So I just finished Ch11 Lunatic, and... wow. That was without a doubt the most intense chapter I've played in an FE game.
It starts out surprisingly tame. For the first time in Lunatic, most enemies are willing to be baited on their own instead of charging in packs. This peace lasts for a few turns. Then the reinforcements start showing up and charging, bringing other enemies with them. And then they just keep coming. I blocked off the three forts in the upper left and was able to keep any enemies from getting up there, but I couldn't hold the other forts, and kept having to back off while killing enough of them that I could push back before running out of room to run. See, the middle fort, near a couple of others, is just at the edge of Gangrel's range, along with a couple of his Mages.
And Lunatic Gangrel is terrifying.
32 Mt with his forged Thunder Sword and 29 Spd. For a Ch11 boss. Without bonuses, he had the speed to double my entire team, with the exception of my +Spd MU, and the power to 2HKO everyone except Libera. Both were regardless two-rounded and didn't have the power to hurt Gangrel much at range, where he could attack.
Fortunately, I didn't have to worry about holding that fort, because the last group of reinforcements appeared around Turn 8. Unfortunately, that's when Gangrel started moving with the rest of his team. More fortunately, I remembered at this point about my Barrier staff and how it now works at a distance. I used MU to distract Gangrel while carefully dealing with the other enemies; with the boost from Barrier he could survive two hits, although he needed to use Concoctions pretty much continuously to survive. And being isolated, he didn't have an easy to get more once his ran out.
So this continues for a couple of turns with MU countering Gangrel for tiny damage: Thunder did 8 damage to his 49 HP, and accuracy was less than I would've liked. Meanwhile, I move Krom into position. Krom with MU in Double was able to get just enough Spd to avoid being doubled; any other character wouldn't give the +6 Spd necessary. With a Barrier use, Krom was able to avoid the 2HKO and therefore could have survived the enemy phase if necessary. Didn't come to that, though; Krom cut through most of Gangrel's remaining HP with a single hit and MU finished him off with a Dual Attack. This was fortunate, since Ronku had been in Double with MU, and getting MU to jump on Krom meant leaving Ronku in Gangrel's range. I would've had to use Rescue on him, which I didn't want because I had already used it twice while falling back earlier in the map and only had two uses left.
So now I go on to Ch12. I was not surprised to see the increasing number of promoted enemies, since they were there on my two previous playthroughs as well. I was more surprised to see that most of them were using forged Silver weapons and have over 20 Spd. Also, there are about six enemies with forged Beast Killers. That's 39 Mt against horses and other stuff, before applying Str. Good from a balance perspective, since I had worried that there didn't seem to be enough of them to balance out horses. I was going to say it's good for me, too, since ever since making Frederick a Dragonmaster, I haven't had any horse-mounted characters on the front lines. But realizing that they have the same Mt and more Hit than an unforged Silver Lance, I don't think I have any advantage at all. This mode is really living up to its name.
To illustrate their power, the Paladins both double
and OHKO Velvet. Granted, while I've been using her since she joined, she's mainly been in Double and therefore hasn't gained many levels. But still.
Master Seals are in high demand. I've promoted Krom, MU, and Sariya, and promoting is especially important in this mode for staying ahead of the enemies, although Sariya is still having some issues. Liz and Mariabel are both LV10 and need them, and Serge will when she joins, as well. Good thing they become available in shops right after this map.
Edited by Othin, 11 June 2012 - 09:13 PM.
