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Azura in an offensive class is like Olivia in Awakening; she's got the growths (in fact, better) to do serious damage, the problem is if she can live to use them.
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Jul 14, 2023 08:30
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Sky Knight Azura woof. At least you have a staff user once she promotes! I love Nyx, but she's totally tied with Benny as worst in the game. The things that make Outlaw work for her are that 1) Lucky 7 is one of the few ways to fix her abhorrent hitrates, and 2) she gets Mozu friendship, so you can make her a Kinshi Knight with Move+1, and a 9 move flier will always have utility. She also gets Charlotte and Effie friendships if you're down to get a real goofy build too.
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Jul 14, 2023 12:51
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Benny is not even remotely close to worst in the game. He joins at a high level, has good enough growths, and can choke a point decently if needed. Low movement can be solved with Pair Up and his Personal solves any lingering Hit issues. You can dock him for efficiency runs and sometimes his Def gets too high which makes enemies outright ignore him, but he's nowhere near as bad as Nyx or some units when they're not being a backpack.
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Jul 14, 2023 13:52
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ApplesandOranges posted:Azura in an offensive class is like Olivia in Awakening; she's got the growths (in fact, better) to do serious damage, the problem is if she can live to use them. Plus they have the, y'know, sacrificing the zero-investment Dancer problem. For whatever it's worth, a random class run like this is probably the best time to see what Azura can do as an actual combat unit.
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Jul 14, 2023 23:34
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Update 7 (Part 1) - Betrayal is More Expensive than Anticipated It's time for what is easily the most anticipated chapter in the early game. After some preparations, that is. And by some preparations, I mean just cooking, because we did everything else I needed last update.   Personally, I think it's hilarious that Arthur manages to screw up his meal in such a way that he stumbles into a well-made Hoshidan variant of the dish.   "Fans of Hoshidan food" consists of just Odin and Azura at the moment. This meal could certainly have been better, but I'll take it.  It's also Odin's birthday today! Or it was on July 15th, when I played the map. I can't celebrate with him because it would violate my rules, unfortunately.  Conquest Chapter 10. Easily the most famous chapter in Fates, and for good reason. It's one of the hardest maps in the game, and it's thrown at you early enough that new players won't really have figured out how to play well just yet. It's a genuinely difficult map, and in my opinion, the model defense map. It's my personal favorite map in the series, and I don't think I've ever had two attempts go quite the same way. That being said, I'll save the details for when we actually play the map.   Ah crap, we've made pineapple boy angry.    See the enemy count in the bottom right? That's not even half of the enemies this map throws at you. Luckily, their skills generally aren't too threatening. Anyway, there's four villages, two of which are actually kind of difficult to get to. There's also a Fire Orb and a Ballista that we'll be making use of, as well as a second Ballista that's more there for the enemies to use if you let them.  These guys with Lunge are some of the most dangerous enemies on the map because they can take your units out of chokepoints, or just drag someone into range of several other enemies. Or both. There aren't too many of them, but they're placed carefully to make certain groups much more dangerous.  Some of these Sky Knights have Darting Blow, but their attack is generally low enough that it's not a problem. Though it does make them harder to one round on enemy phase.  A surprisingly small number of these Spear Fighters have Seal Defense, but it's always nasty if you let it hit you.  Takumi also brought his retainers, Hinata and Oboro. They're not too bad on their own, but it's pretty hard to get them alone considering the enemy count here. Hinata's personal skill, Triple Threat, is a kind of mini-Counter. If you drop his health to 50% or less with a sword, lance, or axe hit, you'll take 50% of the damage from that particular attack. It only works on the hit that brings him to that threshold, so it's not too dangerous. He also has Movement +1, increasing his threat range; Darting Blow, letting him actually double because even in Conquest he's too slow to double anything on his own; and Armored Blow, which kind of forces you to deal with him on player phase. He won't move right away, so he can be safely ignored for the moment.  Oboro is more dangerous than Hinata, especially because there's a village in her range, but we'll get a character who can make short work of her soon. Her personal skill, Nohr Emnity, lets her deal +3 damage to units in Nohrian classes. Unless you've reclassed Odin, this is everyone except for Azura and Mozu, both of whom are frail enough to die to Oboro anyways. She's also got Movement +1 like Hinata, as well as Seal Strength and Seal Defense. Unlike in Birthright, Hinata is actually the more dangerous of Takumi's retainers.  Takumi himself is here for the first of many fights against us. In this map, he's less a unit and more a map feature/optional challenge. His personal skill, Competetive, gives him +10 crit, +3 damage dealt, and -1 damage received when he's paired with a higher-levelled unit. It's obviously useless here, because he's alone. He's also got Quick Draw, which is kind of useless because he can't move so you'd have to let him initiate on you for it to work; Wary Fighter, which makes it difficult to kill him before he activates the dragon vein he's standing on; and Point Blank, which is a DLC skill that lets him counterattack at 1 range. You can go out of your way to kill him, but I'm not going to bother right now. I might go back and try it in a bonus update later, though.  This is how I've got everyone positioned for the map. Shockingly, I didn't see anwhere in my practice runs that a tonic would make a big difference, so I'm not using any.  If any enemy reaches one of the green tiles on top of the map, we lose. Unlike many defense maps, this is an actual threat for a couple of reasons, one of which being the high enemy count.   Here's what the fire orb and ballista ranges look like. They'll come in handy, but they don't apply your unit's stats to their might; the number on screen is the number you have. They'll hit up to 5 enemies in a "+" shape, though any of your units in the shot will take damage as well. The ballista is the most useful one by far. If you have a second archer, usually Mozu, you can technically use both of them, but I've never found the eastern one to be worth using.   Niles starts us off by chipping these two with the ballista.    Odin visits the northeastern village for a master seal, which is a pretty good reward for what is essentially a freebie village. I won't be using it for a chapter or two, though.  Arthur follows Odin. Their job is going to be handling the northeast and preventing the enemy from taking that ballista.  Marth is going to take on these Spear Fighters. Because they're weakened, he can finish them on enemy phase with Elise's help.  Azura moves here, mostly to heal Marth with her personal skill. It's not much, but it can make a difference.  Finally, Nyx and Mozu move northeast to get that village and take on the Oni Savages. Mozu, unfortunately, won't be getting all that much experience in this map. She should hopefully have a solid chance in Chapter 11, though!    Marth and Elise can only barely take care of these guys. If either of them were a point of strength weaker, I'd need a tonic to do this.   You have no idea how many times Elise missed one of these 71s when I was feeling out the map with this team. I could have recovered from one miss, though it would delay the village visit by a couple of turns.  Marth gets a very solid level.     Silas gets to work clearing these Oni Savages. His damage output is crazy because he's stacking Elbow Room and Strong Riposte for +6 damage dealt. And he gets a great level for his trouble, though I wish he'd realize that he can get strength and speed from the same level.   The second fight goes much the same as the first.  At the start of player phase, Azura heals Marth for 2 HP with Healing Descant. I won't be mentioning this often because it's going to happen a lot and I don't want to bring it up every time. Also, it's worth noting that every single enemy on this map aside from Hinata, Oboro, and Takumi are aggressive from turn 1.  Niles chips these Ninja with the ballista, turning them into experience bags.   Elise kills the first one with a hit rate that's actually pretty good by her standards.   Marth visits the southwestern village for, in my opinion, one of the most significant weapons in the route. The dual club is a Hoshidan weapon, so this is the only one we'll be getting. It inverts the weapon triangle and doubles its effect, letting axe users fight sword enemies very effectively. Although, there aren't as many enemy swords as you'd think in this game, so it's not as game changing as you might expect.     Azura finishes the second Ninja with Marth's help, and gets a kind of bad level. She wants strength more than anything. Darting Blow is solid, though, and she won't have much trouble doubling for the moment.   Nyx starts working on the northwestern Oni Savages while the wall they're trying to break is still up. Interestingly, there's a really tight window between the fireball connecting with the enemy and the experience bar appearing, which I've never noticed until trying to screenshot it.   Mozu visits the northwestern village and gets  Arthur and Odin move forward, but not too much because they'll be picking up some of the reinforcements that appear next turn.  Silas would kill this guy, but without Strong Riposte, he can't quite one round, so he just waits instead.   On enemy phase, the Ninja attacks him, but Felicia blocks it because of the guard gauge. This is nice, because I don't want him taking the shuriken debuff.    He kills the Oni Savage, and I've gotta mention here that it looks like he slipped on a banana peel when he dodged.  Niles gets hit by the Sky Knight, but he'll be fine.  These guys will break the wall next turn, but that's fine because Nyx is going to handle them before they become a problem.  Lastly, these Sky Knights appear from the south. This is the first of many waves of reinforcements in this map. These guys, and most of the reinforcement fliers have an interesting AI quirk where they'll ignore combat unless they can score a kill so they can move to the green tiles. This means that you can't enemy phase them and they put a lot of extra pressure on you as a result.  At the start of player phase, we get some very welcome reinforcements! Also, Silas activated Good Fortune.  Beruka is a very nice unit for this map, because she can hit hard, take a hit or two, and she provides more flier utility.  Camilla is really good in this map, and also in general. I'd argue that she's one of the best units in the series, especially relative to the difficulty of her game. She's easily the best unit in Conquest, and she's gonna be carrying more than her fair share of weight starting this turn.  Selena is another very nice addition to the map, but because she doesn't fly, she's a little far back to be useful unless you plan for her appearance like I did.    Pairing her with Arthur, we can get her right into the fray.    I pass Arthur to Odin so he doesn't get dual striked to death by Spear Fighters next turn before having him kill the other Archer.   Niles kills the Sky Knight that hit him earlier. His hit rate is a little shaky, but he can't quite kill with the bronze bow, so it's what I've got to work with.     It's kind of a convoluted maneuver, but I pair Camilla with Beruka so she can pass her to Elise so that Elise can take her to this Ninja. This is pretty much how Camilla performs in combat for the next 5 chapters or so, and she never stops being a very strong combat unit.  Silas moves here, which puts him in range of all three of these Oni Savages. If he hadn't activated Good Fortune, I think I'd have him use a vulnerary to be safe.     Nyx finishes her first enemy off with thunder. Most of her levels are going to look similar to this. Malefic Aura is more free damage, which is pretty nice.  There's a pretty large group approaching from the west, but we'll have to deal with that later. I don't really want to bait anything out with Marth because he'll just get debuffed if he does, so I just arrange him and Azura for maximum healing.    On enemy phase, Selena takes a pretty big hit from this guy. I don't mind that she doesn't one round because this guy doesn't have Seal Defense.     Odin one rounds his guy because of Arthur's support. The levels in this map continue to be generally solid.    Oboro moves in to dual strike against Silas, but it's not a problem because we were going to go for her soon anyways. Silas is getting another +3 damage dealt from Camilla's personal skill, Rose's Thorns.    I'm just showing the highlights of these fights, because they're all largely the same. The only difference is how badly the enemy loses.  Niles gets chipped by another Sky Knight.  And this guy finally takes down the wall.  Lastly, these highlighted guys are the reinforcements for the turn.     Passing Camilla an iron axe lets her double Oboro, something she can't do with the steel axe. That makes her pretty easy to deal with.   Nyx chips this guy down.   And Mozu gets her only kill for the map using a dual strike from Nyx. The hit rate was kind of shaky, but I don't think a more accurate spell would have quite secured the kill.   Niles shoots another Sky Knight down.   And Marth takes one of the reinforcements from a turn ago out with Silas's help.  I was kind of undecided on where I wanted Silas to go, so I swapped Felicia to the front for the extra movement and made sure she could reach the village if I wanted her to next turn.  That group from the west is officially becoming a problem, but it's one I'll have Azura and Beruka run away from for now. Azura is likely to get attacked by this Sky Knight though.   Selena finishes this guy off with Odin's help.   I pass Arthur to Selena before having Odin use a vulnerary. I honestly don't remember why I passed Arthur like that. Maybe so Selena could gain support with both of them?    Back on enemy phase, Azura does get attacked by this guy. She survives, but it means she can't take any more hits this map, which does limit my options a bit.  This group manages to break our wall, but that's fine.  These fliers are our reinforcements for the turn. The fliers in this map aren't that dangerous in a fight, but the fact that they ignore your units means that they're a constant drain on your player phase unit actions. That goes double for the pairs.  Selena activates Good Fortune on player phase.  Now that these guys are getting this close, I can't really ignore them any further. These Spear Fighters are pretty tanky, so I have Camilla use Lunge so she'll be in position to dual strike against the second one, letting someone else one round.   The steel axe sometimes provides the extra oomph you need to cross the one shot threshold. It also gives more power during dual strikes, where you can't double anyways.   For example, this wouldn't be a kill if she were using the iron axe.   These Ninja are a lot more frail than the Spear Fighters, so Camilla isn't strictly necessary to secure the kill. We'll just leave the last one alive, because I don't really have any good options available to kill him right now. Someone is just going to eat the debuff on enemy phase.    Felicia cleans this Sky Knight up, securing Azura's safety.   I would have just had Niles one shot with the iron bow, but he only has 85 hit with that, and this chip lets Azura get some experience anyways.   Even though her stats are comparable to Mozu's, Azura has flier movement that opens up a lot of options like this.  Back to the other fronts, I have Arthur wait in range of these Archers with a hand axe. Because of the 1 tile bridge, he can soften up one of these guys safely. Odin just hangs back where it's safe.  Sorcerer Odin would just stay here to deal with the Oni Savage reinforcements that are going to show up soon, but Nyx can't take them head on, so she and Mozu start retreating to use the Fire Orb.   On enemy phase, Marth eats the shuriken debuff, which kind of sucks, but at least the damage was negligible.    Arthur not only hits, he dodges. It's totally useless because this is about all the combat I intend to have him participate in directly, but he's trying his best to not get benched after this map.  That was all the combat we saw on enemy phase, but these highlighted guys are the new reinforcements. One of these guys in each group has Lunge, but it's only really relevant in the west because that's the only side with a good chokepoint that it can mess with. At this point, if it's your first playthrough of the game, you probably feel like you've more or less got it figured out, but that's about to change when Takumi uses his dragon vein on enemy phase.   These guys spawn in the perfect spot to chip them with the Fire Orb, but Nyx is still gonna need some more help to deal with them.  This Sky Knight is getting really close to the defense tiles, but it just can't quite reach, so it can wait another turn.   Selena finishes the guy Arthur chipped, and because she has a guard gauge, we'll deal with the others next turn.   Beruka and Marth take out the Ninja together.     While Camilla and Marth deal with this Sky Knight pair so they don't have a chance to slip by us later.  And now Felicia and Silas are going to go grab the last village.   In hind sight, I should probably have used Camilla to bait some of these western enemies this turn, but since I'm not doing that, I might as well take Elise from her so I have more viable fighters next turn.  Niles just chips this guy with the ballista. The northeastern Sky Knight is going to be right next to the defense tiles next turn, but because of Movement +1, he's just barely going to be able to reach him.   Mozu and Odin wait just outside of enemy range, where it's safe.   On enemy phase, Selena uses her guard gauge to tank this Archer. Thanks again to the narrow bridge that prevents multiple of them from attacking her.    This group is actually aggressive, they don't just beeline for the defense tiles.   This other one goes for Marth, who dodges before killing with his counterattack.  Oh boy, here it comes!    At the end of this enemy phase, Takumi activates the dragon vein and drains all of the water, turning water tiles into plain tiles that anyone can walk on. He's nearly turned the map into an open field, which forces you to quickly adapt to the still-high enemy count now that you've lost most of your chokepoints. It lets the enemies exert a lot more pressure on these last few turns, and they're usually pretty frantic as a result. Also, Hinata and Oboro will start approaching if they haven't already been dealt with. Obviously, if you've killed Takumi by this point, this doesn't happen.  There's also this massive wave of Sky Knights from the south which will divert a lot of your attention from the stronger but still threatening ground units.    It's always a touch scary when a miss would mean an instant loss, but Niles pulls it off and handles this guy. Of course, the RNG repays him with another awful level.   The Fire Orb tile is only in range of one Oni Savage with a throwing club, and Nyx can take the hit as long as she's not getting dual striked, so I pair her up with Mozu again before having her chip these guys in the south.   I want to take out as many of these guys as possible, and ideally Camilla ends the turn in Hinata's range while equipped with the dual club. Marth starts us off by killing this Sky Knight with a hand axe.    Because he attacked from 2 spaces, Beruka can trade the dual club off of him while still making use of his dual strike to kill this Spear Fighter.  Marth gets a very good level from helping out. It's pretty much everything I could ask for.   Camilla trades the dual club off of Beruka, and I'm going to have her use Lunge. Because Lunge works even if the target dies, she'll kill this guy and then move into his tile.    Because I really want her to fight Hinata on enemy phase, I have her use the dual club even though its accuracy is dubious.    Next, Elise passes Azura to Beruka so she can dual strike this guy, finishing the last of this group.    Pretty much everything but strength is a very Elise level. Lunge also opens up some options that I'll likely not notice.   We'll want this group moving towards the center to deal with the approaching horde, but for now we want to finish these Archers so they can't take the ballista. Selena kills the first one.   And Odin kills the second.   Felicia finally visits this last village for a dracoshield, which gives +2 defense. I don't know who I'll give this to yet, but I'll probably hand it out before the next map.    On enemy phase, Nyx kills the throwing club guy. She won't be taking any more hits this map.  Unfortunately, I forgot that Conquest's AI is actually smart, and Hinata simply ignored the awful matchup he would have had against Camilla, which screws up my entire plan. The highlighted guys are the last batch of reinforcements. Some of them, like the Archers in the east, are a little too far away to make it to the front line before our turn count is up. Also, you'll note that pretty much my entire army is pretty far from the northwestern enemies, and they're starting to get pretty close to the defense tiles. The southeastern enemies are less dangerous, because we can afford to run away from them if necessary.    I had to think about this one for a few minutes, but in the end, I decided to have Camilla pair up with Elise so she could choke this point for a turn.  This guy is going to win the map on enemy phase if I don't stop him, but Nyx can't take another hit, so she can't block him off or kill him without dying.  Luckily, Mozu is just barely able to survive a hit from him because he's only got an iron club, so we just put her in the way for now.  Silas falls back and heals so he can take on these Oni Savages on enemy phase.    Niles chips this lone Sky Knight down so Marth can kill without a dual strike.    Everyone else just starts falling back to deal with the more threatening western group. I separate everyone to keep my options open.    See, she's fine! This last screenshot is of this guy Lunging into Mozu's spot, which is fine.    Camilla kills one of this pair. She's going to continue choking this point for the moment, even though enemies can just walk around it to the north.      And Silas takes on a lot of Oni Savages. Nothing new here.  This is the state of the map at the start of player phase. The big problems are the huge group of enemies in the west, and the Sky Knights in the east.   Nyx finds a nice safe spot to kill this guy from. That's the most immediate threat handled.     Arthur pairs with Odin to give him some extra oomph, and he chips this throwing club guy.   Camilla chips the only Lunge guy in this entire group. Even though he's still alive, he'll die if he tries to use Lunge on her, and it won't work. Though I think she'd be fine even in the open.     Niles chips this guy for Azura just like earlier.  She gets a better level out of it this time!     I'm mostly content to let Hinata's group do what they want right now, so Beruka kills this other Sky Knight with Niles' help. She gets a very good level out of it. Aside from Niles, everyone has been on point with the levels this whole chapter. She also learns Lunge. I don't think I've ever had so many Lunge users in the same team before.   Now that we're done on that side, I'm confident that Marth can afford to help out over here, so he finishes the throwing club guy off.     Felicia chips the northernmost Sky Knight pair, getting a solid level.  I didn't quite catch it in the screenshot, but Selena sits here to slow the pair's advance down a bit and uses a vulnerary. I shouldn't have focused so much on the Oni Savage pair, considering that these guys are the biggest threat on this side by far.    On enemy phase, Camilla takes on a couple of Oni Savages. I was trying to change the camera angle to one that sucked less, but then I accidentally screenshot the wrong screen, so I don't have this part of enemy phase. Oh well, it's a lesson learned, I guess.    The leftover Oni Savage from eastern pair decides to attack Marth. Now he's under 50% of his health, which activates Silas' Vow of Friendship, which is nice.     Thankfully, I noticed my mistake with the screenshots before missing Hinata's turn to attack. This chip brings him low enough to finish with the dual club.  Here's the state of the map right now, at the start of turn 10. Both Hinata's group and the Sky Knights need to be taken care of right now, though the Sky Knights are a slightly less immediate problem.   Though they're also the easier problem to handle, so I start with those by having Odin finish this one.     Without the extra speed from their pair up, Felicia can double and one round these guys.     Niles softens this guy up so Selena can kill. Though she gets a kind of disappointing level out of it. Normally I'd be happy with speed, but she's one of the fastest units in Conquest, so this isn't that impressive for her.   Marth finishes the last one with Selena's help.  We'll have some trouble with these guys next turn, but for now, Camilla can block their path by sitting here like Mozu earlier.   Azura carries Beruka to the north so she'll be available to help out next turn.  Mozu and Nyx separate again, because I might want Mozu to ferry someone to the front lines next turn.    On enemy phase, Odin starts us off by killing this Oni Savage.   And Felicia eats a pretty big hit from this Archer.  I didn't take a screenshot of the way everyone moved on enemy phase, but you can kind of see it here. Hinata's group is now very close to the defense tiles, which means we have to take them out now or we'll lose. This is going to require a lot of dual strikes. I start by having Arthur pass Odin to Mozu so she can take him to the front lines.     He can't quite kill, but this is the best target of his available options.   Marth finishes the first enemy of the turn.   And Beruka can score a kill here with Camilla's help.    With Camilla's Rose's Thorns, Nyx and Odin can kill the other Oni Savage in one round. Now it's just Hinata that's threatening the defense tiles. Nyx also gets the most Nyx level imaginable.  Camilla attacks Hinata with the dual club. Either this attack connects, or we lose the map, because I don't have any options left to deal with him after this.   I really didn't want to replay the map after losing at the last second, so I'm really glad this connected.   At this point, it's just a matter of protecting my weakened characters, so I pass Selena to Azura, who carries her here so she can block off this Ninja pair.  I also passed Mozu to Niles and had him wait in range, just in case these guys decided they wanted to give him some free experience.  Finally, I had Silas use a vulnerary while standing in this chokepoint. He didn't need the healing at all, but at this point of the map, I wasn't taking any chances.   In the last enemy phase of the map, these Ninja go for Selena, as expected.     Silas kills an Oni Savage, getting a decent level for his trouble. He clearly wants to hit things really hard, which is fine by me.   Arthur dodges his second arrow of the map, and just like the first time, it doesn't matter.   And Silas takes us home using his guard gauge.  There we have it! Chapter 10 is one of the best defense maps in the series, and it's a strong contender for my favorite map in the game. It's got a strong incentive to play aggressively, and the villages all give good enough rewards to make grabbing them worthwhile. I don't really have much more to say about it that I haven't already said, but it's a great map. That being said, I've just about hit the character limit, so the post-battle stuff will be in a part 2.
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Jul 20, 2023 08:44
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Update 7 (Part 2) - Post-Map My Castle   These are the supports for the map. I didn't realize that Odin and Selena's support was so fast. Anyway, it's time to roll the dice on our new units!  Beruka can reclass to Fighter, so her options are Malig Knight (1), Wyvern Lord (2), Berserker (3), and Hero (4). Of these options, I'd definitely prefer a flying class.  Oh good, another Hero. That's 4 of them on the army now.   She's faster and stronger, but she's not fast enough to double without help. This is definitely worse than Wyvern Lord, but she's still much better than Arthur, so it shouldn't be too bad.  Selena can reclass to Sky Knight, so her options are Bow Knight (1), Hero (2), Falcon Knight (3), and Kinshi Knight (4). I don't really have a preference here. More flier utility is always nice, but she'll be a better combat unit on the ground.  She gets Kinshi Knight! This is kind of on the "ehh" side of things, because its strength tends to be pretty low. She won't have any trouble doubling things, though!   The strength loss hurts, but look at how fast she is! I think she'll be pretty good.  And now it's Camilla's turn. Her options are Malig Knight (1), Wyvern Lord (2), Dark Knight (3), and Sorcerer (4). The flying options are better by far, but also a lot more boring, so I'm fine either way.  Malig Knight is... Kinda bland. Very effective, but also a very uninteresting outcome.   Now that we're done with that, I buy a bronze lance for Selena and pass her Azura's naginata, because she has the bulk to potentially benefit from the +1 def/res it provides. New unit discussions  Beruka Class: Hero Growth Rates HP - 45 Str - 30 Mag - 10 Skl - 55 Spd - 30 Lck - 45 Def - 40 Res - 25 "Mom, can we have Camilla?" "No, we have Camilla at home." Beruka is a great unit in a standard run, mostly because she has access to the Wyvern classline without any extra investment, and she has the bases and growths to be a good one. Her speed is a little low, but a decent pair up can usually patch that up. Her personal skill, Opportunist, gives her +4 damage dealt when her enemy can't counterattack. Extra damage is always good, making this one of the better personal skills. Because her growths and bases are geared toward being a tanky unit with high strength and decent speed, she pretty much always wants to go into Wyvern Lord or Malig Knight (or both). Wyvern Lord is slightly stronger, faster, and physically tankier, so I think it's her best option. Malig Knight does give better magic and resistance, but because Beruka isn't inherently good at either of these things, it really doesn't do that much for her. It does give Trample at level 15, which boosts damage dealt to non-mounted enemies by 5, but it's learned so late that I don't consider it a great point in favor of it. I've never tried it, but she's probably pretty good as a Berserker. She'd still have some speed issues, but she'd hit like a truck and she has the defensive stats and HP to give her a lot of bulk. Her statline is pretty good for Hero, though maybe a little slow. That being said, Hero is so much worse as a class than Wyvern Lord that I wouldn't recommend it in a standard run. In the best case scenario, I'd expect her to turn out tankier and faster, but weaker than Wyvern Lord. The lost movement and flier utility hurts, but I think she'll perform just fine.  Camilla Class: Malig Knight Growth Rates HP - 40 Str - 50 Mag - 25 Skl - 50 Spd - 55 Lck - 25 Def - 35 Res - 45 Camilla is, in my opinion, the single best unit in the game, and one of the best units in the series. Her bases are fantastic for when she joins, her growths are solid, and being a flier gives her immense versatility as a support unit or frontline fighter. Additionally, her internal level is treated as if she had promoted at level 10, so she starts gaining more experience sooner than you'd expect. From the turn she joins to the end of the game, she can contribute as an absolute monster initially and later a solid combat unit with great support from her personal skill. She can even use magic to leave enemies alive for others to kill! Her personal skill, Rose's Thorns, provides adjacent allies with +3 damage dealt and -1 damage taken, which is pretty great, especially on a flier. As a Sorcerer, she's basically Odin but better without easy access to Vantage. As a Dark Knight, she's basically Leo but if he joined like 6 chapters earlier. Both of these are great, but they just aren't as good as keeping her on a wyvern. Like I said, Malig Knight and Wyvern Lord are pretty similar, so she'll perform about the same regardless of what you go for. Wyvern Lord would give her Rally Defense, which could help her out as a support unit when she stops standing out as much toward the end of the game, but honestly, she won't ever be worse than solid in combat, so she doesn't really need it.  Selena Class: Kinshi Knight Growth Rates HP - 40 Str - 30 Mag - 5 Skl - 25 Spd - 45 Lck - 30 Def - 45 Res - 30 Selena is a very solid unit because she's one of the fastest units in the route, and she's got solid bases that make her useful right out of the box. Her strength is a little lacking, but she's fast enough to use steel weapons most of the time, which helps patch that up quite nicely. She's also got solid defense, considering that she'll pretty much never get doubled. The only thing I don't like about her is her personal skill, Fierce Rival, which makes her get a guaranteed crit if she's the support unit in a dual strike and the lead unit gets one. I've only seen this activate once or twice ever, because not much survives the first crit. It's super unreliable, and when it does activate, it's generally not useful. I guess you could probably use it for boss killing with a crit build on someone like Arthur or Charlotte if you really wanted to. Anyway, as a Hero, she's fast and durable, essentially doing what she did in Chapter 10 but better. As a Bow Knight, she gets extra movement and speed at the cost of a little strength and durability, but I think that bow access makes up for it. Shurikenbreaker, which provides hit/avoid +50 against daggers, is learned at level 15. It's pretty great because of the sheer number of Ninja that Conquest throws at you, and it's particularly useful in Chapter 25. Otherwise, though I've never tried it, Selena can go the Sky Knight route to gain even more speed at the cost of more durability and strength. Falcon Knight is never a bad option because Rally Speed and staff access are both good to have. Kinshi Knight has the lowest strength of her class options, but flier movement and bow access are both good, and she'll definitely be fast enough to double most enemies. I expect her to be a little frail but generally solid in combat once she gets through E rank lances, and I'll never complain about having even more fliers. Benchmaster Voting  The next map has 11 deployment slots counting Marth's, so we'll have to pick two more units to leave behind. Odin is still off limits, but everyone else is fair game (including Camilla, for the sadists in the audience). Note that even if he gets benched, I'll make an exception and bring Niles to any map that has treasure because he has Locktouch. Unless there's enough chest keys to get everything without him, in which case he can stay behind. Here are our Benchmaster candidates for today:  Felicia is doing pretty well for the moment.  Now that she's got D rank axes, Elise is in a pretty good place.  He's a touch slow, but Silas is currently one of my best units, especially with a +speed pair up.  Arthur is alright, but he's starting to fall behind some of my other units, and it's not like I've got a shortage of axe units right now.  Niles is doing pretty well considering that he's gained 3 levels and they've all been pretty bad. The poor guy hasn't gained a single point of strength.  Mozu isn't doing so well right now, but I'm pretty sure she can gain at least a couple of levels in Chapter 11, so there's still hope.  Azura, on the other hand, is having a pretty easy time growing. I'm pretty happy with how she's turning out so far.  Nyx is so far turning out to be a typical Nyx: High magic and speed, but not much else. Standard, everyday Camilla. She's great, but it's not the most interesting thing to see in this run. Flier Selena is pretty interesting, though, and I'd personally like to see how she turns out. Beruka is literally better than Arthur in every stat except HP, and that's only because he has HP +5. If it weren't for that, they'd be tied in that. Once again, the voting will stay open until I play the next map. Next time, we realize that the real power was the exercise we got along the way. Kmsorter fucked around with this message at 22:39 on Jul 20, 2023 |
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Jul 20, 2023 08:46
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I'll vote to bench Mozu and Elise. There's so many wyverns now that a few of them could stay home, and Beruka just joined so she could have another map. A lot of units also need training and I'd rather some of that experience go to Azura than Mozu. I'd normally say bench Nyx, but she's our only magic option right now if we ever need that. Back to new units, Selena is the one I've had the most trouble training in my experience. Her main issue is that (like another upcoming unit) she joins at a time when you should already have a fair amount of swordies, and the next few maps aren't great for pure sword users. She's also very reliant on coin flips for Str and mine has failed more often on those than I'd like. A Steel Sword can carry her for a bit considering her Speed, but she needs to get lucky or she'll start falling behind the stronger and/or more mobile characters.
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Jul 20, 2023 10:01
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Beruka overview posted:decent pair up can usually patch that up. She's basically Her personal skill, Opportunist, gives She’s basically what? I’ll vote to bench Elise and Arthur. We seem to have way too many axes at the moment and I’d like to give the new units some chance to stretch first.
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Jul 20, 2023 15:42
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Bench Elise and Mozu. Every drat Conquest LP has done wyvern Elise.
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Jul 20, 2023 15:45
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Man, I love Conquest 10. What a fantastic map. And your levels in that map were also pretty amazing overall! I'm gonna say we should bench Arthur and Nyx.
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Jul 20, 2023 16:22
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I never got around to playing conquest, I bought birthright when it came up out and played through it and revelations once or twice, so it’s been interesting seeing how this route plays out. Voting to bench Elise and Beruka, too many axes and heroes
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Jul 20, 2023 21:46
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I vote to bench no one and keep everyone equally leveled. It’s the right way to play.™️
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Jul 20, 2023 23:10
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I adore Elise and all, but yeah, every other Fates LP has done Wyvern Elise, so she's not bringing anything new to the table, lets just let Camilla be Camilla. For the second benching, Anyone BUT Mozu. We literally benched Effie just to make room for Mozu, so benching her so soon would be... pretty much a slap in the face to that entire vote.
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Jul 20, 2023 23:25
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My vote is for benching Arthur and Elise
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Jul 21, 2023 00:35
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I vote to deploy in a way that lets us recruit all the children. If someone like Arthur wins the bench vote, that should seal his fate as a stat backpack until he attains an S support. Then perma-bench after. If someone like Elise or Mozu lose, they'd be benched immediately or used as a backpack until S support.
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Jul 21, 2023 04:59
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NeoRonTheNeuron posted:I vote to deploy in a way that lets us recruit all the children. I agree with this take, as well as bench Elise and Arthur. I love those two, but Wyvern Elise is super common in LPs (rightfully so), and Arthur, well... Hero Beruka just seems really cool and I want to see her get used. Her skill stat is gonna skyrocket!
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Jul 21, 2023 08:07
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I've been pretty busy lately, so this next update is a little later than I'd have liked. The semester is winding down, so updates are likely to be a bit less frequent for the moment, especially because maps are getting larger.ApplesandOranges posted:Back to new units, Selena is the one I've had the most trouble training in my experience. Her main issue is that (like another upcoming unit) she joins at a time when you should already have a fair amount of swordies, and the next few maps aren't great for pure sword users. She's also very reliant on coin flips for Str and mine has failed more often on those than I'd like. A Steel Sword can carry her for a bit considering her Speed, but she needs to get lucky or she'll start falling behind the stronger and/or more mobile characters. Honestly, I've found that she can get by pretty well just using Arthur as a backpack, with the occasional strength tonic. Swords do have it kind of rough in the next couple of chapters, though. NeoRonTheNeuron posted:I vote to deploy in a way that lets us recruit all the children. I'm honestly not 100% sure how I want to handle pairings yet. At the very least I'll show off all of their paralogues, but any of the children that we recruit near the end of the run we wouldn't really be able to play around with. Once we're a little closer to our final team I'll probably do this or something similar. AweStriker posted:She’s basically what? Oops. I meant to take that out. I was going to say that she's basically bargain bin Camilla.
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Aug 3, 2023 07:30
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Update 8 - The Snake Oil Sage You guys overwhelmingly voted to bench Elise and, slightly less overwhelmingly, Arthur. I'm not gonna complain about losing my most inaccurate units, but I will miss Arthur's sweet, sweet, pair up bonuses.   Selena won't be needing these, so I redistribute them to others.  I also buy Silas a steel sword, which reduces spd by 3 for the purpose of doubling. It doesn't affect your speed defensively, though, so you won't get doubled more frequently for using it.  I also pass Elise and Arthur's stuff to Beruka, along with the concoction. She'll be one of our frontline fighters for this next map.   This is our meal for the map. It's alright. At this point, we've got too many units for me to bother mentioning the details of who was affected, so I won't be doing that from here on. I'll try to mention it if it's particularly relevant, though.  I also give Silas the dracoshield because he's one of my best units, and because he's already pretty tanky as it is. It's generally better to use stat boosters to improve units' strengths rather than trying to patch up their weaknesses (like if I had given it to Azura).   The last thing I want to do before this next map is promoting Niles so I can have a staff user. I'd normally wait until at least level 15 or so to promote, but in this case, I want a staff user because I don't have any. Though this does kind of mess up Niles' long-term potential, because now he's going to gain experience at the same rate as Camilla.  I give him both heal staves, but I'll leave the Rescue staff in the convoy. It's so valuable in the late game that I'd rather just restart a map than use it this early.  I think it's hilarious that the Rainbow Sage's power is your whole reason for coming here, and when you finally get to him, he just goes "the real power was the exercise you got climbing the mountain" and dies. But that's not what we're here to talk about, so let's move on to the map.    This is the map. It's divided into 6 major rooms, each of which contains a single group of enemies. The stairs separating them are basically teleporters, and the enemies aren't allowed to use them (though they can sometimes block them off). If you just take it one room at a time and avoid separating your army, this map shouldn't give you much trouble. In a normal run, I usually send Odin down one side on his own while the rest of the army handles the other, but that won't be possible in this run. Because I'm not a pansy, and because it makes this map a lot more interesting, I'll be splitting my army.   In the lower left room, you've got a bunch of Archers with Counter. They're not usually too difficult, especially on hard or normal mode, because you can just put a unit like Effie with high defense in there and watch them win.  This strategy is somewhat harder to use in lunatic because of the inclusion of this Diviner, who also has Counter. He's literally just here to make it harder to tank the whole room with one unit.  They're led by Setsuna, who is basically a slightly tougher, significantly faster Archer. "A slightly stronger version of every other enemy in the room" pretty much describes most of the minibosses in this map, and the only genuinely dangerous one is Azama. Anyway, Setsuna doesn't have Counter, but she does come equipped with a steel shortbow, an enemy-only 1-2 range steel bow. She has Strong Riposte and Certain Blow, which gives +40 hit when she initiates combat. Neither of these is likely to matter. Her personal skill, Optimist, makes her recover 50% more when being healed by a staff. This is useless for her right now, because there's no one available to heal her.   In the lower right room, we have a group of Oni Savages with Seal Resistance. They're pretty bulky, but Seal Resistance is really just there to weaken your units for the mages in the next room, so they're not too difficult on their own.  It also has this Ninja with Seal Speed that is a bit more threatening, but he's still mostly limited to sometimes keeping you from doubling the Oni Savages. As far as Seal Speed goes, this is one of the less-dangerous places for it.  The miniboss of this room is Rinkah, who has Seal Resistance and Warding Blow, which gives -20 magical damage taken when initiating combat. It's not all that useful, because at this point the only mage you would reasonably put here is Odin, who is better used in the lower left room. Her personal skill, Fiery Blood, giver her +4 damage dealt when she's not at full HP. As for how we'll handle this room, it's going to be a simple strategy involving Camilla leading the charge supported by Odin and Niles.   In the upper right room, we've got a bunch of Diviners with Miracle, giving them a % chance equal to their luck stat of surviving a lethal blow with 1 HP. This isn't too bad, but Miracle is really annoying because it could potentially screw up a run but it's not likely enough to do so that I actually bother planning around it.  It also has an Archer who's just there to prevent you from soloing the room using someone that has high resistance but low defense.  The real problem here is Azama, and more specifically his Hexing Rod, which reduces a unit's max HP by 50% for the remainder of the map. There's no way to cure it once it hits a unit, and it makes that unit much harder to use for the rest of the map. He's also got both Counter and Miracle, as well as his personal skill, Divine Retribution, which makes adjacent attackers take half the damage they deal, essentially acting as a second Counter. Both skills stack, so I don't recommend attacking him at one range unless it's a finishing blow.   In the upper left room, you have a bunch of Ninja with Lunge. If you don't one-shot them, any unit you place in here is going to have to tank every single one of them because they'll Lunge-chain them.  It also has this guy with a hammer, who is here to prevent you from just putting Effie in here without thinking about it.  The last miniboss in this map is Kaze, who is a slightly stronger Ninja to deal with. He has Heartseeker and Vantage, but neither is particularly dangerous. His personal skill, Miraculous Save, gives the lead unit Miracle when he's the support unit. Across all my playthroughs of every route in Fates, I think I've only seen this activate a couple of times. It's pretty much completely useless, and he effectively doesn't have a personal skill. We'll be handling this room the same way we're handling the Archer room, by having Beruka walk in and tank them with her face. This room also has a chest with a Spirit Dust, which gives +2 magic when used.   This middle room is the most dangerous one, because it's a pretty tightly-organized group. The highlighted pair here has Life and Death, so they'll deal and take +10 damage, which makes this room harder to enemy phase.   The pairs on either side are pretty well-placed Lungers who can draw you into the Life and Death pair (and the other enemies). They also have Armored blow and a lot of speed, which makes them hard to one-round on enemy phase, making it hard to avoid the Lunge. The Ninja and Diviner are just kind of there; they're not that significant.  The last room is pretty easy, just having Hinoka and a small group dedicated to supporting her.    Her support squad is a couple of Sky Knights with Camaraderie, which restores 10% of their HP at the start of their turn when there's an ally within 2 spaces; and Winged Shield, which nullifies their weakness to bows. I don't really know why they're here, but they are. Immediately behind Hinoka is this pair of Gentilhomme Samurai, giving her -2 damage taken. And in the back is a Sun Festal healer to heal her.  Hinoka herself is a pretty weak boss, and because she's at the front of the group, she's all you really need to deal with. Her personal skill, Rallying Cry, makes allies within 2 spaces deal +2 damage. She also has Inspiration, which makes allies within 2 spaces deal +2 damage and take -2 damage. She also has Darting Blow, but she's not going to get a chance to initiate combat, so it won't matter. Oh, she also has Winged Shield, which is kind of a given for a flier boss.    For this map, I'll want several tonics. Beruka gets def/res tonics, Camilla gets spd/def tonics, and Silas gets a spd tonic.  This is how I've got everyone positioned. Essentially, my strategy is going to involve Camilla, Odin, Niles, and Mozu going to the right while everyone else goes to the left.  These four take the stairs, and I have Camilla wait in range of 3 Oni Savages with only Mozu next to her. This way, Mozu can get 5 experience per Oni Savage from dual striking.    On the other side, I pair Marth and Beruka, and have her wait in range of 3 Archers with a hand axe. If she didn't have both the defense and resistance tonic, she'd die pretty consistently here.    Camilla starts the enemy phase off by killing an Oni Savage.   Next, she tanks this Ninja like a champ. It might not look it, but this is the most unreliable part of my strategy. If this misses, Camilla doesn't take the debuff, and the other 2 Oni Savages that she's supposed to fight won't attack because they won't do damage.      Beruka takes on a lot of Archers, and I'm only showing the highlights because showing essentially the same fight 3 times in a row feels like a waste of time.     Back on Camilla's side, she ends the enemy phase by killing another couple of Oni Savages. That's 3 now, or half of this room's enemies. This is where the speed tonic comes in handy, because she can't double through the Ninja's Seal Speed without it.   Back on player phase, Odin starts us off by killing this Ninja with Camilla's help.    Camilla chips Rinkah down, taking a pretty big hit in response.   Niles finishes her off, and this just leaves a single Oni Savage alive. He'll attack Niles next turn because of his low defense.  Mozu can't survive a hit from him, though, so she retreats down the stairs.   On the west side, we're going to kill every enemy on player phase. Felicia starts us off with this guy. I chose her because she doesn't need a dual strike to reliably kill, and attacking from this space keeps important tiles open for other units.   Silas one-shots this Diviner using the steel sword. He could have killed using the bronze sword and a dual strike, but he'd take Counter damage and he needs his HP for later.   Selena finishes this guy off on her own. She actually does quite a bit of damage considering she's using bronze.   Nyx of all people has the important job of dealing with Setsuna, though her hit rate is a little shaky as usual. She missed this quite a few times in my practice runs. Luckily, the lower hit rates are pretty frontloaded, so we're almost done gambling.    Azura takes down one of the Archers Beruka weakened. She technically took Counter damage, but she's so weak that it was only a point.    Marth finishes the last guy off, taking a lot of Counter damage. This is good, though, because it activates Vow of Friendship, which is going to be important for the last room.   Niles takes a pretty big hit from the last Oni Savage, but because of the extra HP from his promotion, he won't even need a vulnerary. This is also literally the only thing to happen on enemy phase.   Back on player phase, Odin holds back to chip this guy for Mozu.  She needs Niles' spot, so he moves and heals Camilla. It's pretty nice to actually have a healer.    Mozu gets her first kill of the map, and gets a really disappointing level out of it. What's the point of a growth unit if they're not going to grow the important stats?  Lastly for this side, Camilla advances toward the stairs.  Marth has a guard gauge ready, so he moves into Kaze's room and waits in range of the hammer guy. He doubles, so he'll kill and won't get Lunged into Kaze's squad.  Everyone else just waits outside the stairs so they can pounce when the time is right.    Now all that's left is a bunch of Ninja that are fairly easy to bait and clean up afterward, as long as you have a unit who can take a hit from all of them.  Marth also got some more speed out of the fight, which is nice.    I have everyone on the right advance to the next room, but I don't have them enter enemy range. The AI in this room won't advance until you enter the Hexing Rod's range, so they won't move forward just yet.  Beruka moves here and uses the last concoction. I'd like her to be closer to the stairs, but I've had them Lunge chain until someone blocks them off before, and I'd rather make sure that doesn't happen.  Everyone else just inches slightly closer.     Kaze starts the enemy phase off by attacking Beruka. This would be a lot worse if he had a Seal skill or a nastier shuriken debuff than his allies, but he doesn't.    Beruka gets a solid level out of the next one to attack. She's tanky enough that I actually care about her defense growth. She also learns HP +5, making her that much better than Arthur.    Because she's getting doubled by all of these guys, the extra defense is genuinely lifesaving here. It's only one point, but it adds up.    The next guy gives her C axes, which unlocks steel axes, bolt axes, and killer axes, as well as giving +5 hit with all axes. Not bad.     And she chips her fifth and final Ninja of the turn.   Everyone else is moving in just like they did for Setsuna's room. Felicia uses the bronze sword here because she's closer to D swords than D axes.   Silas finishes this guy off. I'm starting with the units who don't need support to reliably kill so they'll be in position to support the ones who do.   Nyx attacks at 1 range to take advantage of Heartseeker.    Azura gets Beruka's help to finish this guy, and she gets an okay level for her trouble. She literally just wants strength right now.    Kaze gives me a minor heart attack by activating Vantage before going down. That takes care of his room.  Niles and Camilla move here, with Niles just in range of two Diviners. Camilla can survive combat with them, but I'd rather her not get hit by the Hexing Rod and she can't one round them at 2 range like Niles anyway.  Niles gets his max HP cut in half.     But the extra resistance from his promotion makes that fine. It's a shame promotion can't fix his hit rate, though...    He does one-round the other one, though. I love the Adventurer's finishing animation, because they fire mid-backflip and it looks really cool.  Look, mom! I'm remembering that I have Lunge! Odin needs Camilla's help to one-round this Archer, and this lets her get a kill while getting in position.   The dual club is really nice here. It sees more use against mages than swords in this route.  Before Odin attacks, he passes his vulnerary to Camilla.   Thankfully, this guy didn't activate Miracle. That would have been a restart.  More strength!   We're not taking this last room on without Camilla, so everyone on this side gets into position.  Azama targets Odin because he's got lower resistance and is facing combat this turn.   But it's fine because he has a guard gauge.   He won't be taking any more hits this map, though.  Camilla can just barely reach the stairs, so she moves into the last room and uses a vulnerary.  Silas does the same, waiting on the stairs inside the room. The Lunge pair is going to block them off next turn, but he and Camilla are tough enough to survive a turn by themselves.  I don't really care if Niles gets this kill or not because he's not gaining much experience, so I try to capture this guy for funsies. Capture reduces his hit by 10 and prevents allies from dual striking, so it can be difficult sometimes.    I won't be using this guy; I just think it's fun to capture occasionally.    On enemy phase, Silas gets debuffed and Poison Striked by this Ninja. The Life and Death Samurai moved to support him, which effectively disarms the Lunge pair for the turn because this was the only threat that Lunge would put Silas or Camilla in range of.    These numbers look fairly ordinary until you remember that these guys have Armored Blow and they're only doing 4 damage to a debuffed Silas. He's currently getting -5 damage taken from Supportive and Vow of Friendship, as well as +8 damage dealt from Supportive, Vow of Friendship, and Strong Riposte. It's crazy.    Camilla chips the Lunge pair on this side.   The dual club is giving her double the usual weapon triangle bonuses, which is why her avoid is so high right now.  Back on player phase, Niles grabs the Enfeeble staff out of the eastern chest. It's a solid staff, though I tend to forget I have it.    Life and Death lets you hit some pretty incredible damage numbers against these guys.  Camilla is going to Lunge into this guy's spot, because it lets Silas benefit from Rose's Thorns during enemy phase.   And that's the last threatening enemy on the map. The rest is basically a non-issue.    But we still have a couple of enemy phases left. Camilla starts this one by getting Poison Striked.    Silas is currently under the effects of every damage boosting skill in our arsenal, giving him a total of +14 damage dealt and -6 damage taken, so he's almost one-shotting this guy through Armored Blow.   And Silas uses his guard gauge on this mage, though he would have survived without it.   There's quite a few enemies left, so we'll start this player phase by killing the Samurai pairs. The stairs aren't blocked anymore, so Selena and the rest can move in to clean up. Rose's Thorns continues to help us secure kills.   Felicia violently de-pairs the last pair.   And she gets a very good level out of it! Unfortunately, I don't think a raise is in the budget at the moment.   Nyx finishes this Samurai from this tile because it lets her apply Heartseeker to the Ninja.     This Diviner is the only enemy Azura can both one-round and survive a hit from, but she dodged it anyway.  Felicia finally reaches D swords! She'll appreciate the extra might iron swords give.   I almost feel bad for these guys. Silas isn't even using a forged weapon!    Beruka finishes the last enemy off with Silas' help. He gets an absolutely awful level out of it, but he's so good at this point that I really don't mind.  Odin and Niles elect to ignore Azama and the last Diviner because they don't drop anything, and end the turn by moving towards the other chest.  Of course, there's effectively no enemy phase this turn, so Niles pairs with Selena to reach the chest this turn. I honestly don't know who I should give this to. I usually feed Odin all of the Spirit Dusts.  Everyone else spends the turn moving into Hinoka's room.  On our last turn of the map, Marth pairs with Azura so he can stop blocking the stairs while keeping my options open.     Beruka and Odin pair up and start chipping Hinoka.  More speed is fine by me!  This isn't, though! Gamble increases crit by 10 and reduces hit by 10. This is only a worthwhile trade in the late game, and even then only if you've got a max-crit Berserker build going. At this point, it actively makes units who use the least accurate weapon type even less accurate, and should be removed at the earliest opportunity.    Camilla chips Hinoka, and at this point I can feed the kill to pretty much anyone.    A slight chance of death is worth it for a Mozu kill. The level she got out of it is kind of disappointing, though. She really needs to get some strength. Or some bulk.  And that's it for one of my least favorite maps in the route! It's not actively bad, which is more than I can say about some maps from the other routes, but the segmented nature of it means that there's absolutely no reason to move quickly. The stairs are used again later in the game, but the enemies are much stronger and more numerous, which makes just moving one unit in a bit harder. Here, Kaze's room and the last one are the most threatening ones because of Lunge, but it's only really the last room because Kaze's squad is too weak to actually prevent a unit from tanking all of them like I did. Anyway, it's time for the post-map My Castle!    Just the two supports this time, and the most useful one is Marth/Beruka.  Most importantly, we just recruited Kaze, so it's time to decide his fate. Also, notice that he lost 2 strength and 1 speed when he joined us. We must have sprained his ankle during the fight or something.  He can reclass to Samurai, making his final options Master Ninja (1), Mechanist (2), Master of Arms (3), and Swordmaster (4). The worst he could do here is Master of Arms, and he's such a good unit that he'd still be solid after getting out of E swords.  He rolled a 2, making him a Mechanist. I'm okay with this, though I think I'd have preferred Master Ninja. In theory, Mechanist alleviates Kaze's low strength and defense without sacrificing too much speed, but I find that he loses quite a bit of utility because the Mechanist pair up bonuses aren't as good as Master Ninja's.  Also, I'm not going to recruit him, but I thought I'd show off our new pet, Tamaki. He likes his new home. New unit discussions Kaze Class: Mechanist Growth rates HP - 55 Str - 40 Mag - 0 Skl - 45 Spd - 65 Lck - 20 Def - 20 Res - 35 Kaze is one of my favorite units in Fates, and easily my most used. He's Mr. Reliable, because no matter the route, he's going to join you and be faster than almost anyone else in your army. He also uses shurikens, which are the best weapon type because of their unpenalized 1-2 range and debuffs. Finally, because he's a Ninja, a class few have access to in Conquest, he gives a lot of speed to his pair up partners as well as +1 move. His strength is a little lacking, and he's physically a little frail, but neither of these is a huge problem when he doubles everything all the time while providing excellent utility. I mentioned it earlier, but his personal skill, Miraculous Save, gives his pair up partner Miracle while he's supporting them. In my opinion, it's the single worst personal skill in the game. As far as class options go, if you make him a Swordmaster or Master of Arms, he loses shuriken access, making him quite a bit less appealing despite still being crazy fast. I don't see any reason to take him to Swordmaster, because it's got a similar stat spread to Master Ninja but with a much worse weapon. Master of Arms would at least somewhat boost his strength and defense over Master Ninja, and his personal speed growth is enough that the loss wouldn't even be noticeable. That being said, it's utility isn't nearly as good as Master Ninja, which requires no extra investment or effort, especially if you trained him up in the prologue. He would at least appreciate Life and Death, but it's learned so late that he won't have that much time to benefit from it. Master Ninja is the simple and easy way to get Kaze but better, and it has no real downsides. He'll hit a bit harder, go a little faster, and be just a little tankier, but he'll largely be doing the same job he did before promoting. Mechanist is theoretically good for him because it gives him extra strength and movement, but I've always found myself a bit unsatisfied with it. The extra movement is sometimes offset by the cavalry movement penalties it gets, and I find myself missing the speedy pair up bonuses he provides as a Master Ninja. The really stand-out thing about the Mechanist is Replicate, learned at level 15. It lets you create a replica of your unit that shares its HP with the original, effectively letting them move twice per turn. It's a fantastic skill, but it's one that's learned so late in the game that I typically don't get to play around with it much. Overall, because of his inherently great speed, he'd be a great addition to the team. Benchmaster Voting  The next map has 11 deployment slots counting Marth, so we need to bench one person. Odin is, as usual, off-limits. Next time, we find out what happens when you mix lobster and pottery. Kmsorter fucked around with this message at 07:39 on Aug 3, 2023 |
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Aug 3, 2023 07:36
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Gonna vote out Mozu because she's really not impressing. (The evil option would be to vote out Niles since you just burned a promotion on him and it takes away your only staff user, but I'm not that mean.) Kaze's cool, and Conquest is probably his best route. I think Mechanist is fine for this run because it also has bow access, and right now you only have it on Niles (until Selena promotes). There's I think one more unit up ahead with bow access, but if he doesn't pan out or if Niles is too busy healing, having a high movement archer can be useful. ApplesandOranges fucked around with this message at 08:38 on Aug 3, 2023 |
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Aug 3, 2023 08:36
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Voting to bench Mozu as she's just not getting the stats she needs. I'm curious on the captured unit, do they get upgrade paths as well? If so, I'd be curious to know what RNG class they'd roll if they did somehow join the team.
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Aug 3, 2023 10:45
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PotatoManJack posted:Voting to bench Mozu as she's just not getting the stats she needs. They just have their one standard class set, so a Diviner would only get that, Onmyoji and Basara. So presumably you'd be flipping a coin as to what class they end up in (or use a DLC seal).
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Aug 3, 2023 11:06
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Bench Mozu. We already have Azura and Selena working their way through lances. We don't need more trainees.
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Aug 4, 2023 05:37
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He's clearly too good, bench Silas 
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Aug 6, 2023 16:34
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Update 9 - Pot Boiled Lobster This time around, you guys voted to bench Mozu, which kind of invalidates the kills I fed her in the last map but that's okay because I'm not complaining about only having one disappointing Master of Arms on my team.  So we'll go ahead and redistribute her stuff.  Azura isn't particularly close to D lances yet, but she's the closest of our lance users, so I hand her the javelin and iron lance.  I pass Kaze Felicia's old iron dagger. It's a little more accurate than the steel shuriken, and it doesn't have the speed penalty, so it might come in handy.  Camilla gets the other hand axe that I had lying around.  And lastly, Beruka learned Gamble last map, so we need to take that off of her right away.  Here's our meal for the map. It didn't have any special effects, just strength +1 to half the army. It affected a pretty good batch of units, though.  I also build a fire orb, which is a thing we can do now. It's necessary to recruit a unit later in the game (no, I'm not joking).  With preparations out of the way, it's time to move on to chapter 12!    Chapter 12 is an interesting map, featuring all of these breakable pots. When you break one, it splashes every unit within two spaces with medicine or poison, buffing or debuffing them, healing or hurting, or even applying status effects like freeze or hex. The pots are labelled medicine or poison, but there's no way of knowing exactly what's inside a pot without breaking it. This isn't really as bad as it sounds, because the game only forces you to break one poison pot if you use the dragon vein, the rest can be avoided. The enemies don't break them either, so that's not anything to worry about. Other than this, the objective is to either have Marth escape by reaching any of the top three tiles behind Ryoma, or to kill Ryoma, which can be difficult. It should be doable, but if it doesn't work out, I'm not against ignoring him.    The enemies in this map aren't too threatening. These Ninja are fast, but they're so weak that it hardly matters. Only a few of the Spear Fighters have Seal Defense, and the Samurai are similarly lacking in dangerous skills, so they're pretty easy to deal with.  One thing to watch out for is some of these Apothecaries in the north who have Spendthrift, which lets them deal +10 and take -10 damage when initiating combat at the cost of one gold bar. If you let them initiate on you, it could get kind of nasty.   The only other dangerous enemies are some of the staff users. This one here has entrap, so they can warp a unit into a cage match against this Samurai pair. They have Odd Shaped, which gives them +4 damage dealt on odd-numbered turns, so if you aren't expecting the entrap, you could lose a unit to them. There's a similar Evenhanded (+4 damage dealt on even-numbered turns) pair in the northwestern corner, but there's no entrap mage on that side, so they aren't usually relevant.  This one in the middle has a silence staff, which prevents a unit from using magic (including staves) for a turn. It's kind of annoying, but because Nyx and Niles are the only magic units I care about, it's not a huge problem.  This lady with freeze can be kind of annoying when you're trying to clear things out to get to the chest, but they're mostly out of the way, so it won't be a big problem.   Next, we've got Saizo and Kagero paired up in the middle of the map. Saizo has a flame shuriken that he drops, and Kagero has a sting shuriken, which is effective against armored units. This is basically the game making sure you can't use Effie to solo them. Saizo has Seal Strength and Countermagic, which is Counter but for magic. His personal skill, Pyrotechnics, chips him and all units within two spaces for 20% of their HP after combat if he's below 50% health and initiates combat. It's not all that useful to him.  Kagero has the slightly better skill set with Vantage and Grisly Wound. Her personal skill, Shuriken Mastery, deals half the damage she takes from dagger or shuriken attacks to the attacker and also applies their debuff. Just keep it in mind if you have Kaze attack her for whatever reason. These two aren't too bad; usually I just throw Camilla at them.   Ryoma himself is a pretty genuinely tough opponent, which is why he's an optional boss. He's got sky-high strength and speed, unpenalized 1-2 range, and a ton of HP with enough defense to make him a pretty beefy guy, especially because you aren't likely to double him. He has Vantage, which will almost certainly come into play because of how much HP he's got. He also has Duelist's Blow, which makes chipping him down on enemy phase very unreliable, because your hit rates won't be that good before he gets the extra avoid. He even has Inspiration, a more supportive skill that gives allies within two spaces +2 damage dealt and -2 damage taken. Lastly, his personal skill, Bushido, gives him +10 crit, +2 damage dealt, and -2 damage taken when he's the lead in a pair. It obviously won't be doing anything here. If you're going to kill him, he makes a very good target for enfeeble or freeze, because either will make him more manageable. He drops a Secret Book for your trouble, so you're not missing much if you aren't able to kill him.  The last notable enemies are these guys next to Ryoma who have Kodachis, which are basic 1-2 range swords. This guy drops his, which is nice because there's no other way to get one in Conquest. I'll probably give it to Silas.   We also have a couple of new recruits! Laslow and Peri are both pretty good, though they do kind of struggle to really shine right off the bat. To compare them to units you already have at this point, Laslow is like Selena except he trades some speed in for more strength, and Peri is like Silas except she trades some defense in for more speed and strength. Laslow's personal skill, Fancy Footwork, is a +1 speed/strength rally that affects allies within two spaces. It's pretty good, essentially being an upgraded wait command. Peri's personal skill, Bloodthirst, gives her strength/magic/skill/speed +4 for the rest of the turn after she kills an opponent on player phase. It's pretty good, but because I don't have Songstress Azura, she'll only be able to use the extra stats on enemy phase.  Lastly, there's this dragon vein towards the center of the map that breaks every pot at the same time. Interestingly, this is one of (maybe the only? I can't remember) dragon veins that has its location changed depending on what difficulty you're playing on. On hard mode, it's several tiles lower, in Saizo and Kagero's room. That makes it a complete no-brainer to use, because you debuff most of the enemies and it doesn't even require you to endanger your units too much. On lunatic, however, it's placed in range of a hex pot that slashes your HP in half when you activate it. Because it's closer to the enemies, you basically have to clear most of them out to make sure your dragon vein activator doesn't get murdered.  This is how I've got my units arranged for this map. This pot next to Marth gives defense +4 for the whole map, so I'm going to have most of my fighters crowd around it. It does technically slow the map down a bit, but the turn limit is generous and the extra defense is gonna let me move much faster.    Like so. Kaze breaks the pot, and the defense it gives kind of trivializes many of the enemies in this map.    I have Camilla drop Laslow in range of these Samurai so he can enemy phase them.   And Marth kills this Ninja with Camilla's help.  Azura drops Odin closer to the action.  Selena and Niles just go around the eastern side. Nyx also moved up a bit.    On enemy phase, Laslow kills this first Samurai with Camilla's help. Her hit rate is pretty shaky, but it's nice that she killed at least one of them.   She didn't hit this second one, but that just means it's another kill for someone else on player phase.    And that someone is Azura. She got a great level out of it, too!    Niles heals Laslow and he starts moving northwest. I'm gonna have him break the poison pot and fight the two Samurai over there.  I want to get Beruka to fight Saizo on enemy phase, so I have Peri carry her north and pass her to Camilla.     I then pass her from Camilla to Selena, and finally to Marth, who switches her to the front. I'd have just had Camilla pass her directly rather than through Selena, but I want Camilla on that tile next turn for dual striking purposes, and I'd rather not waste her turn moving one space down.   Everyone else moves up. It won't take them all that long to catch up to the front line.  sir you blow yourself up     Even though the flame shuriken is magic, Beruka tanks it pretty well because of Marth's Supportive.  Pyrotechnics brings her down another 20%, but between Marth's pair up bonuses and the defense pot, she'll be fine.    Beruka can finish Saizo off and lunge past the pots to bait more enemies out. We also get the flame shuriken, which is really good on Maid Felicia, but since we don't have her, it'll have to be kind of meh on Kaze.  I need Selena to move so we can kill Kagero, so I move Nyx out of her way so she can pair up with Kaze.  "Okay!" - Peri, probably.    The steel lance is strong, but its hit rate is a bit shaky. A miss wouldn't have mattered though; Camilla is more than capable of cleaning up if necessary.  Also, it won't matter this turn, but Bloodthirst activated because Peri got a kill. The game treats it as a rally, so it doesn't stack with them as far as I know. Though Laslow's Fancy Footwork is its own thing, so it does stack with that.  Kaze waits here so he can fight these guys. They won't target Beruka at all because her defense is too high, and I want to start chipping them down before I break a pot next turn.   Laslow breaks this poison pot that deals 30% damage. Because of Niles' heal, he's still able to tank both Samurai. As a bonus, he can kill the weakened one on enemy phase now!    Since I'm not ready to move north just yet, Camilla doesn't have anything better to do, so she breaks this medicine pot. It gives defense +2, but it's displayed as a defense tonic so it stacks with the +4 pot at the start.   Azura breaks this pot just to get it out of the way. It gives skill/resistance +2. The resistance is totally useless because Saizo is the only enemy capable of dealing magic damage on this map.  And everyone else gathers around so they can move in next turn.    Kaze chips starts our enemy phase off by chipping these guys. They're really weak, especially after the defense pot.   He flexes his Ninja muscles by dodging.    And Laslow gets to work on these Samurai. He kills this first one and leaves the other on the brink of death.    Meanwhile, Beruka gets to work on these Spear Fighters from the east. She's almost got too much defense. If I had given her a defense tonic, this guy wouldn't have attacked her.  These highlighted guys also start moving out. We'll deal with them soon enough.    Beruka is so tanky that I'm just gonna have her keep lunging through the enemies. Her personal skill lets her really chip this guy.    Kaze passes Selena off so he can dual strike, and Felicia, in a very in-character moment, flubs a 94.      But I still trust her to hit two 85s! I used the sword instead of the axe because I want her to get C swords sooner rather than later.   Peri stabs another dude.   Nyx roasts Kaze's dude.  Nyx moment   Camilla bonks a guy from 2 range so Beruka can chip in for experience.  Azura breaks yet another pot just to get it out of the way. This one gives resistance +4, which is entirely useless. At least it wasn't a poison pot!   And Silas kills the last Ninja of the turn.  Niles heals Kaze instead of Beruka because if he enters the silence staff's range he'll get silenced.    Laslow finishes the player phase by finishing his Samurai. I could have fed the kill to Odin, but Laslow gets more experience because he's a lower level. It was worth it, too, because he got a very solid level (though I don't think it's enough to make the ladies riot).  The Samurai and Spear Fighters continue moving towards us, but the only other thing that happens on enemy phase is that Nyx gets silenced, but she wasn't gonna fight anything next turn anyway.    But that doesn't stop her from ferrying Kaze to the enemies! The extra movement he gives her lets him get just far enough to chip this guy. It's moments like this that make me prefer Master Ninja to Mechanist for him.   Azura can finish him off with his help, though she almost doesn't need it. She's still defensively comparable to wet paper, but offensively she's starting to turn out pretty well.   Kaze gets a great level from helping out! That point of strength is worth more to him than every single other stat he gained.   Silas chips this guy down for Laslow. This placement is also perfect for when we break the pots using the dragon vein.    Laslow passes Odin to Azura before finishing this guy.   Niles yoinks Marth from Beruka before healing her. Marth is gonna spend his next turn stuck to the dragon vein, and I'll need all hands on deck to deal with the horde of enemies it frees, so I'd rather have Niles stuck to him than Beruka.   Beruka chips this guy down. Without the extra stats from Marth, she's a bit weaker, but it's enough.    Unfortunately, Felicia needed to break out the axe to finish this guy.    I'm really glad this didn't miss. If this guy survives enemy phase, he could get in the way of someone important next turn.   I use Camilla to separate Odin from Azura.  On enemy phase, Niles gets silenced, but since he's not doing anything next turn that's okay.    I honestly thought this guy would go for Felicia, but I guess he didn't want to fight against the weapon triangle. This miss was only a matter of time with how much I've been using this steel lance, but it's fine because he happened to attack from within the area of a freeze pot.  We'll start the turn by activating the dragon vein, which is gonna mass debuff pretty much every enemy on the map.  So this is the situation after the dragon vein. Marth got his HP cut in half, but so did a lot of the enemies, so we'll be able to clear most of them out without too much trouble.  These guys were all frozen, so we'll ignore them for now. We basically need to kill everything else though or we'll lose someone.  Ryoma also has some significant debuffs, but they'll more or less have completely recovered by the time we're ready to kill him.    Beruka starts the massacre off by lunging into this guy's tile. The Samurai she's in range of won't move until we get closer.  She also gets an alright level out of it. She's good enough that her levels don't need to be exceptional.    Odin kills an Apothecary and takes his key. I can't think of any reason that you would ever want to go through either of these doors, though.   Silas kills another one.   Apothecaries are surprisingly physically tanky, so Nyx kills him instead of Kaze.   You'll notice that the guys who didn't get hexed are quite a bit harder to kill than the guys with 14 HP. Camilla chips this one down.   And Azura finishes him off with some help.    Felicia kills another Apothecary for a genuinely bad level. Great job.     That was the last guy who wasn't frozen, so Peri gets a head start on the frozen enemies by killing this one. This isn't a great level, but she does appreciate extra defense.  Laslow moves forward and rallies here. I want him adjacent to Silas and Odin so they can pick up whoever gets frozen on enemy phase.   Nyx dodges a silence and Odin gets frozen.  These reinforcements also show up, but they're too far away to catch up before we end the map. These guys are area-based, but I honestly don't know exactly what the trigger zone is. It's somewhere toward the middle of the map, but that's about all I know. I tried looking it up, but I'm pretty sure both fire emblem wikis are wrong about it. I know it's not turn-based because I did a test where I sat at the start of the map until time ran out and they didn't show up at all.  That aside, we've got a pretty large group of enemies to deal with here. Because they weren't hexed by pots, we'll need a little more time and effort to kill them than we did for last turn's enemies.   This corridor is three tiles wide, and I'm going to build a wall of units with Camilla at the center. She kills this guy while she's at it.   Silas will form the left tile of the wall, and he kills this Ninja with Camilla's help.   And Beruka completes the wall, killing this other Spear Fighter.  These kodachi guys are very reluctant to move from Ryoma's side, so they shouldn't get involved.    I want Nyx to help kill the last Apothecary, so I have Kaze pass her to Felicia while he kills this staff user. I'm pretty sure this counts as a war crime, but I think it's okay because we're playing the evil route.    It shouldn't be surprising that the speedy mage character can one round a slow enemy, but it is. Good job, Nyx!  I am just a little worried about Beruka and Silas if the kodachi guys get involved, so I pair Azura up with her for safety.    Marth passes Niles to Peri so they can advance, and he stays behind to kill this guy.   I pass Odin to Silas just to be on the safe side, and rally with Laslow.   Finally, I pass Peri to Laslow and heal him up. There shouldn't be any chance of anyone dying on enemy phase now. Although I think there was only a very distant chance without the extra caution.    Silas gets debuffed and Poison Striked on enemy phase. He also gets lightly chipped by the next guy.   And Laslow gets debuffed by the Ninja and frozen by the healer.    At this point, we just need to clean up the last few enemies, grab the chests, and kill Ryoma (or walk right past him). Marth cleans this Ninja up for a fantastic level.   Laslow passes Peri to Niles before rallying.    Silas passes Odin to Laslow so he can dual strike this Ninja to death. This wouldn't have been a kill without Laslow's rally.    Peri keeps the transfer conveyor belt going by passing Niles to Silas before missing this guy. Honestly, I'm not even mad; she hasn't missed anything extremely important yet.   Beruka is perfectly capable of picking up the slack.    Peri redeems herself by helping Camilla kill this guy. And we got a kodachi! This is a really nice 1-2 range option for sword users, and both Odin and Silas will appreciate having it.  Because Kaze has a guard gauge, I have him soften this guy up from within Ryoma's range. He won't get doubled, and if he could debuff Ryoma, that would be great.     Nyx kills the other kodachi guy, and gets a great level out of it! It makes up for the awful one she got earlier.  Kaze getting frozen in Ryoma's range on enemy phase kind of complicates things.     And if I had remembered Duelist's Blow, I wouldn't have wasted the guard gauge on this. Oops.  Niles grabs this armorslayer from the chest on the left. It's alright, but Hoshido doesn't have armored units, so it won't be seeing all that much use.    Odin begins his legendary battle against Ryoma! I want them adjacent to each other so Ryoma loses avoid to Heartseeker, and I decided the chip was worth risking the 3% crit.    Heartseeker brings Camilla to a very respectable 75% hit rate, and she actually has the HP to tank a crit. The bigger risk, in hind sight, was that she could have gotten a crit here and ended the map before I grabbed the other chest.   Beruka kills the obnoxious freeze lady.   Because Odin has the lowest defense and there's no weapon triangle disadvantage, Ryoma should go for him next turn, but I'd still like to get Kaze out of there. He drops Selena and Peri uses Shelter (which lets you pick up an adjacent ally) on him.  This lady heals Ryoma, which is annoying, but manageable.    This wasn't a very productive fight, was it?   On the our last turn in this map, we transfer Niles to Felicia so he can grab the 5,000 gold from this chest.    I'm kind of surprised there's not a boss conversation between these two. Considering that just last chapter Kaze betrayed his kingdom, I'd have expected Ryoma to say something. Anyway, this chip and debuff secures our victory.  I briefly considered feeding the kill to Selena, but I backed out when I saw that that would require relying on a 70% hit rate. So instead I move Camilla out of the way so Beruka can borrow the dual club.     This kills the lobster.  Meh. Like I said earlier, levels like this are fine as long as she keeps performing as well as she is.   And we got the Secret Book to end the map! This is a pretty gimmicky map, but I like it a lot. The turn limit is pretty generous, but it prevents you from completely turtling through the map. And the second half of the map encourages you to wipe out lots of enemies on player phase while they're debuffed by the pots, assuming you use the dragon vein. The chests are a bit simple to get, but they do take a turn or so to get, so they further incentivize a quick pace.       Lots of C supports this time! Soon, I'm gonna have to start deciding on S supports so we can start unlocking paralogues.  With two new units comes two new class choices. Laslow can reclass into Ninja, so his final options are Bow Knight (1), Hero (2), Master Ninja (3), and Mechanist (4). I think he works as any of these, so I'm honestly fine with whatever.  He rolls a 1, making him a Bow Knight. That's pretty good; if he can get Shurikenbreaker before chapter 25, he'll be a big help for a particularly nasty group of enemies.  Peri can go Dark Mage, and even though her hair looks really good on the Dark Mage sprite, its an awful outcome for her because she has almost no magic. Her final class options are Great Knight (1), Paladin (2), Dark Knight (3), and Sorcerer (4).  She rolls another 1, which makes her a Great Knight. I'd have preferred Paladin, but this is better than either Dark Mage promotion. New unit discussions Laslow Class: Bow Knight Growth rates HP - 50 Str - 45 Mag - 0 Skl - 45 Spd - 30 Lck - 55 Def - 35 Res - 25 Laslow is a solid unit, but he joins as a footlocked sword unit, which kind of holds him back for a couple of chapters. His stats are very middle-of-the-road, because everything except for his skill is kind of average. He's pretty decent, but by this point, you've likely got better units to deploy, especially if you've started getting child units already. His average stats make him pretty versatile though, so he can work reasonably well in any of his reclass options. Fancy Footwork is pretty good, because a +1 strength/speed rally can be surprisingly useful at times. As far as his class options go, he'd be decently bulky and fairly hard-hitting as a Hero, though I don't think he'd double all that much. Bow Knight, which is what he rolled, gives him more movement and slightly more speed at the cost of slightly lower strength and defense, but I think it's a worthwhile trade for bow access and the mobility. As I mentioned earlier, Shurikenbreaker is nice for chapter 25 all the way through endgame, and it's definitely more useful than the Hero's Axebreaker. Master Ninja is a fun choice, but his lackluster speed makes it annoying to go through E rank daggers (he might be a good candidate for the arms scroll you get in chapter 13). He hits harder than Kaze, but he won't double as often without a pair up. I hear great things about Master Ninjas with Sol, though I've never tried it myself because it sounds like too much investment to me. Finally, I don't think he'd be great as a Mechanist, but I also haven't tried because I generally don't like it as a class. I'd guess that he only rarely doubles, but he'd probably hit pretty hard with reasonable bulk. Overall, he's a good unit, but he's kind of overshadowed by better units. I still use him pretty regularly though. Peri Class: Great Knight Growth rates HP - 30 Str - 50 Mag - 5 Skl - 30 Spd - 50 Lck - 35 Def - 25 Res - 45 Peri is one of my less-used characters, so I can't talk about her with too much confidence. That being said, she's pretty fast, and though she's a bit frail, she should start doubling fairly often before too long, especially if you pair her with someone like Arthur. She's not as durable as someone like Silas, but because she won't be getting doubled much, she's still capable of surviving a hit or two. Her personal skill, Bloodthirst (which gives her +4 strength/magic/skill/speed for the turn after killing a unit) is situationally huge, because 4 extra speed and strength can make her a much more potent enemy phase unit. Once she gets going, she makes a good Paladin, because a fast yet strong unit with 8 movement is never a bad thing. Great Knight, which she rolled, is something I've never tried for her but I'd guess it tanks her speed while making her quite a bit bulkier. It's probably the worse of the two, but it should be workable. Her other options are Dark Knight and Sorcerer. Do you see that 5% magic growth? That's all that needs to be said about these options. She wouldn't complain about Heartseeker or Lifetaker, but I think it's safe to say she's pretty awful in either of these classes. Overall, Peri is pretty good, but she takes a little bit for her strength and speed to grow enough for her to start shining. Benchmaster Voting  We actually lose a deployment slot for the next map, and we just recruited two new units, so we'll need to bench three people this time. Around chapter 16 or so I might start deploying benched characters for pairings, so the people we bench for the moment will probably come back in some capacity later. I'm not completely decided on that yet, but I'm open to ideas if anyone has any! Next time, the forecast shows a mild chance of Betrayal™.
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Aug 19, 2023 05:12
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Normally I'd say Laslow has a tough time competing against Selena, but she's reclassed, so now he has... a tough time competing against Silas. Oof. That said, Bow Knight Laslow would be pretty good so I'm not against keeping him around. Peri's a harder sell, I've always found her too fragile for my tastes. Anyway, voting to bench.... Felicia, Peri and.... Selena. We have enough swordies now that we need to cut down on some, and Felicia hasn't been impressing. Peri, meh. I'd probably want to keep Selena but we have four fliers at this point and Camilla's too useful to bench, so it's really between Azura and Selena. I'd be tempted to vote for Nyx, but her being one of your two mages keeps her around... barely. She's definitely got one eye on the chopping block though.
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Aug 19, 2023 05:54
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Hey looks like a couple of actually decent rolls! As for benching, I'll say Peri, Felicia, Selena - keep up the great LP!
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Aug 19, 2023 07:34
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I spent this entire update dreading (hoping?) that'd you roll Dark Mage for Peri. As you said, she appreciates Heartseeker and Lifetaker, but what an absolutely cruel reclass option, like borderline a joke option. You said you never tried her as a GK though, so I think I won't vote against her. On paper, the extra bulk and axe access will let her EP better, and that could be nice. Also, I didn't expect Fighter Beruka to be such a beast already, I might make Beruka my next pet project my next CQ run. Let's bench Nyx, Selena, and Laslow. I like all those units, but I wanna see what shenanigans a Felicia with an early Axe Breaker can get up to!
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Aug 19, 2023 20:35
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I'm gonna echo Nyx, Selena, and Laslow in fair part because I am a Peri fan and want to give her things.
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Aug 20, 2023 05:03
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Blue Labrador posted:I spent this entire update dreading (hoping?) that'd you roll Dark Mage for Peri. As you said, she appreciates Heartseeker and Lifetaker, but what an absolutely cruel reclass option, like borderline a joke option. At least there's solace in that it's not remotely close to the worst reclass options in the game. Apothecary Orochi, urgh.
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Aug 20, 2023 06:32
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I vote to bench Selena, Peri, and Laslow. Great LP, by the way, really enjoying it so far 
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Aug 20, 2023 19:10
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Blue Labrador posted:Also, I didn't expect Fighter Beruka to be such a beast already, I might make Beruka my next pet project my next CQ run. I'm surprised too; I thought she'd be decent at best, but she's been up there with Silas since chapter 11. ApplesandOranges posted:At least there's solace in that it's not remotely close to the worst reclass options in the game. Apothecary Orochi, urgh. It's really funny to me that both Orochi and Sakura are magically-oriented characters with reclass options that give bow access, but they're in the route that doesn't have the shining bow. Especially because Priestess Sakura is canon. But now I kind of want to try shining bow Merchant Orochi in my next playthrough of Revelation (if I actually do play it again).
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Aug 31, 2023 04:33
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Update 10 - Betrayal 2: Electric Boogaloo   You guys voted to bench Selena, Peri, and Laslow last time, so we'll go ahead and redistribute their stuff, as well as the loot from last chapter.  Silas gets the kodachi, as well as a vulnerary.  Odin gets the armorslayer and a steel sword because he's only one or two rounds of combat from C swords.  He won't get that much use out of it, but Kaze gets Saizo's flame shuriken.  Nyx gets an iron axe I had lying around. It's a surprise tool that may help us later   I also went ahead and gave Kaze the talisman we got all the way back in chapter 8.  Beruka gets this heavily-used vulnerary.   Beruka makes us a steak. It's a decent meal, but it mostly affected Benchmasters, which is disappointing.  Lastly, I hand out some tonics. Silas gets HP, defense, and strength tonics.  And Beruka gets HP and defense tonics. She and Silas are gonna be tanking some pretty hefty blows in a little bit.     Chapter 13 is alright. It's not exactly a map I look forward to, but I don't mind playing it. It's a rout map with 5 major groups of enemies and 4 villages to visit. There's not much incentive to move quickly here, because only one enemy group moves without you entering their range. A thief shows up eventually to take the villages, but he shows up pretty late, so we've got plenty of time. There's also not much in terms of skills on the regular enemies; it's limited to common stuff like Malefic Aura and Natural Cover.   Immediately to the west, we've got these mages led by Orochi. She has Seal Resistance and Elbow Room, neither of which is a huge problem. Her personal skill, Capture, is the same as Niles's. It's totally useless to her. Most notably, she has a calamity gate, which inverts the weapon triangle, so she'll give lance and shuriken users some trouble. This group is basically free experience for Kaze, because he's gonna one round almost everyone.   To the south, we have Reina and a bunch of Cavaliers. Her cavaliers are some of the most notable enemies on the map, because about half of them have beastkillers, which have triple might against cavalry and Sky Knights. That doesn't really affect me, though, because I don't have any cavalry. Reina has Certain Blow and Air Superiority, which gives her +30 hit/avoid when her opponent is a flier. It's basically there to make throwing Camilla at her less appealing. Her personal skill, Morbid Celebration, restores 20% of her HP when she initiates combat and kills a unit. She won't be getting a chance to activate it. Because she's a Kinshi Knight she has a pretty wide attack range, but that means that you can bait her out and take her down very early on if you want to.   To the east, good ol' Takumi has a bunch of Knights to fight us with. They're pretty tanky and they hit hard, so they can sometimes be hard to kill on the bridge chokepoint. Takumi himself was probably more dangerous in chapter 10, when he had Point Blank. In this map, he's just got Pass, which lets him pass through enemy units as if they were allies, and Natural Cover, giving -3 damage taken on any tile with a terrain effect. Another thing to note is his Fujin Yumi, which sets all terrain movement costs to 1, so he can sprint through rivers and mountains as if they were plains. He can be kind of a pain to deal with later in the map, especially because he has enough crit that he could feasibly just one shot someone, so I'd recommend taking him out early.   This next group to the south are the only enemies present right now that move towards you immediately. There aren't any dangerous skills in play, they're just here to fly over the river and harrass you while you fight enemies around the bridge chokepoints. They can be surprisingly problematic because these pairs can be extremely durable if you weren't prepared for them.   The last group of enemies is Scarlet's in the southwest. It's got a solid enemy composition featuring a Wyvern and Dark Mage pair that could be kind of difficult to deal with if they moved without you entering their range. But they won't. When you trigger them, they'll spawn reinforcements from the northwest and the south, so make sure you're ready before you try fighting them. Scarlet herself has Seal Magic, Death Blow (which gives +20 crit when she initiates combat), and Bowbreaker, just to make her hard to one round with Niles. Her personal skill, In Extremis, gives her +30 crit when her HP is below 25%, so don't let her hit you while it's active. You'll note that she doesn't have Air Superiority, so there's nothing stopping you from chipping her down with Camilla.  Anyway, that's everything about the map, so this is how I've positioned my units for it. Broadly speaking, Silas and the brunt of the army are going east to deal with Pineapple Hair and his Knights, and Kaze and Felicia are going west to eat Orochi's mages. Marth, Camilla, and Beruka are going to bait Reina's group out and then move ahead of everyone else to aggro Scarlets group.   I hate that the Knight art blocks your view of what I'm attacking here.   I honestly just wanted Silas here to support others and bait Takumi, but I won't complain about a fantastic level from the chip.   Nyx reliably one rounds this guy with Silas's support. She's not a great unit, but she's nice to have in a map with this many Knights.     Odin uses the armorslayer to delete this guy, but he takes a pretty big hit in the process.  He also gets C swords out of it, giving him +1 attack with swords and letting him use several swords we can't buy until after this chapter.     The armorslayer is really nice for dual strikes. Camilla could have one rounded this guy with her steel axe, but I wanted Odin to get the chip experience and support.  Marth drops Beruka in the river here, just barely in range of Reina. This requires a flier, because the tiles above and below the river are cliffs, which infantry can't walk on. Which also means that Beruka can't get out without help.  Lastly, Kaze sits in this forest tile and prepares to massacre like 5 mages on enemy phase.    This Knight starts us off by chipping Silas. I love the kodachi; having a reliable 1-2 range option is just what swords needed in the rest of the series. Of course, they got it in the game that nerfed all of the 1-2 range physical weapons, but I'll take what I can get.    Kaze is in a forest, he has weapon triangle advantage, and he's crazy fast, so he has a fair shot at dodging most of these attacks.    At least in theory. The RNG is gonna do whatever it feels like.   Mage number 3.    I see how it is; you can get a 7% crit, but you can't dodge any of these. Don't worry about it man, you do you.  Actually, do more of that. That was really good.     Takumi is able to move from his starting point into the river thanks to Fujin Yumi's effect, but it works out in our favor here because he's getting -10 avoid from the river. He hits like a truck though, and sometimes he'll just say "no" and crit you to death. Which is part of why I don't recommend saving him for later in the map.    This is the only genuinely threatening attack Kaze faces this turn, but because of the enemy move order, he consistently has a guard gauge ready for it.      That's Marth missing, not Beruka. Beruka missing would probably be a reset.  So this is what the map looks like after that enemy phase. Literally every enemy except for Scarlet's group is rushing right now, but it's surprisingly manageable with clever use of the river. Reina's Cavaliers can't move across the river, so they're all heading toward Silas right now. The biggest problem is the Wyvern/Knight pairs that can cross the river.    I think this 75 is the least reliable part of my strategy. I'd have reset if it had missed. I should also note that this doesn't kill without the strength tonic I gave Silas.  It really shouldn't, Camilla. That's a horrible level.   Silas needs to be ready to choke this point, so I have Nyx take Niles and switch so he can get some healing.  Of course, he's gonna need a pair up to survive the onslaught, so Odin passes Azura to him.     Silas is gonna take a beating, but he can safely choke this point for now. Can I just say how much I love guard gauges? They're the best.    Beruka kills Reina, taking out one of the most threatening enemies on the map.  Marth moves here to enemy phase one of the Wyvern/Knight pairs.   To end this player phase, Kaze takes a step backwards and kills this Cavalier.   It is kinda scary. If Kaze doesn't debuff her here, killing her gets a lot more complicated.   Luckily, he connects one of his hits, so Felicia can finish her off next turn.    Thanks to Elbow room and Strong Riposte, Silas can one round these Knights with a steel sword. He has no need for crutches like an armorslayer; he's got his muscles.   This is where those tonics I gave him start to come in handy.    "Why won't you die?!" "Guard gauges, son. They negate physical or magical trauma." - Silas, probably.   Man, we're getting some very nice levels this chapter.    This is a really nice enemy to use the guard gauge against. And Kaze flexes with a crit, too!    Hey, he actually dodged one!  He got B shurikens off of that one, which gives him +1 attack with shurikens/daggers, and lets him use silver daggers/shurikens. That's seriously it, the only other B rank shurikens are Jakob's Tray and the Caltrop, which are weapons I can't get during this run.    Marth chips this guy down, which will be relevant in a minute. I just wish he had taken a little more damage so we could activate Vow of Friendship.  Back on player phase, we get some new recruits!  This is Benny. If you look up "Armored Knight" in the dictionary, you'll find a picture of him. He's got no speed, and all the defense. Sometimes too much defense; it's fairly common for enemies to not attack him at all because they won't deal damage. He's okay, but I don't generally use him.  This is Charlotte, and like Benny, if you look up "Axe Fighter" in the dictionary you'll see a picture of her. She's got boatloads of HP, strength, and speed, and hardly anything else. She's alright, but in my opinion, she's one of the most fun units in the game. It's a shame that she joins with Gamble and a steel axe, because they make her much worse in this map than if she had joined with an iron axe and no Gamble.  This is the current situation. Silas can keep choking that point, so the cavalry aren't really a problem, but the Wyverns are about to airdrop Knights directly behind our front lines, so we'll want to stop as much of that as we can.  A little healing, and Silas is good to go back into the fray.   Especially without this mage. Silas could have one shot with the iron sword, and that would have let him one round the Cavaliers, but he doesn't have the HP to tank all of them right now. With the steel sword, he won't double them, so he'll only face one.   Camilla is done in the east, so she flies west and kills this Wyvern Rider. These guys get quite a bit easier to deal with once you realize that a base Camilla one rounds them with thunder.  Because Knights can't stand on the cliff or river tiles, the leftover guy gets pushed to the nearest safe tile, which in this case is to the south. Now we won't have to deal with him for a while.    Beruka can't kill this guy alone, so I pair her with Marth. Between her personal skill and the buffs Marth gives her, Beruka is just barely able to finish this guy with a hand axe.  It's like she and Silas are competing to be the best unit on the army. Maybe I should pair them up to create the ultimate Sophie.     Without the Calamity Gate's effect, Orochi loses most of what made her threatening. Felicia does need her debuffed to kill her here though!   I want Nyx and Niles separate next turn so they can deal with the Wyverns and Knights, so Odin helps out. As a bonus, he's on a gate tile that's gonna heal him next turn!  Benny and Charlotte are going to help, too, so they move toward the rest of the army.    A full HP Sol activation. Thank you Felicia, very cool.  She's keeping the great level train going, though!    I love that Charlotte's dodge animation is just walking backwards.    One of the Wyvern Riders decided to attack Camilla, which is nice because that's one less flier to deal with.  Although because this Knight in the south is in the way, the closest safe tile for this one to drop is north.    It's interesting that Mercenary Silas is actually very nice in this situation, because he couldn't tank these guys if he were still on a horse.  Why would you phrase it like that?   Anyway, this guy has a measly three move, so it's gonna take him a while to get to any of those villages.  We need to deal with these Knights that found their way behind the river, so I'll have Nyx chip this guy down.  Seriously, Nyx?   Leave it to a real mage. Luckily, Odin can cast sword-to-the-face.  Well it had better not keep hiding, because this level certainly isn't it.   See, Benny has so much defense that he can go toe-to-toe with axe users and come out of it with barely a scratch. Which is a problem when going up against sword users who can't even do that much.    Charlotte grabs this axe off of Nyx, but it wouldn't quite do the job here, so she sticks with steel. By placing her here and killing the last flier, we've built a fleshy wall between the Knights and our squishy units.   Kaze chips this guy with the flame shuriken. Maid Felicia would have probably one rounded with it, just so you know.   Silas needs pretty much all of his HP to tank all of these Cavaliers, so I have Niles heal him on top of his vulnerary. Note that I equipped the iron sword before having him use that.   Beruka needs to get out of this river now, so she switches to Marth and he passes her to Camilla. He'll catch up next turn.  Beruka separates Camilla toward Scarlet to end the player phase. They might attract some attention from the northeast, but as long as Silas doesn't miss anything, most or all of that chunk of enemies should go for him.    Kaze starts the enemy phase of by guard gauge tanking this guy before finishing him.    Charlotte is apparently a dodgetank now, which is cool.    Silas kills the first of many Cavaliers for the turn. Because the rest of this enemy phase is essentially the same fight again and again I'm just going to quickly show the highlights of the massacre.      It takes three guard gauges and almost all of his HP, but he survives the onslaught and solidifies his status as the best unit on the army for now.  He's so good!  Back on player phase, Silas activates Good Fortune, which is kind of nice. We've killed everything on the map except for 2 Knights, the thief, and Scarlet's group. I want Silas moving south very soon to handle the reinforcements, so I have him get out of the way and separate Azura to the south. Next turn, he'll have Azura take him across the river.    Charlotte kills the northern Knight with Nyx's help. This is about what all of her levels will look like, but hopefully with more speed.   Nyx kills the last Knight, which clears the bridge so people can start moving south. Not too many people are going to take that route, though.     Marth has just enough movement to pair up with Camilla, and with his buffs, she can go ahead and bait out Scarlet's group with thunder. I avoided putting her in range of Scarlet though, because I don't want to chance a Death Blow crit.   Beruka moves north. She's just barely in range to take Silas from Azura next turn.  I heal Silas, because as usual, he's gonna be tanking several more hits.  Everyone else just repositions a bit since they won't be able to make it to the south before we end the map. Kaze is on a gate so he can get some healing.    On enemy phase, Camilla gets an unnecessary dodge and deletes this first guy.    I probably should have given Camilla a magic tonic so she could one round this guy, because he turned out to be a lot more annoying than you'd think.   Back on player phase, Silas activates Good Fortune again, and these reinforcements show up. There's no warning about them, and I personally think they're a bit much if you don't know they're going to appear.    Silas joins Azura, who passes him to Beruka, who finally carries him to this chokepoint so he can deal with these Cavaliers. He's not quite in Scarlet's range, which is good.  Camilla has a guard gauge ready, so she sits just inside Scarlet's range with a steel axe.  I send Niles and Charlotte south so they can either kill a unit or grab a village.   Nyx pairs with Benny, and he passes her to Kaze before separating from Felicia.  Then Kaze takes Nyx to the edge of this guy's reach. With the extra speed he gives her, she can double and one round these Wyverns.  Odin is kind of just here.     Camilla chips Scarlet down on enemy phase.    Honestly, even though Nyx isn't growing like I want her to, she's still better than Samurai Odin because she can one round enemies with help. This dodge is also unnecessary because she'll build a guard gauge before being attacked again.   Silas kills more Cavaliers.   Well except for this one, the javelin throwing coward.      He gets B swords out of these guys, which is a much-deserved reward. It gives him another +1 attack with swords, and lets him use silver swords.  Here's the map situation now. The thief is still a good several turns out from the village, so we're in no particular rush.     Silas finishes Scarlet off, and he gets another solid level out of it. He's pretty much ready for promotion now. The problem right now is that he's low on HP and he could die if that mage hits him.   Niles can fix that right up, though. But now he's in range of 2 Wyvern Riders, so we'll need to kill one of those.     But first, Camilla takes out this guy, which puts her in range of the southeastern village.  And Azura moves here, ready to grab one of the villages next turn.   This guy needs to die so he can't hit Niles. Nyx builds a guard gauge off of him, so she'll be fine through enemy phase.  Now he's in range of one Wyvern Rider and the mage, but he can take that.  Odin pairs with Felicia and waits on this gate, but in hind sight, these guys were always going to go for Nyx, so this was pointless.  Benny just goes back to guarding the wall.    With Kaze's extra speed, Nyx is actually putting in a lot of work here.     Silas takes a big hit from the mage, but he lived, so it's fine.   Niles also takes a big hit, but again, he lived, so it's fine.     At this point, I realized that I critically understaffed the lower half of the map, so Camilla had to turn around to pick up the slack.   She gets a very solid level out of it, though, so it's all good.   Bonk!  Whoops, that's the tomohawk guy. I didn't do this, I just took the screenshot to show why it wouldn't work.   So instead, we just chip with Charlotte. I was hoping she'd crit, but the RNG just wasn't on my side.   It should be fine, though, so Azura ignores that and grabs this village. It gives us a free master seal, saving us 2,000 gold. Nice!    Kaze is really close to leveling up, so I have him chip this guy down rather than having Nyx kill him. It was well worth it, because the level he got is fantastic. He's also pretty much ready to promote.   Felicia ends the player phase by finishing this guy off.   I guess it's a good thing Charlotte dodged those Knights earlier, because this wouldn't have worked if she were low on HP.   Back on player phase, Azura grabs the southeastern village, which gives us a blessed lance. It's effective against Faceless and Stoneborn (an enemy type we haven't seen yet), and it gives def/res -3 when equipped. It also restores 10 HP at the beginnning of your turn when equipped. It's okay, but mostly because of the healing effect. The lance itself is borderline useless because you don't fight all that many Faceless in this route, and Stoneborn are even rarer. When you do fight Stoneborn, this thing won't even be enough to get the job done.   Charlotte kills the last enemy aside from the thief, who won't ever attack. We've effectively won the map, but I'm going to grab the villages before killing him.   Beruka accepts tribute from the northwestern village, taking the gold from right under the thief's nose. Poor guy.   I can't get the last village this turn, so I have Niles heal Charlotte for experience before ending the turn.   Niles visits the last village for an arms scroll, which is a stat booster that increases every weapon rank that a unit currently has access to by 1. I'm not sure who I'm going to give this to. I might use it on Odin after promoting him to give him D swords and lances right out of the box. C'mon Charlotte, bring home the map!    Chapter 13 is good as far as rout maps go, and I generally enjoy playing it. The only complaints I have are that there should probably be another cavalier in Orochi's group, because I don't think I've ever not soloed her with Kaze or another shuriken user; and that I wish Scarlet's group would move on its own eventually, because there's nothing stopping you from taking your time once you've dealt with the thief. I also kind of wish the blessed lance village gave something better, because it tends to sit in someone's inventory unused for most of the game. Other than that, the enemy compositions are fairly threatening, and it's usually pretty fun to play.     Silas knows she's just trying to sell you Revelation for $20.     Lots of supports this time, but I still don't know who I'm pairing with who. I'll start figuring that out over the next few chapters.    After clearing chapter 13, we unlock several level two buildings. Most notably are the mess hall, the armory, and the staff shop. The level two mess hall lets you use two different ingredients, which is kind of useless to me but I upgraded it anyway. The level two armory and staff store unlock new items for sale that open up a lot of options. This is where the game really opens up, because you get access to plenty of seals, as well as a lot of new weapons to play around with.   The staff store has a bunch of new staves in stock, but because Niles can't use any of them, the only thing I care about are these master seals.  The armory is where it's at. We've unlocked silver weapons, all sorts of effective weapons, magic weapons, killer weapons, and even a gimmicky weapon or two.   The armory has sales on weapon types depending on who's running it. Because Kaze is running the shop today, there's a 5% discount on daggers. I'll do most of my shopping next update, but because of this sale, I went ahead and bought Kaze a silver dagger. Silver weapons are criminally underrated because people don't like that they drop your strength by 2 after using them, but sometimes you just need a little extra oomph to secure that one-round. They're also great for dual strikes, because supporting an ally with a silver weapon doesn't debuff you.  Anyway, we've got two new characters who need their class chosen. Benny can reclass to Fighter, so his final options are General (1), Great Knight (2), Berserker (3), and Hero (4).    He rolled a 3, which makes him a Berserker. I haven't tried Berserker Benny before, but it sounds potentially decent as long as his damage output doesn't suck too badly.  Charlotte can reclass to Troubadour, which makes her final options Berserker (1), Hero (2), Maid (3), and Strategist (4). Of these, I'm personally hoping for Berserker.    She rolled another 3, which makes her a Maid. It's no Berserker, but it's leagues better than Strategist, so I'll take it. I think she should still be putting out decent damage because of her high strength and speed growths, but the change to Troubadour kneecaps her growth potential. New unit discussions Benny Class: Berserker Growth rates HP - 50 Str - 40 Mag - 0 Skl - 50 Spd - 10 Lck - 35 Def - 55 Res - 45 Benny is pretty much the quintessential armored unit, having high HP and defense but very little speed. The only thing that really stands out is his solid resistance, which doesn't tend to matter much because late game mages hit like trains and he won't survive much combat against them anyway. He's definitely one of the better Knights the series has to offer, but that's more because of the game he's in than any actual stand-out qualities. His personal skill, Fierce Mien, inflicts avoid -10 on enemies within two spaces, which is actually really nice, especially if you can get a group of enemies to gather around him on enemy phase. His main use is to put him in front of a bunch of enemies before watching him bait them out and chip them down. For his class options, you can make him a General if you want a virtually-unkillable mobile brick wall. Physical units will hardly scratch him, and as soon as he gets Wary Fighter, he practically won't die ever unless you put him in range of a bunch of mages or something. Sometimes his defense is so high that the enemies just walk up to him rather than attacking because they aren't able to deal damage, meaning he won't chip them. In my experience, this isn't super common, but it's something to consider when choosing between General and Great Knight. Great Knight has slightly less defense, but the extra mobility more than makes up for it in Benny's case because he doesn't really need the extra bulk. I personally think it's his best class choice. His reclass options are Berserker and Hero. I've never tried either, but Hero Benny sounds like it has some potential for Sol tanking, but that's about the only merit I can think of for him. He doesn't really benefit from the extra speed (he's gonna get doubled by almost everything no matter what class you change him into), though he can manage with less defense thanks to his excellent personal defense growth. Berserker Benny, which is what he'll be, sounds to me like it has potential to somewhat boost his offensive power while not completely destroying his bulk. He'll still get doubled by everything, but he should have solid defense and HP, so if the one hit he gets in per fight is a good one, he might be able to contribute something good to the team. As a bonus, Fierce Mien compliments axes well because of their lowish hit. Charlotte Class: Maid Growth rates HP - 65 Str - 55 Mag - 0 Skl - 35 Spd - 50 Lck - 45 Def - 20 Res - 5 Charlotte is a unit who often gets tossed aside by players because she makes an awful first impression on the player during her join chapter, but she's actually pretty solid if you use her. Coming equipped with Gamble, a steel axe (both of which make her hit rates shaky at best, even with weapon triangle advantage), and joining underleveled at 10 make her incapable of doubling anything on the map, and she performs pretty poorly against the Knights she's likely to fight. If you use her, though, you'll find that her excellent strength and speed growths let her grow quickly into a fast and strong axe fighter with lots of HP. Her personal skill, Unmask, gives her +4 damage dealt and +20 crit when she's fighting a female opponent. It's a neat skill, but because generic enemy gender is decided by class in this game, it's not as useful as it could be because there's not that many female opponents. The enemies who are female are typically either bosses or units like Maids who are already pretty frail, so it doesn't exactly make a huge difference. It is, however, super fun when you get +20 crit on a critstacking build and she ends up with 80+ crit chance. As for her class options, you've got Berserker, which is my personal favorite way to use Charlotte. She'll be fast, strong, and surprisingly bulky because of how huge her HP pool is, and she enjoys the Berserker's innate +20 crit. If you give her a killer axe, she has a 45% crit chance before adding pair up bonuses and skills into the equation. She's pretty much the only unit that I'll actually use Gamble on, because watching her critical chance soar past 50% is a super fun time and I highly recommend trying her out on your next playthrough. Her other, less fun option is Hero, which I've never tried. I don't think it'd be bad though, she'd probably benefit from the extra defense, and Sol would be nice to have on a unit that has so much strength. Her third option is Strategist, which is a truly horrible choice for her because it doesn't let her use her strength stat at all. Her last option, Maid, sounded awful to me at first, but I think it has potential. Her naturally-high strength and speed should let her make good use of daggers, and... that's about it. Being able to use daggers with hopefully decent strength and speed is pretty impressive, if she can pull it off. She certainly wouldn't gain much from staff access, and though she'll still have a lot of HP, she'll probably be quite a bit more frail than usual. I don't know for sure, but I think she could be fun to use. Oh, and you could also just tape her to Xander. She gives him more than enough strength and speed to turn him from a really strong unit to a downright crazy strong unit. Benchmaster Voting We gain a deployment slot next map, but because we gained two units in this one, we'll still have to bench one person. As usual, everyone is on the table except Odin. Next time, groans of increasing discomfort.
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Aug 31, 2023 04:40
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Gonna vote out Nyx. She had her time as one of our very few mage units but I think her disappointing run has come to an end, especially now that we have the Flame Shuriken so we've got another source of magic damage if we need it. Anyway, onto the new units. I really like Benny, I think he's underrated and if you're not into fast-rounding maps then he's got a lot of merit to help choke points. Not sure how he'll do in the Fighter line, he's really good as a General because he's a strong lance user that isn't weak to beastslaying effects (particularly pertinent for Chapter 19), and losing 4 DEF can kinda hurt. Plus we have a lot of axe users now. But it's Benny, he'll make do, and he's already at a high level so you could slam him a Master Seal if you need to. Fierce Mien also means he can actually make use of Gamble, too. Charlotte is a unit I've never quite made work in battle (as an actual combatant). She's not quite Nyx-bad, but her fragility (despite her high hp) is worrisome and her Skill growth is worse than Arthur's, making her hit rate very shaky at times. Troubadour Charlotte... well, we got our second healer, but oh man, if she was fragile before... at least her HP growth is still good and she can now gain exp safely. High STR will offset daggers' low MT too so it could be worse. Tentatively interested in how she'll turn out.
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Aug 31, 2023 05:36
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Voting to bench Charlotte - She doesn't seem great to begin with, and getting a crappy class just adds to that.
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Aug 31, 2023 16:53
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I've used Maid Charlotte before. She was fun and effective, although mine might have just been RNG blessed. Putting her ATK and SPD stats with good 1-2 range was nasty AF (plus her passive lets her go Highlander-there-can-only-be-one on all enemy Maids). Admittedly, though, I leveled her in Fighter and transitioned her into Maid rather than going straight to Troubadour. Not sure how Troubadour-ing first will work for her, but I'm curious to see. I vote to bench Felicia. I forgot she was even there or what class she was in and was surprised when she suddenly did something last map.
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Aug 31, 2023 20:34
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I'll vote to bench Nyx. She's had her time in the sun, and we got some potentially fun options to mess around with in our new recruits. Benny's most fun trait is definitely Fierce Mien. I remember one time I married him off to Nyx to make him a Sorceror, and Fierce Mien stacking with Heartseeker was a great time. Dude just became a black hole. I've never run Benny in the Fighter line, but looking it up, his bonuses as a Berserker are kind of awesome, he might make for a great backpack. I also haven't run Maid Charlotte before, but I imagine if you got her Sol she'd be a budget Ninja in it. And Live to Serve might be nice since she has so much HP anyway.
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Aug 31, 2023 20:47
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Bad class roll? Just bench them! Sorry, Charlotte.
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Aug 31, 2023 21:01
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Bench Nyx, let Charlotte try to use the funny class.
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Aug 31, 2023 21:09
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Yeah, nyx is struggling to even do her thing with her levels. She's not even being interesting bad, just her normal vanilla self on top of that.
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Aug 31, 2023 21:55
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The funniest time I had with Benny was marrying him to Azura (which took a while, I'll have you know) and then reclassing him to Sky Knight. With pretty much every Speedwing I could find, he managed to hit high 20s speed by endgame. It's a funny meme, though not practical in any sense.
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Sep 1, 2023 04:21
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