Carreau Diamond

It's time for an Ashera prayer circle, everyone. We believe in you, Dunal! We hope you would like to keep working on this. And if not, maybe someone else may. And we still have at least have the current patch for Part 1 as a sort of, mini-Path of Radiance just for Micaiah's story. It's an amazing project. Thank you for it.

You're right, big noob mistake on my part. I had misread the Serenes Forest info on linked attacks. So, Dorothea's linked attack only gives MT to Manuela and for some reason Hilda. But yeah, definitely still worth considering the Meteor/Thoron strat. The free gambit boosts are amazing too.

So, I'm gonna encourage you to double down on your decision in making Dorothea as a dancer, because I was just told about a weird but very good niche for her compared to anyone else, whether she's a dancer or not. Train Dorothea in reason even though you don't plan on using her combat much. At least do it in tutoring, goals, maybe seminars if you're into those. When she gets Meteor at rank A, equip the tome but do NOT use it ever unless you feel you really need to, or if a dangerous enemy is in range since it weighs her down a ton. Now, Dorothea will offer a linked attack bonus to EVERYBODY fighting an enemy within her 10 range. That's +3 hit and avoid to characters with no support with her, and up to +3 MT and +10 Hit and Avoid for characters she has an A-support with. Characters that double will effectively gain 6 dmg per fight, or 12 if they quad. You'll also offer easy gambit boosts with up to +4 Mt and +20 Hit for A-supported characters. The same can be done with Thoron in the meantime since she learns it a lot sooner (rank C), and it's 3 range which still gives a lot of flexibility in where you put her. Meteor or Thoron, this way she passively gives a lot of your team some good offense without ever having to get in a fight herself. Since you're going Blue Lions she unfortunately offers this bonus only to Byleth, Ingrid, Sylvain, Felix, and Manuela and Hanneman if you want to use them. As opposed to ALL of the other Black Eagles and the 3 professors. But it's still worth doing this; it's a LOT of potential damage and dodging given to you.

May I ask what Stefan will be like, if anything's decided? With him joining so late and being one of the most common classes in the game it's hard to imagine a niche for him other than being a backup Trueblade, but I've been surprised by this hack's creativity before. Very curious. Also IIRC, Lucia is meant to be a "defensive" type of swordmaster, with a compelling compensation of Slayer for using a unit with low availability, right?

IIRC Calill is EXTREMELY squishy all around including in resistance, but has pretty good magic and is one of the fastest units in the game. I think Top 5, maybe Top 3..? Which is pretty valuable considering how diverse the cast is now. So she's a massive glass cannon and has access to Light magic now in addition to the rest of Anima. Also, you're right. 2-E has always been super epic and dare I say one of the best maps of FE history.

Hey Dunal, I'm just curious. Also, what's Stefan going to look like? I'm guessing that since the Vague Katti's presence revolves around him so much, he's going to have some kind of unique aspect that makes him particularly strong at wielding it? With him coming so extremely late and with such a common class, it's hard to imagine him being able to be helped out that much. Leonardo and the diversifying of unit niches has been really fun to observe for me. Fiona doubling down on that weird affinity for magic she had, Heather's Gambit-style hybrid damage, Meg's insanity, and Mia and Danved's huge glass-cannon roles are things I wouldn't have ever thought of. They're super fun to look at. Also, who's been your favorite unit to work on with this project? Plus, what's been your favorite aspect of this project and the game to work on?

I would as well, very gladly. I don't have much but I'd be happy to donate just for all the effort that Dunal puts into this project.

Micaiah and Sothe’s relationship throughout the game is told to be a very strong, protective, and close one, though it’s never actually seemed very romantic to me. Not at all flirty or conventionally intimate by romantic standards. Until Micaiah and Sothe end up married in the A support ending, I never really felt THAT sort of connection from them and even then it seemed to come along so suddenly. Also: Micaiah is stated to become Queen in the ending, though Sothe is only ever mentioned as her “husband” and “pillar of strength”, and never really King of Daein even with being married to her. Might it be fair to guess that maybe Sothe is NOT king and perhaps only Prince, leaving Miccy with all the concrete power? Might it be possible that they are only married for political reasons?

I'm glad you enjoyed 1-E. It was definitely a huge challenge, and Dunal making it even more of an uphill battle by adding so many enemies that charge you makes it crazy. Plus the reinforcements are great. Until Jarod was by himself, never at any point did I feel like I was moving forward of my own accord. The 2 thieves, as well as the continuously charging enemies constantly forced me to move all my units forward purely out of self-defense. I always had to kill them before they killed me, and be absolutely ready for enemy phase. It was one of those maps that gives a big adrenaline rush, despite FE being turn-by-turn and at your own pace. Now that Nailah is out of the picture though, I'm having a hard time imagining how to get both of the thieves on this map. One of them goes down a ledge to get the bottommost chest so Sothe and Eddie can dispose of him quickly, but I have to resort to spamming a very low chance Bolting to get the other one. While that's an option, I feel like I'm missing something? Maybe I just turtle too much?

I do want to vouch for Nolan, kind of. Since I love him as a unit so much. If he needs any buffing at all, I'd say 1 more point of Spd and Skill, especially speed so he can more realistically reach a couple of decent caps around lv 15. I believe his base level is being lowered from 7 to 6, judging from one of the recent streams? Even with that, I will say his bases seem unremarkable and boring. Not that he really needs huge work, just a couple of more points in his favorite stats I think. I do greatly appreciate him being incredibly reliable. I always have. But at the same time, maybe it is worth considering that being reliable doesn't necessarily mean fun and satisfying to use. So in that way, perception alone can have a huge effect on how people will use a unit. Perception, varying experiences, and different playstyles (mine being very defensive) can mean a lot for the feedback in this topic. He's totally tons of fun for me! Although maybe I'm biased because he's always been my favorite unit in vanilla, even if he was outclassed by other axe users at the time. I'm sure what seems to be the popular opinion of him will change though, when his stats grow higher and we can finally use Tarvos with him. If it turns out to still have 20 MT like the weapons info says on page 1, that means it only loses out on 2 MT compared to Urvan in addition to boosting defense. Absolutely godlike. An item that begs to be blessed by Yune. I don't see him being out of the question for Part 3/4 and endgame at all. I do also think it's worth pointing out that Jill is affected by biorhythm much more harshly than Nolan is. If she can hit twice? Great! But Worst, Bad, or even Normal biorhythm make her hit rate kinda shaky. Plus with her not being anywhere near as durable as Nolan as well as not having as much Skill or Lck even with stat boosters, her usefulness varies in a single chapter so much more than Nolan's. Beyond one-rounding sometimes and doing a lot of damage, her weaknesses mean that she can never commit to a fight at all. So while she is a fantastic unit, I do think she's a bit overrated. Her usefulness and comes and goes very in large swings, while Nolan's is very constant. That's my perception at least. PS: I think Leonardo could use a little help. Besides the Heavy Longbow in the endgame shop, unless I missed something I believe you only ever get access to one Longbow that an enemy drops in 1-3. That's only 20 very precious uses, but with his niche for being the Longbowman I feel he should get one more before endgame. Did I miss one in a shop somewhere? If I'm right and that really is the only Longbow he gets until endgame, I feel disappointed. I do feel like him being super (physically) squishy and pretty slow is perfectly justifiable by having very long range. However if I can only take advantage of range like that 20 times before endgame, then I feel like I just have an average archer who happened to get speed-screwed and isn't even allowed to take advantage of the unique niche he was designed around in the first place. Having either another Longbow at some point, or having his base speed increased a bit would be nice. Both wouldn't be necessary. Also, I hope you're doing well and this project isn't too taxing for you. It might be a lot to take on and listen to all this feedback, so I'm thankful for you doing all this.

Cancel has Speed% chance of activating, so Edward or maybe Nolan would be better with it. Maybe you knew that already. However, Pavise with its Skill% chance would be better for Aran to do roughly the same thing. On Disarm, it has a Skill/2% chance to proc. For me it activated maybe only two or three times across all of part 1 and was only somewhat useful once (the others were killing blows IIRC). Which yeah, is kinda unfortunate. Leonardo should have an easier time activating it as the game goes along, but with all the Laguz he's gotta deal with in Part 3 he just isn't gonna make much use of it at all until Part 4. We could request making Disarm's activation rate full Skill%, but with his Skill cap and growth being so godly and him easily reaching 50 skill, I'd be afraid of him being way too OP with Disarm alone. So I don't feel like there's much that can be done unfortunately. At least it makes much more gameplay and thematic sense than Cancel. So, Disarm should be thought of more as a bonus to Leonardo's chipping and wearing at enemies, rather than something to rely on. At least in earlygame.

Celerity on Laura is kind of amazing. I've found a ton of success with splitting my army into 2 teams in just about every map from Chapter 4 onwards, and her having movement helps with that a lot. She can't really use any other skills besides Shade or Stillness but those skills are better used on characters who are really good at going deep and assassinating people. Speaking of, Shade or Stillness are great on people who can ORKO. I find Jill AMAZING at killing squishy and far away archers and mages. Especially longbowmen and wind mages. Zihark is fun with these too. He's also a good contestant for the Wo Dao and Killing Edge, and using him to easily ORKO mages and other squishies is great when these skills will let him get away with it. I think of them as my assassins, with other units like Nolan and Edward to be the tanky frontliners and duelists. I'd recommend Blossom on Micaiah. I find it a viable strategy to hold off on killing with Micaiah in the middle chapters, mainly using her for Sacrifice and Resire as a makeshift healer as well as Thani and other magic nukes to almost kill. The enemies in Chapter 1-9 (with the BK) will give much, MUCH more experience now and she should easily be able to get to LV 20 from many, MANY levels down with or without Blossom. Even if she fails to get to 20 somehow, bonus exp should fill out any stats she's lacking in. I use this strategy mainly to last-hit with other units to give them all more experience, as well as to help Miccy's defensive stats and Speed. Since she'll be able to use all Anima magic after promoting when this project is more developed, using Discipline while she still only has Light and Dark to work with is good too. I also like the idea of Blossom on Sothe, (though it would probably be a lot better for him when this project is more developed and Parts 3 and 4 are available). He has great growths all around; it's very easy with him especially to get near perfect, if not perfect levels ups. You don't even have to give him kills; just use him as you would normally to steal items and wear down enemies and especially fight bosses. He should earn experience slowly anyways.

Speaking even more about staves; I've gone back a bit in this topic a bit and read that the Seraph Knights will have access to staves, especially Sigrun. Do they have the same issue with staff animations as Fiona and Astrid used to, where the game would either crash or display weird poses for them? Or by chance do they share some things in common in the game's code with Elincia that allows them to safely use staves with animations turned on? EDIT: Also, Is Bastian still going to be primarily a Wind user, and therefore a Strategist? Or is he going to be Ilyana's class now and therefore a Thunder user primarily? Also, is Pelleas going to be a unique kind of Strategist with fire instead of wind, but still favoring dark?

I appreciate the priests having only 2-3 very high stats that make them each unique while being very low in all other regards (Laura in Skill+Spd and Rhys in Mag+Lck+Res). I like them as backup combat units, to mainly give other units last-hit experience or snipe other mages or Laguz. However we know that priests are meant to ultimately be subpar in combat compared to others, and I do feel Laura is at least a bit abuseable in that regard. She's not nearly as unreliable or shaky to use in combat as Rhys might be, for starters. Even if the game's difficulty catches up with her, she can shine so much in combat while she can without much effort (as a Priest no less!). Difficulty alone shouldn't decide how good she is in a fight; her class and her ability to heal should. With that being said: whether Laura's combat ends up being nerfed or not, I also fear for her staff utility being outclassed by that of Rhys in Part 4. His crazy Magic alone makes his healing the best. Period. I feel Laura as a Priest should compensate with something other than combat. So... get this... what if the range of ranged staves scaled with Skill instead of Magic? That would give her healing a unique strength over that of Rhys and tier 3 Micaiah; somewhat larger map presence at the cost of not being able to top-off heal significant injuries at all. It would also play into a new, minor theme of Laura having good range when combined with the Wind magic she gets at tier 3, with Rhys being mid-range but having great might, and Oliver having short range and... whatever Oliver does. Chapter 3-12 & 3-13 would be a bit more manageable. Maybe even the Thief staff could have a new range beyond 1 (a bit like Tina from Thracia 776), but without a large enough scaling to make Sothe's chest-opening redundant. Lastly, while Skill is an important stat in the long-run, FE's mechanics have never allowed it to feel very satisfying to get within a single level-up in the same way that Strength or Speed do. Skill has never given units big, satisfying power spikes. This would mend that a bit, in a unique way.

Hello! Just got done with the stream from earlier. Everything looks pretty good, the Greil Mercenaries are awesome. Just a little feedback: The Greil Mercenaries have VERY apparent strengths and weaknesses. They fit together and against enemies in particular ways, like very big puzzle pieces. It's very fun and I like it lots. But I still feel that Gatrie is kinda lacking both compared to the other mercenaries, and especially as well as the other playable armors. Him simply being there kinda drags down the other units especially in the timed rout map that 3-1 is, and I still think he doesn't have much of anything to make him very comparable to Meg or Brom. That stats he does have in comparison to them don't seem to justify his use. The way I see it, he's also still very generic and boring, and his stats a bit low. He even got doubled by another general at the very get go. Sure he was wielding a Greatlance which weighed him down by 4 and brought him to 9 AS, but I don't think an armor knight like Gatrie should so extremely poor with wielding a weapon that he starts out with. He also has to worry about a warrior who can double him with a hammer in the same chapter. Ouch. Since you like the idea of units retaining much of their original identity but better, one idea would maybe be revisiting his old stats? You briefly mentioned him having mediocre Luck and considering his luck with women that'd be great to keep. He doesn't have much need for that stat. Gatrie in vanilla RD had fairly typical armor stats all around as well as a 60% speed growth and decent Spd base for an armor. In PoR, he was also very generic as an armor but could still do that job extremely well. I also remember you saying that he does have more skill than Meg or Brom. I do like the idea of him being much more reliable in hitting as well as proccing combat skills, especially Luna later on. With the 65% skill growth he has or more he's great in that sense. Maybe he could have very good Skill and/or Speed, and have the rest of his stats be balanced accordingly? With very high Skill he'd be very good to use Counter and Pavise, and maybe the 50%-skill% chance of Disarm and Corrode. With high Speed he'd be great for Cancel, Adept, and Vantage. Maybe not both stats. Of course I'm especially nervous about an armor knight who will be expected to tank having high avoid as well but mediocre/low Luck could fix that. The right stat-spread could definitely make this work if you would try it, I think. If he just has very high Skill I can see his other stats being about the same. If he has good Spd I envision, just a wacky thought: HP: Good (Not as good as Meg/Brom) Str: Mediocre, give or take Mag: Non-existent Skill : Very good Spd: Very good, can double decent # of enemies like warriors with some levels. More about procs than dmg Lck: VERY low, less about dodging as a unit Def: Above average (Not as good as Meg/Brom/Tauroneo) Res: Mediocre Just, anything to make him more fun and satisfying to use. Even with a couple smaller buffs I don't see myself viably taking him in endgame compared to other units at all right now. Plus, back to the Dawn Brigade, I think Nolan could use 1-2 more points of base Speed. Probably just 1 is fine. Sure his job is more about not getting doubled more than it is about doubling enemies and doing damage, but still. His Spd growth isn't bad, but with only 8 base it's very easy for him to get screwed there. His cap will keep his offense in check just fine and BExp will be slightly better for him. Otherwise I totally think Nolan is just about perfect for what he's INTENDED to do. Something I've always loved about Nolan as my absolute favorite unit in RD was how much he subverted the typical Warrior. His personality was a more calm and laidback one (from what little we see), he definitely looks more chill, and his stat spread was always about being much more reliable, especially in hitting and winning a defensive trade with enemies. Just, slightly more base speed please.

Also, I was a bit opposed to it at first but now I like the idea of giving Micaiah access to Anima magic at tier 2. That way I see it, it's to make her first promotion more satisfying (as it should be), and especially to fill the empty void that staff access left behind with its removal from her. And to make her fare better against cats and tigers with fire since nuking Tigers with such huge HP pools would be difficult even for her later on. I also really like the idea of Micaiah/Yune having access to all magic types just like Ashera did in vanilla RD, plus staves to contrast to Ashera's weird magic Strike weapons. Definitely keep Ashera without a staff rank; staves are man-made tools and I like the aforementioned contrast, though I'm sure you were going to leave this as-is anyway. Without the reliable healing though, I also hope that yellow Bishops in part 3 have more Physic staves at least in 3-13 especially. For the sake of challenge I can see them being without Physics in Chapter 3-6 and maaaaybe 3-12 if you're still going to have those maps be very cramped. It would also give more legitimate incentive for you to keep them safe, and maybe encourage them to actually roam slightly to make sure their range can reach your blue units. Do you get bonus EXP for protecting them? That should be a thing if it isn't already. Also now that Ashera is on my mind... and this is a very subjective thing I'm thinking of for whether you do choose to go through with more dialogue in the game. Yune herself and maybe others in the Tellius games I don't remember say that Mist has the "spirit of order", which is what allows her to hold Lehran's Medallion. However this has always been a bit vague, I feel. I've always kinda had this headcanon that just before the Ashera fight, one the first things she says or does is taking a look at Mist and becoming slightly fascinated by her (or whatever the unemotional equivalent of fascination is). Here, I'd LOVE for Ashera at the very end and/or Yune in the beginning of Part 4 to have a little dialogue about Mist, about how under different circumstances she'd be a "fine vessel" for Ashera. Just like Micaiah is for Yune. It would've been very useful for Ashera during the great flood. Narratively I think it'd be great to help build up Ashera's threat and creepiness factor and highlight Yune as a chaotic figure who has made a horrible mistake. No wonder Ashera doesn't trust Yune's judgement. Whatever you think of the story, you've gotta admit that the atmosphere and tension around the medallion all throughout the end of Part 3 and beginning of Part 4 is FANTASTIC. One of the best-written things about this game. This would help even more. It could also be explained by Mist's personality as well as her relation to Greil as one of the best fighters who ever lived, and that with time Mist could grow to be a powerful swordswoman like her brother and father and therefore physically become a strong vessel for Ashera herself. More hype for Greil, and for Mist since she's meant to be pretty legit in combat now with this patch. What do you guys think?

I feel this incarnation of Micaiah is better. It feels more true to her. I appreciated Spd on her before, but at the same time it just felt a bit wrong and shallow in pandering to everyone’s (admittedly deserved) complaints of her being so slow before without considering the legitimate strengths she already did have. Her nuking in vanilla RD always felt good, but the problem was just the diffficulty in doing that safely and often enough to be useful. That problem is gone now and I’m glad for it. Plus, using light magic in patches before this one felt a bit weak to me. Especially whenever she couldn't double. The tradeoff of might for more range didn’t feel completely worth it or even justified balance-wise. It felt like having Ike use the weakest wind sword constantly over a forged Silver Axe. Nice that range is an option, but hardly compared to the alternative. Now light definitely feels more impactful and justified for its range with Magic level ups being so consistent.

I do appreciate magic losing its new effectiveness over physical weapons. It wasn’t intuitive, and it made mages way too dominant. In particular anima mages. Take for instance a Seer equipped with fire magic. Seers and their promotions are meant to be flexible with their options sure, but simply by having an Elfire tome equipped one could have WTA against light magic, wind magic, wind swords, AND physical swords. I didn’t see much of any good for it. Magic users would have been too good at many things in combat; generalists outperforming even niche specialist units at their jobs. So I appreciate that nerf. Also, I’ve noticed that promoted Strategists don’t have any mention of dark magic in their class info (Y button help). The description points out that they attack with long-range wind magic, but I do think that a second weapon type that is very opposite to wind deserves description. Even if only for the sake of my OCD.

Okay. With huge skill capacity, that craaaaaazy Cymbeline and it's effect, and her huge flexibility, I really like Sanaki. That Str/Skill boost to allies also makes her great with other people who wanna bodyguard her too. I was having a hard time seeing her damage justify her presence in combat, but just wow. I love that! One thing I've always been a bit disappointed with about Fire Emblem is how hard it can be to kill the forced Lord-type units sometimes. Even when that particular strength isn't always earned. It makes the mechanic of an instant Game Over being tied to a lord's death, just redundant. I'm looking at you PoR Ike, Ephraim, Lucina, etc. With Sanaki's stats being as they are, I feel like I'm really going to have to keep her safe with some legitimate bodyguards, like a Queen in a tense game of chess. Makes me really wanna think ahead to Part 4 and consider what kind of units I wanna get on a team revolving around her. Probably some decently burly physical frontliners and speed-demons. I'm really looking forward to building a new holy guard just for her. Also can't wait to see how good Tanith and Sigrun might be at keeping her safe as well.

I've finally got the patch working you guys, thanks so much! The problem mostly seemed to be somehow illegitimate or damaged copies of the game I had, possibly. Maybe. I don't know. But it works now.

Hey guys, thanks for trying to help me before. Been away from my laptop for some time but I'm back and if anyone has time I'd still like some help through PMs with making the patch work. My messages should be enabled now. It'd be much appreciated. Again, no matter what I do it seems like the patch itself doesn't work at all. All attempts just lead to the vanilla game loading. "Normal" difficulty and same stats, enemies, and classes in the prologue. Also, Dunal, I'm very curious about Sanaki's bases and growths. From what I've read, she seems like she'll fulfill about the same role as Micaiah and Sanaki in the vanilla game; delivering single, immense blasts of magic in combat. Pretty much the strongest instances of damage besides maybe her sister. Will her other stats be about the same as well (as in, slow, frail, Res+Lck heavy)? I love the idea of Sanaki being able to SS all kinds of offensive magic but assuming her stats will make her fulfill the same role as old Sanaki, I do get concerned about her actually having any kind of particular synergies with the new Thunder and Dark tomes. If she is still physically frail, she would objectively still be sub-optimal as a Thunder or Dark user and therefore her unique niche of access to all those magic types would be kind of redundant. If someone wanted to use either of those magic types with her and turn her into a frontliner, I don't see her damage alone justifying a decision like that. Even with a higher HP value.

Tried a few things, including creating different folders labeled "A" & "B", downloading fresh ISOs, downloading the newest patch again. Nothing seems to work for me. I'm not even getting any error messages when patching, PFFomatic says both patches have worked fine, but the game proceeds as it normally does as a vanilla iso.

I know that DLuna asks throughout this topic for PMessages to issues with patching but now I see some others are having trouble I figured I might as well mention my own issue. I've been using a couple of different fresh US roms, as well as both versions of the newest patch, and PFF-omatic as recommended, but nothing seems to have changed. Base stats, classes, weapon types, and enemies in prologue are still the same. Same as flare9's issue now I believe. Very excited for this project though!

Greetings! I'm an extremely irregular user of this board and even this site, and I'm logging on just to tell you I'm so excited for every single thing this project entails. Even the small updates, whether through patches or bits of info. One of my favorite things about this project is how different units of even the same class vary so widely now. For example, I love how Leonardo's original identity of "whatever" Strength, but very good Skill and Luck are being compounded on to turn him into a very accurate longbowman and utility unit. Meanwhile, Shinon is lacking in Str, but his passable HP and decent Def make him a very good candidate for crossbows, enough even to fight units in melee range like a makeshift swordmaster. His Str won't even matter then and he's totally the king of crits too. Rolf's high Str makes him look like the best traditional archer. My only concern is the armor knights. The way I see it, Meg is the game's most purely defensive tank who likes to dive deep and distract enemies. Tauroneo is balanced around Resolve, liking to dive equally as deep into enemy lines and leave a huge dent in enemies. That's really cool. But I don't see why one should consider Brom or Gatrie over them. Especially Gatrie. Meg's defense and Tauroneo's offense seem to make them statistically redundant. Their hit rates are more reliable than Meg's, but besides that I just see them as middle of the road, generic armors. I see that you're trying to avoid that middle-of-the-road approach with Danved between Neph and Aran. Am I missing something or is there more to come?

Resolve, Miracle. Situational, life-saving steroids just seem like my kinda thing.