[FE12 H3] The one where the free silvers get good

[Gradivus.]

Wanted to play FE12 again, so what would be better than a draft on our all favorite mode?

Anyway I'm not quite sure about the ruleset, but I think the one PKL used in an old draft isn't really optimal since MU dominates everything and I don't think Sirius needs to / should be free so I took a bunch of ideas from it and made adaptations to balance probably broken things out. It's up for discussion, though.

A file with the DLC unlocked: http://www.mediafire.com/?jd573iihvcczjhv

Drafting:
1. This draft is for 4 players.
2. Marth, MyUnit, Arran, Malicia, Palla, Feena and Xane are free for all. MyUnit may not start as a Cavalier or Knight.
3. The game will be played on Hard 3 / Lunatic.
4. Julian and Rickard are free if you're willing to gimp your turncount.

Rules:
1. Undrafted units may recruit characters, visit houses, trade, pick up hidden items, shop and use map saves.
2. Undrafted units may not do anything not listed above, including but not limited to meatshielding, opening chests/doors and activating supports.
3. All characters are free for Prologue chapters. Prologue chapters do not count towards your total turncount.
4. You are free to reclass undrafted units to whatever you want.
5. All sidequest chapters must be visited and count towards your total turncount.
6. The game must be played out to the True Ending.

Other:
1. Growth Drop, Bond Drop, Forging and Lunatic Statboosters are allowed with no restrictions. Rainbow Potion is banned.
2. Male Class Set Combination is allowed.
3. Use of the Drill Grounds is allowed.
4. How's Everyone is banned.
5. MyUnit may not receive Angelic Robes or Dracoshields from the base shop.

Penalties:
1. Undrafted units have a 2-turn penalty, per unit per chapter.

Exceptions:
1. Yubello, Yumina, Ogma and Sirius are free for Chapter 4.
2. Navarre is free for Chapter 7.
3. Merric is free for Chapter 10.
4. Midia is free to get attacked in Chapter 20.
5. Nyna, Maria, Lena and Elice are free for Endgame.

Teams:
Icemario: Catria, Caeda, Draug, Minerva, Merric, Roger, Leiden, Katarina, Jake, Maris, Dolph, Sheema, Samson, Midia, Roshea, Wolf
eclipse: Luke, Ogma, Linde, Wendell, Frey, Castor, Jeorge, Wrys, Tiki, Michalis, Athena, Yubello, Frost, Radd, Abel, Sedgar
Irysa: Cecille, Ryan, Etzel, Cain, Cord, Barst, Belf, Warren, Norne, Macellan, Astram, Beck, Matthis, Samto, Bantu, Tomas
Gradivus.: Sirius, Rody, Gordin, Navarre, Elrean, Yumina, Horace, Nagi, Darros, Dice, Est, Ymir, Robert, Caesar, Vyland, Bord

Units remaining:

Spoiler

 

Edited May 9, 2017 by Gradivus.

[Aircalipoor]

This reminds me of my "Royal Run" where I went through H3 with Marth, MU, Caeda, Yumina, Feena, Minerva, Merric and some scrubs. Don't ask about my turn count, though.

So finishing the prologue with a MU with 30 HP, 18 Str, 13 Spd and 20 Def is fair game? At least you can't make MU even better with the lunatic shop. This is a good nerf.

Malicia, Xane and Feena are free for al

How about making Malicia a draftable unit but allowing an undrafted Malicia to use the Hammerne staff? It is the only reason why she is crucial in a LTC.

I would like to participate in this draft, though I'm no pro at LTC. Then again, half of the game forces you to rush, because otherwise the reinforcements will kill you :o

[Irysa]

Ban the DLC, make Palla free and force MU to a preset starting build and class for Prologue (read, not Knight) and I might be interested. I think forcing a female MU at the least would help stop them being gamebreakers.

As for why Palla should be free, I honestly don't believe anyone else is worth a first pick. Since you can't use Lunatic Boosters on MU Palla will become the de-facto Robe/Draco dump character.

Edited November 22, 2015 by Irysa

[Gradivus.]

This reminds me of my "Royal Run" where I went through H3 with Marth, MU, Caeda, Yumina, Feena, Minerva, Merric and some scrubs. Don't ask about my turn count, though.

So finishing the prologue with a MU with 30 HP, 18 Str, 13 Spd and 20 Def is fair game? At least you can't make MU even better with the lunatic shop. This is a good nerf.

How about making Malicia a draftable unit but allowing an undrafted Malicia to use the Hammerne staff? It is the only reason why she is crucial in a LTC.

I would like to participate in this draft, though I'm no pro at LTC. Then again, half of the game forces you to rush, because otherwise the reinforcements will kill you :o

Healing in earlygame is very important and unless your team is big, you don't want to pass up on a combat unit to have a healer. She also has Fortify, which is important in mid and lategame and difficult to reach for almost all other units.

I'm pretty sure it's worth trying!

Ban the DLC, make Palla free and force MU to a preset build and class and I might be interested (read, not Knight).

I think the RP might be essential for making mediocre units viable, so I'm not really convinced that banning it fixes more than it breaks. Palla free sounds like a good idea, since she doesn't have OP durability before she gets a lot of training and can help a lot with her offense + flight. Forcing against a very tanky MU seems to make sense since Arran can do the tanking jobs during the earlygame. Maybe something like this:

- .... + Palla are free for all.

- MyUnit may not start as a Knight or Cavalier.

- RP is allowed from Chapter 9 on?

- Ban or allow the Growth and Bond Drops? Not quite certain, but they don't seem to be broken to me, and Marth may or may not want a growth drop to stay viable throughout the game. Maybe that's fixed by the free prologue farming though. I think it could be useful on non-Marth units (or Marth, depending on how he leveled in P8) regardless.

Perhaps add Palla to the statbooster rule and allow MU to get base statboosters? Or keep disallowing LSB on MU? I can see banning it on both making sense, anyway. Maybe the same rule for Growth and Bond Drop?

Edited November 26, 2015 by Gradivus.

[Irysa]

I don't really care about the Growth or Bond Drops as much tbh, the main reason I dislike RP is +2 HP and + 2 Def tends to turn 2HKOs into 3HKOs throughout the game (or better, you get the idea). Every other +2 is strong but they don't have the same kind of effect of allowing you be more reckless in your movements or pulls. I do realise that's kind of the point, since it's what allows you to not have to slow down as much, but still...

I think an FE12 H3 draft is not really hindered by the fact that it's hard, but more so that a lot of the hardest parts of the game are made way way easier by a suitably strong Palla or MU as a Dracoknight. Everyone else takes quite a bit longer to get there, and the game is kinda frustrating if you don't have at least one of those (imo). That and your teams will end up homogenous because of reclassing and boosters and RP by the lategame.

I think either you have to allow everyone to "cheese" the earlygame or you double down on making earlygame a nightmare for everyone.

Edited November 22, 2015 by Irysa

[Gradivus.]

Since the thieves are likely to be skipped, you'll have a sort of hard time buying the statboosters you need to boost other units into OP territory, like getting someone like DK!Luke into 4HKO range or something. If you pass up on forges, it would still be easy to get though.

I think banning the RP might work out due to LSB and starshards, but I'm not quite decided yet. Given the amount of promoted/dragon exp in midgame to make units catch up, though, it's worth considering.

G&B Drops will remain allowed then.

I agree that it's very hard to balance without creating other problems though.

and the game is kinda frustrating if you don't have at least one of those (imo). That and your teams will end up homogenous because of reclassing and boosters and RP by the lategame.

So is your idea basically Palla / MU should be allowed to get early statboosters? It might work out if we ban the RP.

Edited November 22, 2015 by Gradivus.

[Irysa]

So is your idea basically Palla / MU should be allowed to get early statboosters? It might work out if we ban the RP.

Well my idea is more that Palla is slightly less OP in some regards than MU because of not having Prologue (it's pathetically easy to rig MU consistently good levels when the maps take like less than 1 minute to execute mostly), not having relatively easy EXP soak in Chapter 1 and 2 and her overall long term growths being less impressive. Palla's still incredible and makes the game way easier though, and she allows for more flexability with what someone wants to DO with their MU.

So basically, my idea is something more along the lines of neutering MU and heavily encouraging everyone to make Palla their primary team carry. This has the benefit of actually allowing MU to be utilised in different classes and roles instead of them being automatically the defacto best idea to just build into a tanky Draco. Palla is not as flexible as MU in terms of deciding to make a Mage!MU or a Bow!MU or something, do you see what I mean? IMO that's the only way to create notable divergence or difference in people's early to early-midgame strats and teams without making it unfair.

f.ex: during the draft, one person decides they can get away with passing up on drafting Linde as their Gharnef Killer because Palla is occupying the "early team carry" slot already, so they can choose to raise a female Mage!MU and instead draft someone else. Or they decide they can make MU their horseman and don't prioritise grabbing Luke in the first round, etc.

As such, I think Palla should be allowed to get boosters and MU isn't allowed them until like, later in the game. Or something.

Edited November 22, 2015 by Irysa

[Gradivus.]

Got it, I made Palla free and tentatively banned the RP because starshards and boosters will probably be enough for the units that are salvageable and worth it. Lunatic boosters on MU are banned forever for simplicity's sake because s/he won't need them enough to warrant a complex rule. Also restricted MU's class.

[Irysa]

How about adjusting the Booster ban to allowing MU to use Lunatic Shop Arms Scrolls but not the others? Those are in much more limited supply for the main game and are kinda important if you're doing unorthodox builds. They create divergence without making MU absurd I think, and that's good for drafts.

Edited November 22, 2015 by Irysa

[Gradivus.]

Actually, I think we could allow all boosters except Dracoshield and Angelic Robe on MU, since offense isn't problematic from what I recall.

Edited November 22, 2015 by Gradivus.

[Irysa]

Yeah actually, that seems reasonable.

EDIT: Do you have to actually read the base conversations in order to get Support Bonuses? Just thinking about interactions of the Bond Drop and this rule.

2. Undrafted units may not do anything not listed above, including but not limited to opening chests/doors and activating supports.

There might be some merit in forcing the Bond Drop on MU or something so people don't have to deal with wonky conflicts about getting the temp statbooster bonds without having supports activated, and MU nets you the maximum amount of actual Bond items IIRC.

Edited November 22, 2015 by Irysa

[eclipse]

1. Can undrafted characters meatshield?

2. What about the bonds that show up at the end of a convo chain?

3. I guess that "activate supports" means "base convos"? Because according to this, support leveling happens automatically. Unless you want to make it so that an undrafted unit can't stand within three tiles of a drafted one?

I'll probably have more questions, later. FE12 is a pain in the ass to draft for, and I've never played beyond H1, but I still love the game!

[Gradivus.]

I don't know exactly. Most supports have conversations that you need to read (I think?), but there are things like (for example) the Marth -> Linde support that aren't triggered by conversations. It's highly unlikely that you can't avoid it though, so I'll just tolerate accidental usage of automatic supports because FE12's hitrates and 0-luck enemies make supports matter way less often.

1. Can undrafted characters meatshield?

No, but I'll add it to rule 2 to avoid misunderstandings.

2. What about the bonds that show up at the end of a convo chain?

They're allowed, as long as both units in the convo are drafted.

3. I guess that "activate supports" means "base convos"? Because according to this, support leveling happens automatically. Unless you want to make it so that an undrafted unit can't stand within three tiles of a drafted one?

Yeah, the rule is against putting units within 3 tiles, but there's tolerance for ignoring the rule wherever it strictly interferes with one's strategy because as I said above, supports don't tend to matter as much in FE12.

Edited November 22, 2015 by Gradivus.

[eclipse]

So the prologues are "free"? This. . .actually helps a lot.

IIRC, there's some MU builds that are impossible on Lunatic without serious rigging (because Jagen's a jerk). It kinda puts a damper on things, but oh well.

OH, right. Can undrafted units pick up items? Usually, it's yes. . .

Edited November 22, 2015 by eclipse

[Gradivus.]

There's at least one build for every MU class that can get them through H3 and H4 prologue reliably. It's an old misconception that there are classes that can't beat it.

And yeah, they can pick items up since they just have to move around.

Edited July 2, 2016 by Gradivus.

[eclipse]

I'm going to regret this, since I can barely draft H1 competently.

/in

[Gradivus.]

Irysa, I'm assuming you're in too?

[Irysa]

Yeah what the hell, I'll enter.

[Icemario]

I'm in.

[Gradivus.]

Let's start with 4 players.

Last pick. I guess I'll get the first double pick so there's that lol.

Edited July 2, 2016 by Gradivus.

[eclipse]

Guys, give me a holler if I forget that this exists. Which I probably will.

[Icemario]

Oh sorry, didn't expect this to start so fast, nor me to be first.

Catria.

[eclipse]

I'll regret this later.

Luke.

[Irysa]

Cecille

Thats both possible Falcoknights that aren't MU gone now!

[Gradivus.]

Sirius and Rody