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The Easy and Efficient AAAA Project: The Test Run (Genealogy)


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Hey, so obviously there's been a ton of AAAA ranked runs before, but what bothered me about a lot of them was that most of them emphasized getting the lowest turn counts you could while using a lot of manipulation of the RNG to get there. That manipulation, as many runners can probably attest to, is an exorbitantly tedious process. Plus, there is a TON of micromanagement in this sort of run as well, and so, my goal here is to come up with an easy and reliable way of getting AAAA without much manipulation, and hopefully in a way that cuts down on how much you have to micromanage.

So, here's what I've done so far...

Prologue: 15 Turns

I manipulate Sigurd into getting 2 Str. procs so that he can 2HKO the rest of the enemies and 3HKO DiMaggio. After that, it's basically a Sigurd solo, with Lex and Azel used to clear out all of the top enemies and save the northwest village, with Ethlin and Cuan sent west to help out Sigurd when he needs it, and Alec and Noish used to save the nearest village, then kill the Lvl 10 Bandits that Sigurd can't 1RKO.

Also, part of the reason for 15 turns is that Sigurd spends a few turns after killing Gerrard to get the Silver Sword, so if the Silver Sword ends up being not needed, we can cut that out of the run.

As for the villages, I gave all of them to Cuan except for the Speed Ring village, which I gave to Sigurd. Not sure of the wisdom of giving ALL of them to Cuan though. The idea is that he's not around for very long, so he needs all the help he can get in leveling up as much as he can, and then after that, he can give money to Ethlin so she can Return Staff spam w/ Elite Ring to Level 30...but still.

Chapter 1: 84 Turns

Yes, you read that right. 84 turns. But remember, the turn count for this kind of run is incredibly lenient, and lategame chapters are extremely easy to clear in under 25 turns. But leveling requirements? Those are not so lenient, so I feel as though you need to have a ton of set-up time here to prepare for easier leveling in the future.

Anyways, a good chunk of your units, like Alec, Noish, and Azel, are pretty much completely worthless, and can't even get very far past Bachnin without a ton of manipulation. And while Azel can't really be salvaged, the rest of the units can, and here's how.

First of all, buy the Slim Sword and Javelin for Sigurd, give his Steel Sword to Alec, make sure everyone's weapons are repaired, clear out as much of the Arena as you can with everyone, and then keep spawning reinforcements from Genoa until the Slim Sword has 100 kills on it. This way, even Dew will be capable of clearing the Arena, which will be extremely beneficial for the purposes of having him be a cash dispenser for people who need more (the idea is, in Chapter 2, he'll buy the Pursuit and Elite Rings, then with the extra money he wins in the Arena, he'll give that to other people, then once he clears the Arena, he'll sell both Rings so that he'll still have the 40,000 G's that he needs).

Then, while Sigurd, Ethlin, Azel, and Ardan are busy with those reinforcements, the rest of the gang will head down to where Dew is. Then, the gang will clear out all the Bandits except for the Captain, who will be too distracted by Dew (he seems to prioritize Dew above everyone except Midir). And while Dew and the Captain are busy re-enacting a Wily Coyote cartoon, the gang will be spawning reinforcements from Marpha, and grinding off of them. Alec and Noish will be situated on Village tiles, and have the Bandits surround them, before having Midir, Cuan, Lex, Alec, and Noish help pick off the bandits one by one. Then, retreat the people in a position where only Alec, Noish, and Lex can be attacked the next turn, then clear off everyone else. Then more reinforcements will come from Marpha, and you can rinse and repeat.

Of course, eventually Noish and Alec's weapons are going to break, so you'll probably want to tag in Lex and Cuan as the meatshields at some point. And of course, once Sigurd gets close to maxing out kills on the Slim Sword, you'll want to have that gang take out the Captain, Gandalf, and the rest of their forces (as for the Skill Ring, I personally chose to give that to Midir. Given how expensive the Killer Bow is, and his overall weakness, he seems to need it most). Also, the closest village probably should go to Aideen, but after that, I'm not sure.

After that, it's pretty bogstandard, except that I don't get the Hero Axe for Lex (I figure that Johalva needs it more). Take the castles with Sigurd, sell the Slim Sword so that everyone can use it, recruit Jamka by having Aideen be the only one in his range on the Enemy Phase (he doesn't seem to attack her, fortunately), warp everyone except Ethlin back at that point, and have Sigurd kill Sandima without Dierdre's help. Meanwhile, Aideen staff spams up to Level 20 and clears the Arena along with everyone else (including Dierdre). Midir will need the Killer Bow for the last two guys, but other than that, things should go swimmingly.

Now, here's where I think some things can be improved. For example a few turns here were wasted because Aideen didn't have enough money to Warp spam up to Level 20, therefore, she had to use her Relive staff a few times. Had I given her a village, that wouldn't have been a problem, so that there's a few ways turns could've been shaved...

And of course, that was all done under the we've GOT to have, money....... assumption, which I'm not sure is true. If that's not the case, having Aideen go all the way up to Level 20 to clear the Arena may not even be needed at all.

In addition, I'm not sure what the most optimal way to handle Dew is. The way I went about it, I put him on a Church, and then when Sigurd's Men arrived to kill the Bandits, I had to have Dew walk all the way back to Evans so that his sword wouldn't break before I was done grinding off of reinforcements. It helped Dew level up, sure, but it also meant a ton of shenanigan's where Ethlin had to keep the Captain from getting too close to Evans (it seems that the Captain targets the castle over Dew, even if there's someone guarding it. And then there was RNG manipulation needed to make sure that Dew wasn't killed when the four Bandit's were attacking him, so all that could've been time not used optimally.

Also, I rigged Str procs for all but one of Dew's levels until Sigurd had conquered Marpha. I thought that might be helpful, and it seems that it was in the Arena fights, but I'm not sure that's COMPLETELY necessary, so if someone think's there's room for more efficiency in that regard, I'm open to that.

So, that's it for now. I've yet to play through the rest of the Chapters, so, when I get those done, I'll tell you more about what I think. This is Fionordequester, and God bless you!

Edited by FionordeQuester
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Oh yeah, forgot to mention, here are my Levels...

Sigurd: Level 18

Noish: Level 13

Alec: Level 14

Ardan: Level 6

Azel: Level 5

Lex: Level 16

Cuan: Level 15

Fin: Level 4

Ethlin: Level 9

Midir: Level 13

Aideen: Level 20

Dew: Level 11

Aira: Level 6

Jamka: Level 8

Dierdre: Level 7

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I'm not totally sure why you pumped Aideen up to 20 but didn't give units that struggle to gain levels like Azel and Ardan levels. Aideen is one of the easiest units to level cap in the whole game. Ethlin would do more with the exp if you're taking that many turns regardless.

The hero axe also shows up in chapter 6 regardless if Lex gets it or not, so it was a mistake not to get it.

Wasting all these turns in chapter 1 would probably be more efficient in chapter 2 where you have units like Sylvia who have issues gaining exp without prayer haxing in the arena, and Lachesis, so she can promote faster, along with the elite ring.

Edited by General Horace
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I'm not totally sure why you pumped Aideen up to 20 but didn't give units that struggle to gain levels like Azel and Ardan levels. Aideen is one of the easiest units to level cap in the whole game. Ethlin would do more with the exp if you're taking that many turns regardless.

Azel can't really be salvaged without severe RNG abuse (or at least, not in any way I know of), so there's no point in trying too hard with him. As for Ardan, he actually does surprisingly well in even future Arena's to come once he has the 50 Crit Slim Sword, so I actually wasn't too worried about him.

You may still have a point about Aideen though. I mean, part of getting her to 20 was because she's actually not that far away from promoting by the time you actually get Sigurd to Sandima anyways, and I figured that the extra money she got from clearing the Arena would be helpful, since she had extra money to give to whoever her lover ends up being (therefore, more Elite Ring usage). But, if that money ends up being a waste, then that will definitely be something future runners can axe from the plan.

The hero axe also shows up in chapter 6 regardless if Lex gets it or not, so it was a mistake not to get it.

Really? I could've sworn I remember it disappearing from Gen 2 once Lex gets it in Gen 1. If that's the case...whoops, my bad, though Lex will still probably cap his Level regardless.

Wasting all these turns in chapter 1 would probably be more efficient in chapter 2 where you have units like Sylvia who have issues gaining exp without prayer haxing in the arena, and Lachesis, so she can promote faster, along with the elite ring.

Lachesis has almost no trouble gaining levels though, and Sylvia will be prayer haxing (since it's not like that's very hard to do, especially since she'll have a 50 Crit Slim Sword). And it really can't be overstated how enormously helpful it is to get that Slim Sword to 100 kills. It's practically the whole reason Noish, Alec, Dew, and the rest of the scrubs can even GET through the Arena to begin with!

Edited by FionordeQuester
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Is it easy to farm the early weapons for 50+ kills. Sure? Is it efficient? Far from it. All that prep work to get the crit weapons are a huge time sink, and therefore the very opposite of efficient, even with the obvious benefit it provides.

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There's more to efficiency that just turns. Case in point; this ranking system requires a threshold of EXP as well, which is definitely the more difficult rank to get. In fact, the planned final turn count to close to 400 turns (maybe within 20 turns as a margin for unexpected events) because finishing much quicker would be a waste of the turns you have in reserve and inefficient! Though whether the chapter 1 strategy in the most efficient use of the turns bank (read: whether it gives the most exp/money) is up for debate. If the others are sitting around while Aideen is staff-spamming she could afford to wait for chapter 2 to promote.

(In any case, it's very creative, so props for that.)

I would take a few more turns in the Prologue to spread out the EXP, especially for Arden and Azel. Sigurd and Lex should take less exp, they should have little trouble gaining experience later on. Especially Lex.

For pairings, Lex and Dew should be with Sylvia and Briggid because their kids can have trouble levelling quickly. Levin is probably best with Tiltyu because Arthur, not having staves, will get the most use out of Holsety. The other four should have whatever pairing is most convenient.

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Not just talking about turn count when it comes to time, I'm talking in terms of real time. Plus, it would be more accurate to say that total level ups, not experience is the determining factor for one of the ranks (have to be specific here, as for example FE6 tracks both, and FE7 tracks exp gain on specific units for several alternate routes).

On that point, you have to gain 1000 experience levels across all units to gain the A rank. From everyone's base levels, you start with a total across all recruitable units (not counting units which have alternate recruitment like Johan/Johalva), in Gen 1, you have 114 base levels across 24 units, so you could potentially gain 606 levels across those units, well over half the total needed. Of course, some units like Cuan and Arden are incredibly difficult to level efficiently to the max of 30, the former as he leaves after Chapter 3 so faces lower level enemies, and the latter because of his movement rate making it harder for him to see combat.

In Gen 2, it doesn't matter which of the children/fixed characters you gain, as all the options start at the same base levels, so you have there 131 base levels across 23 units (not counting Fin, as he appears in the 1st gen calculation), leaving 559 levels to gain on those non-Fin units in Gen 2, or a total of 1165 levels across all units.

From here, you can look at the staff users, as they can easily gain levels to reach the maximum, and spread the remaining possible levels across all the combat units. Not every unit will need to reach L30 in order to get the ranking, although you will likely need to get most units in the high 20s to be sure. Any unit with a holy weapon will be easier for combat too, and most if not all should be reaching their max rank (Cuan being an obvious exception, would be very inefficient to farm him to L30, better to aim for about L24-26). You can be flexible with units, is what I'm saying, as long as you consider what bonus cushion of levels you have to play with.

Considering all this, and getting back to your original idea of farming for an early selection of 50+ kill Critical weapons, first of all, you have to consider whether you even NEED Critical to defeat most units. Sigurd gets a Silver Sword in the prologue, and he can basically use that to destroy almost every basic foot unit alone, and to be fair, many bosses fall in a single round of combat too with SSS. Of course, the SSS has it's own problems too, not least of which it is a 1 range weapon, and only a limited number of units can use it. As for something in the B/C class weapon range, sure, it would help a lot to units who don't get multiple attacks, or those who have trouble in combat in other ways (Arden has trouble reaching combat, for example, so giving him a Critical Slim Sword to make any combat he faces more likely to get kills means he can be fed exp easier, especially nice when he gets the Pursuit ring in Ch2, although that actually lessens the benefit of the critical sword as he can one-round more units with Pursuit than just relying on Critical weaponry).

A bigger problem of doing all the farming early, which is something that hasn't been considered, is the effect of the cost of repairing the weapons you are using to get to Critical in the first place. While it isn't much (Slim Sword being 100 g per use, for example), that cost adds up when you are considering all the weapon uses you are devoting to this in the first place, setting up kills and so on. Anything that takes gold away, means reducing the number of units that can take benefit from the Elite Ring. While it is easy to get units in the Elite cycle once they have the 40k required (selling the Elite Ring plus the total gained from the Arena of 37500, which almost pays for itself and basically does once you count end of chapter gold), getting there in the first place, and keeping that if you are farming for critical weapons becomes that much harder, depending on the number of Critical weapons you do decide to generate. And that's not keeping in mind that each weapon can be used on one unit at a time, meaning you having to choose carefully who does get the benefit of a single weapon. It may make one unit better, sure, but it is an opportunity for that unit which won't benefit another one, and overall, it will be losing more resources, time and turns as it would to gain in the first place, if you consider everything.

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To be honest, the main point of an early Critical weapon is to get through the arena in chapters 1 and 2, and in any case many units can't use it. Even a 100-kill sword isn't too reliable outside, since it's only 50% and most of the units who need it don't get a second attack to improve the odds. Though the choice of unit isn't too difficult, give it to someone with a low level and if you feed them for a while, they should become self-sufficient.

As long as you're getting Dew to see a lot of combat, you should never be losing money while farming. Even if their base gold + what they gain from starting the arena isn't enough, Dew can top up units as necessary. I don't think passing around the Elite Ring for the chapter 2 arena is worth it, but if you want to do it, you should grind in chapter 1. Dew does better against the axe-using enemies compared to chapter 2 where lances, bows and magic are common. The best time to build up money is in the last part of chapter 3, where the pirates use axes and give 5000 gold each.

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Is it easy to farm the early weapons for 50+ kills. Sure? Is it efficient? Far from it [even if we're counting real time and not just turn count]. All that prep work to get the crit weapons are a huge time sink, and therefore the very opposite of efficient, even with the obvious benefit it provides.

That's why I only pump one of them. And, in the end, there may very well be a simpler way. I just remember watching Balcerzak's run, and the way he had to spend like, an hour messing with the RNG each chapter just to get Alec and Noish through the Arena, and thinking to myself "there's got to be a better way of doing this." As for the rest of your post...

On that point, you have to gain 1000 experience levels across all units to gain the A rank. From everyone's base levels, you start with a total across all recruitable units (not counting units which have alternate recruitment like Johan/Johalva), in Gen 1, you have 114 base levels across 24 units, so you could potentially gain 606 levels across those units, well over half the total needed. Of course, some units like Cuan and Arden are incredibly difficult to level efficiently to the max of 30, the former as he leaves after Chapter 3 so faces lower level enemies, and the latter because of his movement rate making it harder for him to see combat.

In Gen 2, it doesn't matter which of the children/fixed characters you gain, as all the options start at the same base levels, so you have there 131 base levels across 23 units (not counting Fin, as he appears in the 1st gen calculation), leaving 559 levels to gain on those non-Fin units in Gen 2, or a total of 1165 levels across all units.

From here, you can look at the staff users, as they can easily gain levels to reach the maximum, and spread the remaining possible levels across all the combat units. Not every unit will need to reach L30 in order to get the ranking, although you will likely need to get most units in the high 20s to be sure. Any unit with a holy weapon will be easier for combat too, and most if not all should be reaching their max rank (Cuan being an obvious exception, would be very inefficient to farm him to L30, better to aim for about L24-26). You can be flexible with units, is what I'm saying, as long as you consider what bonus cushion of levels you have to play with.

Yeah, so I might end up getting way too many levels, hence, making those Slim Sword strats unnecessary. Really, I was just nervous about finishing the game with too little levels because I underestimated how quickly I would gain levels in the future. So, I figured I would use these strats, see what my total at the end was, then we could work out some improvements from there.

A bigger problem of doing all the farming early, which is something that hasn't been considered, is the effect of the cost of repairing the weapons you are using to get to Critical in the first place. While it isn't much (Slim Sword being 100 g per use, for example), that cost adds up when you are considering all the weapon uses you are devoting to this in the first place, setting up kills and so on. Anything that takes gold away, means reducing the number of units that can take benefit from the Elite Ring. While it is easy to get units in the Elite cycle once they have the 40k required (selling the Elite Ring plus the total gained from the Arena of 37500, which almost pays for itself and basically does once you count end of chapter gold), getting there in the first place, and keeping that if you are farming for critical weapons becomes that much harder, depending on the number of Critical weapons you do decide to generate. And that's not keeping in mind that each weapon can be used on one unit at a time, meaning you having to choose carefully who does get the benefit of a single weapon. It may make one unit better, sure, but it is an opportunity for that unit which won't benefit another one, and overall, it will be losing more resources, time and turns as it would to gain in the first place, if you consider everything.

Money didn't actually end up being a problem actually. Alec and Noish actually broke their weapons during the course of the grinding, however, they don't really see any combat in how I'm handling Chapter 2, so I didn't really even need to repair them. I simply give Alec and Noish the Slim Sword and whatever villages they need in Chapter 2, got em' the Elite Ring, and...it was all good!

There's more to efficiency that just turns. Case in point; this ranking system requires a threshold of EXP as well, which is definitely the more difficult rank to get. In fact, the planned final turn count to close to 400 turns (maybe within 20 turns as a margin for unexpected events) because finishing much quicker would be a waste of the turns you have in reserve and inefficient! Though whether the chapter 1 strategy in the most efficient use of the turns bank (read: whether it gives the most exp/money) is up for debate. If the others are sitting around while Aideen is staff-spamming she could afford to wait for chapter 2 to promote.

Fair enough. Aideen would probably get to Level 17-18 without passing turns with my current strategy, so she can probably stand for a few less levels.

I would take a few more turns in the Prologue to spread out the EXP, especially for Arden and Azel. Sigurd and Lex should take less exp, they should have little trouble gaining experience later on. Especially Lex.

Really, having Sigurd solos most of the enemies because it seemed quicker to have him mow through the enemies rather than slow him down just to get others a few kills. So basically, it was me speedrunning the map while trying to work in some experience on the side.

For pairings, Lex and Dew should be with Sylvia and Briggid because their kids can have trouble levelling quickly. Levin is probably best with Tiltyu because Arthur, not having staves, will get the most use out of Holsety. The other four should have whatever pairing is most convenient.

...Hmm. To be honest...I was just planning on making my pairings according to whatever I liked most from an in-universe perspective (meaning, I paired Holyn and Aira because I thought they were a cute couple even though Lex and Aira was probably a better one...).

...That said, now I'm kind of wondering if I should still be going with that, as opposed to finding out which pairings are the best from a gameplay perspective. Both ways have value, honestly, as the first approach makes for an approach that people might be able to use no matter what their pairing choices...but the second choice is much more efficient, and most likely, the approach most people are going to be using if they're even going to bother with an AAAA ranked run at all...

What do you guys think? I'm guessing you'd prefer the 2nd one? If so, I can simply cheat code Midir into having more love points with Aideen, since I never had him talk to her or spend many turns next to her in Chapter 1.

Edited by FionordeQuester
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Lex x Ayra is a better pairing in a general playthrough than Holyn x Aira, but the swordkids don't generally have trouble leveling up, so in a ranked playthrough, pairing Lex with either Sylvia or Briggid might be smarter, since Leen, Patty, and kind of Corple are the hardest to level up.

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Whoop, there it is! Turns out, the Love Value for Midir and Aideen is located in Address 7E3CC9, so for anyone who wants to cheat code their love growths for whatever reason, there it is!

So, with that out of the way, my question to YOU guys, is this. What do you think of pairings, huh? I probably won't go with Lex X Sylvia since, unlike BBM, I don't think Sylvia's children has trouble getting levels (Prayer is a broken skill, plus there's the Dance skill, so I'm not sure why two people are saying the dancer's have trouble getting level ups :huh:...). But Patty is definitely someone who struggles a bit, though, so either Lex or Dew will probably be good for Briggid.

Other than that though, I actually haven't given much thought to pairings, so...what do you guys think? I'm guessing something like...

Aira X Holyn

Aideen X Midir (Pretty self-explanatory I think)

Briggid X Dew (Or Lex maybe? Who knows)

Fury X Levin (Easiest pairing in the game, and Fury doesn't seem to really have good pairings outside of Claude and Levin, and Claude comes a little too late for my tastes. If possible, I prefer to have everyone find their soul mates as quickly as possible so that they can more easily give cash to each other, thereby making the Elite Ring easier to buy).

Tiltyu X Azel (Celice is already ROFL stomping everyone with my strats as it is, and Arthur already has Wrath, so Holsety isn't really needed.)

Sylvia X Lex (or Dew maybe?)

Lachesis X Beowulf (Would've preferred Fin, but I don't think I can justify that just because of Prayer, and them being a canon couple)

Edited by FionordeQuester
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Hmm...thanks Toothache! Not sure I'll be using that since I'm not familiar with hex editing (I only know how to look up and alter emulator addresses), but it's good to have!

Also, going through Chapter 2, I realize that I made other mistakes besides what I already did. It seems giving Cuan 15,500G in villages was a waste, as he didn't end up needing it at all, even when I DIDN'T have him get the Elite Ring kill! Secondly, I also made a mistake in giving Noish a village last chapter, as I end up simply giving him the Bargain Ring anyways (this way he and Dew can pass the Pursuit Ring back and forth and clear out the Arena more reliably). And finally, if I'm going to be pairing Midir with Aideen (I'm assuming the thread readers would want the optimal pairings rather than the ones I personally like for story reasons), then Aideen really doesn't need that extra money. As long as she clears the Arena in Chapter 2, we're all good.

The good news however is that, since Midir and Aideen can spend around 40 turns with each other with my Chapter 1 strats, they're only like, 40 points away from becoming bound to each other, so even with how expensive the Killer Bow is, Midir's all set in terms of his financial situation!

So, here's the money situation for everyone as follows (after using cheat codes to adjust everyone's Gold to where it should be)...

Sigurd (Level 18): 14365G

Noish (Level 13): 21720G

Alec (Level 14): ~41000G (don't know what the exact amount would've been)

Ardan (Level 6): 21640G

Azel (Level 5): 15240G

Lex (Level 16): 20212G

Cuan (Level 15): 23715G

Fin (Level 4): 23210G

Ethlin (Level 9): 8000G

Midir (Level 13): 17610G

Aideen: (Level 20): 30145G (after clearing out Arena, including Holyn, although, it'd be more like 17500G if you didn't clear out the previous Arena with her)

Dew: (Level 11): 42260G

Aira: (Level 6): 21700G

Jamka: (Level 8): 28160G

Dierdre: (Level 7): 21750G (Got up to Stage 3 in the Arena)

Holyn: (Level 12): 10000G

Edited by FionordeQuester
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I think Holyn x Briggid could be a good pairing. It gives Patty B-rank in swords so she can use the Hero Sword to level up easier.

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all units that pass down holy blood to kids that can equip said weapon unpromoted increase the weapon rank by one. If Azel fathers Arthur, he starts with B Fire.

i guess not everyone knows the holy bloods off the top of their head, but that's definately onsite somewhere.

Edited by General Horace
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http://serenesforest.net/fe4/holyblood.htm

Aha found it. Not exactly the most intuitive place, and to be fair, you shouldn't be expected to have it rote memorised, I'm not as familiar with FE4 as I am with the GBA or Tellius games for example, and I forget things there all the time and have to double check them. While the info pages are great, they aren't always laid out the best when it comes to presenting that info in a straightforward and intuitive manner, but I guess that is down to how the game was made.

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Alright guys, Chapter 2 has been done n' dusted! So here it is!

Chapter 2: 40 Turns

Ah, Chapter 2. I always found AAAA ranked runs interesting, because it seems like whatever goes on in Chapters 1 and 2 can really make or break the run. You do a good job in these two chapters, and the rest of the game falls into your lap. Do a bad job, and you'll be extremely hard pressed to recover from that. And this is especially true with Chapter 2, where there is just SO, MUCH, STUFF, HAPPENING! You got the Elite Ring to get, a character to recruit, staff bots to level up, Lachesis and her three guards to rescue (and only just barely at that), a veritable GAUNTLET of tough, durable generals, tons and tons of villages to rescue....the list just goes on!!!

So, I'm going to split this write up into sections...

Heirhein

To begin with, I had Aideen, Holyn, and then Aira clear out the Arena. After that, I had Sigurd only cleared out the first three rounds of the Arena, that way, whenever he conquered a new castle, I could instantly heal him up by having him win a Match. After that, I made sure he had the 50 Crit Slim Sword, and also had Ethlin recieve the Light Sword, and then sell it. I didn't send anyone but Fin, Cuan, Midir, Lex, and of course, Sigurd, to conquer the first two kingdoms. Alec and Noish had broken weapons, and even if they didn't, I've always been a firm believer in not having too many things to micro-manage, so there's that. Anyways, Fin is usually helpful for his ability to Prayer tank from 2 Axe Knight hits, so I primarily focused on killing all of the Lance Knights while recruiting Lachesis and buying the Light Sword as soon as I could. This way, once Sigurd charged Mackily and Augusty, he would be able to get around 30 kills on it while fighting weakling mooks.

Obviously, there were a few resets, though thankfully none of them were due to character deaths. But eventually, I had Cuan finish off Elliot, Sigurd kill off Philip (recieving his Return Ring in the process), and had the rest follow Sigurd while killing as many mooks as they could along the way. I prioritized my kills so that Cuan would receive the most experience while doing this, though obviously Midir had some priority as well...

Oh yeah, and Lachesis also tagged along, so that she could start building up her relationship with Beowulf. Looking back on it though, that was a mistake, because Lachesis doesn't really need the Elite Ring to level up effectively, and Beowulf doesn't need her help to afford the Elite Ring. So all I did was add another thing to micro-manage, sandbag Beowulf by not having him use his full movement every turn, AND made it that much harder for Lachesis to clear out the Arena by the time the chapter ended.

After that, Sigurd killed Boldo, got his Barrier Ring, and of course, conquered Heirhein.

Anphony

I didn't rig things so that Levin would ORKO every bandit, because I didn't think that was justified in terms of real time. And even though Cuan had an opportunity to engage that Paladin and his/her two flunkies on the Enemy Phase immediately after capturing Heirhein, I chose to not do that, instead opting to engage them on the next Player Phase. The reason I did this is because because that seemed to be the trigger to Voltz deciding to charge your group, so if you have him charge at the wrong time, then the whole thing turns into even more of a hell storm than it already is.

That said, obviously I warped Ardan to Heirhein so that he could get his Pursuit Ring. Though not as obviously, I didn't have Sylvia get the Bargain Ring, instead opting to give her four undamaged villages (including the Iron Cutter village), giving the Bargain Ring to Noish (that way, he can use the Pursuit Ring as well as the Elite Ring in Chapter 3), and giving the rest to Beowulf.

Speaking of Beowulf, recruiting him and having Cuan kill Voltz on the same turn was definitely a rush. In fact, I think I may have even had Sigurd kill Macbeth on that same turn! But anyways, even with Midir chipping in, you kind of need to have Cuan activate Continue if Midir doesn't critical, so to do that, I saved on that turn, and had the party attack before having Lex attack Voltz to see if Voltz activates Continue. If, say, Midir attacks once (1 RN), and then Lex attacks (1 RN), only for Voltz to counter him once (1 RN), and then activate Continue for a second attack, that means that you need to burn 3 RN's in order for Cuan to activate Continue. Therefore, you have Midir attack Voltz once (1 RN), have Lex use a Hand Axe on a random mook (1 RN), and then Cuan attacks (1 RN), which will therefore activate Continue...

At least, I think it works along those lines. I mean, something weird seems to happen in regards to Hero Weapons (you'd think that the first two attacks would burn 2 RN's, but that didn't seem to be the case, unless I miscounted), but other than that, it seems pretty consistent...

Of course, I might have avoided having to do that at all if I hadn't made the mistake of warping Ardan to Heirhein before warping Ethlin, which turned out to be unnecessary. But anyways, I got that done, and Sigurd ORKOed Macbeth with his Slim Sword, thereby winning the Shield Ring!

Mackily

First of all, I had Sigurd sell the Slim Sword, and also had Ardan sell his Pursuit Ring (it's really only helpful against Heltzog anyways). Now, this is where things get REALLY complicated and tedious, because now you have to have Ethlin buy the Elite Ring and staff spam some levels. Now, GETTING her enough money is as simple as can be. Cuan is already leveled up a lot by both the grinding in Chapter 1 and the mooks he killed up to this point, so once you factor in the Hero Lance, he has NO trouble whatsoever with the Arena...

But then you run into the issue of deciding just how long Ethlin should spend staff spamming before returning the Elite Ring to the people who need it. And for my part, I ended up returning it at Level 25, around when Sigurd got put to sleep by Clement...

...because yeah, that happened. See, with the Defense Ring, Sigurd's stats actually became SO HIGH, that it required him getting put to sleep by Clement just to get to him in a timely manner. Because everyone else, unable to damage him, would've just surrounded him otherwise. So that's one idiotic blunder I could've avoided by putting the Defense Ring in storage. Fortunately, that ended up working out for the better seeing as how I was dumb enough to sandbag Beowulf by sticking Lachesis next to him all the time, so that gave me the time I needed, but still...

Augusty

And then, for the glorious finale, Sigurd sold the Slim Sword soloed almost every enemy in a path of destruction that would rival even Sherman's March! In fact, he even ended up getting 33 kills on the Light Sword by the time that was over!

And speaking of glory, the Arena went better than I ever could have hoped for. Dew, with his Pursuit Ring + Slim Sword + Elite Ring + Rigged Str Procs in Chapter 1, ended up clearing out the entire Arena with little to no difficulty, leaving him able to give Sylvia the money she needed to ALSO buy the Elite Ring, and ALSO clear the Arena with both Prayer and Slim Sword Hax. That Slim Sword Hax, btw, is especially noteworthy, because instead of standing there for like 5-7 minutes as Sylvia slowly chips away at enemies, she actually ended up killing them in a reasonable amount of time! To the point where she never even needed to repair the Slim Sword!

And then of course, literally every single person but Lex, Ardan, and Azel ended up clearing the Arena. And even those three ended up making all the way to Stage 6! Lex, through his overall high stats somewhat making up for his horrible weapon type and lack of Pursuit or Hero Axe, Ardan through the Slim Sword and his high Str and Defense stats, and Azel getting an OBSCENELY lucky string of RN's while I was burning them (while I said I would avoid excessive RNG manipulation, I'm not opposed to doing simple things like getting a single Spd proc so that Marlyn doesn't double him)...

And of course, went down like a ton of bricks, completely unable to deal with Sigurd. I mean, Sigurd was dinged up enough by that point that Shagaal could have killed him with one attack, but that doesn't really mean much when Sigurd's got 2-Range, and Shagaal doesn't, so that went as smoothly as could be.

In fact, I was on SUCH a rush from all the Arena ownage that I ended up clearing out Chapter 3's Arena with Noish, Alec, Midir, Jamka, Dew, Cuan, Beowulf, and Aira as well (all of whom were able to afford the Elite Ring). And now, here are the stats, after that magnificent rush...

Sigurd: Level 25 (5)

Noish: Level 21 (*)

Alec: Level 21 (*)

Ardan: Level 11 (1)

Azel: Level 10 (5)

Lex: Level 21 (5)

Cuan: Level 23 (*)

Fin: Level 8 (1)

Ethlin: Level 26 (1)

Midir: Level 22 (*)

Aideen: Level 26 (5)

Dew: Level 20 (*)

Aira: Level 15 (*)

Jamka: Level 17 (*)

Dierdre: Level 30 (4)

Holyn: Level 14 (1)

Lachesis: Level 7 (1)

Levin: Level 9 (1)

Sylvia: Level 10 (1)

Beowulf: Level 19 (*)

Fury: Level 9 (1)

Edited by FionordeQuester
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Hmph, really missing that Hero Axe...so now I'm wondering, why is it that it always disappeared in Gen 2 for me? Is it because I never sold it to the Pawn Shop before Lex and his lover got murdered by Alvis?

EDIT: Ah, seems that's the case. Well, now I know :(...

Edited by FionordeQuester
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If an item isn't inherited, then it either shows up in the Shop in Gen 2 or is dropped by an enemy.

Some things like the Pursuit Ring and Earth Sword are lost forever, but the Hero Axe is not one of them.

Edited by Psych
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