Best Final Chapter in the series

[Jotari]

23 minutes ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

Which is only really true if you cheese it with Luna - other than that, you only have one viable lord option to do damage. Lucius, Serra and Athos can also do some damage to it, but anyone else is pretty much out of luck.

Even without cheesing it with Luna, the fire dragon offers absolutely no threat to your army. Attacking it progressively with every unit in your army that can survive a hit and deal damage will kill it pretty quickly with zero risk to any of your characters. Hector, Athos and Eliwood can all deal 20+ damage to it and it has like eighty HP. Take it down in one turn, some risk if you over extend yourself. But just hit and heal and do damage on a counter attack and you will easily kill it on the second turn. It's not even stuck in an alcove or anything. You can attack it at close range from up to four squares at once. And while your non lords might not be dealing tonnes of damage, they can still hurt it. Rexhasta has 21 might, and the dragon has 20 defense, so anyone attack with that is essentially going to be dealing their own strength worth of damage on it (unless it has some kind of damage reducing factor because those numbers do look admittedly odd to me, regardless, other units can deal damage to it with the S ranked weapons).

Edited November 24, 2017 by Jotari

[Shadow Mir]

15 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Even without cheesing it with Luna, the fire dragon offers absolutely no threat to your army. Attacking it progressively with every unit in your army that can survive a hit and deal damage will kill it pretty quickly with zero risk to any of your characters. Hector, Athos and Eliwood can all deal 20+ damage to it and it has like eighty HP. Take it down in one turn, some risk if you over extend yourself. But just hit and heal and do damage on a counter attack and you will easily kill it on the second turn. It's not even stuck in an alcove or anything. You can attack it at close range from up to four squares at once. And while your non lords might not be dealing tonnes of damage, they can still hurt it. Rexhasta has 21 might, and the dragon has 20 defense, so anyone attack with that is essentially going to be dealing their own strength worth of damage on it.

Correction: It has 120 HP, and 40 in both defenses thanks to its weapon. Anyway, you're recommending someone who might be unusable against it because his weapon weighs him down by a ton (Eliwood - I'm not reserving a Body Ring just for him when I can get better use out of using them on someone else). Also, blitzing it doesn't work so well when all but a select few units do next to no damage.

Edited November 24, 2017 by Levant Mir Celestia

[Jotari]

3 minutes ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

Correction: It has 120 HP, and 40 in both defenses thanks to its weapon. Anyway, you're recommending someone who might be unusable against it because his weapon weighs him down by a ton (Eliwood - I'm not reserving a Body Ring just for him when I can get better use out of using them on someone else). Also, blitzing it doesn't work so well when all but a select few units do next to no damage.

Ah the weapon. I thought something was seriously wrong there. But, my point still stands. The Fire Dragon has a 0% chance of killing anybody in your army unless you're playing stupidly. Consisting healing and rescuing will kill it in a handful of turns. 

[Refa]

Yeah, I really don't get what the argument is.  The game gives you a unit who can kill the final boss, guaranteed.  Even w/o Athos, you could chip the Fire Dragon w/a unit who does 5-10 damage every turn with little to no risk on your part (because it could potentially have crit % on you, I guess).  

Also I just noticed that FE4 Chapter 5 was counted, so I'll just detail my thoughts here.  Good map.  It does a good job bringing the first generation to a close.  It's appropriately foreboding starting out, which is a contrast to the other final maps, which are more...climactic in nature.  Additionally, events are constantly unfolding that change how the map plays and make you feel like "this is it" WRT the story.  My only issue is that certain sections near the end can feel a bit devoid of gameplay, but other than that it's good stuff.  Do I even need to mention that it has great music at this point?  It's FE4, after all.  I'd put it behind the actual FE4 final map but ahead of everything else (and even then, it's pretty close).

[Jotari]

54 minutes ago, Refa said:

Demon King has pretty good stats actually, and the game doesn't give you a super overpowered unit who can deal w/him w/o any effort on your part (Myrrh is the closest equivalent, but you still need to invest some time/resources into her and not waste her only weapon).  Anyways...

His stats might look good on paper but in practice when almost every one of your units has an effective weapon against him he doesn't hold up long.

[Refa]

1 minute ago, Jotari said:

His stats might look good on paper but in practice when almost every one of your units has an effective weapon against him he doesn't hold up long.

Yeah, it's usually not too hard to kill him in two rounds, but I don't think he's particularly worse than most FE bosses in that regard.

[Interdimensional Observer]

3 hours ago, Jotari said:

Gaiden: It's a bit featureless aesthetically but I really like this one. The three really powerful enemies (one of which is called Bad Ass XD) coming up your rear forces forward progression and Jedah in the center with the constantly spawning moguls make a good threat. Finally, Doma actually moves, attacks long range and is flanked by troublesome enemies making him hard to approach. Excellent chapter overall. Definitely top 3.

My problem with SoV's final fight is that a significant chunk of my brought army feels like deadweight after the beginning. They're useful for picking off the flanking trio, and then wasting away at Jedah's barrier and shooting down the initial Mogalls, and Witches. But the presence of summonable Witches with Warp is less threatening than dreading, since you never know if they'll try to do the deadly thing for once (the Turnwheel admittedly negates this threat though).

Once Jedah is gone, it's a matter of baiting out the Bow Knights and Sonya's sisters. Once they're gone, you either Rescue-Warp a kill on the Medusa guy, or lure Duma away from him. Or maybe if you have a tanky Dread Fighter you can send one and leave them in vs. Mr. Medusa and the Mogalls and Duma and they'll still live with Physics.

Invoke might be able to distract Duma, but to ignore it, he is no joke, with 42 attack that can target Res from range 1-5 via Ocular Beam (and he has 1-2 range Tentacle for the same Atk vs. DFs). If I bring Genny, Faye, and Tatiana, then I have my Fortify machine, who can't fully heal a Duma attacked ally, hence I must turn to my Physic bots, of which I have only two, and thus I can only attack Duma with at most two units per turn. One of whom will likely be Alm since Falchion effectiveness and being the only one who can deal the final hit outside of Nosferatu. Thus I have room for only one non-Alm attacker, and once Duma is at 52 or below they must be a Nosferatu user or they're useless.

I in all likelihood play a little too cautiously, but once the Mogalls are under control, any and all Barons, Gold Knights, and even Dread Fighters lose most or all of their use because of Duma. It becomes Bow Knight and Mage Ring sniping, Warp-Rescue, Alm hacking at the Soulless God, and Fortify every time Russian Parliament Upheavals the map. All because I don't want Duma to move forward and endanger my other units.

This said, SoV still has a decent final battle, it could just use a little more refinement, like most of SoV's maps.

[Jotari]

4 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

My problem with SoV's final fight is that a significant chunk of my brought army feels like deadweight after the beginning. They're useful for picking off the flanking trio, and then wasting away at Jedah's barrier and shooting down the initial Mogalls, and Witches. But the presence of summonable Witches with Warp is less threatening than dreading, since you never know if they'll try to do the deadly thing for once (the Turnwheel admittedly negates this threat though).

Once Jedah is gone, it's a matter of baiting out the Bow Knights and Sonya's sisters. Once they're gone, you either Rescue-Warp a kill on the Medusa guy, or lure Duma away from him. Or maybe if you have a tanky Dread Fighter you can send one and leave them in vs. Mr. Medusa and the Mogalls and Duma and they'll still live with Physics.

Invoke might be able to distract Duma, but to ignore it, he is no joke, with 42 attack that can target Res from range 1-5 via Ocular Beam (and he has 1-2 range Tentacle for the same Atk vs. DFs). If I bring Genny, Faye, and Tatiana, then I have my Fortify machine, who can't fully heal a Duma attacked ally, hence I must turn to my Physic bots, of which I have only two, and thus I can only attack Duma with at most two units per turn. One of whom will likely be Alm since Falchion effectiveness and being the only one who can deal the final hit outside of Nosferatu. Thus I have room for only one non-Alm attacker, and once Duma is at 52 or below they must be a Nosferatu user or they're useless.

I in all likelihood play a little too cautiously, but once the Mogalls are under control, any and all Barons, Gold Knights, and even Dread Fighters lose most or all of their use because of Duma. It becomes Bow Knight and Mage Ring sniping, Warp-Rescue, Alm hacking at the Soulless God, and Fortify every time Russian Parliament Upheavals the map. All because I don't want Duma to move forward and endanger my other units.

This said, SoV still has a decent final battle, it could just use a little more refinement, like most of SoV's maps.

You're not wrong there. I find that I don't even bother to move a lot of my units across the lava. But in the maps defense, twenty units is a lot to deploy on one map so it's highly likely you'll have dead weight. Still, I think some reinforcements spawning from Celica's starting point right around the time you should have defeated the initial three bosses in the west would definitely not go astray. And then perhaps continuous spawning of powerful enemies from both starting points after a certain number of turns have passed to serve as a psudeo turn limit that forces a Duma kill before you're overwhelmed.

[Dandy Druid]

I really liked Light and Shadow + Rebirth V. I just found them cool.

Spoiler

Although I was almost tempted to vote for Gaiden/SoV just because of Alm's cool animation of throwing his shield to ground to kill Duma.

 

Edited November 24, 2017 by Dandy Druid

[Shadow Mir]

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

Ah the weapon. I thought something was seriously wrong there. But, my point still stands. The Fire Dragon has a 0% chance of killing anybody in your army unless you're playing stupidly. Consisting healing and rescuing will kill it in a handful of turns. 

Bold: Couldn't this be said of most any other final boss?? Considering that most of them don't move...

1 hour ago, Refa said:

Yeah, I really don't get what the argument is.  The game gives you a unit who can kill the final boss, guaranteed.  Even w/o Athos, you could chip the Fire Dragon w/a unit who does 5-10 damage every turn with little to no risk on your part (because it could potentially have crit % on you, I guess).

I'm not denying that. I just think that a boss with defense piercing attacks that deal over half the max HP a unit can have, in addition to being pretty much impossible to dodge as well, should be treated more strategically than "just blitz them". Like "let them get the first hit in, then heal afterwards".

Anyways. my thoughts:

Chosen by Fate - Not a good map. Starting off split up for no reason is a dick move, as is the doors closing.

Genealogy - Both of them are awful, on account of being plagued by the same fundamental problems that plague the rest of the maps in the game (aka, too big). The music doesn't really make up for it being unfun to play through, either...

Sword of Seals: In a word: Boring.

Light - Good. The boss rush offers a challenge, but the dragon isn't as formidable as it should've been (though that's more the fault of Luna being borked).

Sacred Stone. Easy. It doesn't help that the bosses are two of the biggest jokes in the series.

Repatriation: Okay map. It actually feels like you have to work your way up to being able to fight Ashnard (at least on anything other than Hard), which kinda fits, considering his way of thinking.

Rebirth: Okay. Assuming that we're talking about the final part, it's a interesting and challenging boss fight. Nothing much to it.

Grima: Good music, though the boss itself can be a pain, especially on anything above Normal (have fun trying to have Chrom hit a 110 avoid boss on Lunatic!). While it can be one-turned, that requires extreme luck, otherwise, come enemy phase, Grima gets healed, and most likely exerts his 5 range and attacks whomever removed one of the Berserkers or Generals you'd have had to kill just to get a shot at him with an unpunishable attack.

Dawn Breaks: I've seen talk about one-turning this, but again, this requires getting lucky, otherwise a restart is pretty much assured; this is made worse by the fact that you have to redo chapter 27 all over again if you screw up. Anyway, starting off surrounded when most of my unit selection isn't known for taking units well is far from a good position to be in, especially knowing that a screw up means having to restart and redo chapter 27...

Night Breaks Through: Challenging, though some of the challenge comes off as borderline, if not outright unfair (Hexing Rod, anyone?). This is further exacerbated by the fact that should you fail, you have to go through chapter 27 again.

Anankos: I kinda like the multi-phase nature of this one. Not much else to say.

Together to the End: Like the feel of the map and the music, as well as getting units from both parties to take this on. Unfortunately, Mogalls aren't exactly pleasant to have to cut through...

Hmmm.... I'm going with Anankos, though a good deal of other chapters give it competition.

[Punished Dayni]

12 minutes ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

Dawn Breaks: I've seen talk about one-turning this, but again, this requires getting lucky, otherwise a restart is pretty much assured; this is made worse by the fact that you have to redo chapter 27 all over again if you screw up. Anyway, starting off surrounded when most of my unit selection isn't known for taking units well is far from a good position to be in, especially knowing that a screw up means having to restart and redo chapter 27...

Getting lucky is a non-issue on lower difficulties: Corrin, Ryoma and Takumi can take Garon out together fine there (though Azura will have to dance at least one up to get there).

On higher difficulties, I'll have to come back to that. Whenever I can convince myself to play through it again.

Also, to the person making the point about Light being easy unless you're an idiot, if you somehow get HP screwed, you can turn out to have at least one of your lords unable to do anything anyway! (I know you'll respond with Athos. I know, it's very obvious. Not everyone will be using Athos on this map all the time for whatever reason the have) 37 HP is a large amount of damage, and the lords could end up low enough that they're unable to actually fight the boss because it just just enough damage to kill them. That Flametongue is no joke.

[Refa]

Not using a unit that is forced deployed and comes with his own boss killing weapons is your own fault lol.  I’m not going to judge the difficulty on a player who purposefully gimps themselves.

[Jotari]

44 minutes ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

Bold: Couldn't this be said of most any other final boss?? Considering that most of them don't move...

A lot of them, yes. It's a bit of a problem with how the series handles final bosses. The GBA games in particular have it pretty bad with none of them being threatening at all and moving to a specialized boss arena that offers no tactical interest. Outside of them though, there's usually some challenge in actually getting to the boss and dealing with normal enemies that are also in the chapter. Fire Dragon just moves you to a new map with some long range mages that stand next to no chance of hitting you and don't even flank the boss. Once you've been Nergal you've essentially beaten the game unless you get cocky and over extend yourself against the Fire Dragon. In terms of final boss integration with the map I think Doma probably works the best with how difficult he is to get to and all the enemies he has protecting him. Ashera and Ananakos manage to feel much more powerful as final bosses due to the multiple parts even if each individual section is pretty safe on attack. They also have infinite spawning reinforcements that help to keep the pressure on too. Sometimes they go a bit too far with the normal enemies though and you get maps like Grima and Garon where the only option is to basically ignore the enemies and devote all resources to killing the final boss.

[Slumber]

Spoiler

FE1/11: Solid, but a bit umemorable, IMO.

FE2/15: Also solid, but maybe a bit better off than FE1's. The swamp is a bit annoying, but it's a tense battle.

FE3/12: A lackluster map, but probably one of my favorite set-ups/atmosphere for a final map. The idea of Marth's army potentially watching Medeus eat Marth's sister, the princess of Archanea, a little girl, and Julian's girlfriend in front of their eyes is horrifying.

FE4: Decent map, but not really all that special compared to every map that came before it. Manfroy taking his loss on the chin also seems odd and out of character when he really didn't need to. The whole Arion deal is neat, and of course Julius is a terrifying boss(Unless you have Julia). The Deadlords can be pushovers if you take them out with the right people, but the map is still a bit of a challenge.

FE5: As other have mentioned, it's the proto-Light. It's a bit stronger, in my opinion. The Deadlords are more of a threat than the Black Fang morphs, and while Veld isn't a threat once you face him, he does remain a threat throughout the chapter with his Stone. It's a bit more tactical than Light as a whole, which also kind of ends on a flat note. The prospect of having to kill dead/captured party members might also be a considerable gut punch to somebody who does an Iron Man and loses characters like Sara, or missed the requirements for side chapters and never get to even save Dagdar and Eyvel. It goes back to the idea that Thracia 776 is more about the stories of humans, so it fits the theme of the game nicely. Plus, after 24x, it just feels nice to just go to town with your best units.

FE6: Bad, bad, bad. It's boring and easy.

FE7: One of the stronger ones in the series. The Black Fang morphs are the most challenging thing you'll deal with in the game by a wide margin(Sans some moments in HHM). It'd be high up on the list if it didn't feel like a watered down An Undying Oath. The Dragon's also a lamer final boss than Veld, as if that was possible.

FE8: Boring map, boring layout, easy boss. Not as bad as Binding Blade by any means, but for a battle against what's basically Satan, it's pretty damn lackluster.

FE9: As much as this feels like a proper clash between armies, and this chapter's a royal pain on hard, I've never liked it being outside, in daylight, in a well-kept courtyard. It doesn't feel quite as chaotic as the game seems to hype it up to be. My first thought when seeing a climactic showdown shouldn't be "Man, Elincia has a nice front yard." On anything that's not hard, this chapter's a bit easy, and can be a bit of a slough. It's a good last chapter, but I have my issues with it.

FE10: A boring as all hell map, but a very intense and engaging battle. It feels like a good payoff to everything that happened in part 4. Not much else to say here. It does its job very well, and it feels very satisfying.

FE13: If it wasn't for Binding Blade, this would probably be far and away the most boring, lackluster final chapter in the franchise. It's made even worse when you consider the fact that it takes place on the back of a giant dragon. HOW DO YOU MAKE A FIGHT ON THE BACK OF A DRAGON THIS LAME?! DRAGON FIGHTS IN SKYRIM, ANOTHER GAME THAT MANGLED DRAGON FIGHTS, ARE MORE INTERESTING!

FE14: It'd take a long time to break this all down. At worst, they're incredibly tedious and not fun(Revelation). At best, it's serviceable, but not amazing compared to a lot of what came before it(Conquest).

Overall, I think FE5, 7 and 10 have the best final chapters, with 5 kind of just beating 7 in most important important areas. So between 5 and 10, I'd say 5 gets it, just for being a bit more interesting than a blitz in a big hexagon room with the boss in the middle(Though now that I think about it, An Undying Oath is also a big hexagon with the boss in the middle...).

[Icelerate]

I'd say Light but if you include all of Rebirth, then Rebirth easily. I've only played FE7-FE10. 

Anyway, Light, Rebirth V, Sacred Stone and Repatriation in that order. 

[Interdimensional Observer]

1 hour ago, Slumber said:

FE9: As much as this feels like a proper clash between armies, and this chapter's a royal pain on hard, I've never liked it being outside, in daylight, in a well-kept courtyard. It doesn't feel quite as chaotic as the game seems to hype it up to be. My first thought when seeing a climactic showdown shouldn't be "Man, Elincia has a nice front yard." On anything that's not hard, this chapter's a bit easy, and can be a bit of a slough. It's a good last chapter, but I have my issues with it.

 

Well on the one hand, it is the final battle, but on the other, it's also the end to the war, which is refreshing. Compared to the doom, gloom, and interior stuffiness of the final battles in the 4 prior games, it's different. And, Ashnard isn't using any arcane magic either, the venue is perfectly normal, no dragon/demon ruins or depth of a castle occupied by a cult. More reinforcements and or stronger enemies might not have been a bad idea- or Nihil on Ashy to avoid the Wrath-Resolve cheese. And in that case, Ashy should wait a few turns before moving, instead of moving as soon as you get in his range currently.

I can see what you mean, much like your remarks on Dancing Mad. The first and last movements work, but the second and third aren't so appropriate for the final fight, nor is the second and third phases of the final boss itself one could argue. But to do without them is undermine the progression and theme of FFVI's final fight, so really it's just the overall theme of the fight which is a problem.

 

Back to FE, Berwick Saga doesn't look terrible from an LP I saw. Lots of strong-ish enemy reinforcements, a weak final boss, but the throne room, but Chaos the Black Knight seems to be a decently powerful foe, if killed in 5 strokes with Faye- after you spend some turns getting to the NPCs needed to obtain her legendary weapon. I can't get the sense of drama from the LP, but given that when you open the way to the throne room an executioner appears in the room with three NPCs who you don't need to save, but appear important to the hero, sounds like a way of adding a little drama (the executioner takes some time before they start actually dropping HP on the NPCs to 0).

[Gebby]

It’s far from the best game in the series and Grima is a pretty bad villain, but the concept of fighting atop the final boss...that takes the cake for me.

[LucarioGamer812]

So I'd overall chose together to the end, mainly due to the map theme and how you have to coordinate two groups until they meet ad then it's a combined effort to take down Jedah and the Medusa guy before having Alm finish Duma.

Next one would be Grima, map design is okay at best, but the combination of ID return and Purpose at the start really makes it memorable, and I find the ending dialogue (despite not making anything different) very reflective of the whole game, especially when combined with Emmeryn's chapter

Next one would be Anankos, purely based on unique map design

Next one would be Light and Shadow, rescuing the 4 maidens while also defending against multiple dragons is kinda fun, but really easy, especially since most crits are scripted against Medeus

Sacred Stones, good level theme, everything else is mediocre as far as I remember

Lump rest of fates here

Shadow Dragon, don't remember it too much, but if I'm right having units deliberately get trapped and spawned on makes it really annoying

Haven't played 4,5,9,10 and haven't gotten to 6 or 7's endgame yet, though based off what I've seen, 7's is terrible, so much filler in it.

[Shadow Mir]

5 hours ago, Dayni said:

Getting lucky is a non-issue on lower difficulties: Corrin, Ryoma and Takumi can take Garon out together fine there (though Azura will have to dance at least one up to get there).

On higher difficulties, I'll have to come back to that. Whenever I can convince myself to play through it again.

I dunno about you, but I honestly consider "throw three specific characters at the boss and pray that they don't whiff" to be an awful strategy (Takumi won't miss, but I can't say the same of Corrin and Ryoma). Especially when you have to redo the previous chapter if you lose. And it's even worse on anything over Normal, since Garon has 32 speed and 30 in both defenses. His attacks hurt like hell, too (56 atk on Normal, 61 on higher difficulties). Anyway, I'd clean up enemies nearby first so that it's safer to engage him.

4 hours ago, Jotari said:

A lot of them, yes. It's a bit of a problem with how the series handles final bosses. The GBA games in particular have it pretty bad with none of them being threatening at all and moving to a specialized boss arena that offers no tactical interest. Outside of them though, there's usually some challenge in actually getting to the boss and dealing with normal enemies that are also in the chapter. Fire Dragon just moves you to a new map with some long range mages that stand next to no chance of hitting you and don't even flank the boss. Once you've been Nergal you've essentially beaten the game unless you get cocky and over extend yourself against the Fire Dragon. In terms of final boss integration with the map I think Doma probably works the best with how difficult he is to get to and all the enemies he has protecting him. Ashera and Ananakos manage to feel much more powerful as final bosses due to the multiple parts even if each individual section is pretty safe on attack. They also have infinite spawning reinforcements that help to keep the pressure on too. Sometimes they go a bit too far with the normal enemies though and you get maps like Grima and Garon where the only option is to basically ignore the enemies and devote all resources to killing the final boss.

I don't see how Anankos's parts are "safe on attack" when they have an attack value in the 50s, which isn't exactly something most units will be shrugging off. Anyway, like I said earlier, I personally consider the "strategy" of putting all your eggs into killing the final boss and ignoring everything else to not be much of one.

Edited November 25, 2017 by Levant Mir Celestia

[Jotari]

9 hours ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

I dunno about you, but I honestly consider "throw three specific characters at the boss and pray that they don't whiff" to be an awful strategy (Takumi won't miss, but I can't say the same of Corrin and Ryoma). Especially when you have to redo the previous chapter if you lose. And it's even worse on anything over Normal, since Garon has 32 speed and 30 in both defenses. His attacks hurt like hell, too (56 atk on Normal, 61 on higher difficulties). Anyway, I'd clean up enemies nearby first so that it's safer to engage him.

I don't see how Anankos's parts are "safe on attack" when they have an attack value in the 50s, which isn't exactly something most units will be shrugging off. Anyway, like I said earlier, I personally consider the "strategy" of putting all your eggs into killing the final boss and ignoring everything else to not be much of one.

You still don't seem tot understand what I mean when I say safe attacking. It doesn't matter how strong Anankos or the Fire Dragon are. So long as a unit can survive their hit with a single digit of HP and they don't have a crit chance, they're completely safe to combat. That's why the boss needs to have normal enemies around or an area of effect attack or movement to help them. Having massive stats doesn't actually enhance strategy. It's the same with regular maps and regular enemies. Good placement and enemy types are better for difficultly than a swarm of super powerful enemies. Now Ananakos does have some normal enemies helping him but I find, at least on hard mode, they're in way too small numbers to provide much challenge.  That's why I find the Heirs of Fate version of the map to be much better. But I haven't played through Revelations on Lunatic so it might be more challenging there,

As far as "putting all your eggs into killing the final boss and ignoring everything else", I'm not suggesting that's the best strategy for all the final bosses. In fact I even said getting cocky and over extending yourself is basically the only way the Fire Dragon can kill one of your units. It is, however, the optimum strategy for at least Grima and the game essentially tells you to do it in two turns. And I find it to be pretty effective against Garon too. Especially since he's vulnerable to a hexing rod use (or two).

[Dismissed]

Together to the End: Two armies unite in one messy final battle, reminds me of Advance Wars. Also, Jedah is the worst.

Light and Shadow: An army consisting of a ragtag bunch of misfits versus a f***-ton of dragons. Hope you have enough Wyrmslayers!

Beyond the Darkness: Boy Pierces Female Dragon With His "Binding Blade"

Light: Pretty interesting chapter, with morphs of previous bosses and all.

Sacred Stone: Feels kinda Final Fantasy-esque.

Grima: One barrel roll, and he could've won.

Night Breaks Through: the day, hard as a stone The problem isn't Betrayal (formerly known as Takumi), it's the douchebags he brought along with him.

[Gradivus.]

Man, 1/4 is voting for the cancer called 4E-5

I like SD's final chapter the most, it's a really cool challenge, although on the whole it would be better if warp didn't exist (or was rescue instead) and the cast were more balanced, since as is it's way too hard for people to consider doing it w/o Geosphere or Warp strats.

[Shadow Mir]

15 hours ago, Jotari said:

You still don't seem tot understand what I mean when I say safe attacking. It doesn't matter how strong Anankos or the Fire Dragon are. So long as a unit can survive their hit with a single digit of HP and they don't have a crit chance, they're completely safe to combat. That's why the boss needs to have normal enemies around or an area of effect attack or movement to help them. Having massive stats doesn't actually enhance strategy. It's the same with regular maps and regular enemies. Good placement and enemy types are better for difficultly than a swarm of super powerful enemies. Now Ananakos does have some normal enemies helping him but I find, at least on hard mode, they're in way too small numbers to provide much challenge.  That's why I find the Heirs of Fate version of the map to be much better. But I haven't played through Revelations on Lunatic so it might be more challenging there,

As far as "putting all your eggs into killing the final boss and ignoring everything else", I'm not suggesting that's the best strategy for all the final bosses. In fact I even said getting cocky and over extending yourself is basically the only way the Fire Dragon can kill one of your units. It is, however, the optimum strategy for at least Grima and the game essentially tells you to do it in two turns. And I find it to be pretty effective against Garon too. Especially since he's vulnerable to a hexing rod use (or two).

Hey, I can see that, but all the same, you have to heal up after every confrontation with any of them, particularly the former since a Physic won't cut it, and a Wane Festal is even weaker (it's worth noting that in Anankos has 3 range, so you're going to have to pull back afterwards). I'm not sure I'd agree on Heirs of Fate, though - it just feels much more tedious; looking at Heirs of Fate, the following kids get oneshotted:

• Nina
• Ophelia
• Selkie (even with the Beastrune)
• Soleil (might as well since she dies if she's missing even 1 HP)
• Mitama
• Rhajat (Horse Spirit is no help here)
• Forrest
• Hisame
• Sophie
• Caeldori
• Dwyer
• Asugi

Yeesh.... that's over half of them. And this is the arm phase.

 

I'm not saying that you said that; however, I'm saying that, even if the game recommends that like it does in Grima's case, it's still luck-based to the extreme, especially if you're playing on anything above Normal, and for the record, I already summed up Grima on Lunatic:

On 11/24/2017 at 3:40 PM, Levant Mir Celestia said:

(have fun trying to have Chrom hit a 110 avoid boss on Lunatic!)

(A maxed out Chrom barely gets over 50% hit on Lunatic Grima with the Exalted Falchion, aka one of the only things that can do anything resembling damage to it; Lucina doesn't do much better in the hit department, and does less damage as well)

As for Garon... I wouldn't trust the Hexing Rod with its laughable 50 base accuracy to hit. Ever. And once again, if you fail, you have to redo chapter 27 as well, meaning wasting even more time. And woe to anyone whose Corrin can't take a hit from his 56/61 attack... (and like I said, even if they could, they're debuffed, and likely low enough that they can get flicked and die)

[Dark Holy Elf]

Only played the remakes of FE1-3 to completion, didn't finish FE4, didn't even start FE5.

Chosen by Fate: It's okay? Splitting up your army often feels like a rather artifical challenge. Medeus himself is too easy on lower difficulties and... just kinda weird on higher ones. I just sacrificed a manakete which is inelegant but they do almost all of his health in damage so it works well. Fitting that Shadow Dragon ends with a sacrifice.

Together to the End: Pretty fun since it mixes in a lot of the things you've already seen in the game like Upheavel, Jeddah, mogalls, witchception, Medusa, into one fight. Don't like how the battle ended with crit-fishing with Alm but eh.

Light and Shadow: Oh look, four damsels in distress, barf. I have nothing to say about the gameplay of this chapter.

Truth of the Legend: Awful map, you spend all your time walking and defeating extremely easy enemies, the only tiny threat comes from losing someone to a ninja reinforcement. Jahn may be the worst boss in the series, and Idoun is only barely better.

Light: The miniboss squad is great. Surprise Berserk staff is a dick move. Nergal is amazingly underwhelming, he should have at least moved or had a throne or something. (Also lol 13 AS.) Dragon's a "do you know how to deal with a 2HKOing durable solo in FE" which hey worked well enough for me as a first-time FE player for all that he's obviously easy now. Overall this is a good chapter despite Nergal.

Sacred Stone: Felt like an easier version of Darkling Woods for the most part, the there's a few moments like the dracozombies and approaching the Shadowshot barrage. Lyon is... well, better than Nergal anyway but still has the same core problems. Demon King is way too easy to one-round, the twins come close to doing it by themselves so just dance up your best unit otherwise and you win.

Repatriation: I liked how the generics were reasonably tough and had skills (that might have just been HM?). Ashnard himself is absoltely awful design on NM, he's a complete joke Nergal-style but you only have limited people who can damage him for no damn reason at all. On HM he's more of a threat but once you know how it works the mechanics are still obnxious; you either surround or isolate him and again, slowly chip him down. Then you get the "true" form which is in practice worse than the original because you gain a laguz royal.

Rebirth V: Great. Ashera having full MT attacks makes you pay much more attention to terrain and healing (especially if you don't have Fortify), optimally taking down the auras makes for some interesting SRPG stuff. It's still not the best but it actually feels like a final boss instead of some loser who sits there and waits for you to kill him/her with your PCs optimised for the job.

Grima: I'm surprised at the hate this map gets, I always thought this was fun, and I say this as someone who likes Awakening less than the previous four FEs. It's short and brutal (the one time the same-turn reinforcements feel like part of the design of a map instead of being cheap), you really really want to kill the boss as fast as you can once you get in range lest a new pile of reinforcements murder you.

Dawn Breaks Through: It's interesting to plan out a reliable one-round of this guy. I've never fought the boss fairly (i.e. seen an enemy phase) and it looks kinda ugly if you do, but hey, I enjoy said planning.

Night Breaks Through: It's not one of Conquest's best maps but the bar is high, and it's still a lot of fun; I love how the reinforcements, hexing rod, and wave attack put pressure on you to move fast so you can take out the boss. The boss himself would be nothing much but the map makes it all about the journey there, which is fun. The bad part is definitely that you can't save; it makes the sum total of this map and the previous very long (though it's only because the map has teeth that we care; I'm pretty sure Chapter 24-25 of FE6 is longer for instance).

Anankos: I remember enjoying this well enough but I've only done it once, the reinforcements come in at a pace to keep some pressure on as you deal with the (sadly relatively boring) boss parts itself.

tl;dr version:

FE10 > CQ > FE7 > SoV > FEA > BR > Rev > FE9 > FE1 > FE8 > FE3 > FE6

[Shrimpica]

For me it's Easily Rebirth, followed by Tacomeme. The reason for that is that they are the only ones who felt like a Final Boss, especially Ashera. The whole map presence, the abilities they had, etc..

 

Other Final Bosses are meh, with FE4's being extra Meh, and FE8 is lol-one-turn-ko

Edited November 26, 2017 by Shrimperor