim and Navarre cost no turns to be recruited.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guJcjp9oMNM

(my YouTube videos have extensive descriptions attached, which are often helpful and informative to players new to the game and/or series)

Chapter 1 in 5 turns, which is the absolute minimum. Visiting the 5K village costs one turn, and I decide it is not worth that turn (you get free 10K in two maps anyway). Seems fair considering there's nothing to be forged. Visiting Wrys's village gives you... a Vulnerary, and in my experience prevents Marth from getting some kills, and Marth starts with a Vulnerary anyway.

Gordin and Doga are ignored by me here, though I wonder if I want to train up a Sniper who isn't George to be my Partia user. This could have situation value such as assisting us in slaying Mediuth, as seen in the map's layout here:

http://www.fireemblemwod.com/fe3/guia/fecapitulo20.htm

In general, I'm already pretty worried how I'll be killing Mediuth efficiently, what with his attack halving effect. Marth attacking with the Falchion with maxed strength does the most damage but getting Falchion also involves a lot of sacrifices it seems at a quick glance. Maybe, it couldn't hurt to train up Linde as an Aura user for the same purpose, though her jointime is admittedly way too late and not so far away from where Warp starts seeing very regular use (she could still get some action when waiting for units like Est to arrive, for example).

~*~ Book 1 Data ~*~

Turn Counts:

C01 - 5 turns
C02 - 4 turns
C03 - 5 turns
C04 - 7 turns
C05 - 2 turns
C06 - 3 turns
C07 - 2 turns
C08 - 6 turns
C09 - 6 turns
C10 - 4 turns
C11 - 5 turns
C12 - 4 turns
C13 - 4 turns
C14 - 3 turns
C15 - 4 turns
C16 - 4 turns
C17 - 1 turn
C18 - 3 turns
C19 - 1 turn
C20 - 1 turn
TOTAL - 74 turns

Promotions:

08 Hero Proof - sold
10 Knight Crest - Abel
10 Orion Bolt - missed
13 Hero Proof - hoarded
14 Orion Bolt - Kashim
14 Knight Crest - missed
15 Bishop Ring - Rena
15 Dragon Whip - Sheeda

Stat boosters:

05 Angelic Robe - missed
07 Goddess Icon - Marth
08 Speed Ring - Minerva
09 Power Ring - Minerva
10 Boots - Marth
10 Manual - missed
10 Goddess Icon - missed
12 Skill Book - Kashim
12 Talisman - missed
13 Dracoshield - Marth
14 Skill Book - missed
14 Speed Ring - Marth
15 Power Ring - Marth
15 Angelic Robe - Marth

Edited November 27, 2015 by Espinosa

[Nintales]

You can train Tomas or one of the Horsemen to be a Sniper.

Can't you also wreck Gharnef with Boah or Wendell feeding them a few statboosters? FE3's Gharnef's chapter and FE11's are not the same, as far as I recall.

Maxing in FE3 is super easy due to how strong are statboosters and the starsphere.

Edited August 29, 2015 by Nintales

[Topazd]

Nice! I started thinking of something like this (max recruitment) a while back and have a few notes of the minimum tcs for w/ and w/o warp up until C10.

I think you should definitely go for max recruitment, it does seem like it's much more interesting - there are only 20 chapters and 14 warp uses (I'm not completely sure if Hammerne worked on items in FE3) and much of the chapters could potentially boil down to 2 turns with a super good Marth. I also think it might be efficient to use the geosphere in Final, it'd get rid of the bishops and open up Medeus for melee range. I'm not aware of whether or not it damages Medeus himself here, but it'd certainly be a massive boon if it did.

@Nintales I think Boah can deal with Gharnef at base (especially if one doesn't plan on 1-turning, and if they do I think he needs only 1 magic proc for a hit+crit 1RKO). The speed benchmark is only 8spd.

Edited August 29, 2015 by Topazd

[Espinosa]

WRT animations

Faster videos are obviously better than slower ones, but this game isn't too fast in itself to say the least. What worries me is that the following problems arise when turning the animations off:

- you get absolutely no clue what dmg/hit/crit rates you're facing in-battle, and this does include player phase because instead of the forecast the enemy's stats are displayed

- you do not see how much experience you got after the fight; granted, this is largely a predictable amount in this game with Jeigan getting the same kill exp as any unpromoted dood

- my biggest worry; you do not actually learn what stats you levelled in after gaining a level

I'm currently leaning towards keeping the animations on, but there should be more than one way of solving this issue.

You can train Tomas or one of the Horsemen to be a Sniper.

Tomas has surprisingly similar stats to George if you quickly give him two levels and then promote him, but their growths are actually equally bad. Gordin's are a little bit better, but still unspectacular. These exhaust my options for archers, I believe.

As for the Hunter line... Kashim can start gaining levels pretty early, with plenty of time to get kills. 60% str/40% spd is actually awesome for this game, but his luck and wlv growths are low @ 20%. Him getting to Partia can be assisted with a Manual or something. Wolf and Sedgar exist, and Wolf is the only worthy unit here, since Sedgar's 10% speed growth makes him just about unusable. Wolf's 20% growth in the same stat isn't much better.

Horsemen are obviously superior in outdoor maps, which the majority of maps are, but dismount to 6 mov units indoors, which does include the final map. Luckily, this doesn't result in any reduction in offensive stats (something that hurts Paladins and Dracos). Still, without boosters, Kashim should have the best offence if trained. He can do stuff like target Mediuth immediately after a warp, or target Negro Camus in chapter 16 without having to remove a paladin out of the way (might not matter if they aggro beforehand). He needs 18 spd to double Camus with a Killer Bow for what it's worth; Merrich can do the same with Excalibur with the same speed stat. However, it's Linde with Aura who has the best attack on Medeus assuming capped magic. Her durability though...

Can't you also wreck Gharnef with Boah or Wendell feeding them a few statboosters? FE3's Gharnef's chapter and FE11's are not the same, as far as I recall.

I'm not even sure I want to be killing the real Gharnef... Marth needs to be warped to the Starlight village, and getting the Orbs in Chiki's chapter costs turns when you can just double-warpskip the thing. The thing is, warpskipping Chiki's chapter implies skipping the first Dragon Whip, too, meaning Shiida could well remain unpromoted for the whole run where she's easily one of the MVPs right from the start.

Falchion is a big help against Mediuth to be sure, but just how big?

I've also read conflicting info on skipping Falchion by killing the fake Gharnef on the throne. Is it only the real Gharnef that can be damaged with Starlight only, or the fake ones too? What's that about him being damage-able by counters with any other weapons (I assume something like Aura!Linde or Excalibur!Merrich would work best)? Is this the same version where he can move from the throne actually?

I think you should definitely go for max recruitment, it does seem like it's much more interesting - there are only 20 chapters and 14 warp uses (I'm not completely sure if Hammerne worked on items in FE3) and much of the chapters could potentially boil down to 2 turns with a super good Marth. I also think it might be efficient to use the geosphere in Final, it'd get rid of the bishops and open up Medeus for melee range. I'm not aware of whether or not it damages Medeus himself here, but it'd certainly be a massive boon if it did.

Whoa, I never stopped to consider that. Hammerne failing to work for staves and not repairing staves is a big deal and could result in me not warpskipping chapter 4... or not. But yeah, we really have to figure out the truth about Hammerne in this one.

Geosphere working on Mediuth could also be a big deal and decisive in determining whether or not we can, like, 1-turn the map or have to do it really slowly.

Edited August 29, 2015 by Espinosa

[Topazd]

Confirmed - Hammerne only works for weapons. 14 warp uses it is.

EDIT I also changed Hyman to Earth Dragon in Nightmare and it'd appear the geosphere does 5 damage to him.

Edited August 29, 2015 by Topazd

[Espinosa]

Boo hoo about Hammerne not repairing Warp. I guess I don't care about warping to its village in Camus's chapter, then warping someone else with Warp to Warp Marth higher up then. That would've been a cool strat.

So it looks like we all at least agree that Full Recruitment is the way to go. I wonder how many people know that Question 3 was really a joke question, though. I actually considered training Biraku back when I thought I had no real exp to worry about distributing, but if I'm training Kashim and Linde at least (in addition to obvious picks like Caeda, Hardin and Kabel) there will be no room for humour. Too bad, this run could use some yaranaika.

Can hacking help us go to any chapter we wish as I've heard can be made possible in other games? I'm having trouble accurately planning stuff off FE WoD where squares are hard to distinguish and would plan things out much more easily by being in the map and going through everything with the cursor.

So Geosphere's effect is halved too... That's a bummer. Still useful with a Reserve (=Fortify) spammer in the party, I imagine, just needs to be timed right.

[Topazd]

Just hack Marth to an all-stats-capped draco with Iote's, haha. The tools available for hacking FE3 seem to be somewhat scarce, I'm not aware of how one would go about accessing chapters directly through hacking.

[Darrman]

*THIS IS FOR BOOK ONE*

http://imgur.com/a/ALTo6

A bunch of tests I did on Medeus (I had a B1 Ch. 20 file to do some testing.) The Marth within has 15 strength, and could do up to ten damage had he had 20 strength. Castor had 20 strength, so a legendary weapon could do up to five damage per attack. The second pic of Medeus was after a Geosphere use.

[Espinosa]

Oh wait, Mediuth has 15 not 9 res. To hell with even considering training Linde then. Kashim could still turn out useful, however, though a tome user could also try critkilling Camus. Then again, why waste so many warps on that map when you only have 14. Couldn't make Marth a Dracoknight but he's been clearing chapters as a Lord with 20 in every stat for me.

Darrman:

You mean this was after a Geosphere use? Marth didn't double / whiffed a 96 hit for the remaining 7 dmg suffered by Mediuth?

[Darrman]

The pictures were all on different runs. If you look at the bottom you can see a greyed out Marth on the linked Medeus pic. But yeah, that was a Geosphere use. Marth used the Geosphere there.

[Espinosa]

So confirming the 5 dmg per each use then? Well, it's still almost a tenth of his HP and the same damage you deal not critting, without the Falchion. With 10 dmg/per Geo, I think I could've gone for a 1-turn, maybe.

[Topazd]

It'd still have necessitated a double crit from one of the regalia (or 3 warps) since you need to seize after Medeus anyhow.

Assuming (after Geo) you warp a max str Marth @ Mercurius and a Parthia (or Gradivus I guess) user along with him, you'll only need to proc 1 crit out of 8 hits. (totaling 65 dmg against Medeus' 52HP, I'm pretty sure that EP throne heal of his won't be enough to compensate) I'm positive you can also skip Gharnef in this game. That's a reliable way of taking him down in 2 turns w/o Falchion at least, but I'll hazard a guess that one warp charge could save more than 1 turn somewhere else.

Ergo, Falchion has the potential to either save a turn (or a warp charge) or make that 2-turn 1-warp strat much more reliable (one warp w/o Falchion requires three Mercurius crits from Marth, which is a bit dubious). I'm not entirely sure whether that benefit will compensate for the potential losses in getting all shards, grabbing Starlight and killing Gharnef.

Had to edit this around a billion times, sorry for typing out my stream of consciousness >_>

Edited August 31, 2015 by Topazd

[feplus]

With text/cursor turned to fast and animations off, Mystery has a nice quick pace. I see no reason to turn animations on. Look to dondon's LTC videos: animations are off, battle forecasts are quickly passed over, and any relevant odds of success are added via annotations.

Managing warp uses properly will be key. Because you're going for full recruitment, you'll have turns to kill, so training up units (mainly fliers) should be worthwhile. Divine!Chiki has flight and should be useful in some situations.

I wouldn't worry about Medeus. A power ring and two speed rings are picked up without going out of the way, the Falchion will take a turn extra investment at most, and you should be grinding for favorable RNG anyway.

Edited August 30, 2015 by feplus

[dondon151]

the thing about my videos is that if you're really curious about hit rates, you can pause to look at the battle summary

but either way animations suck so i'd skip them

Edited August 30, 2015 by dondon151

[feplus]

You can pause FE3 videos too. You'll need to subtract defense from attack and avoid from hit (although displayed hit caps at 100), but that's just a problem with FE3's primitive battle forecast.

Edited August 30, 2015 by feplus

[Nobody]

If you end up showing Animations, maybe speed them up. I particularly really dislike their slowness, but I guess they could be bearable when sped up

[Upside-DownFish]

Will you ever go back to some of your other ltc runs, Espinosa?

[Julius Nepos]

Setting animations to real instead of normal will get rid of the pauses between attacks.

[SSJDennis]

Chapter 1 looked great. I remember ever trying this game out... Cavaliers/Paladins with growth were overpowered. But I bet without growth this is totally different. Anyway, looking forward to seeing chapter 2.

[Topazd]

Alright, since the bulk of the planning seems to revolve around warp use allocation, I thought I might as well share what I have on my notes. I've had most of these listed down for quite a while, so it's possible that I've made a mistake somewhere along the line and haven't bothered to double-check or that I've missed something crucial altogether.

[spoiler=Minimal tcs for C1-9 with full recruitment]

C1 - 5 turns

C2 - 4 turns

C3 - 5 turns (no warps) / 3 turns (1 warp) / 2 turns (2 warps)

C4 - 7 turns (no warps) / 4 turns (1 warp)

C5 - 7 turns (no warps) / 2 turns (1 warp)

C6 - 9 turns (no warps) / 3 turns (1 warp) / 2 turns (4 warps)

C7 - 7 turns (no warps) / 2 turns (1 warp) / 1 turn (2 warps)

C8 - 14 turns (no warps) / 6 turns (1 warp) / 4 turns (2 warps) / 3 turns (3 warps)

C9 - 11 turns (no warps) / 6 turns (1 warp) / 4 turns (2 warps) / 3 turns (3 warps)

This doesn't take the realibility of the clears and/or stat benchmarks for bosses into account, of course.

I didn't do C10 or up back then, since 10 adds boots as another variable to the mixture. They'll be certain to help in chapters to come that are cleared without warp, but it's probably still necessary to determine whether or not they're ultimately worth the trouble getting them will induce.

Edited August 31, 2015 by Topazd

[Espinosa]

Assuming (after Geo) you warp a max str Marth @ Mercurius and a Parthia (or Gradivus I guess) user along with him, you'll only need to proc 1 crit out of 8 hits. (totaling 65 dmg against Medeus' 52HP, I'm pretty sure that EP throne heal of his won't be enough to compensate) I'm positive you can also skip Gharnef in this game. That's a reliable way of taking him down in 2 turns w/o Falchion at least, but I'll hazard a guess that one warp charge could save more than 1 turn somewhere else.

Ergo, Falchion has the potential to either save a turn (or a warp charge) or make that 2-turn 1-warp strat much more reliable (one warp w/o Falchion requires three Mercurius crits from Marth, which is a bit dubious). I'm not entirely sure whether that benefit will compensate for the potential losses in getting all shards, grabbing Starlight and killing Gharnef.

The only potential Gradivus users indoors are the armours actually. I didn't even have Doga choke the chapter 2 point, so... It's never too late though; I mean, there's a long way ahead with plenty of enemies giving Doga generous kill experience. He needs 11 speed to double Mediuth with it iirc, and the obviously boon is that it is 1-2 range, and it's the only legendary weapon to function this way. Most likely just a silly gimmick!

The final chapter is completed by having Marth seize so I don't see how you'd do it with a single warp. Somebody else kills Mediuth, after which Marth seizes on the same turn.

It doesn't sound like Starlight/Falchion are worth it at all, though Falchion does effectively provide double the otherwise reachable damage output. Still, Marth should seize on player phase for Book 1 to end.

With text/cursor turned to fast and animations off, Mystery has a nice quick pace. I see no reason to turn animations on. Look to dondon's LTC videos: animations are off, battle forecasts are quickly passed over, and any relevant odds of success are added via annotations.

Managing warp uses properly will be key. Because you're going for full recruitment, you'll have turns to kill, so training up units (mainly fliers) should be worthwhile. Divine!Chiki has flight and should be useful in some situations.

I wouldn't worry about Medeus. A power ring and two speed rings are picked up without going out of the way, the Falchion will take a turn extra investment at most, and you should be grinding for favorable RNG anyway.

Nice quick pace? Certain enemy (and unappealing player) types take forever to move to their destination. I've cited reasons why animations are warranted much more than they are on any other run with a similar purpose: a) not seeing exp gained after a battle, b) not seeing which stats a unit grew after a level-up, c) not seeing a forecast even on player phase. I always skip animations on my LTC runs otherwise (besides, like, Touhou Chemblem but lol @ that old playthrough).

Training the right units is key, including good foot units for indoor chapters. Shiida actually has some promotion item accessibility problems and may never become a Draco. Minerva is the only 10 move flier guaranteed in Full Recruitment LTC. She has the same level-up speed as unpromoted units in this game, plus growth rates vaguely resembling those of Kabel for example. High base defence somewhat compensates for that hopeless HP of her.

Mediuth is one of the biggest worries, since I'm unlikely to be doing more than 5 damage to him per strike. Speed Rings won't help much besides with survival there, as I need only 3 AS to double Mediuth (so that I can deal 5/52 dmg again).

Falchion's turn cost is pretty big. It's a sum of chapter 15 Orbs, Warping Marth to the Starlight village and taking more time to slay Gharnef (which has the additional opportunity cost of training a Starlight Explosion unit, as I can generally not bother with mages otherwise).

If you end up showing Animations, maybe speed them up. I particularly really dislike their slowness, but I guess they could be bearable when sped up

Speeding the video up 2x is what I've always done to my Final Fantasy Tactics videos and is a pretty good idea. The only downsides is that you don't get to enjoy the original OST and sound effects the way they should sound, and you could miss out on identifying what the last level up was exactly (I think I can pause for an extra second taking that into account though). It's probably the most appealing idea so far.

Will you ever go back to some of your other ltc runs, Espinosa?

I'm still not done with these halted runs:

- FE6 Reverse Recruitment

- FE Girls

- FE9 0% growths

I'll do the former two whenever I'm in the mood for them, which I'm not right now (plus desperately lacking free time, but this is sometimes fixed by having to deal with insomnia). I'm always in the mood to return to the latter challenge, but the current state of my technology disallows me to play the FE9 challenge until I buy a new computer (which hopefully doesn't have the wrong specs) or something.

Setting animations to real instead of normal will get rid of the pauses between attacks.

Thanks; I never figured out the difference between the two until you said it. Real it is then, as tiny as the difference may be.

Chapter 1 looked great. I remember ever trying this game out... Cavaliers/Paladins with growth were overpowered. But I bet without growth this is totally different. Anyway, looking forward to seeing chapter 2.

I'm not dondon and most of my LTC runs do involve units levelling up in important stats. Marth will really need to grow some stats considering he'll be an 11 move unit for about half the game.

Alright, since the bulk of the planning seems to revolve around warp use allocation, I thought I might as well share what I have on my notes. I've had most of these listed down for quite a while, so it's possible that I've made a mistake somewhere along the line and haven't bothered to double-check or that I've missed something crucial altogether.

[spoiler=Minimal tcs for C1-9 with full recruitment]

C1 - 5 turns

C2 - 4 turns

C3 - 5 turns (no warps) / 3 turns (1 warp) / 2 turns (2 warps)

C4 - 7 turns (no warps) / 4 turns (1 warp)

C5 - 7 turns (no warps) / 2 turns (1 warp)

C6 - 9 turns (no warps) / 3 turns (1 warp) / 2 turns (4 warps)

C7 - 7 turns (no warps) / 2 turns (1 warp) / 1 turn (2 warps)

C8 - 14 turns (no warps) / 6 turns (1 warp) / 4 turns (2 warps) / 3 turns (3 warps)

C9 - 11 turns (no warps) / 6 turns (1 warp) / 4 turns (2 warps) / 3 turns (3 warps)

This doesn't take the realibility of the clears and/or stat benchmarks for bosses into account, of course.

I didn't do C10 or up back then, since 10 adds boots as another variable to the mixture. They'll be certain to help in chapters to come that are cleared without warp, but it's probably still necessary to determine whether or not they're ultimately worth the trouble getting them will induce.

This seems to match what I've written down, though I didn't include some of the trivia about the clears involving so many warp uses just to shave off a single turn.

Obviously, pre-chapter 14 (where you can get your second Warp roughly on turn 4), you only have 7 warps to distribute at most (I would argue it's significantly less because it helps to have two separate Warp staves for maps like the final chapter where you may be interested in a party further from Marth having access to Warp), so anything saving less than 4 turns doesn't cut it.

Also, reliability of survival and timely bosskilling are a big deal because my Marth isn't as rigged as would be preferred in a "perfect" run. For example, in chapter 5, you can 2-turn the map and shave off 5 turns by having Marth attempt to kill the boss there, but he needs to proc some crits and survive 4-5 enemy attacks at 70-80 displayed hit. You also miss out on the Physic staff and an Angelic Robe, which are extremely useful on this run.

I also think the 5 turns shaved off also pales in comparison to other utility the staff has in later pre-C14 chapters.

I'll address C10 and some other strats in another post some time later; this is already a lengthy one.

Edited August 31, 2015 by Espinosa

[Topazd]

Yeah, I mostly just tried to note down every possible scenario for consistency's sake; was pretty sure more than 1 warp for most chapters wouldn't be efficient, let alone that 4-warp strat for C6, haha.

This was a sizable paragraph detailing my reasoning for 1 warp use final but it seems I was wrong all along :P

Since it's possible for a unit to trade with multiple allies per turn (this is unique to FE3 iirc?), it's quite feasible to ferry warp around to another warper even on the same turn they used the staff, with a bit of forethought (except for final, of course). 2 intact staves is still preferable though, I agree.

Edited August 31, 2015 by Topazd

[feplus]

Nice quick pace? Certain enemy (and unappealing player) types take forever to move to their destination. I've cited reasons why animations are warranted much more than they are on any other run with a similar purpose: a) not seeing exp gained after a battle, b) not seeing which stats a unit grew after a level-up, c) not seeing a forecast even on player phase. I always skip animations on my LTC runs otherwise (besides, like, Touhou Chemblem but lol @ that old playthrough).

Training the right units is key, including good foot units for indoor chapters. Shiida actually has some promotion item accessibility problems and may never become a Draco. Minerva is the only 10 move flier guaranteed in Full Recruitment LTC. She has the same level-up speed as unpromoted units in this game, plus growth rates vaguely resembling those of Kabel for example. High base defence somewhat compensates for that hopeless HP of her.

Mediuth is one of the biggest worries, since I'm unlikely to be doing more than 5 damage to him per strike. Speed Rings won't help much besides with survival there, as I need only 3 AS to double Mediuth (so that I can deal 5/52 dmg again).

Yes, a nice quick pace. Some enemy phases take a while, but this is rare thanks to FE3's overall low enemy density.

Fliers don't need promotion to be useful on outdoor maps. Considering Shiida is Book 1's best flier and is rocking a silver lance from turn one onwards, getting her experience isn't difficult.

Foregoing the Falchion is probably a sensible idea factoring in Starlight. Here's a no-Falchion one-turn clear strategy:

• Warp max-strength Partia/Gradivus user into the throne room.
• Have three units swap and use up the Earth Orb, bringing Medeus' HP to 30 or under (damage varies).
• Grind attempts until Partia/Gradivus user activates a double critical.
• Warp Marth into throne room and have him seize.

This strategy entails training up either an armor or (preferably) a bowman.

[Topazd]

Thanks feplus, I should have tested the geosphere more than once. Well, that changes things a lot.

Double crits are still a bit unreliable, knowing what chances geosphere has dealing what amount of damage would simplify things a lot. I think it might nonetheless be preferable to go 2 turns and 1 warp in lieu of 1 turn and 2 warps, though we'll have to see how the warp uses line up to know for sure.

[feplus]

Without two warps, Ch.20 takes a minimum of three turns. Earth Orb cannot kill, so Marth must spend a turn removing one of the surrounding enemies, a turn killing Medeus, and a turn seizing the throne.

It is possible the other thirteen warp uses at one's disposal all save more than two turns, in which case a final map one warp / three turn clear is preferred.