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19 hours ago, mangasdeouf said:

Really? Have you ever surpassed a Tharja with a Ricken or Miriel in a no grind run? Have you ever tried a no pair up run? Try these challenges and let's see what your opinion is. Count the number of fights you do with each one of them and count how many EP fights they survive. Maybe they deal more on your phase, but as you know EP is highly more important in Awakening than in many previous FEs. If said mage can only be used during my phase because he/she is too squishy to see EP then why would I even level him/her up? That's also the point in FE: RD where mages often can't be used in ennemy phase unless they are mid-tier 3 in hard mode and probably never in lunatic.

My first FE was TSS and I used mages all the time, even if sometimes I had to grind a bit at Valni to get them to tier 2 they would be able to do their slaughter job even during ennemy phase and they had time to grow to mid tier 2 by the time ennemies became dangerous for them as newly promoted units. Dodgetanking was the base of TSS since you could get petrified (with +30 crit chance for the ennemy on you and no avoid), asleep or berserk and get killed by your own unit or get killed easily while defenceless. So when I see a game like Awakening with so many cheating methods included into the game to stomp it, I just wanna try to play it without these easy mode options. And without rerolling units all the time, giving them outside exp and without the bonus stats from supports, the game becomes much less of an amusement park. That's where I want to play. And in my challenge I don't use squishy units who deal tons of damage because they can't get hit by those 40+ damage late game ennemies and even less against the lethal weapon wielders (assassins with 45-50 damage 145+ lethal bows are scary especially if you use flyers).

Yes. In case you forgot, Miriel has 8 chapters on her, and Ricken 5 (discounting paralogues, and including her recruitment chapter because you're going to kill almost everything on the way to her). Anyways, you must have really idealistic expectations of your mages if you expect them to take like 5 hits...

Dodgetanking worked in Sacred Stones and Blazing Blade because enemies were weak. And because terrain was abundant.

37 minutes ago, Shoblongoo said:

Tharja on the otherhand, after a bit of a slow start, is going to be your most competent gen 1  nosferatu tank (and therefore the main tank that carries you through the midgame, because nosferatu tanking is absolutely busted in awakening). Until you start breaking the game with Morgan. 

Tharja deserves S-tier, tbh. The only thing noticeably wrong with her is her hit rate, and that's easy enough to patch-up with the right pair-up partner.

Her defensive is good enough to take an odd hit or two from a physical unit if Nosferatu misses--thats usually just extra V[engence] fuel anyway. And its not like she's ever going to be struggling to hit magic users once she grabs [tomebreaker]. 

She also isn't tremendously hard to get going after you recruit her, as in the time between bringing her on board at base + getting her up to tanking level, its fairly easy to just slap an (el)wind tome on her and pick off free kills on anything that your early frontline units  fail to one-round. The naturally high hit rate on wind magic cancels out her low base skill and lets her reliably land those finishing blows. 

Tharja is easily one of the best units on Lunatic. 

Hah! What naive idealism. Did you forget the part where she auto-loses to bad RNG? Sounds like you did. And that is NOT a desirable quality in a Nosferatank - after all, you can't drain life to stay alive if you die to a triple damage hit, now can you??? Also, with her skill being as low as it is, she can't rely on Vengeance despite its generous activation rate. On top of this, skill and luck are practically mutually exclusive as far as pair up bonuses go.

Edited by Levant Mir Celestia
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3 minutes ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

 she auto-loses to bad RNG

okay???

Miriel and Ricken lose to good RNG. 

If the worst you can say about a unit is "loses to bad RNG," its a good unit. 

Edited by Shoblongoo
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1 minute ago, Shoblongoo said:

 

okay???

Miriel and Ricken lose to good RNG. 

If the worst you can say about a unit is "loses to bad RNG," its a good unit. 

. <- Point.

 

 

O <- You.

I'll let that do the talking for me.

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4 minutes ago, Shoblongoo said:

okay???

Miriel and Ricken lose to good RNG. 

If the worst you can say about a unit is "loses to bad RNG," its a good unit. 

You've read my mind or what? XD

Also for people having played in lunatic, Chrom and Fred can also die early game. Are they bad units? No because Fred with correct/good RNG (meaning you don't suffer from ennemies critting) has just what he needs to survive and Chrom can surpass Fred with time. I don't even want to talk about MU who starts from dirt and reaches the sky.

Miriel simply doesn't get what she needs to be used in EP and Awakening is Ennemy Phase Emblem. So she is useful for 10% of the game (your phase). She is a pain is the ass to train in hard mode, not even mentionning lunatic where she's dead weight just because she's dead before turn 3 in case you use her. I've already used a Tharja who didn't get any exp in her recruitment chapter in the next chapter with a few units rushing to her, I put her on the nearest fort and she didn't die at all. I don't remember which support unit she had but a level 10 or even reclassed level 1 dark mage Miriel can't do that. She can hit, can have a bit more magic, but her def should have raised by 1 or 2 from her base stat and even as a dark mage she will never equal Tharja's defence with the same amount of level ups. And using a second seal on Miriel so early means not using Wyvern!Panne, myrmidon!Stahl/Sully, barbarian!Gregor, or any other unit who could be nice to have in another class (Sully and Stahl are good as cavaliers so they don't NEED it but some people love Myrmidons more than anything)

Edited by mangasdeouf
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4 minutes ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

. <- Point.

 

 

O <- You.

I'll let that do the talking for me.

...sure...

8 minutes ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

You must have really idealistic expectations of your mages if you expect them to take like 5 hits...

lol fuck off with that weak shit--I expect Tharja to tank half of Fort Steiger. (And she does it. Consistently.)

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3 minutes ago, Shoblongoo said:

...sure...

lol fuck off with that weak shit--I expect Tharja to tank half of Fort Steiger. (And she does it. Consistently.)

I dunno about you, but I'd rather not tempt fate constantly every time a certain unit enters combat...

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8 minutes ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

I dunno about you, but I'd rather not tempt fate constantly every time a certain unit enters combat...

Emphasis on "consistently"

Literally the only time you ever have to restart when Tharja main-tanks the Valm Arc is:

a) You accidentally parked a squishier unit in the enemy's attack range, and the AI targeted that unit instead of Tharja
b) You accidentally let Tharja solo too many enemies, and the rest of your units didn't get enough EXP

If you think Tharja is a bad unit, you are objectively bad at fire emblem.  

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1 minute ago, Shoblongoo said:

Emphasis on "consistently"

Literally the only time you ever have to restart when Tharja main-tanks the Valm Arc is:

a) You accidentally parked a squishier unit in the enemies attack range, and the AI targeted that unit instead of Tharja
b) You accidentally let Tharja solo too many enemies, and the rest of your units didn't get enough EXP

If you think Tharja is a bad unit, you are objectively bad at fire emblem.  

Hurling insults now, are we? Maybe you oughta show respect to others regardless of how they think...

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1 minute ago, Shoblongoo said:

Literally the only time you ever have to restart when Tharja main-tanks the Valm Arc is:

a) You accidentally parked a squishier unit in the enemies attack range, and the AI targeted that unit instead of Tharja
b) You accidentally let Tharja solo too many mobs, and the rest of your units didn't get enough EXP

If you think Tharja is a bad unit, you are objectively bad at fire emblem.

XD man you're so wright! I don't why this guy is still arguing Tharja<<<<Miriel since pros use Tharja from her joining time very often and since she can tank 2 hits from the start wih nosferatu she can chip 2 ennemies instead of one and kill 1 on her turn then kill the other on EP, and she got 2 chips and 2 kills...by herself! While Miriel steals exp from good bulky units you want to raise in no grind runs because without them you're just gonna restart all the time.

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3 minutes ago, mangasdeouf said:

XD man you're so wright! I don't why this guy is still arguing Tharja<<<<Miriel since pros use Tharja from her joining time very often and since she can tank 2 hits from the start wih nosferatu she can chip 2 ennemies instead of one and kill 1 on her turn then kill the other on EP, and she got 2 chips and 2 kills...by herself! While Miriel steals exp from good bulky units you want to raise in no grind runs because without them you're just gonna restart all the time.

Yeah I'm gonna stop. This is the "Berserkers are the worst class in Fates!" argument all over again. I'm over it.

I'll say this in Miriel's favor though: I enjoy her far more as a character than Tharja. Sexy librarian beats creepy stalker chick any day of the week.

And I 100% support Miriel x Ricken as a pairing. They're so cute on the bench together. 

 

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3 minutes ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

Hurling insults now, are we? Maybe you oughta show respect to others regardless of how they think...

He didn't insult you he just remarked that you're being subjective in your way of thinking about Tharja maybe you don't like her chara design or something else but she's a good asset to your army in any difficulty while others don't contribute well. Miriel comes level 1 or 2 with awful bases (even in magic) and her level 10 skill is useless. She takes 8 or 9 levels to be able to promote/reclass into a useful class (and promotion is impossible for her before chapter 8 anyway). Tharja comes with a useful class, 2 skills considered as top tier for tier 1 units (by the way her lack of avoid is not as important with her 2 excellent skills which lessen the ennemies' avoid by a total of 25 which means they don't have any avoid left so she hits for 100% of her own hit rate and lessens crit avoid by 10% which negates their luck) she just needs bulk and all the skill tomes/skill potions you can get (it's not like many others need it so it's not a bad thing to gives them to her).

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2 minutes ago, Shoblongoo said:

And I 100% support Miriel x Ricken as a pairing. They're so cute on the bench together.

XD both of them should know their place.How do you get their support level to S if you don't fight with them? XD

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1 hour ago, mangasdeouf said:

XD man you're so wright! I don't why this guy is still arguing Tharja<<<<Miriel since pros use Tharja from her joining time very often and since she can tank 2 hits from the start wih nosferatu she can chip 2 ennemies instead of one and kill 1 on her turn then kill the other on EP, and she got 2 chips and 2 kills...by herself! While Miriel steals exp from good bulky units you want to raise in no grind runs because without them you're just gonna restart all the time.

I have a hard time seeing that when she is 2-shotted by Steel Axe Barbarians, which can have Gamble, which gives them a 10% chance to instantly kill her, as well as Steel Axe Wyvern Riders, and almost everything else that isn't using a throwing weapon 3HKOS her (I'm looking at chapter 10 enemies on Hard, if you're curious). As a bonus, the majority of these also have crit on her. And I could just as easily argue that making Tharja good requires her to take Exp from other good units (consider this: Tharja takes a kill. No one else can get that kill. Chrom takes a kill, No one else can get that kill. Miriel takes a kill. No one else can get it). Also, she starts out with 74 Hit with Nosferatu - not really something I want to rely on, especially if missing puts me in a REALLY bad position...

1 hour ago, mangasdeouf said:

He didn't insult you he just remarked that you're being subjective in your way of thinking about Tharja maybe you don't like her chara design or something else but she's a good asset to your army in any difficulty while others don't contribute well. Miriel comes level 1 or 2 with awful bases (even in magic) and her level 10 skill is useless. She takes 8 or 9 levels to be able to promote/reclass into a useful class (and promotion is impossible for her before chapter 8 anyway). Tharja comes with a useful class, 2 skills considered as top tier for tier 1 units (by the way her lack of avoid is not as important with her 2 excellent skills which lessen the ennemies' avoid by a total of 25 which means they don't have any avoid left so she hits for 100% of her own hit rate and lessens crit avoid by 10% which negates their luck) she just needs bulk and all the skill tomes/skill potions you can get (it's not like many others need it so it's not a bad thing to gives them to her).

It definitely looked like an insult from where I'm standing. Also, Hex requires her to be adjacent to whatever she's attacking, meaning she's eating a counter unless she's attacking an archer.

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1 hour ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

Yes. In case you forgot, Miriel has 8 chapters on her, and Ricken 5 (discounting paralogues, and including her recruitment chapter because you're going to kill almost everything on the way to her). Anyways, you must have really idealistic expectations of your mages if you expect them to take like 5 hits...

Dodgetanking worked in Sacred Stones and Blazing Blade because enemies were weak. And because terrain was abundant.

It still works in Awakening for around early-mid to late-mid game. Mind, that's on Lunatic(+), where enemies start throwing around free extra +30-40 Hit between their hackforges and Hit +10 and Hit +20 skills, though this can still be somewhat compensated for with breakers that totally negate those bonuses on the applicable weapon type (barring them getting Hawkeye or their own applicable breaker).

It's kind of similar to how mid-late SS and BB could reliably allow dodgetanking because reaver weapons were worth +30 Avo, allowing units to push enemy listed Hit to 5 or less.

I find both Miriel and Tharja aren't really worth using for their own merits. Both are too squishy compared to Robin and there's only one Nos before beating C12, so any chance of Tharja Nostanking isn't really reasonable until then. I should also point out Tharja's Hit issues are quite real and scary: I take her into P4 because she's the only one with enough magic damage while also boosting Libra's staff range by enough, but she routinely sees 80-90 displayed Hit against the mooks with both Anathema and Wind, which is... seriously unimpressive. Hex isn't an option because she needs to be the first in to chip (not that I could guaranteed she wouldn't eat Vantage+ to the face if she was able to be the last hitter, anyway). Robin also generally doesn't need Nos to do the same job. If I had to pick one, I'd choose Miriel because she at least enables Gregor!Laurent Nostank shenanigans.

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51 minutes ago, Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi said:

I find both Miriel and Tharja aren't really worth using for their own merits. Both are too squishy compared to Robin and there's only one Nos before beating C12, so any chance of Tharja Nostanking isn't really reasonable until then. I should also point out Tharja's Hit issues are quite real and scary: I take her into P4 because she's the only one with enough magic damage while also boosting Libra's staff range by enough, but she routinely sees 80-90 displayed Hit against the mooks with both Anathema and Wind, which is... seriously unimpressive. Hex isn't an option because she needs to be the first in to chip (not that I could guaranteed she wouldn't eat Vantage+ to the face if she was able to be the last hitter, anyway). Robin also generally doesn't need Nos to do the same job. If I had to pick one, I'd choose Miriel because she at least enables Gregor!Laurent Nostank shenanigans.

Don't you mean chapter 13? Because chapter 12 lets you buy Master Seals.

51 minutes ago, Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi said:

It still works in Awakening for around early-mid to late-mid game. Mind, that's on Lunatic(+), where enemies start throwing around free extra +30-40 Hit between their hackforges and Hit +10 and Hit +20 skills, though this can still be somewhat compensated for with breakers that totally negate those bonuses on the applicable weapon type (barring them getting Hawkeye or their own applicable breaker).

It's kind of similar to how mid-late SS and BB could reliably allow dodgetanking because reaver weapons were worth +30 Avo, allowing units to push enemy listed Hit to 5 or less.

I'll be honest - I don't like talking about Lunatic in Awakening. It's an unbalanced mess of a difficulty. And Lunatic+ is a huge train wreck that should've been playtested.

I dunno - I thought dodgetanking was good in those regardless of reaver weapons, owing to the generous avoid formula and abundance of terrain.

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7 minutes ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

Don't you mean chapter 13? Because chapter 12 lets you buy Master Seals.

I'll be honest - I don't like talking about Lunatic in Awakening. It's an unbalanced mess of a difficulty. And Lunatic+ is a huge train wreck that should've been playtested.

I dunno - I thought dodgetanking was good in those regardless of reaver weapons, owing to the generous avoid formula and abundance of terrain.

Oops, yeah, after C13.

Vanilla Lunatic's really not that different from many other FE upper difficulties in that it's really dicey at the start (the stat math is actually extremely precise to the point where everything has to have been deliberately set up with the expectations that players will be intimately familiar with the formulae) and heavily favours units with good availability and at least decent bases. Lunatic+ can be really mean, but that's because its skills are specifically handpicked to challenge all the pet power strats that long-time vets favour. It's the "Oh, so you're a minmaxer? Let me pull the rug out from under you." mode.

I've recently been back through both games on Hard Mode and a lot of the dodgier units only get enemy displayed Hit down to around 30-35 with normal WTA and a Forest tile. This isn't really a great situation, especially when the enemy can afford to suicide multiple throwaway steel weapon units into the player units every turn (and a lot of dodge tanks are three-shot by the steel weapons if they do hit). Supports and reaver weaponry together pushes this down from "in danger of getting RNGed" to "massive statistical improbability".

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I just tested Miriel again vs Nanna's group (Titania support) and vs Deirdre's group. With Titania's support she got killed by 2 14 damage archers with 4 base def and +5 so 9 total def. She didn't even attack twice before dying even with Fred baiting ennemies as far as he could. Miriel needs one of these 2 things: more base dodge or more bulk. The way she starts makes her really hard to use. Even feeding her exp is hard. Before the Exponential growth DLC you're basically doomed since she can't get as many exp as the others unless taking all the kills (which is unlikely since in order to do that you need a wall of tanks to chip and survive ennemies until she comes and kills them one by one and with her bases she doesn't need 2 but 3 hits to kill anyone). If it weren't for my "worst units" run I'd never touch her before getting DLCs. And it means screw no grind mode.

Edited by mangasdeouf
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On 6/2/2018 at 1:36 AM, mangasdeouf said:

Is it a troll post? Because it looks like one.

This entire thread looks like it is from 2013 so I wouldn't know.

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18 hours ago, Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi said:

Oops, yeah, after C13.

Vanilla Lunatic's really not that different from many other FE upper difficulties in that it's really dicey at the start (the stat math is actually extremely precise to the point where everything has to have been deliberately set up with the expectations that players will be intimately familiar with the formulae) and heavily favours units with good availability and at least decent bases. Lunatic+ can be really mean, but that's because its skills are specifically handpicked to challenge all the pet power strats that long-time vets favour. It's the "Oh, so you're a minmaxer? Let me pull the rug out from under you." mode.

I've recently been back through both games on Hard Mode and a lot of the dodgier units only get enemy displayed Hit down to around 30-35 with normal WTA and a Forest tile. This isn't really a great situation, especially when the enemy can afford to suicide multiple throwaway steel weapon units into the player units every turn (and a lot of dodge tanks are three-shot by the steel weapons if they do hit). Supports and reaver weaponry together pushes this down from "in danger of getting RNGed" to "massive statistical improbability".

I would remember that because it's also where El tomes are first sold.

My issue with it is that because of the reasons you named, it feels a lot like it's guilty of Character Select Forcing. If most of the cast becomes practically unviable, that's a big problem in my book. I'd rather not be forced into using the same units each run just to succeed. And "mean" is certainly one word I'd use to describe Lunatic+. I can think of a few others, including ones so bad I'd probably get modded for using them!

Fair enough, I suppose. I guess it really is dependent on the enemy.

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It doesn't really character select force, though—aside from Chrom and Robin, for obvious story reasons,  and Fred, because he's the Jagen, anyway. Some characters are less viable, but not fully unviable. Like, aside from Donnel, no one is Fiona-tier useless in Awakening (Virion and Ricken certainly try, but they have notable uses in the early game, even if one intends to bench them). It's more a matter of you have to pick the units you're dedicating your resources to (much like Hard or Lunatic many of the other FEs) and stick to it. That is: select 4-5 combat units you want to use for the entire run (Chrom isn't even mandatory as a frontliner, since he can hang out and support someone in pair-up and be just fine). From there, you need to select which pair-up partner helps keep them alive long enough to pick up EXP, then you can raise them from there with the help of Fred and Robin. In a way, vanilla Lunatic is "everyone is a growth unit" mode. Most of this is even still able to hold true to Lunatic+, though Counter can prove a significant problem when it comes to trying to feed units (I'd argue that a lot of the Lunatic+ abilities hardly matter in the first few chapters for anyone other than Fred because one can already expect to eat it to the face and take a lot of damage because relying on dodges against high Hit is really bad play, Pass is super niche and Vantage+ doesn't come into play much when almost every player unit wants to kite—it's the random class skills, like Gamble and Focus, that present the most stupid RNG factor).

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6 hours ago, Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi said:

It doesn't really character select force, though—aside from Chrom and Robin, for obvious story reasons,  and Fred, because he's the Jagen, anyway. Some characters are less viable, but not fully unviable. Like, aside from Donnel, no one is Fiona-tier useless in Awakening (Virion and Ricken certainly try, but they have notable uses in the early game, even if one intends to bench them). It's more a matter of you have to pick the units you're dedicating your resources to (much like Hard or Lunatic many of the other FEs) and stick to it. That is: select 4-5 combat units you want to use for the entire run (Chrom isn't even mandatory as a frontliner, since he can hang out and support someone in pair-up and be just fine). From there, you need to select which pair-up partner helps keep them alive long enough to pick up EXP, then you can raise them from there with the help of Fred and Robin. In a way, vanilla Lunatic is "everyone is a growth unit" mode. Most of this is even still able to hold true to Lunatic+, though Counter can prove a significant problem when it comes to trying to feed units (I'd argue that a lot of the Lunatic+ abilities hardly matter in the first few chapters for anyone other than Fred because one can already expect to eat it to the face and take a lot of damage because relying on dodges against high Hit is really bad play, Pass is super niche and Vantage+ doesn't come into play much when almost every player unit wants to kite—it's the random class skills, like Gamble and Focus, that present the most stupid RNG factor).

Maybe not, but I still feel the random nature of Fire Emblem is further exacerbated when damn near everyone starts behind the curve (in normal circumstances, a few level ups can make or break a unit. When pretty much everybody starts behind the curve? You might as well give up on anyone who doesn't start getting good level ups early and often). So imho, saying "everyone is a growth unit" isn't much better. Also, Lunatic Grima is massively RNG based (FFS, a maxed Chrom only barely gets over 50% hit with one of the only things that can do anything resembling damage to the damn thing [without reliance on skills, that is; and this is ignoring how unrealistic a maxed out Chrom would be]... and if you fail, you get to watch as some mook heals Grima from like halfway across the map. That's no fun). As for Lunatic+, the big issue I have with it (disregarding the problems already intrisic to Lunatic) is Counter. In normal gameplay, I already find Counter warriors to be a big problem since their high HP and low defense means they take a lot of damage... which then gets blasted back in your face. Expand that to potentially being the case for half a map, and is it any wonder that I, and many others, deem Lunatic+ to be cancer? I would agree Pass is more of a non-factor.

Going back to the GBA games, you said that you used supports in conjunction with reaver weapons to knock enemy hit rates into the gutter. Wouldn't that be dependent on the units in question since support boosts are dependent on affinity? There's also the matter of supports being a pain in the butt to build... (incidentally, most of the characters that stand out as dodgetanks don't have an affinity that increases evade, at least in Sacred Stones)

Anyways...I'd say Henry is underrated. Granted, his speed is an issue, but unlike a certain dark-haired mage, he actually has the skill to hit with the inaccurate dark tomes. And I think Libra and Anna are overrated. Sure, they can fight and heal, but they have the same issue of being dependent on their lesser stat to attack. It doesn't help either's case that Levin Swords and Bolt Axes are both rare. (The one Bolt Axe is pried from the cold, dead fingers of a lategame boss, and Gangrel drops the one Levin Sword you'll see for a very, very long time - the others are in a paralogue and a drop in the second to last chapter).

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It really depends on how much you've prepared for Lunatic Grima. Admittedly, the game doesn't give you much of an indication of required benchmarks until Grima is right there, so a first playthrough on Lunatic might get pretty dicey. Why discount skills, though? The game it built around them and both Hex and Anathema greatly improve Chrom's hit rate and both Tharja and Henry are guaranteed to bring it. Even if they never see use, they provide the auras from the back, so someone can cart one of them up against Grima. If Chrom isn't cutting it, then Lucina often ends up better than him. Either one can be passed around to support different quadders in order to bypass Pavise. There's other viable options such as quad magic Vengeance or Ruin Vengeance (this one is much more RNG, though). Warrior Morgan with capped Str, Rally Str and a Paladin support also just straight-up kills Grima with raw, non-proc damage with a Brave Bow forged for +5 Mt and an Olivia Dance. Hex and Anathema should easily get him to capped hit rate. Other well-leveled bow users can kind of emulate this, but are going to need help either from Dual Strikes or another attacking unit. Basically, unless you have something built very specifically to get Grima on EP, it's better to do an all-in PP nuke-fest.

Nah, I get the complaints about Counter. I've complained about it numerous times and how it's the worse-implemented counter to player pet strats (anti-super unit here). Actually, an observation I made when replaying BB and SS is that Awakening Counter spam appears to be the culmination of that early GBA design. That is, mid-late game is full of suicide units with steel weaponry. Tactically, these weapons are a terrible choice for the unit itself. They often lose anywhere from 4 to 8 AS, which means they'll typically get curb-stomped on the counterattack by player unit. This setup is specifically sacrificing disposable units in an attempt to wear the player unit down until RNG finally works in the AI's favour. Awakening Counter spam is basically the final, extreme culmination of this philosophy.

Yes, making the supports work depends on the unit. There's a decent amount of easy, fast-growing supports that can realistically reach C or B early enough to matter (A is generally unrealistic for most units, though) and give Avo bumps (quick few examples: Guy/Matthew/Priscilla, Joshua/Natasha, Raven/anyone, Eirika/Seth, Jaffar/anyone, Farina/her sisters). The reaver weapon is the most important part of the strat, though, since it's a bit more independant and is a guaranteed extra 15 Avo and 1 less damage taken over having normal WTA. Dodge tanks can still go dodge mode without having the support in place, but the player must be aware that the hit rates are higher and should take steps to limit the amount of enemies they're exposed to. Many supports that don't increase Avo do give Def, though, so, coupled with the Reaver's effective 2 damage reduction, it can help reduce the impact of freak hits when settling for less comfortable enemy hit rates.

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6 hours ago, Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi said:

It really depends on how much you've prepared for Lunatic Grima. Admittedly, the game doesn't give you much of an indication of required benchmarks until Grima is right there, so a first playthrough on Lunatic might get pretty dicey. Why discount skills, though? The game it built around them and both Hex and Anathema greatly improve Chrom's hit rate and both Tharja and Henry are guaranteed to bring it. Even if they never see use, they provide the auras from the back, so someone can cart one of them up against Grima. If Chrom isn't cutting it, then Lucina often ends up better than him. Either one can be passed around to support different quadders in order to bypass Pavise. There's other viable options such as quad magic Vengeance or Ruin Vengeance (this one is much more RNG, though). Warrior Morgan with capped Str, Rally Str and a Paladin support also just straight-up kills Grima with raw, non-proc damage with a Brave Bow forged for +5 Mt and an Olivia Dance. Hex and Anathema should easily get him to capped hit rate. Other well-leveled bow users can kind of emulate this, but are going to need help either from Dual Strikes or another attacking unit. Basically, unless you have something built very specifically to get Grima on EP, it's better to do an all-in PP nuke-fest.

Nah, I get the complaints about Counter. I've complained about it numerous times and how it's the worse-implemented counter to player pet strats (anti-super unit here). Actually, an observation I made when replaying BB and SS is that Awakening Counter spam appears to be the culmination of that early GBA design. That is, mid-late game is full of suicide units with steel weaponry. Tactically, these weapons are a terrible choice for the unit itself. They often lose anywhere from 4 to 8 AS, which means they'll typically get curb-stomped on the counterattack by player unit. This setup is specifically sacrificing disposable units in an attempt to wear the player unit down until RNG finally works in the AI's favour. Awakening Counter spam is basically the final, extreme culmination of this philosophy.

Yes, making the supports work depends on the unit. There's a decent amount of easy, fast-growing supports that can realistically reach C or B early enough to matter (A is generally unrealistic for most units, though) and give Avo bumps (quick few examples: Guy/Matthew/Priscilla, Joshua/Natasha, Raven/anyone, Eirika/Seth, Jaffar/anyone, Farina/her sisters). The reaver weapon is the most important part of the strat, though, since it's a bit more independant and is a guaranteed extra 15 Avo and 1 less damage taken over having normal WTA. Dodge tanks can still go dodge mode without having the support in place, but the player must be aware that the hit rates are higher and should take steps to limit the amount of enemies they're exposed to. Many supports that don't increase Avo do give Def, though, so, coupled with the Reaver's effective 2 damage reduction, it can help reduce the impact of freak hits when settling for less comfortable enemy hit rates.

When I meant skills, I specifically meant procs, which are, by their very nature, unreliable, and that includes Vengeance, despite its generous activation rate. Anyway, while Hex and Anathema can help, it isn't exactly going to get Chrom to deadeye accuracy levels... and Lucina is worse off in a way thanks to her Falchion being weaker. Warrior Morgan might work, but I'm extremely iffy on a solution that assumes playing as a specific gender in the first place for obvious reasons.

Fair enough.

I suppose you have a point there. But I'm iffy on the Jaffar example since his only fast support is with the underleveled Nino (his other two supports are slooooooow to trigger). Incidentally, I brought up the support thing on account of many users these days taking issue with the way the GBA support system works, between the need to stall for dozens of turns and the fact that some characters (most notably Serra) are shafted with a bunch of slow growing supports.

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Vengeance really isn't that hard to get to nearly 100% on any of the player's first two, maybe three, sweeper slots. Appropriate pair-up and Tonics are just really strong that way. Sure, it's not going to get Chrom to 100% Hit rate if he's not capped in Skl and Luk, but he should be able to push over 70 listed Hit, which is pretty impressive from the back, considering Exalted Falchion's low base Hit. Lucina's only worse off in raw damage. She tends to grow faster and better, so if she can hit more reliably, then she's worth considering unless she isn't going to hit the damage breakpoint for the army. Warrior Morgan definitely does work. I've personally checked the math and verified it through execution. He does enough damage to overkill by something like 3 damage. He's also just an example of the pinnacle. As I said, others can fill his role, even if not as well (a good candidate would be an early kid with Vaike as a father for the big Str boost). But if the player brings one or two other competent units, they should be able to make up the difference when the Brave Bow shenanigans are already doing so much damage.

Hmmm, whoops, yeah, for some reason I thought Jaffar's growth with Legault was faster. So, yeah, that should just read Jaffar/Nino. Nino is a fan favourite, so she's worth noting, even if she's a pretty weak unit. And yeah, the old GBA support rate is pretty gross. 3-5 points per turn is varies from pretty okay to quite fast, but I feel like they didn't properly check the math when assigning so many people to having 1-and-2-point growths. It does make a lot of sense for some units, but that rate could have been used a lot more sparingly for the relationships that don't approach blatant hostility.

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Let's stay inside the topic, old FE's support speed isn't related.

Yes counter warriors are cancer and they don't bring anything near interesting to the difficulty, just stupid game design (like exponential growth throwing you 2 def with high HP faceless with counter in a DLC made for exp grinding, you already paid the DLC and you still have to be careful of ennemies with stupid design, with breakers, miracle and everyone with counter). Awakening has the shittiest design between TSS, POR, RD and Awakening because of how most objectives and maps are deprived of any thinking, cuts you from using normally dancers/healers, who are much more often in danger than in any of the other aforementionned titles (I didn't finish any of the other ones so I can't tell for them and I didn't finish POR either but at least I reached chapter 20 or more) and difficulty raises like cheat, with early ennemies having B weapon rank from the start in hard and A rank for everyone with cheated +3 MT +20 hit etc. weapons everywhere in lunatic (is that supposed to bring anything? just put steel weapons on them instead, at least they have less hit than iron weapons) coupled with stupid skill like crit +5/+10, +5 HP on already pumped up units with +15 hp or not far from it (from easy/hard difficulties), enough speed to double your fastest non-Frederick units, Fred can't even tank more than 4 physical hits per turn and mages exist from the prologue. Without the water trick I don't think a noral player would be able to get past chapter 3 or 4 because they couldn't give MU the precious level ups.

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