[Maniac] Let's Play Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance

[BrightBow]

Yikes, it's kinda surprising to see your 1 minute video get like 10 times the views as the actual parts of the playthrough.

Otherwise I suppose I don't have a lot to say this time. Other then leaving Titania to dodge several attacks on 10 HP while wielding that 20 wt Hammer was absolutely reckless but I suppose that goes without saying.

I did try using Mia on my Maniac playthrough but it just didn't work out. Well, technically I did keep using her but I eventually decided to just give her a 255 crit Slim Sword so she can at least deal a little damage.

[Deltre]

1 hour ago, BrightBow said:

Yikes, it's kinda surprising to see your 1 minute video get like 10 times the views as the actual parts of the playthrough.

Otherwise I suppose I don't have a lot to say this time. Other then leaving Titania to dodge several attacks on 10 HP while wielding that 20 wt Hammer was absolutely reckless but I suppose that goes without saying.

I did try using Mia on my Maniac playthrough but it just didn't work out. Well, technically I did keep using her but I eventually decided to just give her a 255 crit Slim Sword so she can at least deal a little damage.

The internet works in mysterious ways. 

I'll be honest, I wasn't thinking about the weapon weight when I had her stand there. FWIW, the Javelins clock in at ~33 Hit, putting the rest of the Armors at ~43 Hit with a Steel Lance. Technically it was in my favor, but this is Fire Emblem haha.

[Cornguy]

Bummer, Zihark made it, but no Nephenee or Mia? If single-weapon units are gonna be used, at least use waifus. Too late now though, at least Zihark can support Brom and use that earth affinity.

Love PoR, but I never understood the point of single-weapon units with no crit bonus. Also bizarre that Halberdiers missed this amendment in the US release. Its strange in general that these units are mostly locked to a single range and weapon, no horse, while mages get full triangle access, and get staves later. Fighters only add to this mystery by getting bows on promotion. 

Anyways, aside from my saltiness on Zihark weasling his way in over hotter characters who are just as handicapped, love this playthrough so far. My gal and I are both subscribed, but we tend to watch these together, so I apologize that it kinda bilks you on the likes we leave on the videos.

[Deltre]

On 4/16/2017 at 0:32 AM, Cornguy said:

Bummer, Zihark made it, but no Nephenee or Mia? If single-weapon units are gonna be used, at least use waifus. Too late now though, at least Zihark can support Brom and use that earth affinity.

Love PoR, but I never understood the point of single-weapon units with no crit bonus. Also bizarre that Halberdiers missed this amendment in the US release. Its strange in general that these units are mostly locked to a single range and weapon, no horse, while mages get full triangle access, and get staves later. Fighters only add to this mystery by getting bows on promotion. 

Anyways, aside from my saltiness on Zihark weasling his way in over hotter characters who are just as handicapped, love this playthrough so far. My gal and I are both subscribed, but we tend to watch these together, so I apologize that it kinda bilks you on the likes we leave on the videos.

You know, I thought for SURE Nephenee would be requested as one of the first units, but here we are haha. It is bizarre for sure that they don't get the bonus, but at least Nephenee gets Wrath, so there's that I guess? What really weirds me out is that there are NO crit bonuses at all in JP. 

As for Zihark>Mia(?). . .hey man maybe the ladies love Zihark? Honestly I have no idea, maybe your girl could weigh in on that :p I'm glad you're both enjoying this, and it's pretty awesome that you watch it together. Don't worry about the likes bro, Youtube cares about those a lot more than I do. 

Anyways hope everyone had a good Easter (if you don't celebrate Easter than I hope you had a good Sunday) and the next part should go up tomorrow whenever my subpar internet decides it wants to finish uploading. 

[Deltre]

 

[Deltre]

Marcia hype! Time to put some of that BEXP to use I think. Also Mist I guess.

I mentioned this in the video too, but feel free to suggest forge names. I'll be making a lot of them I imagine, so I'll be needing a few. Keep in mind that the JP version only accepts 7 characters sadly.

 

[Interdimensional Observer]

Should I have mentioned the reinforcements that appear when you get too close to the boss? Your fast playstyle has been getting tripped up with the trigger line reinforcements.

If you want a little tip for C11 Blood Runs Red:

Spoiler

Either engaging or killing the boss Mackoya (I'm not sure which, but you should kill him in 1 turn no problem) will cause the Black Knight to appear from the center house on the turn after you do so. It might also happen if you go until turn 9 without engaging Mackoya at all.

As for forge names- how about a light blue sword or lance named Psypher?

After watching the Maniac Mode earlygame, I feel it wasn't quite playtested as much as it should have been (then again, is any highest difficulty earlygame in FE playtested?). If there is a hard mode that ever demanded Jagen use, it's this. I can't fathom a Jagen-hater getting through it at all.

[Deltre]

The way I see it with Jeigans there's really only ever two possibilities.

1) Balance the earlygame around the fact that the player might not want to use their Jeigan, which ultimately makes for a really easy earlygame if you decide to use the Jeigan or

2) Balance the earlygame around the fact that you have a Jeigan which can allow for a decent challenge.

MM went with #2 and I honestly prefer it that way. If you're going to give me a superpowered unit at least give me something to do with them. FE6 had the right idea too as far as I'm concerned, but I know that a lot of people think it's too much. 

So my editing software is pretty terrible, and for some reason I couldn't render the first 7 seconds of this video, or any of the introductions for the new characters on this map (which is a shame since Oscar/Kieran is pretty funny). Also lost about 10-15 minutes of gameplay where I explained the map. Not too big of a deal if you've played the game, but if not then I imagine this map could be a little bit confusing.

Essentially, ending the phase in range of any enemy unit will trigger reinforcements, and also make the enemies aggressive towards you. That's right, it's a stealth mission! Completing the map without being detected earns you a nice chunk of BEXP (worth more than fighting easily) and also the title of Big Boss. You can (and should) engage the boss at the top left because he and his unit do not trigger the reinforcements. Finally, the biggest change is that in order to actually recruit Neph/Brom/Kieran, all three must escape the map. Anyone left behind will NOT be recruited on Maniac Mode. This fact alone makes recruiting everyone while simultaneously completing the Stealth objective pretty tricky. 

[Shadow Mir]

On 4/11/2017 at 11:47 PM, BrightBow said:

I do like that Archer animation too. Particular the way they keep aiming at his opponent while reloading. This probably makes no practical sense but I do think it looks pretty neat. While we are on the subject of archery, I would like to point out that Tear Ring Saga unlike every Fire Emblem game ever actually had their archers fire at an arc instead of firing in a straight line.

Shadows of Valentina also has archers fire in an arc for long-range attacks (ergo, from 3 to 5 range). 

Anyways, I never could be bothered to take the stealth approach to chapter 10 in this game - I felt it was too much headache for a reward that doesn't come close to justifying the headache. (That said, I did bother with stealth in Revelation chapter 24)

[Deltre]

The Stealth Mission is definitely worth it on Maniac, since CExp is lessened and you get to pick and choose how you use the BExp freely. Hard and below probably not worth it if you can't be assed. The thing is though, once you know how to do it you can do 100% reliably every single time. 

So I promoted Marcia this map, before she even fought a single battle for me. I've never really done the whole "dump everything into one unit" thing before so hopefully it pays off. This chapter was pretty fun though, if a little tense because of You-Know-Who showing up eventually. Not that hard though, really. 

Also Brom does about as well as I expected. I dunno what I'm gonna do about that one.

Edited April 28, 2017 by Deltre

[Interdimensional Observer]

I've never done a BEXP dump either, I always preferred topping everyone off after a battle, plus a little extra for Mist or whomever I'm training.

That Physics priest is definitely not present on the lower difficulties. Ranged healing this early sounds sweet.

I will say that PoR does the stealth chapter far, far better than Fates. Much smaller, most of the chests are packed together and easy to nab while your completing your mission, the enemies don't spot you if you're in their range after they've finished moving (meaning no headaches figuring out their vision range), and when you get to the end, no need to fear that your squishy lockpick unit will get killed by what waits on the other side of the final door. The only potential flaw vs. Fates is the NPCs, but they're easy enough to deal with.

[Deltre]

To be honest, I blocked that part of Revelation out of my mind completely since at that point I was over it. I remember having Ninja!Corrin though so I was able to cheese that one since Corrin with Locktouch can basically solo. PoR isn't nearly as bad and the guard patterns are more sensible, but damn if it's not still tedious trying to figure out every specific move you need to make for 20+ straight turns. On Maniac that BExp is just way too nice though.

[Shadow Mir]

10 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

I've never done a BEXP dump either, I always preferred topping everyone off after a battle, plus a little extra for Mist or whomever I'm training.

That Physics priest is definitely not present on the lower difficulties. Ranged healing this early sounds sweet.

I will say that PoR does the stealth chapter far, far better than Fates. Much smaller, most of the chests are packed together and easy to nab while your completing your mission, the enemies don't spot you if you're in their range after they've finished moving (meaning no headaches figuring out their vision range), and when you get to the end, no need to fear that your squishy lockpick unit will get killed by what waits on the other side of the final door. The only potential flaw vs. Fates is the NPCs, but they're easy enough to deal with.

On the contrary, the only thing the PoR stealth chapter did was make me think that stealth and FE don't mix - if you're going to encourage a stealthy approach to a chapter, it's best done the way Yggdra Union did it. That being said, one aspect that I liked about the stealth chapter in Revelation was that once you found the boss, it couldn't be compromised by the guards.

Edited April 29, 2017 by Levant Mir Celestia

[Deltre]

It's a boat map! Thinking about it, this one really reminds me of that one chapter in Revelation where you stand around and wait for the enemy to come to you. Only this one isn't nearly as bad since the enemies can move much further and I have Marcia the Goddess. Marcia: 1 Birds: 0

[Interdimensional Observer]

Now that you have me thinking about it, boat chapters were a latecomer to FE, only appearing for the first time in FE7.

Blazing's is a defend/survive, but a very easy one since there is nothing to protect. Still, I don't think its too bad. SS's is infamous, but dare I say that I kinda like the infamy? Awakening's is typical of Awakening with a gazillion enemies, and some chests while we're at it. Conquest has the best boat fight, if nothing really boat-y about it in practice. Birthright is PoR 12 over a wider area with more enemy variety. Rev's is awful as par the course for Rev (whose idea was it to put Berserkers near the boss?- one random crit and it's a restart of this tedious chapter. Fortunately, it doesn't have a boatload of goodies (only a Master Seal) like you find in many Rev chapters, so there is nothing holding you back from 2-turning it by having Reina and Subaki ferry Takumi and Azura to Flora.

PoR 12 on Hard is okay so as long as you cover your slow and squishes. On Maniac, I could see somebody dying if you didn't take them out fast enough/have Marcia hold a few out at sea. PoR 13 should be pretty good.

Do note that not one of the boat chapters features pirates. The closest we get is PoR 12 with the Ravens.

[Deltre]

40 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Now that you have me thinking about it, boat chapters were a latecomer to FE, only appearing for the first time in FE7.

I'm not sure if you've played Gaiden, but

Spoiler

Celica has enough boat maps to cover the quota for FE1 to FE6 tbh.

I do remember this map being quite a bit trickier without BEXP!Marcia though. Effective damage only being x2 really hurts on this one, since in theory Soren could otherwise be really useful here with a forged Wind spell. 'Cia and Jill can still run interference though if you give them a vulnerary or two, which should at least buy some time to handle the rest. 

Edited May 3, 2017 by Deltre

[Deltre]

Geez, my uploads of these have been pretty shaky lately. To make up for that, I come bringing two more parts today.

Part 10

Spoiler

 

and 11

Spoiler

 

aaaaaaand someone died. The completionist in me wanted to restart so badly, but the RNG decided to give me nothing but amazing level-ups, so RIP. 

[MidoriPuru]

Is it late to suggest using a character? I'd want to see you use Elincia but I assume you would have use her at least for healing and I'm not exactly sure but I think in some maps she's mandatory and there's a map with 16 units available for deployment. 

[Deltre]

17 hours ago, MidoriPuru said:

Is it late to suggest using a character? I'd want to see you use Elincia but I assume you would have use her at least for healing and I'm not exactly sure but I think in some maps she's mandatory and there's a map with 16 units available for deployment. 

I'll definitely use her where she's mandatory. There were about 18 or so other characters people had requested though, so I can't promise much beyond that :/ 

[Guest]

Ike's expression during the report is not actually dependent on the story but whether or not someone died, in this case Gatrie. If someone would have died during the first report back in chapter 9, you would have gotten a much more elaborate reaction:

Spoiler

 

Soren:
“And that’s it.”

Ike:
“Ugh…”

Soren:
“Ike? Is something wrong?”

Ike:
“Even though I was aware of the numbers, hearing it in a report like this is…hard.”

Soren:
“Do you mean the casualites and refugees?”

Ike:
“Death and destruction are all part of war. My father said that a lot.”
“The first casualties of war are those without strength and those without luck.” “And there’s nothing you can do about it. Live with bravery, be daring and fearless. Live for those who have died.” And yet…I can’t help but think f I were more powerful…I could save more people. Couldn’t I?

Soren:
“Ike…”

Ike:
“…Blast!”

Soren:
“Indeed.”

Ike:
“Forgive me. I got carried away.”

Soren:
“No, not at all… Um, perhaps I should…”

Ike:
“Thank you for the report. I will need more of the same from here on. Keep up the good work.”

Soren:
“Thank you, Commander. I will do my best. But if I have your leave, I must be going.”

 

Speaking of attention to detail, Kieran does in fact use that introduction quote Marcia mentioned if you call him as a reinforcement in a later chapter.

And your Makalov got really lucky to survive an encounter with Marcia. On my Maniac run, he was not quite this fortunate. I completely underestimated just how close he was to the bridge.

Btw, do you know how to recruit Stefan on the next map?

 

Edit: Also, something I wanted to say for the last map: The Ravens that spawn with the Steal skill will never actually attack anyone. They will however still try to seize the cabin when given the chance, because the AI just loves to spite the player.

Edited May 12, 2017 by GatlingBow

[N30]

I was one who requested Makalov to be used because hes a horrible person

[Deltre]

2 hours ago, GatlingBow said:

Ike's expression during the report is not actually dependent on the story but whether or not someone died, in this case Gatrie. If someone would have died during the first report back in chapter 9, you would have gotten a much more elaborate reaction:

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Soren:
“And that’s it.”

Ike:
“Ugh…”

Soren:
“Ike? Is something wrong?”

Ike:
“Even though I was aware of the numbers, hearing it in a report like this is…hard.”

Soren:
“Do you mean the casualites and refugees?”

Ike:
“Death and destruction are all part of war. My father said that a lot.”
“The first casualties of war are those without strength and those without luck.” “And there’s nothing you can do about it. Live with bravery, be daring and fearless. Live for those who have died.” And yet…I can’t help but think f I were more powerful…I could save more people. Couldn’t I?

Soren:
“Ike…”

Ike:
“…Blast!”

Soren:
“Indeed.”

Ike:
“Forgive me. I got carried away.”

Soren:
“No, not at all… Um, perhaps I should…”

Ike:
“Thank you for the report. I will need more of the same from here on. Keep up the good work.”

Soren:
“Thank you, Commander. I will do my best. But if I have your leave, I must be going.”

 

Speaking of attention to detail, Kieran does in fact use that introduction quote Marcia mentioned if you call him as a reinforcement in a later chapter.

And your Makalov got really lucky to survive an encounter with Marcia. On my Maniac run, he was not quite this fortunate. I completely underestimated just how close he was to the bridge.

Btw, do you know how to recruit Stefan on the next map?

 

Edit: Also, something I wanted to say for the last map: The Ravens that spawn with the Steal skill will never actually attack anyone. They will however still try to seize the cabin when given the chance, because the AI just loves to spite the player.

That's really interesting! I usually reset whenever I lose a character (even if I'm not going to use them) so I never knew about that. I'll have to bring that up in the next one. And yes, I do know how to get Stefan. I don't know how you're supposed to find him without a guide though.

26 minutes ago, N30 said:

I was one who requested Makalov to be used because hes a horrible person

He definitely is. His character art is pretty good though, I'm surprised to say.

There's part 12 for you guys. The rest of the chapter will be up in a few hours or so. There was a surprising lack of enemy density on this map; it honestly didn't feel that much different than Hard Mode. If anything, it's probably less scary since the boss doesn't have his +15% Crit bonus here.

[BrightBow]

I usually don't bother trying to deliberately raise a Mage's weapon level because progressing from E is incredibly slow, so they don't have much of a chance to get above D before promotion anyway. And since promotion raises all the magic schools to D (and only up to D) anyway, I really don't think that it's worth it.

Edited May 13, 2017 by BrightBow

[Shadow Mir]

2 hours ago, BrightBow said:

I usually don't bother trying to deliberately raise a Mage's weapon level because progressing from E is incredibly slow, so they don't have much of a chance to get above D before promotion anyway. And since promotion raises all the magic schools to D (and only up to D) anyway, I really don't think that it's worth it.

Ditto. It feels like a waste of time, if you ask me.

[Deltre]

To be fair, I'd be using Thunder magic anyways since it's far and away the best type of magic in the game. E->D is worse than D->C since Elthunder gives 2 points per use too. I don't think that kills give double wexp in this game which is pretty bummy, but what can you do?

Anyways, there's the last bit of chapter 14. I ran out of time when recording so this last part is kind of short.