|
Manatee Cannon posted:He is a good unit at the beginning in Lunatic and Lunatic+ because your other units just don't have the stats, even with Fred as a pair up partner, to survive without relying entirely on enemies missing very good hit odds. And that's not a strategy, that's pure luck. He will become the worst unit in the game late on, but as far as his actual purpose goes he is perfect. Like even if you grind and grind later on, Fred just cannot catch up because of his bases. But, again, the end game is not the only thing that matters. The parents are uniformly bad end game units anyway, barring the avatar. At the very, very beginning you do need him to tank a few hits, true. But you shouldn't be giving him kills. And that's like 2-3 chapters of using him as a unit rather than a piece of equipment. In which he still doesn't really shine, he's just barely good enough to replace your level 1 or whatever other people. Frederick himself goes down in just a few hits on lunatic and lunatic + especially considering that several enemies are given super effective weapons against him starting on chapter 1. But what exactly are we arguing about at this point? I think we both agree that he's a necessary evil for a couple of chapters, is horrible as a unit thereafter, but makes a good stat booster for a while.
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2015 23:02
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 26, 2024 06:41 |
|
|
Zore posted:Seriously, he's a level 1 Great Knight with 12 Str, 12 Skil, 10 Spd, 14 Def, 3 Res and 28 HP The Base Stats for a Great Knight are 26 HP, 11 STR, 6 SKL, 5 SPD, 14 DEF, 1 RES.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2015 23:03
|
|
|
Really, if anyone's OP in Awakening, it's Robin. I mean, even at the very beginning, he's the only one who has Veteran, he's the only one who has a 1-2 Range weapon, and with a Def growth, he's also very tanky. Plus he can walk on rivers, so you can beat even Lunatic+ by immediately getting him on some water, soloing almost everyone in the Prologue, soloing almost everyone on Chapter 1 and Chapter 2, and then stomping Chapter 3 with maybe occasional help from some of your other guys. So even in the first few chapters of Lunatic+, if anyone is carrying the day, it's Robin (although he DOES generally want to be paired up with Frederick for his awesome stat bonuses). And if you don't believe he can solo almost everyone in the Prologue, here you go... http://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=52170 Fionordequester fucked around with this message at 23:42 on Mar 17, 2015 |
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2015 23:34
|
|
|
Melth posted:But what exactly are we arguing about at this point? I think we both agree that he's a necessary evil for a couple of chapters, is horrible as a unit thereafter, but makes a good stat booster for a while. I just think you place too much emphasis on the late game and basically nothing on the early game. The beginning is by far the hardest part in every Fire Emblem game, so Fred being the best unit in the hardest chapters is kind of important.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2015 23:39
|
|
|
Manatee Cannon posted:I just think you place too much emphasis on the late game and basically nothing on the early game. The beginning is by far the hardest part in every Fire Emblem game, so Fred being the best unit in the hardest chapters is kind of important. I do somewhat agree. Even within your posts about Oswin and Marcus, it seemed odd that they were seen so unfavorably, even if they did peak really early. There really is something to be said for them being basically your only units (aside from Hector) who can easily survive even on the first few chapters of HHM, after all.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2015 23:45
|
|
|
well really I think Melth is referring specifically to the ranked category, because there's a lot of layers of play, Casual, Ranked, Efficiency, LTC, 0% Growths... and in each ones units are different, E.G. Marcus is loving God of Efficiency, LTC and 0%. Utterly broken and invaluable. It's also why you'll see a unit like Amelia called "Absolutely worthless" because in the latter 3 categories Amelia is a giant chain around the neck of any player, even with Efficiency's rule that you can grind up to 10 the Trainees to get them into real classes. To explain the rankings Efficiency is defined as completing the game with everything as fast as possible disregarding ranks. Think of it like a 100% speed run. except the ranking is based on turns not real-time. LTC completely disregards getting everything in favor of beating the game in as few turns as possible, which trust me, is pretty insane. 0% growth is LTC or Efficiency, except you also don't get any growth rates, you still get promotion bonuses and stat items but you'll never "grow" In spite of what you may think, the games are perfectly beatable, which is why I always point out that while a unit seems pointless to a regular player, the game truly is built in a way to prevent losing.
|
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2015 00:34
|
|
|
Fionordequester posted:Really, if anyone's OP in Awakening, it's Robin. I mean, even at the very beginning, he's the only one who has Veteran, he's the only one who has a 1-2 Range weapon, and with a Def growth, he's also very tanky. Plus he can walk on rivers, so you can beat even Lunatic+ by immediately getting him on some water, soloing almost everyone in the Prologue, soloing almost everyone on Chapter 1 and Chapter 2, and then stomping Chapter 3 with maybe occasional help from some of your other guys. True. If you aren't careful, Robin can and will hog all the EXP from any given map. That said, i did appreciate that the game acknowledged his/her ridiculous abilities, going so far as to make the reason behind them a major plot point.
|
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2015 00:49
|
|
|
Onmi posted:well really I think Melth is referring specifically to the ranked category, because there's a lot of layers of play, Casual, Ranked, Efficiency, LTC, 0% Growths... Yes and no. Obviously the focus of the LP is how good units are in a ranked run but he makes allowances for certain units being good outside of those limits, like Farina and Dart. Oswin and Marcus, whom Fionordequester mentioned, do not get that same treatment. Everyone has their preferences when it comes to units. Though really when I said that I was specifically referring to Awakening and Fred, without whom Lunatic+ is potentially impossible without pure luck.
|
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2015 01:05
|
|
|
Onmi posted:well really I think Melth is referring specifically to the ranked category, because there's a lot of layers of play, Casual, Ranked, Efficiency, LTC, 0% Growths... Quite correct. As I demonstrated in this playthrough, Marcus does a few particular early missions (like visiting some distant villages) pretty well but you pretty much never actually need him to fight anything besides the enemies on the way to those. Every time he DOES fight you basically lose yourself 30 XP forever, which is really painful for max ranking. He can save you a few turns, but only at the cost of hundreds or thousands of points of XP, which is a terrible, terrible deal in a max ranking run. Ideally you could find a way to not have Marcus fight at all, but my best playthrough gave him about 8 kills (all on 13x or 14). Perhaps I was a bit harsher toward him than I needed to be, but that was mainly a reaction against so many people going "Oh my god, guys, Marcus is SO GOOD for max ranking!" when in fact he's a trap that you just don't see the consequences of up front. Or going "You HAVE to use Marcus all the time in the first few chapters!" when actually it's perfectly possible to beat most of them way under your turn budget and while getting all the treasure and such while barely using him. You just need some outside the box tactics like dumping Hector into rivers with good rescue dropping and so forth. In an efficiency or LTC he's very handy, but I find those runs to be really boring in comparison so I'm not doing an LP of one. Oswin has absolutely no place in efficiency or LTC or in max ranking beyond the chapters where you're forced to bring him. Knights are not good units if you're not just sitting back and dawdling along. And the fact that he's totally viable in a casual play means about as much as the fact that you can solo the game with Wil in casual play. In general, I object to the notion that "Well X guy is necessary in one or two chapters and then totally awful elsewhere, therefore he's top tier!" I also kind of think people like Matthew and Legault who you MUST use to max rank belong outside the tier system. That doesn't make them great characters, it just makes them necessary. The whole notion of character tiers is only helpful or relevant for cases where you have decisions to make between them. Edit: Manatee Cannon posted:Yes and no. Obviously the focus of the LP is how good units are in a ranked run but he makes allowances for certain units being good outside of those limits, like Farina and Dart. Oswin and Marcus, whom Fionordequester mentioned, do not get that same treatment. Everyone has their preferences when it comes to units. Though really when I said that I was specifically referring to Awakening and Fred, without whom Lunatic+ is potentially impossible without pure luck. Actually, I was pretty nice to Oswin now that I look back on what I said about him and I made the point that my criticism of him is mostly with regard to HHM and/or max ranking: "Many people, both new players and experts, swear by Oswin, but I don’t have a terribly high opinion of him myself. True, he is the only person in the game whose toughness rivals Hector’s and his strength looks impressive at first glance. However, his strength is actually only very good, not great, and his terrible speed means he will never be able to double most enemies on HHM. Much more problematically, he can only move 4 squares- less than anyone else in the game. Since speed is so important on many levels to get a good ranking, this often means that he must either be left behind to accomplish nothing or carried as a burden by a faster soldier. Undoubtably his high starting stats make him very useful in the early levels, but I want him off the team as soon as I don’t need to bring him. In this way, he’s much like Marcus: a crutch character to get through the tricky early levels until your more helpful soldiers can stand on their own." Melth fucked around with this message at 01:19 on Mar 18, 2015 |
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2015 01:11
|
|
|
quote:Efficiency is defined as completing the game with everything as fast as possible disregarding ranks. Think of it like a 100% speed run. except the ranking is based on turns not real-time. What's the difference between Efficiency and LTC?
|
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2015 04:08
|
|
|
effiency requires you get everything - recruit everyone, get all the treasure, etc. basically how normal people play, just with the added goal of doing it as quick as possible LTC is just get through the game as fast as possible
|
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2015 04:10
|
|
|
Sorites posted:What's the difference between Efficiency and LTC? To describe it in a different way, LTC couldn't give a poo poo about letting people die, recruiting allies that won't save turns, or anything that will get in the way of getting as few turns as possible. Everything is expendable in the crusade for fewer turns. Efficiency involves actually caring about recruiting friends, visiting villages and the like, treating them as challenging objectives to complete as fast as possible.
|
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2015 04:17
|
|
|
 A peculiar title. I’m still not really sure what this one refers to exactly. This is the second chapter to have an alternative version of it, which I’ve referenced several times on the way here. If the total XP gained in Eliwood/Hector’s story by Serra, Priscilla, Lucius, and Erk exceeds that gained by Bartre, Dorcas, Guy, and Raven then you get Kenneth’s version of this chapter. Otherwise you get this one. As I outlined earlier, I believe Jerme’s version of the chapter to be superior for purposes of max ranking due to the greater available treasure relative to the chapter’s funds requirement, the higher turn limit, and the relative lack of long-ranged spellcasters to snipe the low level units you’re trying to train. On the other hand, having to not use Lucius and Erk for most of the game to train the largely useless Bartre and Dorcas and Guy instead is a pretty high price to pay. Chapter Summary: Having learned that the Fire Emblem is being held in the Black Fang’s fortress, Lyn tracks Vaida’s retreating group there. After arriving, they hear Sonia and Brendan and Nino and Jaffar discussing plans to assassinate prince Zephiel on the king’s orders. They realize that having the Fire Emblem is worthless if the prince is dead , but before they can hurry after the assassins they find themselves caught by the guard. After defeating them, they seize the Fire Emblem and then chase after Nino and Jaffar.  Although it’s generally fairly minimalist, a lot of the pre-chapter narrations of their journey are pretty cool and do a good job to set the atmosphere.  Owned. Vaida’s stupid life is spared because she was technically not actually a member of the Black Fang, but Sonia refuses to give her a second chance after she stupidly got bored and left in the middle of her mission.  The party arrives in time to see the Vaida leaving.  The lords leave the others behind in a safer place and sneak into the fortress, eavesdropping on a conversation between the leaders of the Black Fang.  Really and truly? I get to kill someone? Yay! I guess the fact that Nino has never actually gone on a mission or killed someone before is supposed to make this excitement endearing rather than screwed up, but really…  Brendan stands up to his wife to avoid her sending his adopted daughter to almost certain death.  She admits that this job would be much better suited to Lloyd or Linus, but they’ve vanished. Seeing as Limstella has no respect for Sonia, I don’t know if Sonia actually knows Limstella killed Linus and that Lloyd disappeared with a whole regiment of Black Fang to try to kill the wrong people for revenge. Either way, she wouldn’t want to tell Brendan what happened.  And that shuts him up.  POOF!  It’s Jaffar, only recently recovered from the injuries she tried to treat. Nino again shows that she’s probably a bit too caring to be an assassin.  Sonia doesn’t tell either of them the reason King Desmond wants his son dead, so they’re left to just follow orders. Nino in particular is confused as to why someone would be so cruel to their own child.  Jaffar objects to Nino being sent on such a dangerous and important mission and with good reason.  She only reinforces his legitimate point with another mention that this is important.  Jaffar shuts up and there are no further objections so they prepare to leave.  And the party moves so as to be TOTALLY visible to continue listening in as she puts this fellow Jerme in charge of the garrison.  He takes the opportunity to whine about how he isn’t one of the four fangs anymore. What’s great is that Jaffar is right there.  Lyn and Eliwood quickly realize the implications of this plot twist for their plans.  As they’re leaving, Jerme teleports into the middle of them all where they could kill him easily. He’s crazy.  As he quickly makes clear to them as well.  Well that’s rather forward-   I’m betting yes.  We’re apparently trapped in some kind of forcefield created by Nergal’s power and maintained by all the Black Fang alive in the area. Battle Preparations & the Map:  A wagon? That’s kinda lame-  Wait nevermind, his wagon is made out of lightning, that’s awesome!  As Hector put it “What a complicated place.” This is indeed one of the most complex maps in the game and quite a tricky one. For one thing, it’s partly inside and partly outside. Peculiarly, the inside areas are fairly wide open compared to the tight alleyways and rough terrain of the outside with all its forests and mountains. For another it’s often snowing outside, which greatly slows everyone’s movements. But it doesn’t snow all the time and the pattern is only partly consistent. Plus you don’t get any warnings on this difficulty moves about when it will start and stop snowing, making it harder to plan ahead. Notably, snow only affects people who are outside. Additionally, the interior rooms are completely hidden until you open the doors. Once you do that, you can see the enemies inside but they can fight you starting on your next turn. There’s also bunches of hidden treasure but until you open the doors you can’t see where it’s located. And for the first time there’s large numbers of promoted enemies on this chapter. For that matter, there’s an unusually high number of promoted and strong enemies in general. The War Room, Part 28 Before you can properly approach this map, you need to scout it. In general, you should scout most maps before making a serious go at them if you haven’t max ranked HHM before. You could rely on other people to do the intelligence gathering for you though. In particular, this site: http://www.fireemblemwod.com/fe7/hhm/ENG_cap27B.htm is the best for finding out about reinforcement turns and locations and just about everything else. However the fire emblem wiki http://fireemblem.wikia.com/wiki/Pale_Flower_of_Darkness is better for store contents and the like. I generally prefer not to use sites or guides or anything and to instead just find things out entirely for myself. When making a max run attempt you should never settle for a completion of a chapter that was just pretty good but not as good as you could make knowing what you do now. Those extra turns saved or the extra lockpick stolen or the more efficient distribution of XP could make a lot of difference down the line. In particular, they’ll add up So as you’re playing, notice where and when reinforcements pop up and notice which fronts you need more people on and where you could make do with fewer. Notice which characters are struggling with which enemies and which characters you wish you had along. Planning out your preparations as I described before is very important, but you’ll definitely make mistakes and the best way to find those is during play. Generally, when you realize there was a way you could have picked your units or your starting formation or the like better to deal with the level, you should keep playing till the end of the chapter and see what else you can learn and THEN restart. You’ll probably find other good changes you could make. In any case, the following battle preparations (and the above map) were done after my scouting play when I found out who and what was behind each door and what the reinforcements would be like. Back to Battle Preparations & the Map: The snow is going to be about as helpful as it is harmful on this chapter. The enemy is affected too and many of them are cavalry or other units which are slowed down a particularly great amount. Plus you’ll need to spread out a great deal and the reinforcements can be dangerous to you if you don’t have the time to pull back and change your formation before they’re all over you. On the other hand, it will greatly slow your completion of the chapter and make it extremely difficult to get people from one front to another- which you may well need to do since you have to split up in so many directions. One key thing to understand about it is that not all units are affected equally. Infantry and mages seem to have their movement capped at 2 squares (3 if promoted or thieves) but are basically now unaffected by terrain. So for example, Canas can move through 2 forests and a plain as easily as 3 plains, but he can’t move through 4 plains. Cavaliers, paladins, and Eliwood are hurt much more badly: their movement is capped at 2 squares (again, seemingly ignoring terrain). Nomads and flyers fare the best at 3 if unpromoted and 4 for promoted. So don’t bring any cavalrymen you don’t have to and DO bring flyers and possibly Rath. Ninian will also be extremely helpful here. Because everyone is so slow and many alleyways are so narrow, you should take care not to let your forces get uselessly piled up and then blocked in at chokepoints. Always do what you have to do to push right through the alleyway immediately and seize control of the square on the other side so that you don’t have to waste lots of turns fighting through a chokepoint. You’ll also want to spread out and do some rescuing and carrying when there isn’t intense fighting going on to maximize your movement. What’s key is getting those doors opened promptly. If, like me, you unfortunately don’t have masses of door keys then you’ll need some lockpicks. Helpfully, many enemies on this chapter DO drop door keys so that will make things easier. You definitely don’t want to be limited by the movement of your thieves in a huge, slow map like this for opening doors –or even chests. You also need to have other people on hand to immediately rush in and take out any problem enemies as you open doors and reveal them. Never open a door with your last unit.  Objective: Kill all enemy units Secondary Objective: Get the Talisman from the top middle chest Secondary Objective: Get the White Gem from the middle chest Secondary Objective: Get the Bolting from the middle chest Secondary Objective: Get the Hero Crest from the bottom leftish chest Secondary Objective: Recruit Karel with Hector OR Secondary Objective: Recruit Harken with Hector, Oswin, Eliwood, Lowen, Marcus, or Isadora Reinforcements: Several falcoknights from the bottom right in the early and middle turns, nomads with nomadic troopers from the toppish right through the early and middle turns followed by cavaliers and paladins with reaver weapons from that area into the late turns, and wyvern riders with wyvern lords out of the top left from the early to late turns. The numbers are substantial but spread out over a big area and many turns, so they’re not a big problem. Turn Limit: 25. (Wow that’s huge! That’s one reason I prefer this to Kenneth’s shorter time limits. It IS a long map, but the last reinforcements come on turn 19 and you could easily have won long before then if you wanted) Units Allowed: 11+Hector (it looks like a lot, but considering that several of those have to be thieves and the rest will be spreading way out, you may well end up wishing for one or two more) Units Brought: 1) Hector. Required and not useful, so I’ll just put him on chest opening duty with a chest key. He might help feed some kills to people later on when everyone has spread out more. 2) Heath. Flying units have a big advantage on this map and I’m going to need one of my very best units to deal with the wyvern lords from the top left. 3) Ninian. Ninian is great for preventing congestion and overcrowding as well as continuing to feed kills to my weaker units. 4) Bartre. Speaking of weaker units, here’s one now. There are a fair amount of lance users and others who he’s effective against on this map, so it’s another good opportunity to level him up. 5) Lucius. One of my few remaining low level units, Lucius is also very good to have around and easy to train. Particularly now that mine can actually take a hit from most enemies. At this point I don’t think I’ll be making him a bishop, but he at least deserves to go to level 20. 6) Rath. Rath is really hitting his stride and needs a lot less babysitting to give him XP now. His damage is high enough that he can actually kill many enemies unassisted. 7) Eliwood. I don’t really want to bring Eliwood but I see little choice here since I need to recruit Harken and all the other candidates for that job are worse. The best alternative is Hector, but Hector would need to be rushing into a fight to talk to him, which would likely cost me XP. Plus when the snow turns off Eliwood gets around better. 8) Canas. Here as a primary healer and because I’m also going to need serious muscle from time to time on this chapter. 9) Legault. I’ve definitely got to bring both thieves on this chapter. As the more combat ready one, Legault will be going with Heath toward the top chest while Matthew stays safely further back and makes for the bottom one. 10) Erk. A very good character and mine is close to promotion (< 20 XP from hitting level 20). I need all the battle-capable healers I can get my hands on. 11) Fiora. Much tougher than Florina at this point, her high mobility and goodness at rescuing people makes her handy here even if she’s not good against the enemies. 12) Matthew. I definitely need both of my thieves, as mentioned before. Notable Units Rejected: 1) Pent. I definitely could have put him to good use on this chapter since I needed another healer. However, I have too many promoted units along already and my Erk is actually turning out better than him. Furthermore, I’m short on anima tomes at the moment. 2) Priscilla. Due to terrible mobility on this chapter, she would not be as useful relative to Serra as normal. Still, I did often wish for another healer. Ultimately, I WAS able to pull through without one, as I expected. If I could bring just one more unit, she would probably be it. 3) Serra. Still loses out to Priscilla since she’s slower on turns when it isn’t snowing. 4) Florina. I already had too many promoted units and she’s not as durable as her sister- let alone Heath- and is at this point pretty much strictly worse. 5) Dart. Dart would, as always, be better than Bartre here. However, he’s getting pretty high level and I want to use him on 28x, so I need to avoid him hitting his level cap now. 6) Dorcas. Much worse than Bartre now that the latter is leveled. Unlike Bartre, he can’t really stand on his own at all at this point. 7) Lyn. She can’t kill anything on this level. 8) Guy. Same as Lyn but slightly better, as usual. 9) Sain. I’m avoiding him, as usual lately. Too many promoted units and he’s too high level. 10) Lowen. I did consider bringing Lowen to train on this chapter, but the snow means his mobility doesn’t really help him here so he’ll be relatively easier to train on other chapters. The idea with this formation is to have Legault split off with Heath immediately and make for the top left. That forest to the right of the cursor MUST be seized on turn 1 or I will have to waste 1-2 whole turns trying to push past those darned wyverns, which will then further slow me down by letting other enemies get in position elsewhere on the map. I can only get there by Ninian-assisted rescue dropping basically and I have the perfect man for the job: Erk. Killing that one wyvern rider and injuring the lord will give him just enough XP to hit level 20. Everyone else will proceed more or less together into the central area because that’s where the biggest fight will be. Both some falcoknights and some nomadic troopers will be arriving there at just the same time the snow stops for the first time, and I’ll need most of my firepower to deal with that threat. After that the group will split up further, with about half heading south and half north. Who goes where doesn’t much matter since everyone is equipped for both jobs as long as Eliwood goes north to recruit Harken and Matthew goes south to open doors and get the chest. The decision will be made at the time based largely on what positions people just ended up in while trying to fight through the center. Canas will probably be taken back and forth between the two to heal the injured. Erk and Fiora and Ninian are positioned so that they can just barely get Erk to where he needs to go, while allowing Bartre and Lucius (who I want to train) and Canas (whose healing will be needed) to get up there promptly too. Erk is packing a guiding ring as well as a heal staff, so he can get right to work as a sage. Heath will absolutely need a healer to fight in the top left and I’ll need two VERY strong units to deal with the druids up there anyway, so Erk will be heading that way in short order. Fiora has my one door key and will be pulling back to either use it or let someone else use it on that nearby building after her initial mission. Legault is carrying a lancereaver and a wyrmslayer in case I see a chance to feed him some wyvern XP, but most likely won’t use them. Due to the abundance of mounted enemies, Bartre is carrying a halberd in addition to his normal weapons. Rath still has his variety of bows, though the iron one is close to breaking unfortunately. Eliwood doesn’t have much inventory space to spare, so I can’t have him pass much to Harken except his iron sword. The Characters:  Merlinus has promoted! It’s normally possible to have this happen 2 chapters earlier at the beginning of Crazed Beast, but as you may recall I decided to not bring him on 19x so that I could more easily feed some mages to Canas and he was killed by a berserked Florina on 23x. Interestingly, he doesn’t actually gain any stats for promoting. However, he doesn’t really need to since his stats are already spectacular where he needs them. I mean just look at that nearly capped Skill! This guy is NEVER going to miss an attack for the whole game. Between his awesome 63 avoid and solid HP and Def, he’s now fairly close to invulnerable Being able to now move 5 squares isn’t as much of a game changer as you’d expect unfortunately. The trouble is that almost everyone else on the team is now moving more than 5 and you can’t control his starting position, which is almost always in the back, so he has a tendency to get left behind as you push on. Another problem is that he doesn’t actually have his own inventory and can’t trade, so your other units often have to spend their turn retrieving stuff from him. Further, he has huge Con so you can’t rescue him and 0 aid so he can’t rescue other people. As I’ve mentioned and demonstrated, trading and rescuing are at the core of most advanced tactics in this game, and not being able to do either of them hurts Merlinus badly. Furthermore, with good battle preparations people will almost never need to take things from him anyway. Still, he can now be used as a tank and he no longer needs a guard, and you’ll see me put him to use a few times this chapter.  “I would rather die a knight than live in shame. I will trade my life for many of theirs.” –Harken, Chapter 27 Kind of like Fiora, Harken has a terrible case of survivor’s guilt and is barely convinced not to just get himself killed attacking the Black Fang. He has a fairly detailed background, having been the knight of an abusive and cruel lord who ultimately cast him out before Elbert took him in. Consequently he has fairly low self-esteem and gave in to despair when Elbert was killed despite his best efforts. That he didn’t return to her and instead just tried to kill Black Fang from inside their organization until he died upset Isadora, his betrothed. Really he’s just got a ton of issues and only some of his supports resolve any of them. Seeing as, despite all he’s been through, he’s still pretty incredibly lucky and privileged compared to like… everyone else in the world, he comes across as kind of whiny to me and I’m not too fond of him. Harken, unlike the horrible Karel, is actually a pretty darned good unit. He even shapes up fairly well against Raven, the game’s other Hero and probably the best infantryman other than Hector. His starting stats are pretty amazing and immediately make him one of my most powerful units, though his growths are comparatively poor. Still, I already have enough promoted muscle and he’s rather high level even for a promoted unit at this point, which would hurt my XP score even more if I used him.  “I am Jerme! The finest assassin the Black Fang have ever known!” –Jerme, Chapter 27 Everyone’s favorite mulleted psycho, Jerme was one of the Four Fangs before Nergal had his minion Jaffar join the group and his superiors skills led to Jerme being replaced. He’s completely nuts and spends all his time talking to his sword or about his sword or about how much he and his sword will enjoy killing various people and how that’s the only thing he likes doing. He’s also completely indifferent to Nergal’s takeover of the Black Fang except that he’s glad Nergal keeps giving him people to kill. Like Pascal, he’s proof that the Black Fang was horrible before Nergal joined up and never actually stood for any of its supposed ideals. If anything, having Jaffar replace him was probably a move in a better direction since Jaffar at least could be counted on to not kill people he didn’t need to. Also like Pascal, he’s pretty awesome- if kind of whiny- during his brief time in the spotlight. Jerme is basically no threat at all. True he’s fast relative to other bosses, but not to any of my characters at this point really. And he’s not very durable and doesn’t have a throne or anything.  Worst of all, he’s using a Light Brand. This is not a good weapon. In particular, he will stupidly choose to attack with it at range which makes his damage terrible and prevents him from getting any criticals- not that his crit chance was actually that good to begin with. Unless you do something stupid like open his door with Priscilla and then not move anyone in front of her, he’s no threat.
|
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2015 09:35
|
|
|
Playing Through: As you can see, the snow falling hampers movement significantly.  So as planned, Fiora and Ninian cooperate to get Erk where he needs to go.  Distant Travels is still playing. It’s still awesome.  Legault moves up to Heath, so Heath can pick him up.  Like all non-nomad cavalrymen, Eliwood’s movement is particularly hampered.  Rath is relatively well off. There’s not a ton to do this turn but just move everyone else in.  Erk’s final unpromoted level is another very good one.  So next turn, Fiora moves back to clear a space for Bartre to finish the wyvern lord from and to make her key available for someone else to use.  I’m still adjusting my plans for who’ll use the key, but Eliwood seems like a good candidate.  Bartre kills the wyvern lord and gets another amazing level.  And Erk moves out of the way and promotes, getting some much needed Def. Remember how good my Canas is? Other than Def, Erk is now pretty comparable to him.  And there’s the real reason for promotion.  Yeah there was a 2% chance or so of him dying here, but that’s worth it.  You know how whenever it’s going to stop or start snowing the world flashes completely white? Well apparently it does.  So at the beginning of turn 3 this nomadic trooper is suddenly a much bigger threat.  Canas heals Erk up.  While I consider the best way to feed that nomadic trooper to someone low level, Legault prepares to fight the brigands and Heath takes out the nearby shaman- also blocking the other one from getting next to Legault.  The best I could come up with was to have Erk and Fiora weaken this guy for Bartre to take this shot. Nomadic Troopers are darned hard to deal with because of their solid defenses and massive speed.  Ultimately, it looks like it will be best to not use the door key on this one. That way Eliwood and Rath are both available to charge in and deal with the enemies within.  OH GOD HE HAS BOLTING! Yeah, if you don’t know this is coming it’s quite possibly a restart inducer. Fortuntely, I did know, so I had Eliwood and Rath kill him immediately.  The most efficient way to weaken the enemy for someone else to kill them is to do it on the enemy turn. That falcoknight should go before the pegasus knight, so if I put Canas in the right spot, the falcoknight should attack him (and barely survive due to its poor Res) and he shouldn’t get any kills.  Swordreaver vs Mountain!  A door key drops. There are like 5 door keys on this chapter. Just in time since none have been offered from stores in forever.  Well things didn’t go quite as planned since for some reason the pegasus knight actually went before the falcoknight. Still, the rest went well. And Canas gets the first S rank with a weapon of any of my characters I believe. Each character can only get 1 S rank, and they can’t get that until they’re promoted. Unlike previous weapon ranks from E to A, this one actually has an effect other than letting the unit use more advanced weapons of that type. An S Rank also gives a bonus of +5 to hit and +5 to crit. Small, but occasionally useful (particularly the crit bonus).  For some reason, the magic users in the unlocked room didn’t try to focus fire anyone. Only this shaman went for Rath, who netted a fairly bad but not terrible level.  Another went for Bartre, who got a level that would be bad on most people but great for Bartre.  Some nomads are now making their way here.  Legault gets a pretty great level as he continues to fight those brigands.  There isn’t much for Erk to do yet since Legault is busy so the top left door is staying closed, so he just heals Bartre.  Lucius finishes off the falcoknight that Canas weakened for a solid level.  Fiora is extremely vulnerable to that nomadic trooper, so this is as close as she can move in safely. With this formation, the nomadic trooper and nomad will go for Bartre (with his handaxe) and thus be injured badly but not killed as they would be if they went for Canas.  My next turn. Agh, more nomads! I need to cut them off at that chokepoint right now and Canas is the man for the job.  Worth the cost.  Everyone keeps moving in while Canas moves to block the nomads and Bartre can go for the other path.  Turns out that that paladin and those cavaliers apparently don’t move. That’s good, because I expected the nomadic trooper to stay in its position so I hadn’t planned on Canas fighting them. He’d survive because he’s Canas and Canas is tough as nails, but it would cost me XP.  Erk and Heath and Legault move in. It’s going to be a rough fight when that door opens, so I need everyone at full strength.  Rath kills the nomadic trooper and gets a pretty nice level. Finally some Res.  And Canas heals Bartre up to full for an amazing level now that I don’t need him blocking anymore.  Matthew goes for the door since there’s not much else to do.  Treasure time!  Awesome! More skill at last! Ninian now has above average skill, hooray! Anyway, with only one healer in this area I need her dancing for Canas a fair amount.  Fiora moves in to aggro and weaken the enemy and also ensure I don’t get blocked in as those falcoknights advance.  The enemy attacks and she gets a level up including all the stats I don’t care about.  And the snow is back.  And with the snow come some wyverns out of the top left. That Wyvern Lord is not to be messed with. But for now I have some time to get inside and do the fighting I need to in there.  OH GOD THEY HAVE LUNA! Yeah, that’s a serious problem. There’s just no good way to deal with Luna. You can’t dodge it, you can’t instant kill those druids, and nothing and no one can tank it. You just have to kill them as fast as possible and hope they don’t crit. If they crit, you restart.  Like I did on my previous attempt at this chapter. You’d need to break the HP cap to survive that attack.  Well while I think about what approach to make there, Hector uses one of my many chest keys to start looting. You can see that a monk from the first opened room has been following me since it didn’t get killed immediately and I had no one with the time to spare to go back for it. Now no one has the movement to get back to it in the snow. I’m hoping I can have Merlinus finally lure it to the front when I have more time.  More falcoknights have spawned, but the snow makes them much less threat than they could be.  Bartre helps Fiora fight the swarm of mages and falcoknights and gets another sweet level.  This time, I did things differently (last time Heath and Legault were alone and I had him rescue Legault out and then go back on his own), and the druid happened to not crit Heath. I will gladly take a mediocre level to not have to restart again. There’s still a risk of course because it was impossible to kill both druids this turn since I had to kill a shaman first.  As you can see, I’ve begun spreading my troops out. Canas will go hurry to the south area next turn, probably with help from Ninian, as will Matthew. Bartre will do most of the fighting though.  Legault was unlucky and got hit by the surviving shaman, but lucked out and didn’t get hit by the druid. And he even got a nice level.  Crazy. And awesome. Soon he’ll actually be fast enough to be usable!  Next turn, Hector gets the Bolting.  The third Druid has Nosferatu, which makes it very dangerous to Legault, but it wasn’t much of a problem for Heath. The trickiest part of the chapter is now over. There’s just no good way to deal with that. No matter what you do, you have to face a 10% or so chance of death two times at least and unless you can commit more than 3 very good units + Legault for that one fight when they’re really needed elsewhere, it’s going to be more than two.  Again, worth the price. Sometimes you just need to deal a lot of damage or get a crit more than you need 70 gold per shot of a good weapon.  Pretty solid. More speed doesn’t hurt.  Serious wyvern reinforcements are moving in and can’t be ignored anymore.  And more nomads have popped up too, plus there’s still those cavaliers and myrmidons to deal with. The cavaliers/paladin were completely inconsistent in whether they moved or not. Some turns none of them would move, other times some of them did for some reason.  And wow, that’s a lot of falcoknights. But if I can defeat the waves I just showed you, the map is pretty close to over.  Although it’s snowing outside, you can move full speed indoors. Legault will actually not go that far s that Erk can heal him though.  Now the problem is that Erk got hit badly by one druid, so he’s at terrible HP and I can’t do anything about that other than spend several terms and several hundred gold using vulneraries. I’ll probably have Heath do all the fighting instead.  On that forest, Rath can actually stand up to these enemies pretty well. And Lucius moves in as far as he safely can.  Canas was busy, so Fiora had to drink a vulnerary to survive the next turn.  Ok, finally a not-good level on Bartre as the falcoknights attack him.  I’ll never turn down Def and avoid on a pegasus knight, so this is pretty nice.  And Harken pops up, apparently now using the royal we to refer to himself.  Might as well get the free XP from this heal before the fighting starts.  The snow turns off and more reinforcements spawn. This is the last wave of nomads and with the snow off and my troops in the open, it’ll be a little tricky to deal with them.  Eliwood recruits Harken.  Rath finishes off an injured nomadic trooper for a great level up.  Ninian uses Ninis’s Grace on the fragile Lucius so that he can get in there and fight.  I didn’t really plan on leveling Matthew any, but you’ve got to take the chances you get to feed kills to your weakest units.  Pretty good.  I happen to know what’s in that room and that Fiora can tank it well, so I’ll just open it with her this turn.  That Hero is pretty dangerous actually, but a Falcoknight is a good counter to heroes who don’t have axes.  Protected by Ninis’s Grace, Lucius gets some kills but nothing good when he levels. Oh well.  It’s only turn 11 out of my massive time limit! Of course, there’s still a decent number of turns left since the snow makes everything slow, but I’m making very good progress. If I really wanted to, I could probably have finished this by turn 12 or something. But the promoted Reins are worth a lot of XP.  So the top left group is in a little bit of trouble but can probably handle it.  The bottom right group isn’t really in trouble, but it’s going to be tricky to keep feeding the kills mainly to Bartre while also moving fast- I have a whole other building to get through.  On the top right all is well, nothing but mop up left to do. You can see of course that that one cavalier did decide to move last turn after ignoring all enemies up till now.  So the top left’s real problem is that Erk was hit before and there’s no way to heal him. That means I have to have Heath do all the fighting, but Heath isn’t very effective against these wyvern riders. The wyvern lords are really though so even though he’s extremely strong, it will take him 5 or so hits to kill them and at least 3 or 4 for the wyvern riders. That means he needs to survive a LOT of fairly inaccurate but powerful steel lance hits.  Erk could kill that one wyvern lord safely though and does, getting more useful Mag.  I decide to skip the treasure for now and position Legault with his wyrmslayer (not the lancereaver since I want to encourage them to attack him over here. If he can lower the pressure on Heath just a little bit it will help boost Heath’s odds of victory from like 75% closer to 100%.  Another pretty bad level for Bartre, but I can’t complain after his middle levels were so amazing.  Darn, a critical ruined my chance to feed this guy to a low level character.  Meanwhile on the bottom front, I want Matthew to kill this monk but he’ll take 2 turns to do it and he’s at low HP, so I’d rather not leave the forest. Merlinus should hopefully lure the monk into attacking from next to Matthew and his forest.  Heath gets a sweet level up as he fights the wyverns. The more Def the better, you can see that their onslaught has really worn him down.  Darn, the monk didn’t go for Merlinus. Instead I’ll move Merlinus in here so that Matthew can step up, take a steel sword out, and kill the monk in one round with that instead.  It worked, though the resulting level was nothing special.  Fiora and Canas move in to deal with the remaining building. Bartre will follow them and let the remaining mage suicide to him on his way.  No wyverns decided to go for Legault, so he goes back for the Talisman instead. Now he might as well help out the top right group and get as much XP as he can.  Erk moves out of wyvern range again, but stays close enough that he could easily heal Heath if Heath had to pull back.  With Harken recruited and the snow off, I can have Eliwood (with Ninian’s help) move down here.  Next turn, the first wave of cavaliers and paladins spawns.  They’re armed with reaver weapons. Pretty dangerous, but counterable.  And Matthew opens the door to reveal a gang of monks and a bishop. No real threat to most characters.  Looks dangerous right? But I can just pull Canas back to that forest to heal him.  Like so. Which puts him EXACTLY where I need him for a rescue chain! Which is why I put Eliwood down there in the first place.  Fiora moves in to block this bishop and weaken him for Bartre to finish on the enemy turn.  And another rescue chain begins.  Hector drops Canas off and Ninian dances for him.  Rath is badly injured, but finishes off a paladin Harken weakened with Eliwood’s iron sword and finally gets some Def.  So Canas heals him. Many people on the top front were in bad health since they’d had no healer around.  The wyverns dealt with at last, I can have Erk move in and heal Heath before the next wave arrives.  Lucius gets a handy crit, but I probably would have been fine regardless.  Lucius has not been leveling too well this chapter.  And snow starts as another wave arrives, but now that everyone is up there and ready things will be much easier.  And with the snow comes a third wave of wyverns.  Another use of combat marching, I had a 1-use handaxe with Merlinus for just this occasion. See Bartre is at like 11 HP (and those monks deal 10) and only 4 or 5 XP from level 20. With a 1 use handaxe, a monk will damage but not kill him and then he’ll damage but not kill it and hit level 20.  Healed up, Heath prepares to fight.  Yes, Bartre is now safe because of his almost broken weapon.  Harken is great for not quite killing these paladins for other people to finish.  Rath’s iron bow has broken, so I’ll need to fight these last few enemies a bit more expensively. Oh well, it lets him kill them without help at least.  You know, Bartre has had terrible stat gains overall this chapter, but he’s at least gained a bunch of speed. And his levels last chapter were amazing.  It’s still only turn 15.  And the next group of wyverns has already arrived.  I need to start fighting Jerme and his men so that I can kill him when I need to, so Eliwood opens the door with his javelin ready.  So due to that druid crit before, I didn’t actually open this door on my scouting run. I knew to expect myrmidons, but I didn’t know each of those guys had a lancereaver. Oh well, shouldn’t be a problem.  And Heath has capped his speed. Wow that’s early. This is a ludicrously fast Heath even for HHM. He’s actually behind on Str, but still fine.  Matthew killed a monk, but now he goes for the chest.  Another decent level on Rath, but nothing special.  Turn 16, I’m trying to move in on the boss room. I could end this pretty much any time, but there’s still some reinforcements to harvest so I’m going to wait until turn 19.  With the snow up, this is a fine spot for Erk to heal from for now.  Eliwood gets a pretty bad level, but Def is very nice. This guy is so… balanced.  Last chest unlocked.  And the snow stopped so Erk gets the heck out of there.  Canas heals Eliwood up and then Ninian dances him out so I can hack my way further in with someone else.  Like Legault, who needed his lancereaver to get the kill and this worthless level. Because Jerme will moronically attack at long range instead of up close where his damage is actually dangerous, Legault will be fine in here.  More Def is pretty awesome. More important than more Str at this point. You can see that that wyvern lord is crazy though that.  Fiora is done on the bottom, so she comes flying up.  Thieves really gain XP fast. It’s really easy to kill these cavaliers and paladins as fast as they spawn.  And it’s turn 19, time to win this.  One last wave of mounted units.  Legault finishes one cavalier for a sucky level.  And Rath finishes the paladin and gets another meh level, perhaps his final one.  Canas has been doing a LOT of healing since he promoted. This isn’t even his first staff.  It’s some kind of tradition that all his healing level ups are amazing.  Everything else is dead, so Eliwood just kills Jerme.  Eliwood is now behind on Str and Speed since he suddenly stopped gaining them, but everything else is doing great. And that’s a win!  And that’s a Fire Emblem!  No wait, we could totally go to the Shrine of Seals and grab the Sword of Seals with that gem instead!  And we’re pretty much too late. While we were stuck, the teleporting people reached the outskirts of the Manse. Or maybe they just walked actually. From the fact that Eliwood and everyone get there just a little bit later, apparently the imperial Manse is just a few hours away from the Black Fang stronghold actually. I never noticed that and thought about how weird it was before. Also, it’s an all new mountain background! They could have just used their old mountain background, but that’s not how this game does things. Anyway, we see here that Nino is really nervous about her chances of surviving her dangerous first mission and also that her mother Sonia has always treated her really coldly.   She’s never done any of this before, see.  Well with being hugged for the first time ever on the line she’s got to succeed.  Whoah, that changes everything. It’s at this moment that you realize Sonia is 1) really, really awful and 2) really clever. See, now suddenly we see both why she agreed to hug Nino when she succeeds- she’s going to make sure Nino doesn’t come back alive to begin with. And we also begin to realize why she ignored Brendan and Jaffar to send her on this mission she’s unqualified for to begin with.  And there’s the reason. They want someone dead on the scene who can immediately be blamed for Zephiel’s death but who’s totally expendable and who can’t reveal the truth. Who better than a Black Fang member Sonia hates who actually WAS part of the assassination team.  We would NOT have seen any of this kind of talk from Jaffar 6 or 7 chapters ago. The game does a pretty good job of developing him over time in my opinion.  Sonia is really a great villain because, besides being actually competent, she’s evil in a petty and vicious and visceral sort of way, rather than just the impersonal sort of threat that Nergal usually is.  Almost everyone line Sonia gets is pretty great. She’s one of my favorite villains in just about anything.  She seems to have taught the hints that Jaffar is not happy with killing Nino and warns him that he’ll be killed if he doesn’t go through with this.  And back at the fortress (I kind of feel like this conversation should have come first) is a Hector only bit where he asks Oswin if Uther has had anything to say. Just how Uther’s messengers would find them when they’re undercover in a foreign country that they were pretty much teleported into I’m unsure, but Ostia’s spies ARE pretty great.  You may recall several people remarked about that.  Kind of like Eliwood and Marcus, it’s clear Oswin handles a lot of Hector’s business and basic upkeep of the army- like taking messages for him.  Lord Uther being twerpish as usual. And with that, the chapter ends. Total Restarts: 17 (2 more here. Accursed Luna druids!) Turn Surplus: 19 (I could have saved another 6 or so turns, but my surplus was doing fine and I needed the reinforcement XP) Things I Regret Missing: The lockpick on chapter 11, that darned archer on chapter 11, this one brigand who attacked Marcus on chapter 12, 2 more brigands who ignored everyone else to attack Marcus on chapter 13x, and 2 archers who ignored Hector and Dorcas (DORCAS!) to attack Marcus on chapter 14, like 10 more enemies I could have killed if Hector could have survived one more turn on chapter18, and Uhai who decided to take a 100% chance of death to Sain over a free hit on Hector, the chance to finish shopping properly with my silver card on chapter 21, the armorslayer that I have acquired if not for a stupid minor mistake on chapter 22, and these 3 wyvern riders who decided they preferred a 0% chance to hit Isadaora and then 100% chance of death against her to fighting a low level Heath, those 2 pegasus knights at the end of Crazed Beast that I just didn’t have enough time to feed to Bartre.
|
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2015 09:35
|
|
|
This is a chapter that has a lot of poo poo going on that has little to do with the actual chapter. It at least sort of makes sense (minus the ~magic barrier~ nonsense) But gently caress if the upcoming one does not just reek of something insanely stupid that was insanely easy to write around.
|
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2015 10:08
|
|
|
quote:Seeing as, despite all he’s been through, he’s still pretty incredibly lucky and privileged compared to like… everyone else in the world, he comes across as kind of whiny to me and I’m not too fond of him. This is one of the first times I've seriously disagreed with you about anything all thread. Privilege and trauma aren't related. You can take the most privileged people in the world and put them through awful events, and they're still at risk to develop a sackful of issues. That's normal. They might have access to more resources for recovery, and they're less likely to suffer compounding trauma, but there's going to be a period before those factors kick in*. Someone like Harken gets to be just as messed up as Geitz would be in the same situation. *and even if they don't recover any better, that's still their prerogative. They aren't required to heal faster because they've got advantages. Sorites fucked around with this message at 20:12 on Mar 18, 2015 |
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2015 19:51
|
|
|
Sorites posted:This is one of the first times I've seriously disagreed with you about anything all thread. Privilege and trauma aren't related. You can take the most privileged people in the world and put them through awful events, and they're still at risk to develop a sackful of issues. That's normal. They might have access to more resources for recovery, and they're less likely to suffer compounding trauma, but there's going to be a period before those factors kick in*. Someone like Harken gets to be just as messed up as Geitz would be in the same situation. This. Wealth is not protection against trauma, except in that it makes it harder for outside forces to inflict it when employed effectively. If the problems come from other members of the family, or if the wealth is removed, you're just as hosed. In fact, taking away wealth and privilege can be its own source of trauma even without other issues to deal with.
|
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2015 20:15
|
|
|
Man your Barte's pretty speed blessed, which is pretty much what he needs.
|
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2015 20:50
|
|
|
And now he is benched for all eternity.
|
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2015 20:52
|
|
|
ZiegeDame posted:And now he is benched for all eternity. Ah, I take it we aren't getting Karla them  ?
|
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2015 21:11
|
|
|
Fionordequester posted:Ah, I take it we aren't getting Karla them Probably not. At this point I could certainly get her, but she's definitely not worth the 10,000 gold + giving loads more kills to the lousy Bartre. Especially since she's pretty much the worst non-archer character in the game. Again, I'm trying to show how to max rank HHM smart. Recruiting Karla and Farina is a terrible idea. Sorites posted:This is one of the first times I've seriously disagreed with you about anything all thread. Privilege and trauma aren't related. You can take the most privileged people in the world and put them through awful events, and they're still at risk to develop a sackful of issues. That's normal. They might have access to more resources for recovery, and they're less likely to suffer compounding trauma, but there's going to be a period before those factors kick in*. Someone like Harken gets to be just as messed up as Geitz would be in the same situation. My point wasn't just that he's rich, I said he'd been lucky too. Loads of other characters in this FE game have had rougher lives than him- Raven lost his whole family and all his wealth and status and had to become a mercenary just to survive. Nino has been raised in an abusive family of crazy murderer people. All but ten of Lyn's tribe were murdered before her eyes and then the rest of them rejected her for being a woman and then when she was left all alone a bunch of assassins came after her. Fiora was the most similar case to his since she lost her entire group of pegasus knights- but even she had it worse really. And the list goes on. In comparison, Harken lost many of his comrades and a man he looked up to in battle. And yeah, that's awful, but it's not in the same league as what happened to Lyn. And it does't even compare that badly to the huge numbers of commoners in the world who are going to lose several children and siblings to disease they could have paid for treatment for if they just had money, deal with chronic shortages of food, and do hard labor almost every day until they die fairly young. Not to mention many of them will probably be conscripted and either get killed or have to kill other people just like them for no reason that will ever make sense to them in the event of a war. Those people have hard lives. Harken is in the employ of the best guy in Elibe, is engaged to a woman who loves him, still has friends and colleagues, can expect not to lose most of his children if he has any, will probably live healthily to old age, and will have leisure and security along the way. Plus he's actually been able to do really meaningful things with his life rather than just try to get through another day and put food on the table for tomorrow. He's saved whole villages of Pheraens, as pointed out by Lowen. While what happened to him looks bad from our perspective, it's almost trifling in the context of his quasi-medieval world. These are Second Estate problems.
|
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2015 21:56
|
|
|
Melth posted:My point wasn't just that he's rich, I said he'd been lucky too. Loads of other characters in this FE game have had rougher lives than him- Raven lost his whole family and all his wealth and status and had to become a mercenary just to survive. Nino has been raised in an abusive family of crazy murderer people. All but ten of Lyn's tribe were murdered before her eyes and then the rest of them rejected her for being a woman and then when she was left all alone a bunch of assassins came after her. Fiora was the most similar case to his since she lost her entire group of pegasus knights- but even she had it worse really. And the list goes on. In comparison, Harken lost many of his comrades and a man he looked up to in battle. And yeah, that's awful, but it's not in the same league as what happened to Lyn. And it does't even compare that badly to the huge numbers of commoners in the world who are going to lose several children and siblings to disease they could have paid for treatment for if they just had money, deal with chronic shortages of food, and do hard labor almost every day until they die fairly young. Not to mention many of them will probably be conscripted and either get killed or have to kill other people just like them for no reason that will ever make sense to them in the event of a war. Those people have hard lives. Harken is in the employ of the best guy in Elibe, is engaged to a woman who loves him, still has friends and colleagues, can expect not to lose most of his children if he has any, will probably live healthily to old age, and will have leisure and security along the way. Plus he's actually been able to do really meaningful things with his life rather than just try to get through another day and put food on the table for tomorrow. He's saved whole villages of Pheraens, as pointed out by Lowen. While what happened to him looks bad from our perspective, it's almost trifling in the context of his quasi-medieval world. These are Second Estate problems. You're kind of missing the point, here. The point isn't that other people suffer more than Harken. The point is that Harken has still suffered. Yeah, he hasn't gone through nearly as much as Nino, or even a random commoner, and he hasn't lost everything by a long shot, but so what? Funny thing about depression: it isn't logical. Furthermore, you can't weigh one person's suffering against another's. Suffering is suffering. The fact that others may suffer more is really missing the point. Suffering basically stands alone.
|
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2015 22:00
|
|
|
Edit: Speaking to Melth's latest post, not Silver Falcon. Right, but empirically speaking that's not how people work. Overall fortunate circumstances don't do much to shield someone from an acute crisis, and what counts as a 'crisis' is entirely personal. Chris Rock had a line that if Bill Gates woke up tomorrow with Oprah's money, he'd jump out a window and slit his throat on the way down. That's a joke, but it gets at something: Life events are relevant in the context of that person's life, not in the context of the rest of the world. Harken had a great life, and an awful thing happened to him, and now he's crushed. You mention survivor's guilt in Harken's character breakdown. Let's run with that. Imagine your favourite example of a modern person with B+ to A- level privilege. Now imagine that person watches most of their friends die, all at once, and can't do anything about it. Classic survivor's guilt set-up. Could you bring yourself to say, "You're still better off than 99.99% of the world's population; in the grand scheme of things, your problems are small"? That's just not how people are. Expecting otherwise runs into an ought-implies-can problem. Sorites fucked around with this message at 22:17 on Mar 18, 2015 |
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2015 22:02
|
|
|
Sorites posted:Edit: Speaking to Melth's latest post, not Silver Falcon. I mean, to a significant extent it IS how people are, since much happiness seems to be based on one's relative position in one's own society. The other thing is that Harken didn't just a day or a week or a month ago lose Elbert and the other knights- this isn't some acute trauma he just suffered. He's had more than six months to begin to come to terms with his grief and start putting it in perspective and remember that he still owes fealty to young Eliwood and is betrothed to Isadora and shouldn't just abandon them. Shirking those responsibilities and ignoring the vows he swore to each of them when he's actually had time to think about what he's doing is just not something I can respect.
|
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2015 22:18
|
|
|
Melth posted:I mean, to a significant extent it IS how people are, since much happiness seems to be based on one's relative position in one's own society. Depression is not something that people just 'get over', and part of what makes it depression is that it's long-term. It doesn't go away in just six weeks, it may take six years to resolve. So what if he's had six months? Part of what makes mental health problems so insidious is that they aren't logical, as has been pointed out already. Depression doesn't just go away. You can't just go "okay I'm done being sad now", because that's not how it works. e: This may be enlightening. Aerdan fucked around with this message at 22:24 on Mar 18, 2015 |
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2015 22:22
|
|
|
Melth posted:I mean, to a significant extent it IS how people are, since much happiness seems to be based on one's relative position in one's own society. Nope. Just, well...nope. Happiness is complex, and doesn't fit neatly at all with power or advantage. And even if it did under baseline conditions, that wouldn't speak to depression or trauma at all. quote:The other thing is that Harken didn't just a day or a week or a month ago lose Elbert and the other knights- this isn't some acute trauma he just suffered. He's had more than six months to begin to come to terms with his grief and start putting it in perspective and remember that he still owes fealty to young Eliwood and is betrothed to Isadora and shouldn't just abandon them. Shirking those responsibilities and ignoring the vows he swore to each of them when he's actually had time to think about what he's doing is just not something I can respect. This attitude became outdated in or around 1915. I can give you a fairly specific year on that because 1915 is when the Triple Entente powers started executing people for displaying symptoms of shell shock - now called PTSD. They didn't understand that powerlessly watching your friends and comrades die will straight-up break people, no matter who they are. A bunch of soldiers were sent to firing squads for treason or cowardice. The armies eventually figured this out, and put in a system of rotating people away from the trenches to preserve their mental health. That doesn't speak to your six-month point, but this does: Even twenty-five years later some of those traumatized soldiers couldn't think straight, let alone enlist again for World War II. I mean, some could. But some couldn't - and there's nothing wrong with that. You can't tell people to honour-and-duty their way out of mental illness. Sorites fucked around with this message at 22:30 on Mar 18, 2015 |
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2015 22:22
|
|
|
Melth posted:Again, I'm trying to show how to max rank HHM smart. Recruiting Karla and Farina is a terrible idea. You recruit everyone or else you can not say you have truly maxed it. Guess what? 
|
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2015 22:38
|
|
|
Let's pivot away from Harken. We've all made our views clear, and we're about two exchanges away from an argument I don't want to have. --- I'm really interested by the idea of zero-growth runs. I love that it's possible because it does show that the game's final threshold of unwinnability is much later than I'd assumed. I figured, for example, that losing your A-team in one chapter and your B-team in another would be a dead end. But if you can clear the endgame with base stats and Athos, that's resilient design. Of course, anyone who'd find themself losing grown units en masse is probably not going to win Light with the replacements. But it's interesting to know about. Are there any good zero-growth LPs that demonstrate the strategy? I don't remember one from this forum, but maybe some after-action reports on Serenes Forest or something? Sorites fucked around with this message at 22:46 on Mar 18, 2015 |
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2015 22:41
|
|
|
Melth what you're doing here is called "Trauma Olympics". That's a bit of a mutation of a Tumblr term but the point is, you're saying that Harken straight up isn't allowed to be traumatized until he can prove that he has it the worst of anyone, ever; thus taking the top spot from, oh, I'm gonna go with Lyn just because, and therefore Lyn, who wasn't really using it anyway, doesn't get to be traumatized either (incidentally, just because Lyn is doing okay now, doesn't mean she's not going to suddenly develop symptoms and start having flashbacks a couple years from now). Best case scenario, you're a little ignorant and you're calling someone who doesn't exist a whiny weiner. Worst case, someone reading this thread has actually been through a traumatic situation and you just told them, to their face, they have to prove to you they've earned the right to be shell-shocked. I tell you what, you find me someone who's genuinely suffering from PTSD because their father wouldn't buy them a pony and I'll acknowledge that, on rare occasions, it's okay to tell traumatized people to sack up and get over it.
|
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2015 22:57
|
|
|
Interlude the Third: Now that the need to train certain people to unlock Linus's version of Four Fanged Offense or Jerme's version of Pale Flower of darkness is over, I can focus on just gathering enough XP in general. This chapter is a good chance to take stock of where you really are with regard to each ranking category so you can make sure you stay ahead of the curve as you enter the final stretch of the game. I explained how to check your funds in detail in the battle preparations for Crazed Beast and also went over the proper way to check your XP gained and that you should keep careful track of how many turns ahead of schedule you are chapter by chapter. Here's where I stand just before Battle Before Dawn: Survival: Obviously doing fine Combat: No good way to check this, but I'm presumably doing great here since almost all enemies have died in one or two rounds. Tactics: I'm running a 19 turn surplus. This looks great on paper, but bear in mind there are 3 survival chapters coming which will each eat up one of those turns and there are also two 0 chapters left. Plus there's only one or two chapters left on which I can actually boost this up. I'll need to save as many turns as I can feasibly manage on Night of Farewells and Cog of Destiny. Funds: I'm currently ahead by 27120-27145 gold in assets. That should be good enough really, particularly since I don't need to promote anyone else and there are still two 0 chapters coming. I think I might actually be able to use the boots pretty feasibly. Experience: I totaled this one up carefully, and I believe I'm 7552 XP ahead of where I need to be right now. Wow, that's great, right? A whole 75 levels ahead! No! Don't be fooled. The XP requirements for many of the late game chapters are absolutely insane. There are 9 chapters left to the game and I need to get another 11,348 XP in those 9. That's 12.6 level ups per chapter. And some of those chapters are things like Battle Preparations or others where you're just not getting anything like that. More problematically, a lot of the low-hanging fruit has already been plucked. Ninian is nearly max level, almost all of my bad characters have actually been trained to level 20 as have most of the good ones. My only remaining people who are actually low level are Wil, Rebecca, and Kent (Soon to be joined by Nino). If you are not well AHEAD of all your budgets at this point, you probably lose. Don't let that happen to you.
|
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2015 23:03
|
|
|
Couldn't you use Dorcas and Matthew to get a bit more XP as well? They're not great but anything's better than having to use Rebecca.
|
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2015 23:11
|
|
|
It seems silly to do Battle Preparations when turn count is important but I guess you might have a little more shopping to do before endgame. That and completionist stuff for chapters.
|
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2015 23:14
|
|
|
I guess you can use it to take one last shot at the money-doubling effect of the Silver Card. Plus there's Melth's every-chapter rule.
|
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2015 23:54
|
|
|
do you get the 30000 if you don't do the chapter because that would be a make or break type affair also 29x has a turn limit of 5 so it only costs 1 turn if i understand the way things work right. during which time you can use the arena for xp and funds
|
|
#
?
Mar 19, 2015 00:42
|
|
|
Cake Attack posted:do you get the 30000 if you don't do the chapter because that would be a make or break type affair I'm pretty sure you only get the 30k for doing the chapter. More importantly, you can use your silver card to double that 30k and it's your best chance to prepare for the final chapters. You're quite correct that it only costs 1 turn, hence I said there are 3 chapters that are basically survival chapters and cost 1 turn each left. And I won't be using the arena since I said I wouldn't. ApplesandOranges posted:Couldn't you use Dorcas and Matthew to get a bit more XP as well? They're not great but anything's better than having to use Rebecca. Yes and I will. But the thing is Matthew is now high level and Dorcas is actually mid level too. I also have mid-high level Lowen, Oswin, and a few others. What I said was that I'm running out of really low level people and basically only have 3 + Nino left of those
|
|
#
?
Mar 19, 2015 01:00
|
|
|
quote:Seeing as, despite all he’s been through, he’s still pretty incredibly lucky and privileged compared to like… everyone else in the world, he comes across as kind of whiny to me and I’m not too fond of him. have you ever heard of ptsd?
|
|
#
?
Mar 19, 2015 01:46
|
|
|
Harken  He was always my favorite character when i was growing up. Between his backstory, his class, and overall solid stats it was hard to not just blaze through the game just to get to this chapter and try to solo the rest of the game with him.
|
|
#
?
Mar 19, 2015 04:22
|
|
|
I had no idea Harken existed for years because I always got the Karel version of the stage.
|
|
#
?
Mar 19, 2015 04:26
|
|
|
yeah same also i never recruited raven because it took me way too long to ever recruit priscilla (i think i thought the village being destroyed was inevitable?!) and so i always thought raven and lucius were weird dead ends other things i didn't find out until i bought the nintendo power guide: -there's a second four fanged offense (i never used the lords, not even hector) -there's a chapter 16x and canas exists -that you could recruit jaffar and go to night of farewells in short i thought the game had a lot of characters that were introduced and then went nowhere
|
|
#
?
Mar 19, 2015 04:29
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 26, 2024 06:41 |
|
|
Cake Attack posted:yeah same That there were so many interlocking secrets was always one of my favorite parts of this game. For a while, I discovered a new character or level or both almost every time I played the game. One note though: perhaps I was misinterpreting what you and Dr Pepper were saying, but it's a common mistake so I'll just point out that there isn't a Karel or a Harken version of Pale Flower of Darkness. Either character can be recruited on either version of the map. Which one appears depends on how fast you killed promoted enemies on Kenneth's level or on how fast you open doors on Jerme's level. Amusingly, the terrible Karel is your 'reward' if you do better than a certain threshold at those things. That's one reason I didn't just blitz through the level opening doors at maximum speed.
|
|
#
?
Mar 19, 2015 04:38
|
|