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Fire Emblem is a fantasy strategy role-playing game (SRPG) video game franchise developed by Intelligent Systems and published by Nintendo. The series first started on the NES in 1990, and has been going strong for over 30 years with numerous installments for different platforms. Each game features its own unique story, with casts of colourful and varied characters with a rich variety of personalities, stats, and backstories. Being a medieval fantasy series dealing with grand conflicts on a scale often spanning multiple countries, the Fire Emblem series inevitably has a large focus on royalty. The main character is often nobility of some sort, usually the prince of a kingdom under seige by a larger and much more powerful threat, who must lead their army to victory against their enemies and reclaim their throne and rule their country as is their birthright. Fire Emblem Fates is no different, featuring a cast of 10 royal siblings and their assorted retainers and servants. All of these siblings have high stats and special dragon blood that grants them awesome power. Not only that, the princes of these families have their own sacred weapons only they can wield, each one imbued with high stats and intrinsic abilities that elevate them far above their peers in terms of combat. Who cares about any of those people, there's an archer girl with terrible stats who's primary character trait is falling into hunting traps. Let's pretend the game is about her instead!!!  This is a let's play of Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright, played on Lunatic difficulty. Much like my recent LP of Conquest I'll be focusing purely on gameplay and skipping over pretty much all of the story. Fates does not have a good story, all the jokes about the bad story have been done already, and Birthright's story isn't even funny bad, it's just kind of lame. Birthright's maps and gameplay might not be as cutthroat or as tightly made as Conquest's, but there's still a lot of room for fun. To make the game a little more interesting I won't be using any of the game's royal siblings - Ryoma, Hinoka, Takumi, Sakura, and Azura, they're all off the table. Corrin has to be brought along for every single map, but as a rule they will be limited purely to a support role from Chapter 7 onwards and forbidden from wielding any weapon. Otherwise I'm playing with the same rules I did in my Conquest playthrough. To summarise, the rules are: - Ryoma, Hinoka, Takumi, Sakura, and Azura are all off-limits. They may be used in their join chapters in which they are forcibly deployed if I want, but otherwise they cannot be deployed in any future map. - Corrin may be used, but from Chapter 7 onwards they are not allowed to wield any weapon. They can however use items, staves, and various skills to support their allies. - No deaths, each chapter must be restarted if a unit dies. - No DLC, free or otherwise. - No clear bonuses. Those are the free items you get for clearing the game's other routes. - No online features. So no castle visits to grind resources or buy items normally limited to the other two routes. - No Einharjar (the weird little card things that let you buy OP units to use in your army). - No "random" My Castle events that involve talking to units, such as temporary stat boosts or dropped items. The Lottery and Mess Hall however are fair game. If you want an in-depth look at Birthright's plot and transcripts of every scene and support log you can check out this LP here. If you want to see my previous playthrough of Conquest, look here. Otherwise this is going to be a more lighthearted and casual playthrough where I mess around with bad or overlooked units without having to worry if I'm sufficiently optimised for dealing with Staff Savant and Inevitable End. Enjoy!
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Dec 5, 2021 20:56
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 Up until the route split, the first 5 chapters of Fates are all the same regardless of which path you pick. They are also very boring and I hate them and I have documented them already, so I'll be summarising very briefly what happened in this first update. I picked the girl in my Conquest playthrough, so now I guess I'll pick the boy. Meet Kevin! Named after Kevin MacLeod, musician and producer of an immense amount of royalty-free music that if you have ever watched a youtube video you most likely have listened to. Fitting for a royalty-free playthrough. I totally stole his appearence and birthday from wikipedia, although I didn't look up anything more than that since I didn't want to be weird. Incidentally, the title card and first image of every update will link to a different Kevin MacLeod song for your listening pleasure. Even the banner in the first post links to one! I am absolutely going to regret this stupid gimmick in a few updates time. The rules forbid this particular Corrin from participating in combat beyond the tutorial in which they are forcibly deployed, so Kevin MacLeod will be optimised for support. As soon as I hit Chapter 7 I'm making him a healer and he's going to heal forever. The Troubadour class has higher mobility than the Monk class, plus it adds some Nohrian flair to an otherwise Hoshido-filled run. Magic will help him heal harder so that's his boon, strength is completely irrelevant and therefore will be his bane.  It's possible to win this prologue by doing literally nothing and while that is very funny, it's not optimal EXP distribution.  A strength bane can increase the number of turns it takes to defeat Xander (and therefore increase his EXP yield!), but Kevin proc'd strength once which unfortunately saved a single turn. Oh well.  Not playing as a girl means Felicia joins instead of Jakob for the starting chapters. She's faster and more magical, but her physical stats are much worse. I personally prefer Jakob, but Felicia does heal a little better while also having the advantage of boosting Gunter's bulk through her Demoiselle skill. Incidentally, Gunter will never be coming back from his trip down the Bottomless Canyon in Birthright. He's totally gone forever.  Gunter's slightly better bulk thanks to Felicia's support makes this version of Chapter 2 a little easier. This time I decided to use the dragon vein instead of fooling around with kiting enemies around the outside...  Nothing about Chapter 3 is at all fun. Felicia unfortunately fares even worse against the Archers and Sky Knight reinforcements, and can be (temporarily) defeated if you're not careful.  This is the reason why I did not start from a Branch of Fate and instead chose to replay the prologue. Rinkah will be a permanent edition to my party, and therefore I'm going to funnel as much EXP into her as possible. Unfortunately her performance in these early chapters really isn't very good...  ...but it'll be all worth it when the route properly begins. Rinkah's initial E rank in clubs is the largest obstacle to her usefulness early on, but reaching D rank will allow her to wield more powerful weapons as soon as I'm able to buy them. Unfortunately my first dragon vein point is going to have to go towards buying the Rod Shop so I can reclass Kevin...  The limited number of healing items made keeping Rinkah alive difficult, but she managed to snag a few levels! I'll post them all at the end of this update.  Normally her role in the prologue is to pair up with Kaze and increase his combat power, but the levels she gained allow her to be of some use here. Unfortunately she faces weapon triangle disadvantage from every enemy here.  That's all the preliminary over! I think that's the most work I've ever had Rinkah put in here. Usually she's glued to Kaze...       I'd call these levels above average, but they're also fairly irrelevant to a unit who's going to be used purely as a staffbot. Seems like his strength bane didn't hold him back.  This level is fairly typical of Felicia. Just like in Conquest I'm likely going to end up pairing her off and limiting her to a support role, so her stats aren't too important.     3 strength procs is very nice. Despite her visible abs, Rinkah's effectie strength growth is a measly 45%. Not unsalvageably low, but not what you would expect from looking at her... I'm firmly under the belief that Rinkah's a perfectly fine unit who's overlooked purely because of her mediocre performance in chapters 4 and 5 and the dissonance between her appearence and her growths, but we'll see. Next time: Birthright begins in earnest.
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Dec 5, 2021 20:57
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I felt I was unecessarily cagey about my unit plans in Conquest and people are asking who I'll be using already, so I think I'll just announce who I'm planning on using right here and now. This is just my planned pairings, I won't be limiting myself to just these units! Reina and maybe even Yukimura will get a chance to do something too. Kevin/Scarlet Rinkah/Kaden Setsuna/Azama (or kaze, it doesn't matter too much since she's unlikely to spend much time paired up anyway) Subaki/Orochi Hayato/Felicia Hana/Hinata Mozu/Kaze (or azama?) Scarlet is one of the best units in BR, but I feel as if she's underappreciated enough to justify using. I'll be making her a Malig Knight so at the very least she'll be different... Jadecore posted:Oh boy, going again, huh. I am quite fond of Setsuna and Rinkah, so this is already off to a promising start. Birthright's cast is... significantly less interesting or fun as a whole compared to Conquest's, but there are highlights around, and there are three of the kids I like a whole lot. (I... still primarily hang out in Terrible Balance And Map Design land if I want to use them for cross-country supports and just give up any pretense of not grinding to make my paper dolls kiss.) I'm even less familiar with BR's kids than Conquest's, but there's some that have fun personalities. Mitama is hilarious and for all the problems the localisation has, their handling of her haiku gimmick was not one of them. Walla posted:Wait, are you going to use both Hayato and Orochi? People thought the Nohrian mages were bad. That someone else is Subaki. I want to show off his usefulness too! theshim posted:Aww yeah more Fire Emblem! midnight lasagna fucked around with this message at 13:43 on Dec 6, 2021 |
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Dec 6, 2021 13:17
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 We've embraced the darkness, time to walk the path of light instead. As much as I prefer the Conquest route itself, something about these soothing bright colours makes this choice feel like the better one. Remember to click the title card of every chapter for some royalty free music!  The intent of Birthright is that you'll have access to much more EXP and gold through grinding. You will certainly have more than both if you do choose to grind, but if you play it like a traditional Fire Emblem game then you'll actually have less - Conquest offers you a lot of gold through optional incentives, and the higher level of enemies across the board means your units will level up much faster. Of course when the enemies are weaker it doesn't matter as much if you're lower levelled.  Even the dialogue boxes are brighter now. This seems like a fairly obvious conclusion to come to after Garon's various murder attempts - it might be understandable that Corrin would want to side with the family they've known since childhood instead of some strangers (falsely!) claiming to be their blood relatives, but it's frustrating to see them pretend Garon isn't very obviously evil. They certainly come across as smarter in this route...  Fighting the Nohrians feels wrong after playing Conquest... It's funny, on my first playthrough of this game it felt wrong to side with Nohr since they were so obviously evil, and yet when I bought Birthright and played that it felt wrong to side against the siblings I'd grown to love. Every choice is the wrong one!  Here it is, the first Birthright exclusive chapter in the game. I think this one's actually harder than CQ's - the enemies are weaker, but so are your allies. There's also more of them. I'm also not entirely sure how Xander's AI works...    Fitting with this being the easier route, we've got all our allies from the last two chapters in our army, along with Felicia. These three however aren't real party members just yet. Ryoma's stats are lower than they will be when he joins for real, but otherwise Takumi and Hinoka do have their genuine join stats. Ryoma's still by far the best unit here though, and your only real method of defeating Xander.  Xander can move right off of the bat. I think he'll always move to attack Ryoma unless he's out of range, but I'm not sure? I want to say I've had failed attempts where he's gone for one of my other units and killed them instantly, but I can't remember for sure. The wiki doesn't say anything helpful...   Leave the royals to kill each other with their fancy toys, my other units will take down the generics. There's only 3 in total but they take a surprising amount of effort to take down.  Rinkah gets a boost from Azura to take down this guy all by herself. This'll be the last time I get to use Azura for anything, so I'd better treasure her while she's here!   Takumi and Hinoka team up to take down this generic Cavalier. Neither of them are much use against Xander, but I'm pretty sure they can both tank a hit.  Xander will go down easily in two rounds of combat...  ...but for safety's sake I'll have him block the bridge. Ryoma's performance against Leo here is pretty much how the rest of the game reacts to him.  I don't like this... It feels like it should be a game over. Although it is a little theraputic to punish Leo for his terrible luck with his growths.  Sakura will stand next to her siblings to boost their bulk a little. Her passive aura is weaker than Elise's, but it also extends further.  Yep, seems like Xander's out for Ryoma. His hit is higher on enemy phase where Ryoma's Duelist Blow skill isn't active, so he actually has a decent chance of hitting him.  This feels like a betrayal somehow. You're supposed to be on my side, Elise! Come betray Nohr with me!!!  You know what, there's only 3 units left on the map. Let's rout it. Camilla might be tough to take down without the help of the Hoshidan royals, but not impossible...  I just need all my units to chip in. That's the last combat Kevin will ever see!  This is no longer Camilla's Quest. The time of Rinkah is upon us. As a member of the Flame Tribe, she gets a cool fire effect to all of her physical attacks. It's a little distracting!  Looks like she finally got that HP. Otherwise this is a fairly standard Rinkah level - skill, speed, and defense.  Now this is just the exact same level you got last time, Felicia! You have to do better than this!    Shooting unarmed healers? Yeah this is definitely the good guy route. I'll pretend this was necessarry to stop Xander from benefitting from her passive.  There goes Xander, sent tumbling through the air with the force of a single swing. He and his horse are absolutely dead.  Entire map routed in 2 turns. That was fun! I can't wait to spread peace to all of Nohr : )  May as well do the castle stuff now since this update was so short. Unfortunately in order to reclass Kevin I'll need to build this, both denying Rinkah an Iron Club for another chapter and taking the only Heart Seal until Chapter 13 in the process. Birthright is a lot more stingy with them than Conquest.   I also can't talk to Felicia to swap her out for a different assistant because she'll give herself a buff and that's against the rules >:[. I think Jakob did the same thing in my last run...   Fish for speed, Jade for forging bows... Wow, it's the exact same as last time! How disappointing. At least a steady supply of jade will help me forge weapons for Setsuna? Speed is also very good for meals but I do wish I got something different.  These fish are very big. Is Lilith a fish too? She looks like one.  You can heal is what you can do now. And nothing else! The male Troubadour outfit is quite nice, I think I'd prefer to see it in cutscenes than the Nohr Prince outfit. It has shoes for one thing.  Hoshidan Rods are weaker than staves, but have more range. Felicia's bad bulk matters less when she can heal from a slight distance, and her high magic somewhat makes up for their lower power. Maybe she is better than Jakob in this route?    C supports for all. While I have no intention to use Kaze beyond S supporting him with someone to grab the Dragon Herbs, I do want to get him to an A support with Kevin just so he doesn't get his stupid plot death. Unfortunately that might be a little difficult to engineer...     Here's all the units I'm allowed to use right now. I'll still be writing analyses for each one, but I won't have much to say about the units I've already used in Conquest - I'll just update their available A+ supports and maybe give a couple of lines on how they perform differently in this environment. Next time: Chokepoint heaven
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Dec 6, 2021 13:18
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 Corrin Nohr Prince (HS: Troubadour) A+ Support Partners: Any male unit Personal Skill: Supportive (+2 damage dealt, -2 damage taken, and +10 hit to lead unit if supporting a C supported or higher partner) Pair-Up Stats (C B A S): Mag Res Spd Mag+Res Growths (With Default Class) [Troubadour]: HP: 45% (60) [45] STR: 35% (50) [35] MAG: 50% (60) [60] SKL: 35% (45) [55] SPD: 50% (60) [60] LCK: 45% (55) [60] DEF: 30% (40) [30] RES: 30% (45) [45] See previous analysis It's Corrin! Corrin's always good, but Birthright changes their dynamic a tiny bit - they now promote into the Hoshido Noble class, which uses staves instead of tomes and has a focus on physical stats and skill instead of magical stats and speed. The Yato's bonuses also change - it offers extra strength and speed instead of defense and resistance. For that reason you're probably better off focusing on a more physical than magical Corrin, although if you still want to go magic there's nothing stopping you, and you'll probably wreck just as much face with a tryhard Malig build regardless. Ninja will be a great class for them if you want powerful physical 1-2 range, but keep in mind that Corrin can very easily grab that class tree from multiple units so it may not be wise to set it as their talent.  Felicia Maid (HS: Mercenary) A+ Support Partners: Hana (Samurai) Personal Skill: Devoted Partner (Gives +2 damage dealt and -2 damage received when supporting Corrin) Pair-Up Stats (C B A S): Spd Res Mag Spd+Res Growths (With Default Class): HP: 40% (40) STR: 10% (20) MAG: 35% (45) SKL: 30% (45) SPD: 40% (55) LCK: 55% (65) DEF: 15% (20) RES: 35% (45) See Previous Analysis Felicia gets to be my starting servant this time. I feel as if she's a bit happier here than in Conquest - Rods allow Felicia to heal from a slightly safer distance, and shurikens make much better weapons than knives. She does unfortunately have to wait an extra two chapters to get the Flame Shuriken, and she can't obtain the Levin Sword or the Shining Bow to use in her reclasses. Felicia's ability to pass down promoted Nohrian class skills easily makes her quite valuable - I'm planning on having her pass Sol down to Rhajat so she can pretend she's a Dark Mage with Nosferatu. Her A+ support with Hana is pretty worthless unless you want to mess around with early Swordfaire and Life and Death. I guess the combination of both would amount to a +15 increase in damage...  Azura Songstress (HS: Sky Knight) A+ Support Partners: Sakura (Shrine Maiden), Hinoka (Sky Knight) Personal Skill: Healing Descant (Allies within 2 tiles recover up to 10% of their HP at the start of player phase) Pair-Up Stats (C B A S): Spd Skl Spd Spd+Lck Growths (With Default Class): HP: 25% (25) STR: 50% (60) MAG: 25% (25) SKL: 60% (70) SPD: 60% (70) LCK: 40% (60) DEF: 15% (15) RES: 35% (35) See previous analysis Azura's a dancer, she does dancer things. I may not be allowed to use her, but there's no reason for you not to. She's got much more availability than in Conquest, but she's slightly less useful due to the circumstances of Birthright - the wide open map design and higher focus on enemy phase combat makes her refreshing slightly less impactful, and can make keeping her out of enemy range a little tricker. There's also less units with the Shelter skill to pull off multiple refreshes in one turn. Her access to the Sky Knight class is no longer unique or interesting, and Shigure's paralogue being free EXP is less meaninful when the game gives you the option to grind... But she is still great and should be deployed every single chapter to get the most out of her ability. I guess you could also use the Guard Naginata to increase her survivability if you somehow manage to grind her to C lances, but that's really not worth the hassle. Making Azura a Shrine Maiden would 100% be a waste of her talents, and she can already go Sky Knight. Don't bother with either of her A+ supports unless you're just messing around.  Kaze Ninja (HS: Samurai) A+ Support Partners: Silas (Cavalier), Saizo (Samurai) Personal Skill: Miraculous Save (When a partner in a support pair, grant lead unit a Luck% chance of surviving a fatal hit with 1 HP remaining if HP > 1. In other words, it gives the lead unit the Miracle skill (luck stat used is lead unit's, not Kaze's)) Pair-Up Stats (C B A S): Spd Skl Res Skl+Spd Growths (With default class): HP: 55% (60) STR: 40% (45) MAG: 0% (0) SKL: 45% (65) SPD: 65% (85) LCK: 20% (20) DEF: 20% (25) RES: 35% (50) See previous analysis Kaze's got much more availability than before, and he's got access to a huge amount of cool shurikens... Unfortunately being a Ninja no longer makes him special. Saizo, Kagero, and Asugi are all Ninjas too, and multiple characters have it as their heart seal option. Worst of all, Kaze will suffer an entirely pointless plot death if he's not A supported with Corrin by the end of Chapter 15... He's still very useful though. His poor bulk isn't quite as much an issue with weaker enemies to face, and Rinkah makes an excellent support partner to keep his strength and defense up. Saizo might tank better than him and Kagero might outdamage him, but more of a good thing is not bad. He can pick up some cool skills from Cavalier but otherwise he wants to stay as a Ninja. Don't A+ support him with his brother, he gains nothing from it. Unless you really want him to be a Samurai and don't have any more Heart Seals...?
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Dec 6, 2021 15:19
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 Rinkah Oni Savage (HS: Ninja) A+ Support Partners: Orochi (Diviner), Kagero (Ninja), Oboro (Spear Fighter) Personal Skill: Fiery Blood (+4 damage dealt when unit is not at full HP) Pair-Up Bonuses (C B A S): Def Spd Str Spd+Def Growths (With Default Class): HP: 20% (40) STR: 25% (45) MAG: 15% (25) SKL: 50% (50) SPD: 45% (55) LCK: 35% (35) DEF: 45% (65) RES: 20% (20) Here she is, the much maligned Rinkah. Is an E rank in clubs rather prohibitive for your only axe user until Chapter 14? Maybe. Is an 8 strength base and 25% base strength growth bad for a unit with visible abs and large biceps? Kind of. Are Rinkah's growths completely contrary to the typical Oni Savage, despite her being the only one you can obtain without reclassing in the entire game? Yeah... Thankfully Rinkah manages to carve out a niche for herself by having a combination of both speed and physical bulk, something rather rare in Birthright. A 65% effective defense growth is very high even for a game like Fates in which units tend to have high growths across the board, and in Birthright the enemies you face will be weaker than those you would be seeing in other routes. While a base speed of 8 isn't particularly great, the huge number of units in classes that provide speed boosts as support partners make it likely you'll have at least one unit spare to attach themsleves to Rinkah in the early chapters to give her a leg up until her high nautral speed growth kicks in. Rinkah's 20 base health and 40% growth aren't particularly inspiring, but compared to the rest of the cast she's hardly unique in not having very much HP. She'll still most likely be one of your bulkiest units by comparison. Her underwhelming strength growth and early reliance on her Bronze Club are offset somewhat by her great personal which boosts her attack output by 4 so long as she's taken any amount of damage. If you're struggling to weaken Rinkah to activate her personal you can always buy a HP tonic each chapter to guarantee she won't be at full HP, but as front line unit she shouldn't have to worry too much about going out of her way to take damage. And if she is having difficulty taking damage then you have a godlike tank on your side and shouldn't be worrying anyway. Much like the Fighter class in Conquest, the Oni class is great for the pair-up bonuses it provides. Rinkah will reward whoever she's paired with +4 strength and +2 defense, something which will help just about anyone but will be most appreciated by fast 1-2 range attackers such as Ninjas. Rinkah's personal pair-up bonuses are also great, granting further strength defense and speed to whoever she's paired with. Death Blow's not a bad skill for her spouse or children to pick up either, and Shove is great for positioning if you can remember that it exists. The only real downside to Rinkah as a wife is that her children will be a little weak offensively, but they will also inherit her great defense and speed. Subaki's daughter Caeldori has a personal skill that allows her to benefit from significantly lower offenses than her opponent's, so Subaki's not a bad partner for her. Rinkah's biggest problem is probably how terrible her start is. As an attacker she's outshined by both Corrin and Kaze in the prologue chapters, so unless you're deliberately feeding her kills she'll most likely be stuck serving as a support partner for one or both of them. Her E rank in clubs is terrible, and clubs themselves are easily the worst of the Hoshidan weapons, being noticeably weaker than axes for the almost entirely irrelevant bonus of +5% crit. Grinding out her weapon rank as soon as possible is the key to making her useful if you do want to use her. There is an unfortunately babysitting period required to make Rinkah good and if her growths fail to kick in to save her from her underwhelming bases then she might be stuck as a support partner forever. Oni Chieftain is probably her best class, it's stronger and bulkier than Blacksmith as well as giving Rinkah a big boost to her magic. E rank tomes aren't likely to help a unit with as mediocre magic as her, but the boost does help her become devastating with the Bolt Axe - reliable 1-2 range is very handy on a fast and bulky unit in a route full of weak and slow enemies, especially with a support partner like Orochi or Hayato to help her. Otherwise Blacksmith's not a bad choice if she's going purely physical and needs the extra speed and accuracy, but even then it's not always the best choice. Ninja is unfortunately a terrible fit for Rinkah and shouldn't really be considered unless she's got some initial strength procs to coast off of, her base strength will be terrible and an effective growth of 30% will not make it any better. Stealing the Diviner class from Orochi could work as a gimmick, although its terrible class bases would cut into her bulk. Spear Fighter Rinkah from Oboro might also work and will have some nice skills to offer, but isn't really an improvement on her default class. Pros
Cons
My Thoughts: Should have had a blue oni counterpart unit, maybe a sibling?  Sakura Shrine Maiden (HS: Sky Knight) A+ Support Partners: Hinoka (Sky Knight), Hana (Samurai), Azura (Sky Knight) Personal Skill: Quiet Strength (Allies within 2 spaces receive 2 less damage in combat) Pair-Up Bonuses (C B A S): Mag Spd Lck Spd+Res Growths (With Default Class): HP: 45% (45) STR: 30% (35) MAG: 50% (60) SKL: 40% (50) SPD: 40% (55) LCK: 55% (70) DEF: 30% (30) RES: 20% (40) The luck based nature of Fire Emblem's character growths inevitably makes it hard to make fair judgements on units without being too influenced by your own personal experiences... This is absolutely the case for my view of Sakura because I think I have a cursed copy of the game in which her defensive growths are about twice as high as they should be. Yeah I know in practice Sakura's defenses are merely "above average for a typical healer", but in my world she's built like a brick hospital and never dies. Sakura is Birthright's counterpart to Elise. Her stats are much less extreme, but she's still got a high emphasis on magic and luck and mediocre to bad physical stats. Her base strength growth is still higher than Rinkah's, though... As a healer she does perfectly fine. Healing rods are imo more useful than staves, and her personal skill lets her boost her allies bulk witout having to be right next to them like Elise does. Out of all her competition, only Felicia is likely to rival the strength of her heals, and even she'll eventually be outclassed when Sakura's growths kick in. The combination of her passive and the skills your initial servant comes with will let you make some very formidable chokepoints. Sakura doesn't have any particularly bad flaws. At worst she's a competent staffbot, at best she'll be able to join your other combat units in battle once she promotes. She's a bit frail, but not as much as Elise or Felicia would be. The usefulness of 1-2 range spells off of her superior magic stat make Onmyoji the superior promotion choice despite Priestess having the same or higher points in literally every single stat, but the latter is just about workable if her strength is good enough or you want to mess around with bows. Priestess feels a little less like a joke option than making Lissa a War Cleric, anyway. Onmoyji doesn't even have superior heals thanks to both classes having the same magic stat. A different alternative to either is to Heart Seal her into a Falcon Knight - she'll keep her ability to use staves, and with a C rank in lances she'll make great use of the Bolk Naginata. It'll take some work and/or resources to get her there, but she can be surprisingly effective as a frontliner. As a mother Sakura is pretty decent. She'll pass on her dragon blood to her children, and her growths are high enough across the board that she can't really ruin physical based children like some other mages do. Shrine Maiden unfortunately is not a very useful class though, so it's unlikely you'll be marrying her off to pass on that. Also her base resistance is weirdly bad despite being a cleric, I somehow never noticed that until now. Two out of three of her Friendship Seal options are redundant with her Heart Seal class, and Samurai isn't very useful for her. You can make her one and it'll work because this game isn't too difficult, but it's not something you'd ever do because it's optimal. Pros
Cons
My Thoughts: I'd rather Elise be my sister
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Dec 6, 2021 19:07
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theshim posted:I feel like if she was in a GBA game she'd also have like 6 Con just to really drive the point home Lord Koth posted:It'll never not be darkly hilarious that, in another line in the long saga for FE: Fate's absurdity that the royal who's blatantly designed to go into Priestess, and does in basically all the spinoffs like Warriors, has the the best bow for them not available in their base route. Because the Shining Bow (magical 1-2 range) is only available in Conquest via a My Castle Armory upgrade(who's even using a magical bow in Conquest?), and in Revelations via a map drop. Technically you can get one on any route as a ranking reward from the My Castle battle ranking, but that's a hilarious joke at this point - and to an extent always was.
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Dec 7, 2021 19:01
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  Time to uphold our vow! I think it's our vow anyway. I don't actually remember what the vow was. Maybe I would know if I didn't skip every cutscene.  Kevin's taken up the life of a healer, so presumably he's here at this makeshift hospital to assist in clerical (hehe) duties.  Conflict already? We didn't invade Hoshido until like Chapter 16 in Conquest... I guess Garon needs something to do if he's not busy torturing Corrin for no reason.  Corrin feels both more intelligent and quicker witted in this route. Sometimes they make the occassional joke and it catches me off guard.  Here's the first real Birthright exclusive map. Fort Jinya's looking a little different than it did in Conquest, but I guess this is a different part of it. This map is structured like a defend map, but the object is just to rout. It's very chokepointy and easily turtleable, but there is a chest that's at risk at being opened by an enemy if you take too much time. Standards for Chapter 7 aren't super high in Fates but I've never liked this map.  All the way in the bottom left is Silas. He's the boss of this chapter. He'll join automatically at the end of the map, you don't have to recruit him or anything. He'll stay in the corner and only approach if you aggro him for a while, but eventually he and his Cavalier friends will start moving on their own. His weapon ranks are high because he's an enemy in Lunatic. They unfortunately will not carry over when he joins, but they are higher than what he starts with in Conquest.  There are various chokepoints in this map blocked by paired-up enemies who don't move. Sometimes Birthright likes to pull a mean trick on you and have a non-moving enemy paired up with a moving one, but that's not the case here. Not having to deal with the entire map having Grisly Wound makes for a nice change of pace!  All tucked away in the very top of the map are Sakura's retainers, Subaki and Hana. They are not particularly useful in this map and starting so far away from the action does not help.  Subaki's got a similar reputation to Rinkah as being a very weird unit with rather unfitting stats for his class. He's somewhat tanky but not very powerful, and his poor speed means he'll struggle to double on enemy phase when he can't make use of Darting Blow. He doesn't quite deserve the hate he gets but this map is really not made for him - flier utility doesn't mean much in a map with no terrain and tight corridors, and his bulk is offset by all the Outlaws who can shoot him down.  Hana isn't particularly useful in this map either... or ever, imo. I've definitely been burned by bad RNG on Hana many times before but I've never liked her as a unit. She starts way too underleveled and her niche of being a fast and frail player phase attacking swordlocked foot unit just is not useful at all in Birthright. Maybe I'll come around on her though! It's hard for her to do much here when this map is so chokepointy and there's so many lance users with high bulk, but I'll try my best to get her kills.  Those empty deployment slots are taunting me... Troubadour Kevin means I don't have to worry about missing a healer, but not having Azura is going to make this map a little slower.  Silas claims to be Kevin's childhood friend, but he doesn't remember him. This guy is totally sus, let's kill him for EXP!  First on the agenda: rob the hospital we're supposed to be defending. Fire Emblem games always let you steal from your allies like this and they never seem to complain.  I'm going to try my best to make better use of my stat boosters this time... I do also kind of want to give them all to Setsuna because it would be funny. Rinkah seems like she would be an obvious recepient for this.  Hana hitches a ride with Felicia to get her to the frontlines faster. They do have a support together which I don't think I've ever seen...  Unfortunately nobody can quite reach this guy to attack him. Rinkah can at least stand where he can throw something at her to lower her HP.  Unfortunately it's really hard to see through those weird Knight helmets and he misses the shot.  Kaze's robbery puts him in range of an Outlaw who somehow shoots him through a solid wall, and also somehow teleports his adjacent friend over said wall. I had straight up forgotten enemies deliberately engineer dual attacks outside of Conquest, I need to get my act together!  There's a big queue of guys outside all waiting to get beat up. The enemies themselves might not be very strong, but they are all clustered together and you will need decently tanky units like Corrin or Rinkah to hold chokepoints.  Hana's bases are... not very good. Once her amazing strength and speed growths kick in she can at least cleave through enemies on player phase, but right now she's not doing much of anything without a support partner. Even her good avoid here is only because of Duellist's Blow, she'll be much more vulnerable on enemy phase.  Rinkah will choke this point for now. She's bulky enough, and the paired up units in front of her won't be moving to let any more attackers in anyway.  Weakening this guy with everything I have still isn't enough for Hana to make the kill. Hmm...  Subaki pairs up with Kevin, Kevin brings him to Hana. Maybe now she'll be fast enough to double?  Yeah that's better. That dodge was necessary for her to live - the stationary Knight would have killed her with a Javelin if she had been weakened. Thanks to Fates's hybrid RNG a 27% hit is literally a 27% hit, so dodge tanks aren't quite as reliable as they were in past games.  Hana's personal skill damages surrounding enemies when she makes a kill. It's like a worse Savage Blow. It's not bad, but it's hard to make use of...  Rinkah's got a much more meaty damage output when Fiery Blood is active. With so little HP it's a little risky for her to be weakened, but she's not taking much damage from these enemies.   This is not Conquest so this Outlaw will happily shoot Rinkah and get his resistance sealed for absolutely no reason. I don't have any magical attackers that could take advantage of this, but it is funny.  The stationary Knight was blocking this dragon vein. It turns the surrounding area's floor into heal tiles. It's not useless, I guess? I've never found it too helpful though, and I would like to be advancing forward rather than staying here forever.   Oops, I just played myself out of a kill by healing Rinkah out of Fiery Blood range before having her attack. You have to pay attention to these things...  It is vital that Kaze get healed by Kevin as often as possible so they can build supports from this. I have until Chapter 15 to get their A support...  Rinkah's getting all the EXP funnelled into her. I can't complain with great levels like these, but she is already quite overleveled and is earning less and less EXP from each kill...  This is a neat little positioning tool if you remember it exists. It works similarly to the Shove mechanic from the Tellius games, except you can only shove allies but there's otherwise no limit on who can shove who.  This Outlaw won't move and will happily stand here to block all his friends from making a move. Convenient if you want to stay alive, annoying if you're trying to muscle past this chokepoint to chase a thief.  My slow progress has led to this side of the map becoming clogged. I was hoping to send in Subaki and Hana to get kills, but Rinkah might have to stay on the frontline until they're all gone...  Time to speed things up a little. With Hana's support, Rinkah will be able to double all of these enemies...  ...and ORKO them all besides the Knights. Wasteful in terms of EXP, but effective!  There's an Armourslayer in the chest I've yet to reach. It would be really helpful right about now!  I guess this is just what Felicia's levels look like now. Be fast if you'd like...  Even Kaze and Felicia are seeing more action than Hana and Subaki thanks to their ranged attacks. This map isn't really designed for them to do well anyway, but I feel as if I could be doing this better.  At least they can still earn EXP while paired up. This level fills me with hope - I've had Hanas before that absolutely refused to gain speed at all. Just like Charlotte she needs a lot of effort to start doubling.  Nice! As soon as this chapter is over I'm buying Rinkah a Steel Club, she deserves it.  At the beginning of turn 7 this guy will show up to rob the place. You can tell he's going for the chest because he's the only Outlaw with Locktouch... He's also carrying gold because that's how Birthright distributes most of its items.  Things are looking a lot emptier now. Usually it's Corrin I end up feeding half the map to... At least now I can have the newbies come and clean up.  Subaki's not so bad now, but his bad strength and speed growths will catch up with him. Without help he'll struggle a lot to do meaningful damage.  Hana unfortunately is not a GBA Myrmidon and you cannot just through her at all the earlygame axe users and have her dodge everything. She still can't double without help either...  This next stretch of the map is a little annoying, there's a lot of enemies here who will end up getting baited all at once. The Cavaliers will also begin charging in through the left chokepoint soonish, but I don't know when.  Rinkah will be baiting them. She chugs the free HP tonic I got in Chapter 5 to give her enough HP that a heal won't take her out of Fiery Blood range...  Nice! This is very good for Kaze, a shame he's unlikely to be used too much this run.  The Outlaw will need to escape with his treasure after taking it so you have much more time than you might think at first. The only way he's getting out is through the front entrance, he won't disappear down the stairs.  I'm feeling a lot more optimistic about Hana now. Not that this is all too unlikely when her speed growth is something like 70%, but...   Here come the horse boys. I need to choke this point before they overwhelm me.  ...you'll see this a lot from Subaki. I guess it's a little novel to see HP and luck instead of HP and skill.  Rinkah will choke the point handily here, but she's reached the point of only getting 3 EXP per kill. I should really swap her out as soon as I can.  At least she can't kill Silas. He hits a little hard but he's not so tough.  Time to feed this kill to someone who needs the EXP. Subaki's been eating scraps all map...   It's true, he did not need to get that crit.  Now the danger is mostly gone, Hana can take the lead. With Rinkah giving her strength and defense she suddenly becomes quite good!  Here's the guy with the loot. Very nice of him to come to me after grabbing the treasure for me... In a meaner game he'd escape from the stairs in the treasure room.  The rest of the enemies will just sit there until you come to them. The Knight in the middle is guarding a dragon vein and won't move...  Why do Troubadours have such high skill in this game? They straight up lose some when reclassing to Strategist, the version of the class that actually has weapons, and even Butlers/Maids have a lower growth in it iirc. I suppose offensive staves do use it for accuracy, but it's such an odd choice.  Oh and I guess I only gave Kevin one of these and it was mostly used up already. Whoops!  Getting rid of the remaining Knights is easy now I have the proper tools. I wasn't expecting this to OHKO.  The strength streak ends, but the speed streak continues. Please keep getting faster!  17 turns mostly spent sat at the same chokepoint. Hana and Felicia got to be MVPs because they built the most support points together.  See, this Corrin is way smarter. Thinking murderdad is evil is a low bar to clear, but they have cleared it.  Ryoma and Takumi are missing and we've got to find them. My ruleset forbids me from using either of them, so can I just leave them behind? I'm sure I could invade Nohr with my current army...  Silas joins us with weapon ranks 1 higher each than what he had in Conquest, as well as some better weapons. The Javelin I think is the only one available all run, so it's quite important. The Steel Sword could be nice for Hana, but she can't use it yet.   Oh and these two are here now as well. Saizo is the better of the pair so obviously he's the one I'm benching. Next time: The world's easiest desert map
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Dec 7, 2021 19:01
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Ugh god Birthright frontloading all of its units means I'm going to have to write so many of these in a row. It's fine!!! I like doing it. Just maybe not four and a half of them at once. Subaki Sky Knight (HS: Samurai) A+ Support Partners: Saizo (Ninja), Azama (Monk), Hinata (Samurai) Personal Skill: Perfectionist (+15 hit and avoid when unit is at full HP) Pair-Up Stats (C B A S): Def Skl Def Skl+Res Growths (With Default Class): HP: 55% (55) STR: 30% (40) MAG: 20% (20) SKL: 50% (60) SPD: 20% (35) LCK: 25% (45) DEF: 45% (45) RES: 5% (25) Ah, (T)Subaki. When somebody claims to be perfect, spite often draws others to find all the ways in which they are flawed. There are quite a few ways in which Subaki is flawed, so that's probably why so many people don't like him! Subaki is weird. His stat growth total is one of the lowest in the game, and they're kind of all over the place. Fitting for his over-compensating perfectionist nature, Subaki's highest natural growths are in stats Sky Knights are normally bad at, and his lowest ones are in stats his class are good at, resulting in a unit with underwhelming but consistent growths across the board. Just like Rinkah, he does somewhat make up for his bad stats by having a lot of them invested into his physical bulk, something that most Birthright exclusive units are lacking in. It's hard for fliers to be bad in Fire Emblem games, especially ones with a rescue or pair-up mechanic that allows them to pick up other, better units and get them to the frontlines faaster. Subaki's always going to be better than the likes of Setsuna or Hayato so long as there's good allies for him to pick up and carry. Otherwise Subaki's not got much going for him over other fliers besides his availability and his bulk, and even then Hinoka joins in the chapter immediately after he does with equal or better bases and a Guard Naginata that she can wield at base and he can't. A trained Subaki will be bulkier than all your other flies, but not by a large amount. Being outclassed as a flier by at least 3 other units doesn't make him bad or not worth using in addition to them, but it does hurt him somewhat. If you're keeping Subaki as a Sky Knight he'll need good weapons to make the most of himself. Mediocre offenses matter a lot less with the large amount of effective weaponry available in Birthright, and once he's able to use the Guard Naginata he'll be a lot tankier than Hinoka. A Bolt Naginata build is entirely possible if he's got a magic-boosting support partner like Orochi, and that is in fact what I'm planning to do with him. Falcon Knight gives him the speed and magic to make the most use of it, and his 20% magic growth isn't awful, although it's not really worth much coming off of his 0 magic base either. Kinshi Knight isn't a bad promotion choice for Subaki if he's marrying Setsuna, allowing him to get Quick Draw for free which combined with Darting Blow will fix his mediocre offenses on player phase. Otherwise if you want Subaki to actually tank things you're probably better off reclassing him. As a Master of Arms he'll keep his lance rank while also having higher bulk and no weakness to effective weaponry, although it will make him even slower and rob him of his flying utility. Subaki's got some decent A+ support options. Ninja lets him be a 1-2 range tank while still bolstering his bad speed and resistance, although his offenses will be worse than all of your other ninjas. As a Great Master he can be a tanky grounded unit while also still getting to use his weapon rank in lances, although if he doesn't need the extra bulk he should just stay a Falcon Knight. Hinata just gives him Samurai which he already has. Perfectionist might be good on other units, but it's really not suited to Subaki. As a slow and already accurate tank he's not going to make much use of the bonuses it gives him, and his HP growth is high enough that he'll most likely have to be healed up after each level anyway. At least Camraderie can fix that if he's near allies? If reclassed to Samurai it might go well combined with Duellist's Blow, but Subaki's not really the kind of unit to be cutting down enemies on player phase. Pros
My Thoughts: Did you know his growth total is the exact same as Selena's? Hana Samurai (HS: Shrine Maiden) A+ Support Partners: Sakura (Shrine Maiden), Felicia (Troubadour), Setsuna (Archer) Personal Skill: Fearsome Blow (When unit triggers battle and defeats an enemy, enemies adjacent to user lose 20% of their max HP) Pair-Up Stats (C B A S): Spd Str Skl Str+Spd Growths (With Default Class): HP: 25% (35) STR: 55% (65) MAG: 10% (10) SKL: 45% (60) SPD: 55% (75) LCK: 25% (40) DEF: 20% (20) RES: 30% (40) Hana. I've not used Hana a huge amount, and the Hanas I have used haven't turned out all that well. She's probably a little better than I'm giving her credit for, but only a little. Hana is Birthright's Charlotte, right down to the point where she starts very underleveled for no good reason. Her strength and speed are excellent (her base growths are better than Charlotte's!), but her bulk is not. She is very clearly intended to be a player phase juggernaut, but that's not really a type of unit Birthright's densely packed maps have much room for. With some investment she'll cut through most enemies like nothing, but they'll cut through her just as easily. Hana's biggest obstacle is her bases. If she can't double enemies then she's unlikely to be able to kill them, and if she can't kill them she's not getting much EXP. If you want to make the most use of her she needs tonics or someone to pair up with her to make her faster in the first few chapters while she works on getting those vital speed procs. Once she's out of that rut, she'll be fast and strong enough to one-round most enemies with the right weapon, and with Duellist's Blow she'll have a decent chance at not getting hit when she attacks either. That's basically all she does. Fearsome Blow helps make her a little more useful on player phase, but its damage radius is so small you'll find it hard to hit more than one enemy at a time with it. Otherwise she's a sword-using infantry unit with no good 1-2 range who dies to any good physical hit or a few magical ones. Her HP and defense are terrible, her luck is dubious enough to cut into her avoid and let enemies get crit chances on her, and her resistance is not good enough to make up for all of those other flaws. Swords aren't a bad weapon type to be stuck with in Birthright thanks to all the cool katanas you can buy, but you've got quite a few other swordies to do the job better. Even Hinata's better than her for a while thanks to his good bases. With the right pair-up partner Hana can fix some of her issues, but she'll be much more useful as a stat backpack for someone else than they would be for her. Master of Arms can be good for Hana if you want her to die less, otherwise Swordmaster's the way to go. It plays to her strengths more as well as increasing both her crit and avoid further. With an Armourslayer and a Dual Katana she can do most of what she'd be doing with the other weapons regardless, and the combination of Swordmaster's innate avoid, Duellist's Blow, and the Sunrise Katana can be stacked quite high. Shrine Maiden is not useful at all, but I guess Hana could just about function as a Priestess if you wanted her to. Onmyoji has nothing for her. A+ supporting Hana with Sakura is redundant thanks to her Heart Seal class, Archer gives Hana some very nice player phase skills and synergises well with her high offenses and terrible bulk, and Troubadour is about as bad an option as Shrine Maiden. Hana might be able to get use out of bulkier sword using classes such as Great Knight from Silas or Blacksmith from Hinata, but I've never tried them. I guess she'd do pretty well as a Master Ninja too? Pros
My Thoughts: I deliberately did not mention being outclassed by Ryoma as a flaw for her since being outclassed by Ryoma is a flaw for everyone.
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Dec 8, 2021 14:18
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 Felicia is fired from being my assistant for illegally trying to boost her own stats. This horrible shambling monstrosity won't try to cheat!  Now I can buy this to get some actual weapons for Rinkah. The Lottery Shop also tempts me, but that's got to wait a chapter.    Did you know that the iron version of all 3 Hoshidan weapons have 6 might? Clubs really drew the short straw here, +5 crit is useless for anything but making enemies have annoying 1% crit chances against you.  Each different scroll boosts a different stat. The Ox Spirit will make Orochi a little bulkier as well as helping her hit harder, I'll get one for her.  The Sheep Spirit is tempting. I probably would have bought it if I hadn't already bought an Ox Spirit first. Whoops!  Hana's luck is weirdly bad so she gets the Goddess Icon so she doesn't get crit. Rinkah also gets the Robe. I might still be giving most of my stat boosters to Setsuna, but she wouldn't benefit much from these anyway.    More C supports. Just 2 more Kaze supports to go before he doesn't die!!!       Statz. Rinkah's looking a lot tankier now, and Hana won't be facing any more 1% crits. Silas, Saizo, and Orochi aren't listed because they'll be included in the  below.Silas Cavalier (HS: Mercenary) A+ Support Partners: Jakob (Troubadour), Kaze (Ninja), Ryoma (Samurai) Personal Skill: Vow of Friendship (+3 damage dealt and -3 damage taken if Corrin is under 50% HP, regardless of position on map) Pair-Up Stats (C B A S): Str Skl Spd Str+Def Growths (With Default Class): HP: 40% (50) STR: 45% (60) MAG: 5% (5) SKL: 50% (60) SPD: 40% (50) LCK: 40% (55) DEF: 40% (50) RES: 25% (30) See Previous Anaylsys Silas is back! He joins a single chapter (half a chapter, even) later with one extra rank in each weapon. This time he's got the advantage of being the only Cavalier instead of one of many. I'll be honest, I've never actually used him as anything but a pair-up bot in Birthright... I'd assume he's better in BR than in Conquest where his mediocre speed is less of a downside and his class and high physical bulk make him more more unique. He can also achieve the Sol Master Ninja combo with much less difficulty, and thanks to facing weaker enemies will have a much lower chance of dying while using it too. He's a good unit in a route with worse standards for units overall, it's very hard to imagine he's not better. Is unfortunate that the first chapter after he joins is a desert though. Samurai's not a bad A+ support choice if you want to fix his speed, but I can't see it offering him anything that Master Ninja doesn't already. Ryoma probably appreciates taking Paladin from Silas more than Silas appreciates taking Samurai from him. Saizo Ninkja (HS: Samurai) A+ Support Partners: Kaze (Samurai), Subaki (Sky Knight), Ryoma (Samurai) Personal Skill: Pyrotechnics (When unit triggers battle at under half HP, user and enemies within 2 tiles lose 20% of their max HP) Pair-Up Stats (C B A S): Lck Spd Skl Str+Lck Growths (With Default Class): HP: 40% (45) STR: 50% (55) MAG: 45% (45) SKL: 60% (80) SPD: 30% (50) LCK: 55% (55) DEF: 45% (50) RES: 10% (25) It's Saizo, the "Angry Ninja" as Heroes calls him. I never really thought of him as angry, more disappointed. I married him in my first playthrough of Revelation with a Corrin that had giant spiky blue hair that made her look like Sonic the Hedgehog. I straight up think Saizo is the best non-royal unit in all of Birthright... which is why I'm not using him. Master Ninja is imo easily the best combat class in the game, and Saizo's weird growths compliment it well - much like Subaki he has high growths in stats his class is bad at and lower ones his class is good at, except unlike Subaki his growths are not terrible and in fact are the highest out of any unit in the game, not counting Mozu or her children with Aptitude. A significant amount of that total comes from a high magic growth he doesn't really use so it's not quite indicative of his usefulness, but it's an achievement all the same. His strength and defense are both very high, his poor speed and resistance are made up for his class bases and the speed bonus and WTA against tomes that shurikens give him, and even his high luck stat helps make him just a little harder to kill. His skill is also incredible but that doesn't really mean a whole lot for him. Saizo's one flaw is that his mediocre HP isn't helped in any way by his class, but his high defense, passable resistance, and consistent abiliy to fill his dual guard gauge help keep him alive. He's the closest thing you have to Ryoma until the man himself joins your party. Like a lot of characters in this route, Saizo does need some help. Without a pair-up partner or tonic his speed is a little shaky, and if he can't double than despite his high strength he likely can't do much damage either. But when most units in BR need a good support partner and Saizo goes from good to amazing with the right one, it's hard to hold that against him. Anyone who boosts his speed will do in his early levels, but a single tonic to take his bases up to 15 speed with a shuriken will do fine too. All of the ninjas in Birthright are great and they'll all do fine, but Saizo's trait of being hardest to kill puts him above the others for me. Not being as fast as Kaze won't matter so long as he's able to double consistently, and even if Kagero's a bit stronger the both of them will be ramming their strength caps some time after promotion regardless. He might need a little support with his speed, but Kaze will need help with his strength and Kagero will need help with her bulk and it's not as if speed-boosting support partners are at all rare in Birthright. Large groups of hard-hitting magical attackers like Sorcerers are the one thing he won't deal with better than the other two. The reason why I've not mentioned the Flame Shuriken as a plus for Saizo despite listing the Bolt Naginata as a plus for Subaki even though his magic base and growth are both worse is that... I really don't think Saizo needs it? His strength is already very high and once the weapon shop hits tier two you'll have Dual and Sting shurikens to deal with the physically bulky enemies you'd otherwise want to take down with magic. A magic build for Saizo could absolutely work and if you paired him with Orochi it would probably be very fun, but I'd save the Flame Shuriken for Felicia or Asugi, Saizo's son who has a 50% natural magic growth. I guess if you wanted the most magical Asugi possible you'd be pairing Saizo with Orochi or Sakura anyway... Master Ninja is such a good class that I don't think Saizo should seriously be considering anything else. Mechanist will help his strength and defense even more, but I would recommend against it as it would cut too much into his speed and avoid. Duellist's Blow, Vantage, and Astra could all be helpful, but he wouldn't want to stay a Swordmaster for very long. Darting Blow from Sky Knight could help his speed but he's much more of an enemy phase tank anyway. If you married him to Orochi you could probably have a lot of fun with a memey Basara build, his skill would be high enough that he'd be hitting Rend Heaven constantly. Oh and his personal sucks. It is actively detrimental. It doesn't come up much since it only activates on player phase and that's not where he'll be doing most of his combat, but I would make sure Saizo carries around a Vulnerary to use instead of attacking whenever he's on low HP. All 3 ninjas in this game have sucky personals but Saizo got stuck with the worst one! Pros
My Thoughts: Only wears the mask to hide his baby face Orochi Diviner (HS: Apothecary) A+ Support Partners: Rinkah (Oni Savage), Oboro (Spear Fighter), Kagero (Ninja) Personal Skill: Capture (Can select the "capture" command to send a generic enemy to My Castle's prison if defeated) Pair-Up Stats (C B A S): Mag Skl Res Mag+Res Growths (With Default Class): HP: 35% (35) STR: 5% (10) MAG: 65% (80) SKL: 50% (60) SPD: 15% (30) LCK: 35% (40) DEF: 25% (25) RES: 45% (55) Orochi! She was the first unit I married in Birthright. Between her, Benny, and Saizo, it seems I have a type (slow). I think the Fire Emblem devs saw how overpowered Robin and Nosferatu were in Awakening, and came to assumption that mages themselves were way too good and needed to be nerfed. It's not an entirely incorrect deduction, especially in Fates where 1-2 range with no drawbacks kind of invalidates the game's balance, but they might have hit the mages in this game a bit too hard. Orochi has exactly 3 stats and very little of everything else. Her magic growth is obscene at 80%, and both her skill and res are high enough that she's not unlikely to cap them both at 20/20. Her defense isn't unworkable by mage standards, but unfortunately her terrible speed really drags her down. Neither of them are impossible to fix thanks to the easily obtainable Horse Spirit, but you won't get that for another 6 or so chapters and Orochi's unfortunate bases will drag her down too. Orochi's speed might be bad, but it's not unfixable. Fates is full of ways to boost a unit's stats such as tonics and meals, and the cast of Birthright features many units who can boost speed as a pair-up partner. 7 speed is an unfortunate base stat to have when the enemies in the chapter after she joins have 8 speed at minimum, but Nohrian enemies are slow and enemy stats don't increase very fast, I think you'd get more out of Orochi by doing the best you can to increase her speed rather than going all in on her magic or bulk. I tend to use Orochi as a support partner for my magic weapon users or as a mother for kids who will double more consistently than her rather than a combat unit in her own right, so I've not got a huge amount to say about her. She's easier to use than Hayato is at least! Otherwise Orochi is fragile and slow and being fragile and slow makes it hard for you to make the most of otherwise unconditional 1-2 range. An 80% magic growth is obviously really good but her magic base is surprisingly mediocre, she's not going to be exploding enemies in a single hit. She definitely wants you to buy an Ox Spirit for her to increase her initial damage and shore up her physical bulk a little. Her high accuracy and damage output do at least make her ideal for using Capture - she'll miss a lot less than Niles does. Capturing isn't really as valuable in Birthright, but it's still something you might want her to do. Orochi will get much more use out of rods than she will naginatas, but Onmyoji over Basara isn't a clear cut decision - the extra bulk can justify not being able to heal other units after promotion, and she would have to grind her rod rank to make much use of it anyway. Rend Heaven is also nice on a unit with as high skill as Orochi, she'll be activating it very frequently. Don't bother with her naginata rank though, the only thing she'd ever want to use is the Bolt Naginata and she'll easily do much more damage for much less effort with a tome forge. Apothecary is 100% not worth it unless you really want the skills it gives. Orochi could make a good Oni Chieftain if you support her with Rinkah, her speed would take even more of a hit but she'd become a lot bulkier. Ninja's not good for anything but the skills on her and Spear Fighter's only worth it if you really want her to get Swap and Seal Defense as a Basara for whatever reason. Pros
My Rating: Looks very odd from the front
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Dec 9, 2021 21:36
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Keldulas posted:Seeing that Hana can get Archer and her growth spread, Archer Hana looks a lot better than regular Hana at least?
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Dec 10, 2021 17:21
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  Oh no, it's the wind chapter!!! Nah just kidding this version has a different map and is way less annoying. I still don't like it though, I've never had fun playing this map.  This is a very mean thing to show as an introduction to someone who's coming in blind from playing Conquest, if they saw that right after the mention of the Wind Tribe it would probably kill them.   This is not the time for stair-based humour. As someone who grew up reading Homestuck in my formative teen years it takes an immense amount of mental fortitude to not make a lame outdated reference every time the Endless Stairway comes up.   Lacking any equippable weapons with which to hurt enemies, Kevin instead brandishes around a Heal staff that he does not actually have in his inventory. It does look more menacing than the Bronze Sword he would be waving around in cutscenes instead...  Iago is written like he's got some sort of immense grudge against Corrin and has it out for them specifically. He is absolutely just a dick who likes being cruel for the sake of it, but I feel like there must be something special he has against them.  No wind! No platforms! Just a big desert map full of enemies. Like most deserts in Fire Emblem, this one slows down the movement of all units except for fliers and mages. Unlike most deserts, this one does not have buried treasure you have to painstakingly comb the map for or consult an online guide to find. That is a good thing.  Fuga himself is however still a jerk. Not hugely threatening, but very hard to kill. His personal skill boosts his avoid when injured, and he's got Seal Strength to nerf your attackers. Most of your units won't be much help against him.  Hinoka and her retainers are also here, 2 chapters earlier than Camilla! You recruit all 3 of them by talking to Hinoka with Corrin, and the three of them will head towards them immediately.  There are exactly 2 dragon veins you can use to clear the sand from the surrounding area and turn the tiles into regular ground. Doing so helps you move a lot faster and makes it easier for Silas to get around, but imo the enemies benefit more from higher movement than you do. There's no time incentive here so it's easiest to let them come to you.  I'm pretty sure if the Wind Tribe had an alignment they'd be Chaotic Evil. Hopefully I never have to show off the Revelation version of their map, it manages to be even worse than Conquest's by virtue of being extremely boring as well as annoying.    Azama and Setsuna make a fun comedy duo. Being terrible at their jobs is kind of their gimmick, both in terms of personality and in stats.  I want Subaki and Orochi to S support one another, but right now they do nothing for one another when paired up. Subaki can't use magic for anything and Orochi's too slow to double even with the extra speed she gets. Keeping them like this lets them support each other with dual attacks.   Getting around this map sucks if you can't fly or are a mage. A crueller Fire Emblem game would have made Butlers/Maids count as physical units for the purpose of moving around in sand.  The early chapters of Birthright really like to pair up enemies. Even if their stats don't help each other at all, having a guard gauge and blocking dual attacks makes them harder to kill.  This is how Subaki's combat usually goes, he deals very little damage and doesn't take much either. Having a powerful unit to support him helps him to kill a little faster.  This is the typical Subaki level. Not bad, being defensive is all I really want from him.  Some of the enemies start moving immediately, the others will wait for you to arrive. They like to dart between non-sandy spots to move faster so it can be hard to tell where they'll end up.   Hinoka and friends will head over to make recruiting them easier. I don't think Setsuna should be standing there... I don't actually know if the enemies will target her, but I'd rather they don't.  It's easy to forget Rinkah's Seal Resistance skill since she doesn't really benefit from it herself, but she makes a good combo with Orochi when the two of them aren't strong enough to defeat enemies by themselves.  I have no intention of using Silas for anything so he can function as power armour for Hana. If I weren't already planning on pairing her with Hinata I think they'd make a decent S support...  Kevin being stuck on a horse made this take a little longer than needed. Hinoka's no Camilla, but she's very nice to have in your party this early all the same.  Here's Hinoka! I think her base stats are better than Subaki's in literally every single way... Her Guard Naginata boosts her defenses by a lot, but it also cuts into her offense. You might want to buy a Steel or Iron Naginata to give to her as soon as she joins. I'm allowed to use her for this chapter but I'll try and limit her contributions to just using her passive aura personal skill and maybe providing pair-up bonuses.  Azama is what people like to pretend Moulder from Sacred Stones is, which is an insanely buff healer with very good bulk and amazing strength. His magic is his lowest stat... He'll still heal good thanks to the power of the Sun Festal though.  Setsuna is this game's obligatory terrible green Archer. She's fast and that's about it. Her bases are at least competent for how low level she is. It is because she is bad that I will do my best to make her as good as possible!  Finally, Felicia gets magic! Not that it really matters... I guess I could make her an Onmyoji after she marries Hayato?  I wanted to give Rhajat Sol, but this would probably make more sense. It's not as cool though.  It'll take some work to make Setsuna good. If I do support her with Azama then he's not going to be much help.  Bulk! And no speed, but not getting speed on a 75% growth in 1 out of 4 levels makes sense. Hana's not quite ORKOing enemis yet, but she's close.  It's turn 5 and I've barely moved from where I've started. It's hard to play fast without feeding all the kills to my already good units! I'm sure Rinkah could wipe this map but I don't want her to.   More levels for the power couple. Orochi's level is pretty standard, but speed on Subaki is nice.  Oops! An Iron Yumi would have killed him. Suffering weapon triangle disadvantage against bows sucks when you're a flier...  Setsuna's design and outfit are so cool, I think they're partly why I wrongly assumed she was a very competent too cool to be phased by anything type of character when I first fought her in Conquest. I guess a third of that assumption was true.  It's weird to call 2 stat levels like this RNG blessed, but that's definitely what they are. Rinkah's easily my best and strongest unit right now.  Moving halfway through the map triggers some long-distance boss dialogue. I don't think it signifies anything important...  Oh, this dragon vein is way more effective than the last. I don't think I ever bothered to check it in all my past playthroughs of this map... Or maybe I just forgot.  I'm not exactly sure what it is that baits this pair-up couple, but they don't seem to want to move. Their position is surprisingly well fortified.  Good, I was worried Hana might stop gaining speed just to spite me. She's pretty comfortably able to double anything that's not a Samurai now.  I knew an enemy would drop one of these but I was too impatient to wait. I can always forge it with Rinkah's existing club.  Multiple turns have passed and this pair has not moved, no matter who I put in range. I'll just come to them...   I sometimes forget the Supportive skill works when Corrin's not in a defensive pair-up, but it does. Building supports with a healer is hard but I'm trying my best!  This guy would rather attack Hana at range for 0 damage than move to actually hurt someone. I am stumped. Eventually I checked the wiki and it turns out he and one of the other pairs just doesn't move at all, despite their movement not being listed as 0.  Birthright loves to give you healing rods for free. You could probably get by without having to buy a single one?  This is uncharacteristically bad for Azama, but it does at least show off his best stat.  The one benefit of Setsuna's low join level is how fast she earns EXP. Speed is her one good stat and the high power of yumis can carry her as soon as she starts being able to double.  This guy does not move either. I wasted so much time trying to bait him and play around his movement...   Orochi somehow misses magic and gets speed, Kaze gets a level I don't care too much about since he's mostly here to build supports.  Setsuna can double some enemies with Hinoka's help, I'll be sad to have to bench her as soon as this map is over. Birthright has lots of rout maps so you'll fairly often find yourself taking out unnarmed healers...   Vantage! Vantage is one of the many skills I forgot exists and therefore am not good at taking advantage (hehe) of. I'll try my best not to do that.  Time for the boss. Fuga is standing menacingly in front of the palace you fight him in in the other two routes, but thankfully you never have to go there. An Ox Spirit would deal more damage but I'm using the Rat Spirit to boost Orochi's crit avoid. I am doing this because I am very smart and know that when Fuga switches to his ranged club on his turn he'll have a 1% crit chance I need to avoid, a fact I knew from careful calculation.   It would have been pretty embarrassing had I not been smart enough to know that.  Orochi could chip at him for EXP all day but I'd rather just beat him now and be done with it. It still took a few turns for Rinkah to reach him...  Her attack whiffed but the seal res was all I needed. Die Fuga!  Luck and defense! This will help her not die from crits.  Most of those turns were spent waiting for immobile enemies to move and Rinkah to slowly make her way over to the boss. It wasn't a particularly fun chapter.  See? This guy only ever tortures you for the fun of it. I think we should execute this war criminal!    Mastered a number of unique skills such as: Next time: Mozu gets to side with the country not responsible for the death of all of her loved ones this time
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Dec 10, 2021 17:22
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filler so my next update isn't stuck at the bottom of the page
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Dec 11, 2021 17:15
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Keldulas posted:I don't get why Hayato's bases are so terrible. Seems like it's a combination Birthright unit thing + non-royal thing? Walla posted:It's mostly a Birthright thing. I imagine the philosophy is since you can freely grind then they don't need to worry as much about balance. I think Hayato is the last though. The next 3 chapters give you 3 of the best non-royals in the game, and you have a full roster by Chapter 14 except for Jakob, Izana, Shura and Yukimura.
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Dec 11, 2021 17:15
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  Time to pick up Mozu. In this universe this tragedy does not happen on her birthday, so things are already looking better for her!  But first I need to mess around in my castle. Burnt food is delicious but I think it's also carcinogenic so you probably shouldn't eat it.  The Lottery Shop is finally here. Time for the neverending resource grind... Coral is used for naginatas, so I can use this to make Subaki hit a little less like a wet noodle.  I think I'm going to save this for Rhajat, her base skill growth is 10% and that's the lowest of any non-prepromote character in Fates. I keep saying I'm going to give all of these to Setsuna and then not doing it... I just don't think she would really benefit from anything besides Energy Drops!  Oops, I forgot I haven't built a forge yet so now Setsuna's holding 2 of the same yumi and looking like a fool. Just hold them both in the same hand so you can fire 2 arrows at the same time, I think that's how archery works.     C supports for everyone. I can't believe Setsuna doesn't like doing things either, she's so relatable!!!   Also yikes Silas you're really laying into her. The support conversations were outsourced to a different team than the one that wrote the plot for this game iirc, this feels like it was written by someone who used Hana expecting her to be awesome and was sorely disappointed.  That's enough stalling, I assume Mozu is still alive!!! I've already shown off this chapter before and it's fairly boring so don't expect any in-depth commentary, it's mostly here to feed EXP to your bad units. This is a shared map so it'll be exactly as difficult in Conquest as it is in Birthright if you're playing on the same difficulty.  Mozu's the exact same in all routes, but she's at her worst by far in Birthright due to the circumstances surrounding her. Being fast and fragile isn't unique or particularly beneficial in this route, her access to the Archer class is nothing special, and your team most likely will already be full of crappy units who need babying. I did say I wanted to use her, but... ehhh.  The deployment slots here are actually really limiting. This isn't even close to everyone I want to bring! Hmm...  Fine, scrubs only. No Rinkah or Hana. Hopefully this won't be too hard without all the people in my army who can actually deal damage.   It takes 3 units working together to take down a single Faceless. Reaching Mozu in time might be tricky! My more competent units will be going for her...  ...while the Scrub Squad will sit here to slowly farm EXP. Hayato might be awful at base but they were at least nice enough to give him a D rank in scrolls. The defensive boost from the Ox Spirit will help him!  ...okay maybe it doesn't help him that much. Felicia is entirely unconcerned, she looks like she's about to ask the Faceless if he wants a towel to dry off his bloody knuckles.  This time Felicia will supervise from a distance, allowing her Demoiselle ability to kick in. This isn't Awakening, passive skills don't work when the units who have them are paired in support formation.  Time for levels galore! Azama is the Effie of Birthright, he's weirdly good at everything except what is supposed to be his job.  Azama doesn't need to be Setsuna's support partner for them to gain support points from combat, he just needs to be next to her when she attacks. With this formation I can build support points between everyone very efficiently.  Hayato is very much a growth unit. His averages are quite good and he's very physically tanky for a mage once he gets going, but it's the "get going" part that's the problem.  Orochi is being demoted to stat backpack for Subaki as soon as he gets the Bolt Naginata.   Speed for Subaki and Setsuna. For Subaki it's a rare surprise, for Setsuna it's all she ever gets anyway. I always thought it would have been more fitting in terms of her personality for Setsuna to have terrible speed but great bulk and luck, but ehh.  Just in the nick of time! Don't worry, we're not the Nohrian army. We are blameless in this debacle.  Oh right I forgot you can't just give Mozu kills in this chapter. Hmm...  Maybe Kaze can weaken some enemies enough for her to get the finishing blow. I want Kaze paired so I can get the Dragon Herbs but otherwise have no real plans to use him, and I don't know if I do want to use Mozu at all, so sticking them together kind of makes sense?   Hayato's got quite a high strength growth, he makes a really good Oni if you reclass him as soon as you recruit him. Unfortunately I wasted my only Heart Seal on Kevin who still thinks he's in a physical class.  I had forgotten about this! Somehow I thought Kevin had already hit level 10.  Just in time, too! The power of royalty-free music inspires the commoners to power through this hardship... although I'm pretty sure most of the characters in Birthright are all upper class themselves. Orochi was the late queen's personal retainer.  It's actually quite difficult keeping everyone alive even before considering the possibility of giving EXP to Mozu. Maybe some tonics would have been nice?   There, that's your one contribution for this map. She didn't even get halfway to level 2...   More strength for my magic units. I guess if Hayato manages to stick around long enough to not get replaced by his daughter I could make him a mixed attacker. Maybe even a Butler?  Time to slooowly whittle this stationary Faceless down for EXP while the rest of my army catches up. You can't accuse me of stalling, my army's moving as fast as they can! They're just bad.   Kaze's levelling up a lot despite not getting any kills. He's very helpful for setting other people up! Soon he and Kevin will hit A rank together and I won't have to worry about either of them.   Oh, I wasn't expecting them to kill the boss on their own... I can't be mad about this level, Hayato needs the bulk badly.   Not really comparable to Orochi's level 5 stats... At least he's faster. These are pretty on par with his averages too. Maybe he's just bad.  Well that was tedious. Next time give me more deployment slots!!!  No unit stats because I've got an invasion to fight next update. Just like this paralogue it's only there for grinding, I may as well hold off on showing stats until all the free EXP maps are done. Speaking of holding off on things, I've decided to limit myself to one analysis per map. Birthright is massively frontloaded with recruits and I don't want to keep writing 4 of these at a time. Plus it'll mean I have something to say inbetween otherwise extremely boring maps like the Ice Tribe village or that one swamp with Leo.  Hinoka Sky Knight (HS: Spear Fighter) A+ Support Partners: Sakura (Shrine Maiden), Azura (Troubadour), Setsuna (Archer) Personal Skill: Rallying Cry (allies within 2 spaces deal 2 more damage in combat) Pair-Up Stats (C B A S): Res Lck Str Spd+Res Growths (With Default Class): HP: 45% (45) STR: 45% (55) MAG: 15% (15) SKL: 40% (50) SPD: 45% (60) LCK: 40% (60) DEF: 35% (35) RES: 40% (60) Like Subaki? Well here's a Sky Knight with equal or better bases in every single stat! I guess that's not quite fair to say when Hinoka is 3 levels higher than he is, but she does join the chapter after he does... While not quite your typical pegasus rider, Hinoka's stats are at least a little more in line with what you would expect from one. Her base growths are all very well balanced, but with class growths added on top of them she's fast and lucky and resistant. Her strength is also pretty high by Hoshidan standards, although a 55% growth coming off of a base value of 9 isn't hugely impressive. Two fliers are generally better than one so I wouldn't say she invalidates Subaki, but it'll be a long time before his defense growths kick in enough to give him any meaningful advantage over her. I don't have all that much to say about Hinoka, she's just a solidly good unit. It's easy to think of the Guard Naginata as being her personal weapon, especially since she's the only unit capable of wielding it when she first joins, but don't make the mistake of making it her only one - it's weak and inaccurate and will drag down her otherwise great offensive capabilities. Use it only when she needs to take a lot of hits or if you're deliberately sabotaging her damage output to set up a kill for someone else. You can give it to Subaki or Oboro or even Silas later on if you want a dedicated tank. Otherwise Hinoka has all the tools that royals tend to get - she can activate dragon veins and she has an amazing personal skill that lets her be useful without even needing to participate in combat. Rallying Cry might not have the power of Camilla's Rose's Thorns, but the extra tile of range on it makes it so much easier to take advantage of. There are plenty of fast weaklings in Birthright who can turn that extra 2 damage per hit into 4 more damage dealt per round of combat. Hinoka can work with just about any of the classes in her arsenal. Falcon Knight is a solid choice in terms of stats, and despite having a slightly worse magic growth than Subaki her base is high enough that she'll be better at magic than him anyway. A Bolt Naginata build is perfectly viable on her, but keep in mind that unlike Subaki her strength is high enough that not using it is a bit of a waste. Rally Speed also combines excellently with Rallying Cry. Kinshi Knight's got worse stats all around but Hinoka makes a good anti-flier, especially if she can A+ Setsuna to pick up Quick Draw without needing to reclass. Spear Master sacrifices flying utility for better combat all around - I wouldn't recommend it in the early or mid-game where her stats are already good enough and high movement helps a lot, but when you reach the endgame gauntlet that starts with Camilla it's not a bad choice to switch her into it to deal with the huge amount of decently powerful enemeies you'll be facing. Basara could work for a Bolt Naginata build if you really want, but I wouldn't recommend it. As always Rend Heaven is a great skill to pick up though. Shrine Maiden from Sakura is one of the many "could maybe work but why would you" reclass options this game gives you, Troubadour from Azura is a fun novelty and Demoiselle could work well with Rallying Cry but otherwise isn't worth it, Archer from Setsuna is great for getting cross-class skills from Kinshi Knight but isn't really something Hinoka wants to change into herself. Pros
My Rating: As good as it looks on her, I can't stand her hair colour on anyone else. It's too red!!!
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Dec 11, 2021 17:15
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Keldulas posted:Man I had forgotten how many of Birthright’s characters are just really kind of lovely. The Mozu map was kind of painful. ApplesandOranges posted:On the other hand, Birthright also has baffling Heart Seal options. Saizo gets the exact same option as Kaze. Setsuna gets Ninja which is even worse at doing damage. You don't have a single first gen Apothecary but three units have it as a Heart Seal option, including Orochi who's pretty useless at it. Rinkah is the only way to spread Oni Savage since no 2nd gen kids start with that class, with the only exceptions being Hana (who can get it from marrying Hinata) and Orochi (who can get it by marrying Hayato). Walla posted:I did an all Heart Seal run on Conquest once, and everyone was pretty viable. Trying to do the same on Birthright was just painful. Oboro can at least spread Spear Fighter around with her A+ supports. Spear Fighter Mozu is surprisingly fun, and if I do commit to training her I'm going to try and make her into one. All these cool classes that barely saw any representation makes me wish Hoshido wasn't wasted on Birthright.
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Dec 12, 2021 16:35
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 Time to get invaded! There's not really much point to Invasions in Birthright where grinding is free... I guess they're a chance to test out your castle defenses without needing to go online or interact with other players.  But first I should probably sort out my castle. Falling into traps is Setsuna's whole thing, but this is somewhat of a scary situation to think about.  Rice is Hoshido's defense boosting ingredient. After my Conquest LP it feels a little anticlimactic to find some this early.  Now I can use this rice to cook up some tasty jelly donuts for Lilith! Yum yum yum. ...I didn't actually mean to do this, I've just wasted 1 of 2 of my valuable defense boosting ingredients for no reason.   Yumis have a whopping 3 base might over the standard D rank melee weapons in Hoshido, and with forging the damage quickly racks up. They also increase a unit's resistance by 2... Making bows much stronger than other weapons makes a lot of sense in terms of balance, but it's weird how much better yumis (yumi?) are than bows. Bows might be more accurate but that's not worth +2 res and higher power!     B support for Kevin and Kaze, C for the rest.  Now for the free EXP! ...or not. After numerous failed attempts at this invasion I switched my castle to a boring tryhard layout with multiple chokepoints. There are numerous styles of castle you can pick from but the best is always the Nestran one, it's got waterways that can be used to make enemy movements more predictable.   I had 2 game overs, one from Hayato getting overwhelmed and the second from when I forgot that enemies would try to seize the throne and left mine wide open for a Lancer to sit on. I'm pretty terrible at castle battles because I have no idea what the enemies will try to do - sometimes they go for your units, sometimes they go for buildings, sometimes they go for the throne and ignore everything else. As a general rule they seem to take whichever action would annoy me the most.  Only the boss has skills. Elbow Room + Quick Draw = 7 more damage than his displayed attack, which can lead to some unexpected deaths if you're not paying attention.   On the left and right are various Assorted Dudes. They're not too tough on their own, but there's more of them than you'd fight in Conquest. Large groups of decently hard hitting enemies are tough to deal with in wide open maps!  Subaki with the Guard Naginata is my one actually bulky unit so he gets to bait the enemies. Will they actually attack him? Who knows!  Everybody else has to wait outside the enemy's range like a coward. I didn't show my deployment slots, but Rinkah still isn't here - Mozu stole her slot instead.  I have no idea when they do and do not go for the bait. It's got to be consistent, but if it is I don't know the rules.  Some enemies hit Subaki and some ignore him. I assume the ones that ignored him can't hurt him?  I guess I've have to swap his weapon out for something worse. This is supposed to be the easy route, why aren't you all running head first into the brick wall I've left out for you?   No strength! This is starting to become a problem. At least Camraderie is a cool skill, it's the opposite to Relief from Awakening in that it heals you when you are near allies. It's good for keeping Perfectionist active, but also bad for letting healers get EXP.  Units who get into battles on bridges will be shown fighting in the canal for whatever reason. I hope Hayato is tall enough to climb out.  I bought the Brass Yumi for Setsuna because it's slightly more accurate. Once she's a Sniper she'll have no trouble hitting, but that's then and this is now and her skill is surprisingly bad for an Archer.  Yumis are so strong that I don't mind Setsuna getting speed and no strength. I can just forge her a +5 yumi or something silly if it gets really bad.  The Armourslayer is a sword and not a katana, and that means it'll sometimes mean Hana can't double things with it she could normally. In cases like this it's helpful for setting up kills...  This water chokepoint is way easier to manage than an open field.  Birthright's Lilith has a ranged heal instead of a ranged attack. She's much worse like this, you have to stand way too close to her for her to be helpful and she can't defend herself at all. Revelation's Lilith of course can both attack and heal.  Everybody sure is getting speed today! This is... helpful, I guess.  Mozu's still at it. Kaze's helping her gain EXP with some success. I really need to forge her a better weapon...  Everybody is fast and nobody is strong. Speed is nice but I would like to see someone gain strength or magic today please!!!  Here come the Wyverns. My magic users and Setsuna can handle them easily, but there's a lot of them and they hit hard.  Oh, there's an offensive stat. What an uncharacteristically good level! I need a powerful 1-2 range unit to choke a point in Chapter 9, and against all good sense it might have to be Orochi.  Diviners unlock Future Sight at level 10. It can potentially be helpful for faster EXP gain, but an 8% of activating on player phase only if she gets a kill is not likely to come up.  Thank you defense proc from saving me from a misplay! I'm really glad this wasn't a video series so you couldn't see how badly this easy, free EXP map was kicking my butt.  They completely ignored destroying that building... I don't know how the AI works.   Fortunately they delivered themselves right to where all my units were and died. Hayato's fast enough to double with Felicia's help now!  That was harrowing! I need either more deployment slots or for my bad units to get better. Rinkah would have helped but also earned like 3 EXP per kill here.  It is very hard to imagine a situation in which this will be useful... I guess I'll keep it just in case anybody reclasses to something with a sword rank.    B for Subaki and Orochi, C for everyone else. I wonder when I'll start seeing child paralogues get unlocked? I tend to save those for around Chapter 23 to give me as much experience as possible for when the game suddenly gets difficult, but maybe I'll do one or two of them early.            Here are everyone's stats. Rinkah will finally get to come back for the next chapter... Next time: Birthright's first difficulty spike  Azama Monk (HS: Apothecary) A+ Support Partners: Subaki (Sky Knight), Hayato (Diviner), Kaden (Diviner) Personal Skill: Divine Retribution (When unit is unequipped, adjacent enemies that deal damage to this unit receieve half of the damage back) Pair-Up Bonuses (C B A S): Str Spd Def Str+Lck Growths With Default Class): HP: 55% (55) STR: 50% (55) MAG: 20% (30) SKL: 40% (50) SPD: 45% (60) LCK: 40% (55) DEF: 40% (40) RES: 20% (40) Meet Azama, the man so dedicated to trolling and being deliberately unhelpful that he picked the class most unsuited to his personal growths as a joke. He is all the memes about Moulder from Sacred Stones made real. Azama is Birthright's Effie in that he's a unit with amazing growths stuck in a bad class with a poor Heart Seal selection, although unlike Effie his A+ supports are a bit better. Azama has average to good growths in every stat with the exception of magic and resistance, both of which are boosted by the Monk class, although if you want to make the most of him he really wants to move to a class capable of attacking physically instead. As a healer he's okay. With a Sun Festal he doesn't really need to worry about stats in order to heal good, and he's bulky enough that you won't have to worry about messing up his positioning. Divine Retribution can be mildly helpful, but it's just a worse Counter and I'm pretty sure it won't earn him any EXP if it kills. But make Azama into any physical attacking class at all and suddenly he's fast, powerful, and physically bulky all in one. Great Master lets him attack with naginatas while still keeping his healing capability, and you can promote him into it as early as level 10 for immediate use, but the most fun way to use Azama imo is to have him steal a physical class from whoever he marries. Apothecary is unfortunately one of the worst physical classes he can have unpromoted, being locked to 2 range limits him and so does the class's terrible base speed. It does however let him promote into a Mechanist, giving him reliable 1-2 range and even better physical bulk. Merchant's also fun if you want to stack as much damage as possible with Spendthrift, although that skill can be very hard to obtain in Birthright without grinding. Onmyoji may be a waste of his terrible attack but Azama will be decently competent as one thanks to his good bulk and speed. An Azama who marries Orochi can pair up with her to make use of her pair-up bonuses and Magic + 2 skill to deal decent damage. I don't tend to count DLC classes when writing these but if you make Azama a Dread Fighter he'll break the game in half and probably be able to solo most maps right from the start. Sky Knight's a pretty good physical class for Azama to grab from Subaki, especially since it shares weapon ranks with Great Master when promoted. If you're going for an Onmyoji build for Azama then you should just have him marry Orochi for Diviner skills rather than supporting him with either Hayato or Kaden. Pros
My Thoughts: I still haven't forgiven him for Conquest
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Dec 12, 2021 16:35
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  Birthright's first few chapters are Conquest's Hoshido chapters but in reverse, except thankfully with no Kitsune. We can skip straight from Fuga to Zola without fighting any foxes.  Now it's our turn to be the prisoners! Zola could kidnap the whole Hoshidan royal family and it wouldn't make a difference to me, I'm not allowed to use them.  Is Kevin MacLeod famous? His music is everywhere on youtube but I imagine most people don't know where it's from or that it's all by the same guy. Kidnapping a guy who releases his music for free doesn't seem like a particularly profitable idea.  Time to beat Zola again. This chapter is kind of like a defend map at first, although if you choose to hang around for too long then you'll screw yourself out of some treasure. All your units begin in a small room with a large number of enemies out to get them. This chapter is a bit of a difficulty spike - not only do you have to be a lot smarter about your positioning to avoid death, you're also under a large amount of time pressure that even Conquest doesn't normally give you if you want to open all the chests. It's not super difficult or anything but this and the two maps afterward are trickier than you'd expect for Birthright.  On the way to Zola's room are a few stationary paired-up enemies. They won't move to attack you, but they will take some muscling past.  Zola himself is a little scary. His stats are decently high and the Mjolnir tome not only has a great crit rate, it also deals 4x damage on crit like all killer weapons do in this game. You can clobber him with Kaze or Hinoka without any real issue, otherwise he's got a decent chance of killing your units instantly.  There are 4 trees with dragon veins like this, 2 on either side. I don't think I've ever used them, but I assume they're useful? Birthright has a lot of dragon veins I never really bothered with.   There are also 2 chests with a Speedwing and 5000 gold. Two Outlaws will make a run for them as soon as the map starts, and will escape with the loot from the east and west sides sometime around turn 9. Not a problem if you're stomping the map with a souped up Saizo or Kaze, but there are a lot of enemies to muscle past that can make this map harder if you're trying to use your worse units.  My plan for surviving the first few turns involves buffing Orochi with tonics to have her clear most of the initial enemies but oops, I can't afford any! I guess I can sell something...  I suppose I do have 3 healers already, and I'll probably end up with even more. Birthright gives you more healers than Conquest does I think, at least in the early game.  The combination of an HP tonic, a defense tonic, and Subaki's pair-up bonuses make Orochi's stats look quite good for a front-liner all of a sudden. I think she'll be able to tank like this...   Nope, 2 speed short of doubling Cavaliers and 1 magic short of one-rounding Dark Mages. I need more.  Daggers are worse than shurikens in every way but accuracy and Birthright enemies are slow and easy to hit. I don't need this.  Now Orochi is ready for the front line. This specific position allows her to benefit from Kevin's Gentilhomme skill while also creating as much free space for the rest of my units as possible. In a normal run she'd be able to benefit from Sakura and Hinoka's passive auras and maybe even Azura's Inspiring Song, but not this time.  Everybody else pairs up to get out of the way. I'd rather as much of the initial wave gets one-rounded as possible so I can speed over to cut off the Outlaws at their escape route.  I was hoping Hayato could tank the front gate at first, but that's never going to happen with his stats. He's just here to take one hit from an enemy that couldn't have reached Orochi anyway.   All the mages get KO'd, unfortunately most of the Cavaliers dodge one hit thanks to their WTA. All the initial enemies have 2 or 1-2 range weapons so if I'd have tried to tank them with Rinkah then they'd have avoided any counterattack in retaliation.  Orochi's fairly high-level so they weren't worth much EXP, but I don't care if she got this level out of it. I wonder if I should have her use a Partner Seal to grab Darting Blow as soon as she's hit her S support...  I'd like for the rest of my units to unpair but right now I need to clean up and there's not much room for them to go besides.  Strength is nice.  Rinkah grabs Kevin to one-round some mages with near-perfect accuracy. I should try to work on getting him a C rank support with everyone, he can't attack anyway so he's best off helping my other units like this.  Making everything completely safe requires one slightly dubious hit chance. Skill is unfortunately one of Hayato's dump stats. He's bad at all the things Orochi is good at, just like Nyx and Odin.   Turn 2 ends and Takumi's retainers show up as green units. This is... quite a contrast to Leo's retainers showing up and being immediately told not to take the lives of any enemy combatant. We're the Good Guys this time around so killing is okay!!!  Just like Hinoka they'll head to Corrin but not actually recruit themselves like some green units have the decency to do. Numbers are helpful this chapter so you do want to grab them both as quick as you can.  Unofrtunately Kevin is current attached to Rinkah, so he must be extracted...  ...and replaced with support partner that helps her to double this Cavalier. It's nice to have her back!  Kaze is quickly becoming the Azura of this run, his levels are all the same and they don't mean much in the long term. I do prefer posting levels mid-combat to give a better idea of how the map is unfolding, but sometimes they feel like a waste of space.   Time for some MAD (Moderately Assured Destruction). Oboro's parents were killed by Nohrians so she's out to make more orphans to keep her company.  It's Oboro! Oboro and not Hinata who joins separately from her and has to stand around like a useless bum for one more turn until Kevin can talk to him. Oboro is a Spear Fighter and pretty good at everything. She's very helpful for combat in this chapter, although you might want to swap her Steel Naginata for something lighter.  Time to attach her to Mozu and turn a great naginata user and a bad one into one slightly less terrible naginata user. This is absolutely a waste of resources but I want Mozu trained and I also want her to A+ support Oboro.  Absolutely worth it.  Mozu is Mozu, at least she gets good levels reliably.  Strength's starting to become a problem, Subaki! You've gone 6 levels without getting a single point. At least consider proccing that 20% magic growth...  A large number of Cavalier reinforcements will start pouring from these stairs soon, I want Rinkah to be ready for them. The eastern escape point is just past those paired-up enemies to the north.  I think I'm making pretty good time to stop them! Each one opens their respective chest on the same turn and will escape on the same turn too.  Here's Hinata, probably the most forgettable first gen non-prepromote unit in all of Birthright. He's Subaki but a Samurai. Personally I'm under the opinion that he's a little underrated and Oboro is somewhat overrated... But Oboro is still way better.  Hinata will remain where he is and bravely defend Kevin from this lone Cavalier. I want him to support Hana but she's too far away...  Time to remove this roadblock before the reinforcements arrive. Each exit is guarded by a Dark Mage/Knight combo, both of which can't move but can attack from 1-2 range. Birthright likes these.   Thank you for getting my treasure! Now please deliver it back to me.  Just like Oboro, Hinata also needs a lighter weapon in order to double the faster enemies in this chapter. His bases are actually quite good but his growths unfortunately are not.  From turns 5 until 12, Cavalier and Dark Mage reinforcements will alternate from the east and west stairs respectively. They're not too tough if you're ready for them and they can be quite easily farmed for EXP, but if you can't make it to their spawn point in time then they will rapdily become tough to deal with and make the escaping thieves very hard to chase down.   Obviously I am going to farm them. You might look at Setsuna's growths and the res bonus from yumis and think Setsuna might make an effective mage killer like Niles, but her base resistance just isn't good enough for it.  Dark Mages make the best food for Mozu. She can double with with Oboro's help and they don't need too much weakening to go down.  Breaking through this barrier is however top priority, I really want that speedwing. Originally I thought Orochi was too slow to consider wasting it on her, but now I'm not as sure...   It would be nice if Hayato had good growths to justify his bad join stats like Mozu does. Yeah he's bulky for a mage and his averages are good, but they sure don't feel good right now!  Turn 9 and the Outlaw is above to escape. I thought I was making good time!  But even if I can't kill him I can force him to move around Rinkah and waste a turn. I think he's as good as got.  Nice to see Orochi getting magic again. I keep wanting to call her Oboro...   Each of the thieves also come with their own change on hand. I'll consider it the finders fee... for the treasure I'm not giving back. What's the neutral kingdom of Izumo going to do?    Hayato skillfully avoids the stats I actually want, Kevin has way too good stats for being a pacifist, and Kaze continues to be Kaze.  Now the thieves are gone I can establish this backwards chokepoint. Now I'm the one stopping the enemy from getting out, mwahahaha!   If Azama marries Setsuna I can make him a Kinshi and put those good stats to use. Rally Luck is mildly helpful for various things but very rarely makes too much of a difference. It boosts luck by 8 instead of 4 to make up for luck not being so useful.  I guess in this universe Rinkah's abs are real and not fake. That's fine by me, it's nice to have someone capable of killing things.   Hana and Hinata finally get to fight side by side. They're both Samurai so they'll inherit each other's heart seal classes, which is good for Hana and not so good for Hinata,  Not much left to do but farm now. Seems like the reinforcements can't block themselves, if an enemy's on the stairs they just spawn around them. More EXP for me!  More tasty EXP. Stats are nice but what Mozu really needs now is D rank naginatas.  I can't farm forever though, I do need to actually make some progress. I could just walk around these guys but they don't move so they're easy EXP.  Oops, now that Hayato's no longer underleveled his personal skill won't boost his damage anymore. I'm feeling the effects of his awful magic stat...  ...and will be for some time. I am so replacing you with your daughter.  Once the reinforcements have dried up there's only the boss left. Zola's got some units guarding him but not the horrible legion of Sorcerers and Heroes he has in Conquest.   I can only assume this Door Key was meant for LTCers blitzing through the map with Malig Knight Jakob so fast that the Outlaws never get to open the treasure rooms themselves. Hana seems good enough at opening doors with her sword!  Hinoka's your best bet against this guy, but Subaki can also survive him... Zola however can also survive Subaki.  Not much else to do until Kaze gets closer to sling some debuffs at him. On a crit he'll do 12 damage, which is a bit scary but not lethal.   Kaze weakens him to set up a kill for someone I'm more willing to invest EXP in. The odds are good but they aren't perfect...  Rally Luck and Silas's support make things as good as they're going to get for her.  She's now 2 levels higher than Hinata who barely got to fight this map, whoops!  Well I played fast for the first half of that map. I could have parked some bad units on the stairs and belined for the boss as soon as I could, but that would have gotten me less EXP.  Even in Birthright Nohrians love to kill their allies and undermine their own war. I guess in this case Zola had already lost.  But we're the good guys so we get to keep him! Not as a playable character or anything, he's just going to be hanging around for a little while. Next time: Ninja Heck
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Dec 13, 2021 17:51
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theshim posted:Your units are turning out wonderfully strangely. Rinkah is actually buff as heck and Hayato can't gain magic to save his life. I love the little stories that come out of every playthrough of these games ApplesandOranges posted:Hinata is yet another 'what if we took this unit, but upended their stat growths from their class?' unit. He's kinda like an Oni Savage in a Samurai class (which is fine, it's his Heart Seal option). Honestly he gets carried by his bases pretty hard, since even in Samurai there's a chance his Str and Spd will start falling behind. But he'll do better than Hana usually so he's your swordie til Ryoma, I guess.
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Dec 14, 2021 18:01
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 I don't often use these... There is that one you can get in Chapter 4 if you reach the princesses before Sakura gets clobbered, but I wasted it feeding all the kills to Rinkah.  I bought an Arena and now the resource grind can begin. I foolishly did this fight before reading Oboro and Mozu's C support, whoops. I probably should have gone for getting more coral so I could forge Mozu's Brass Naginata too...        Lots of supports for everyone. If I'm careful enough I get get Kevin and Kaze's A support and then never have to worry about wasting a load of Bloom uses on Kaze to grind support points again! The game might give you lots of rods for free but they are still expensive to replace.  Seeing as I'm probably going to bench at least some of the units I'm using right now, I could probably justify using this... I don't know who on though. Kaze's not level 10 yet.  Hayato would be my main choice I think, Orochi's turning out better than him and his daughter will most likely replace him. Going Basara would boost his stats nicely... but it also wouldn't be much help in the next chapter against Ninjas.  I'll consider that for another day. For now I'll give Orochi the Speedwings because she's slow but not so slow that doubling is entirely beyond her. Still won't be doubling ninjas though!!!  May as well upgrade Setsuna's bow even further, too. I would like to beat the next chapter without Takumi if possible, even if my rules don't forbid it. It's not quite the Fujin Yumi but it's close!             This is all I have to get me through the milder and yet still horrible obligatory ninja chapter. I'll figure something out... Incidentally, I'm going to start keeping track of who got what stat boosters, and also work out how everybody's comparing to their average stats. Just for fun! I won't be doing the average stats thing every chapter, that would take forever. I might do it once or twice more before the run ends? Rinkah: Seraph Robe Hana: Goddess Icon Orochi: Speedwing Kevin: +1.15 HP, +0.25 STR, +1.4 MAG, +2.55 SKL, +0.4 SPD, -1.3 LCK, +0.1 DEF, -2.35 RES Kaze: +0.4 HP, -1.7 STR, +0 MAG, -0.9 SKL, +0.9 SPD, +0.6 LCK, +0.5 DEF, +0 RES Felicia: +1 HP, +0 STR, -1.25 MAG, -0.25 SKL, +1.25 SPD, -0.75 LCK, +1 DEF, -0.25 RES Subaki: +0.7 HP, -2.4 STR, -1.2 MAG, +0.4 SKL, +0.9 SPD, -0.7 LCK, +0.3 DEF, -0.5 RES Orochi: +0.55 HP, -0.7 STR, -0.6 MAG, -1.2 SKL, +1.25 SPD, +0.2 LCK, +2.25 DEF, -2.85 RES Azama: -0.35 HP, +0.35 STR, +0.1 MAG, -1.5 SKL, +0.2 SPD, -0.65 LCK, +0.2 DEF, -0.2 RES Setsuna: +0.4 HP, -0.4 STR, +0 MAG, -0.8 SKL, +0 SPD, +0.6 LCK, +1 DEF, -0.6 RES Hayato: -0.5 HP, -0.15 STR, -2.95 MAG, +1.4 SKL, +0.05 SPD, -0.85 LCK, -1.2 DEF, +1.3 RES Mozu: +0 HP, -0.4 STR, -0.6 MAG, -0.8 SKL, +0 SPD, +0 LCK, +1.8 DEF, +0.4 RES Hana: -0.8 HP, -0.2 STR, -0.8 MAG, -1.8 SKL, +0 SPD, -0.2 LCK, -0.6 DEF, -1.2 RES Rinkah: -2.2 HP, +2.4 STR, +1 MAG, +1 SKL, +0.6 SPD, +1.2 LCK, -0.2 DEF, -0.6 RES Wow that took way too long to write up. Rinkah's not quite as blessed as I had thought, Kevin's doing very well despite it not actually mattering, and Hana is doing average or worse in literally all of her stats. I still think she's been quite useful so maybe that means she's better than I gave her credit for...? Oh and Hayato sucks too but I already knew that.  Setsuna Archer (HS: Ninja) A+ Support Partners: Hinoka (Sky Knight), Hana (Samurai), Kagero (Ninja) Personal Skill: Optimistic (Unit recovers 1.5 times as much HP than normal when healed with a staff) Pair-Up Stats (C B A S): Spd Spd Res Skl+Spd Growths (With Default Class): HP: 30% (40) STR: 20% (35) MAG: 0% (0) SKL: 30% (45) SPD: 60% (75) LCK: 30% (35) DEF: 15% (25) RES: 40% (40) Archers are often one of if not the worst class in every Fire Emblem game in which they appear, and the units stuck in that class often have terrible stats in addition to their poor movement and choice of weapon to really hammer home the point. It's somewhat of a series tradition to give you a green-haired Archer right at the beginning of the game who sucks. Setsuna is unfortuately that Archer... ...but she's not as bad as she could be. The wide open yet densely packed maps and enemy-phase focused nature of Birthright might not be great for Archers, but Fates as a whole did at least try to make its bow locked units a little less terrible. The Quick Draw skill grants them +4 might on player phase, effectively a +4 boost to strength for a class locked to 2 range, while the absurd power of yumis compared to other Hoshidan weapons gives them a small niche as reliable damage dealers. That power gets multiplied by 3 whenever they hit a flying unit, which is often good enough to secure a OHKO. Setsuna's high speed combined with the combined power of yumis and the Archer class makes up for her having the lowest strength growth of any non prepromote unit in a physical class. Unfortunately none of this makes Setsuna good. Her speed might be nice but her other stats range from mediocre to terrible. Her bases, while not bad for her weirdly low join level, are way below what they should be. Being locked to bows still sucks even if they are less bad than usual, and if you really want people to shoot things then you've got Takumi and Reina and maybe even Yukimura to do it better. She is yet another underlevelled unit who needs babying in a game full of underlevelled units who need babying. Attacking from 2 range does at least make it safer for her to grab EXP from chip damage, but at the end of the day if you're going to be funnelling EXP into someone with bad bases you'd be better off funnelling it into the likes of Mozu or Hayato. Promoting Setsuna early is probably your best bet to make her useful, she's not reaching 20/20 without grinding. I will probably promote her at level 20 anyway but I am a bad example. Going Sniper gives her better stats and better skills, although even if she's promoted at level 10 Setsuna will struggle to unlock Bowfaire for a very long while. The flying utility of Kinshi will help make Setsuna more useful but it will also tank her stats even more, and losing 1 strength upon promotion hurts when your strength is so bad already. Mechanist could probably be useful, although a unit as weak and as fragile as Setsuna would probably struggle to get much use out of 1-2 range weapons. Basically anybody who could become a Master Ninja will end up being a better one than Setsuna so I wouldn't bother. I guess she might appreciate having Locktouch and Poison Strike? Sky Knight's not a bad class for Setsuna to grab, especially since she can get its skills by promoting into a Kinshi, although neither Darting Blow or Camraderie are particularly suited to her. Samurai's skills aren't suited to Setsuna's role as an Archer either. Kagero just gives her Ninja and she already has that anyway. Optimistic is a personal skill that would be really useful on a unit with high HP who frequently fights on the front lines and takes large amounts of damage. It is not useful on Setsuna! Pros
My Thoughts: "Haha what if fictional character was on drugs???" is the lowest hanging fruit there is... but it's kind of funny to pretend Setsuna is just really high
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Dec 14, 2021 18:01
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Cythereal posted:I married Setsuna to Ryoma for kicks to make her queen of Hoshido. I'd like to think Setsuna would make the best ruler of a country in a universe where Anankos exists, he'd have absolutely nothing to work with in regards to evil brainwashing schemes. She's too chill to have any anger that could be channeled into anything and all you've have to do to foil her evil schemes is make sure an animal trap exists within 3 miles of her.
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Dec 15, 2021 17:47
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  Time for a more mild variant of Ninja Hell. It's like the first circle of hell instead of the fourth or fifth. Still not somewhere you want to be... I'd rather we jump straight down the Bottomless Canyon.  Oh Nohr certainly "strong-arms" them in Conquest alright. Seems like the Mokushu can never win.  We have a pet Zola now. He's here because Nohr rejected him and Kevin doesn't want to kill anyone. He's actually kind of an interesting character, at least by the standards of this plot. He won't be sticking around for long.  Time for Kotaro's Forest! A forest is like the diet version of a cave when it comes to JRPG dungeons. This is yet another rout map. As you can see there are many ninjas, but thankfully none of them come with any skills...  Kotaro himself is nowhere near as powerful as he was in Conquest, which I suppose makes sense considering he's been downgraded to merely one of the many enemies you must defeat to end the chapter. The Dual Shuriken makes him vulnerable to swords and tomes, something you should have a decent amount of. The Kodachi severely limits his offense so ideally you want to bait him into equipping it.  Here's the first instance of the diabolical pair-up trap - this Spear Fighter won't move, but the Archer he's paired up with will! Be careful when defeating him or standing close enough to bait him into switching to his friend.  Deployment slots are unfortunately quite tight here. I want Oboro to come along to help support Mozu and maybe slap some Seal Defense debuffs on enemies, but unfortunately there's not enough room.  Dragon veins can trigger traps to turn terrain into spikes that'll damage units and lower their avoid. Stepping on certain spots will also trigger traps to turn the terrain beneath into spikes, although veins will appear to undo them. It's not worth activating them unless you really want the extra hit on the ninjas and deactivating them isn't permanent, stand in the same spot and they'll just come back.  These three enemies on the front line don't actually move, so this starting position isn't quite as dangerous as it looks. Many enemies will come forward to attack during the first few turns so it's best to hold your ground.  All I need to do is defeat that one unhighlighted Ninja and then suddenly I've got a safe space to put most of my units! Unfortunately I don't think I have anyone capable of taking him out in one hit from the one spot that's out of range.  Oh and this chapter is already unfun even with Takumi and Azura, it's even worse without. You know things are bad when you're unequpping your allies to help them take more hits...  First order of business is to kill this guy. Even with Rinkah's help Setsuna can't one-shot him, but she can get close! Unfortunately she'll also face a 1% crit chance unless she's got the Brass Yumi equipped.   An incredibly nice level for Setsuna, and a so-so level for Azama. That one point of luck unfortunately does not remove the crit chance.  Various enemies will start moving towards you from turn 1. You can't really tell who's going to move until they start moving.  Oh hey, a new ally showed up! I'm sure he'll be very useful : )  Just kidding, I can't deploy Azura so I can't recruit him just yet. This is for Conquest's horrible endgame!!! Hinata is so fired.  He'll come back, don't worry. I think he's like the one character Corrin doesn't recruit, outside of Revelation at least.  This spot is semi-defensible, but I'll have to kill enemies fast if I want it to stay that way. The stationary ninjas make it difficult to find safe spots to attack from, besides Rinkah and maybe Subaki I don't have many units who can stand there without dying.  Magical Mozu! If only Nyx were here to grant her the Dark Mage class to take advantage of that sweet sweet 1 magic.  1% crits aren't worth worrying about on turn 1 but I care a bit more about avoiding them now. With Quick Draw Setsuna could make mincemeat of these enemies, but she's a way off right now.  I should promote Kaze as soon as possible. I'm not taking him to endgame and he'll be incredibly useful in the next chapter with a Brass Yumi...  Oh and this is cool too. Now I wish I'd gotten him to level 10 before this map.  Could it be? Strength? He might even reach double digits before level 20 at this rate. At least his defense is good.  I'm really going to start getting overwhelmed if I don't start baiting and defeating enemies the turn they approach me. I don't want to feed EXP to Kaze but he's definitely my best option for defeating enemies fast at this point.  He's also bulkier than he seems thanks to the dual guard. As long as he blocks the strong hits from Archers he can tank shurikens and scrolls fairly well.  I have to keep showing images of the map just to show off how many of these assholes there are. This map plays so much more differently when you're forced on the defensive, if I had Azura and Takumi I'd have torn through all of these jerks by now.  Taking out everyone who approaches is no longer viable, everybody has to run while Rinkah stays behind. She doesn't fear the ninjas, but the Diviners do hurt...   As is demonstrated here. I'd like to pretend this was all calculated to be safe!!!  Eh, why not? Sure we destroyed Mokushu in Conquest for taking hostages but we're not Nohrians now, we can do what we like!  A weirdly good first level for Hinata. 15 speed is quite fast, I'm hoping he can rest on those laurels for a while.  Here come the spikes. I don't think there's any particular hint to where they'll appear in advance, but they're only a mild annoyance. Good for healing EXP and healer support points if you want!  Setsuna's on a roll!!! Who needs Takumi anyway?  After a few turns reinforcements start appearing in pairs from the south of the map. They will charge straight for you like most reinforcements do. They'll keep coming for a while, so they'll slow down the map even more...  The true purpose of bow users in Fates is to set up and take advantage of attack stance as much as possible. I get to take advantage of the Yumi Nikki multiple times per turn if I'm careful!  Rinkah can easily wall off the Spear Fighter reinforcements, although even with super blessed strength she struggles against their bulk. I really wish clubs were a little stronger.  A Diviner and an Archer will also spawn from here every other turns for a few turns. They're easily farmed for EXP if you're close enough to shut them down, otherwise they're a constant annoyance who will harass you while you're busy with other enemies.  These levels are wasted on you, Kevin! Why is your skill so high!!!  As you can see, I have gotten overwhelmed very quickly. My biggest problem is that there's just nowhere to stand - there's too many trees in the way and all my units are weak and need assistance KOing anybody. I miss wide open fields!  Basara Mozu??? I think she's gained more magic than Subaki despite the 5% difference in their magic growths. Hell I think she's gained more magic than he has strength.  These incredibly flimsy chokepoints are the best I can do to keep people alive. Kaze's only a frontliner because he builds his guard gauge so quickly.   Kaze is carrying me, Azama is making me consider leaving him on the front lines while my other units stand behind him.  I think I might have picked a bad spot to camp. The constant reinforcements from both sides and tight corridors make it very difficult to reach the enemies I need to defeat to keep people alive... At least the enemy is also struggling to find space to hit my units.  I very much appreciate Orochi's uncharacteristically high bulk. She'll do well once I can buy a Horse Spirit.  It's unfortunate that Kaze is so useful as an attacker because he's also instrumental as a support partner. With enough speed to double, Setsuna suddenly becomes a monster. Generally it's better to keep her unpaired but sometimes it helps!   The enemies start retreating to be healed across the map while my own healer disappoints me greatly. I guess I do have the other two.   Go Setsuna! 15 speed + Quick Draw is very powerful right about now, especially with her 13 mt forged yumi.  Why am I even deploying half of these people? There's some clear winners here already, I could just coast through the game with them.  Access to better weapons helps Mozu more than stats right now. Being stuck with a 4 might lance really bites. She might benefit from a Javelin too, although Subaki currently has my only one.  Many turns of taking out reinforcements later and the only enemies left are ones that won't move until baited. Some of their ranges overlap but overall they're not scary...    Just a matter of cleaning up now. That level seems more fitting for Hinata, physical bulk and not much else.   Kotaro blocks the entrance to this chest, forcing me to fly Kaze over since defeating him would end the map. I neglected to buy a Rescue prior to this because I'm stingy so this is nice.   Clowning on this idiot is easy, the Dual Shuriken reverses and doubles the weapon triangle so WTA severely impacts his hit and avoid.  He switches to his Kodachi on his turn but it doesn't help him much. I guess now he gets to be named after a toilet! Forever immortalised in porcelain...  If Hana continues to be Hana and Hinata continues to be Hinata then that's fine, I can keep them paired up and swap them when appropriate.  28 turns of boring turtling. At least with my army growing stronger this should be the last time I'm forced to play slow?   Oops, I think Hinata hit Takumi so hard he gave him brain damage. I bet we can play all sorts of fun pranks on Takumi now he thinks he's invisible!  Also you absolutely would have been executed for killing your retainer had he not lived. Killing your master seems like it would be a death penalty sort of thing, probably lots of lost honour too.  This line always bugged me, I feel as if being shot wouldn't so much leave a wound as it would a hole straight through to the other side. Although he did shoot Elise in a Conquest cutscene and she was fine so maybe his bow fires joke arrows.  Oh and here's Kagero. She was kidnapped, now she's not. Allegedly she was originally planned to be the elder Hoshidan royal daughter, which explains why she's more relevant to the plot than Hinoka. Don't quote me on that though.   Takumi's a guy I can't use, Kagero's the worst ninja but still pretty good. I'm also probably not using her! Next time: midnight lasagna fucked around with this message at 20:06 on Dec 15, 2021 |
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Dec 15, 2021 17:47
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 It's so annoying to get given resources I can easily harvest in my castle. I know how to fish, I'm already eating for life! Eating for life and a day is like infinity plus one, it doesn't mean anything.  Oh right I threw a Pokeball at this generic Archer for some reason. I wonder if he's good?    Well he's got a lot of HP compared to my other two. If this were Conquest he'd have some mean and horrible skill I could use.     A nice amount of supports. I guess this explains why Setsuna can be a ninja, she's naturally stealthy. Shame the class it doesn't fit her at all statwise!  Setsuna's levels so far have been surprisingly good, but I can't keep threatening to give her stat boosters and then never do it. So long as she can double consistently then she might be one-rounding enemies most of the enemies she faces.  Literally every enemy in the next chapter is a flier and I promised I'd promote Kaze. Those stats look very good for this point in the game... Maybe I should promote units early more often!             These stat updates are going to get less and less interesting as enemy levels start to stagnate and level ups become rarer. I guess that's my fault for stubbornly not grinding in the route that advertises itself as the one that allows it!  Hayato Diviner (HS: Oni Savage) A+ Support Partners: Azama (Monk), Kaden (Apothecary*) Personal Skill: Pride (Unit deals +3 damage when fighting units of a higher level (promoted units count as 20 + current level) Pair-Up Stats (C B A S): Spd Spd Res Skl+Spd Growths (With Default Class): HP: 50% (50) STR: 30% (35) MAG: 40% (55) SKL: 30% (40) SPD: 45% (60) LCK: 60% (65) DEF: 40% (40) RES: 20% (30) *even though Kaden cannot access this class himself Hayato, adoptive son of the Wind Tribe's chief! He is a super underlevelled unit with a personal skill that rewards being underlevlelled. Do you know what would be even better than doing +3 damage to enemies of a higher level? Actually having a magic stat. Hayato is kind of like Odin is to Nyx as he is to Orochi. He's good in all the stats she isn't and has high growths across the board, but starts way underlevelled for no real reason. He's very fast and has actual mixed attacking stats, but his magic is somewhat underwhelming and his resistance is really bad for a magic class. If trained he'll do quite well, but it's more of a question of if he's worth training, and the answer is... not really. At least his daughter is good! Train Hayato and you'll have a pretty speedy mage who's fairly decent at taking hits. His magic won't be great and the poor growths and bases of the Diviner class will somewhat limit his natural bulk, but he'll do fine by Birthright standards. As a Basara he'll be even bulkier and decently capable of attacking physically, but not enough that suffering through Basara's E rank in lances will feel worth it. You're probably better off attaching him to someone else who wants to use magic and then replacing him with Rhajat as soon as his S support is unlocked... Alternatively, you can reclass him. Heart Seals are in short supply but Hayato makes a surprisingly good Oni Savage - he'll start with 19 HP at base and 10 defense, and have a 70% and 60% growth in each one respectively. Save Mozu's paraloge for right after he joins and you can pair him up and throw him into a field of Faceless to grind out EXP and club rank for a few turns without him being in too much peril. An average 20/1 Oni Chieftain Hayato will have a 20/1 Chieftain Rinkah beat in every stat but skill and speed, and even then skill will be Rinkah's only significant advantage over him. He'll also have a much higher magic stat and an existing tome rank he can make use of, assuming he doesn't stick with the Bolt Axe. Even his problem of starting with an E rank in clubs won't matter too much when Rinkah's stuck in the exact same situation. It's maybe not the best use of your only Heart Seal before Chapter 13, but it's an interesting way to make an otherwise underwhelming unit good. Just keep in mind that Hayato's not going to reach double digit skill until 20/10 on average, so save some Secret Books for him. Great Master is an okay class for Hayato in terms of stats, but he'll have to grind out the weapon ranks for it. Apothecary is a weird and fun class for Hayato to try but again it's not really worth it, unless you're doing a gimmick run where you try to get Replicate on as many units as possible. Poor Hayato only gets to have 2 A+ support partners in Birthright for some reason. At least he has Benny and Fuga in Rev! Pride is just there to make training Hayato a little less painful. +3 damage isn't worth deliberately depriving him of EXP or anything, just be aware that after a certain level he's suddenly going to become a little weaker. Pros
Cons
My Thoughts:  Pretend I photoshopped Hayato's face on top of the Scout's.
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Dec 16, 2021 20:58
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  Fed up of ninjas, Kevin and company decide to become pirates instead. I hope ninjas vs pirates is an old enough joke to be vintage funny and not just lame.  Do we have an army at this point? Is there any sort of plan for what happens when we meet up with Ryoma? Sometimes it's difficult to tell the scale of the forces you have at your disposal in these games.   Zola is still here. "Among us" is such a loaded phrase now, I feel like it's going to be impossible to include in a localisation without someone accusing the writers of making a reference.  Time for a Purple Guys chapter. This one guy doesn't have a flying mount and is not at all indicative of the enemies we'll be fighting in this map. He must be pretty strong if he swam.  Just like in Conquest, this boat map marks the end of our adventures in one country and the beginning of those in another. It's the exact same boat as in CQ, but the chapter plays very differently - every single enemy here is in a flying class, and that means they're all weak to bows! There's a steady stream of reinforcements based (almost) entirely on turncount rather than your progress through the map, and the enemies will slowly approach in groups as turns go by. It kind of plays like a defend map, but I wouldn't play it like one - every single enemy will aggro at the start of turn 14 and the more you leave alive when that happens the worse a situation you'll be in.  The boss is quite scary. He's a Wyvern Lord with a Killer Lance and an enemy-only 1-2 axe with no downsides. He will be the very last unit on the map to aggro.    This chapter marks the beginning of generic prepromote enemies showing up in regular maps in Birthright. Chapter 11 is also when they start showing up in Revelation, and yet Conquest doesn't throw them at you until Chapter 14. Possibly because Conquest's enemies are tough enough already that they didn't want to make things harder? All of them will collapse to a couple of yumi shots but you should watch out nonetheless.  I still don't have enough room for Oboro. I doubt I will until Chapter 14 at the earliest. If you're not playing under my challenge ruleset then you really should be bringing Takumi, he'll one-shot everything here with the Fujin Yumi.  These dragon veins create vortexes that reduce unit avoid by 20% and take 4 points of movement for a flier to move through, effectively creating anti-flier buffer zones. They are extremely useful for setting up defensive chokes and preventing your army from getting overwhelmed. Just don't get your own fliers trapped in them! That means Hinoka probably shouldn't be triggering the veins herself unless she has a grounded ally to escape with.  First course of action is for Kevin to summon one. Don't worry, I'm sure this won't have any effect on the ship itself...  Setsuna hitches a ride with Kaze so the two of them can reach the other enemies faster. It's a good idea to be proactive, the more enemies you take out now the easier things will be once they start aggroing later. Just don't aggro them if you don't have any immediate way to deal with them.  Orochi teams up with Subaki to bait these wyverns. She's fast enough to double, she'll absolutely shred them.  The generic unpromoted enemies are mostly filler, but they can wear you down with repeated attacks. Generally if you're in range of one you're in range of another.  I could forge this, I could keep it... I'm definitely going to have at least one more club user down the line.  A friend appears at the beginning of turn 2. This is a good and normal thing for someone to say, don't worry.  Reina is like all green units in this game and will move towards Corrin to be recruited. Even Darros all the way back in FE1 would recruit himself... I want to get her now before she flies into the tornado and gets herself stuck.   Reina isn't a murderer like Peri, she merely enjoys the killing she is paid to perform as a soldier. I don't think that's illegal, it's just really weird.   That is pretty much the plan, yes. Reina is the first "Corrinsexual" you will encounter, which is to say a prepromoted unit who can S support Corrin and Corrin only. Her base stats and growths are both perfectly fine and only very slightly below the 20/20 averages of the rest of your cast. She is 100% your get out of jail free card for this map. She'll only get 1 EXP per unpromoted unit killed, but don't hesitate to use her to make your job easier if you need to. She's also got a really cool design. Look at that scar! If someone gave me a scar like that I'd have to thank them, it looks rad as hell.  The rightmost part of the ship makes an excellent camping spot to trap enemies in and feed them to my weaker units. They'll be hanging around here until the reinforcements dry up.   My overeagerness to recruit Reina did unfortunately put Kevin in range of some enemies. It's going to be hard for Mozu to contribute much to this chapter, I really wish I had another Heart Seal to spend on her.  The nice thing about pairing up Hana and Hinata is that they effectively share a 10 slot inventory. They're both sword users and can swap weapons freely at any time.  The problem with building Subaki around using the Bolt Naginata is that it does not help him use weapons that are not it, and those are all he has right now. He's really not good for much against these wyverns.  It's weird that I'm using Setsuna to bait strong promoted enemies, but I trust her! She's fast enough not to get mowed down by two quick hits...  ...although she is unlucky enough to risk a crit. I never really bother calculating enemy crit chances on the fly, maybe I should start doing so.  It's okay, it didn't happen. Setsuna's bow effectively has 39 might against these enemies and even before factoring in her own stats that's enough to OHKO most of the map.  Strength! Again? I guess that's a nice surprise.  Reinforcements will constantly fly in throughout the map, moving further left as the chapter goes on. Most of them appear on a turn timer but there are a small amount tied to your horizontal progress west across the ship.  Kevin hitches a ride with Reina to activate the middle vortex. Having this up should make clearing out the next few enemies very easy.  Unfortunately Setsuna's at the whims of the weapon triangle when it comes to shooting foes. Ninjas are helpful for dealing with these.  The enemies come with some fun weapons to steal. The Illusory Yumi is weird, I don't think I've ever made much use of it.   Having someone competent deal damage is enough for Mozu to earn EXP. I could have had her use the Brass Naginata here risk free, oops!  Okay Setsuna you're scaring me now. Strength is super super nice but don't start getting it and nothing else!  Orochi does what Hayato doesn't!  This really is a nice little EXP farm. Enemies can't occupy tiles with obstacles even if they can fly, so Hayato's only attackable from the right.  Here's a fun little thing I learned the last time I played this map - the presense of a Falcon Knight with a Sun Festal is enough for injured enemies to flee towards them, but as far as I am aware they weren't actually programmed to use it - they'll just stare at the wounded soldiers parked next to them doing nothing. It's funny, but I would rather get rid of this guy now than let them escape to show it off.  Hianta makes a decent frontline tank. With Hana boosting his speed he's able to do most of what she would while also being bulkier.  I don't want to feed Kaze any EXP so I've been neglecting to have him actually shoot things, he's merely softening them up. I don't really understood why a shuriken shot from a cannon isn't as effective as an arrow...   Some levels for the scrubs. At least Hayato got magic...  Hinata might be bulkier and fast enough to double anything he needs to, but Hana still has him beat in raw power. She's the only one who can one-round these wyverns.   Setsuna gets speed and the world is returned to normal, while Azama quietly builds his stats in preparation for ripping off his shirt when he finally promotes.  Some of the regular enemies have Nageyaris, which are the enemy only cheaty naginatas that have 1-2 range with no drawbacks. I'm not used to regular enemies having them...  I think Mozu's stronger than Subaki now. I don't really have much to say about the gameplay in this chapter... Were this a video LP I'd have a cool montage of every OHKO Setsuna gets.  2 more turns until the boss and his cronies make their move. Orochi is baiting this high res Sky Knights because... I don't know.  There goes the Falcon Knight. Its Sun Festal is untouched!  Most of the remaining enemies are Steel Axe wyverns. With Kaze's help I'm pretty sure Rinkah can wipe them all out on enemy phase!  Oops, maybe I should have counted her speed stat. I don't think this is going to kill her, but it might be a problem if she can't double and one-round them...  Here they come. The map's a bit more crowded than I was hoping for, Rinkah might be in some trouble?  Oh and there's a guy with Mjolnir now too. Kind of a mean surprise to spring on you right at the end of the map!  My plan to pop the dragon vein and hunker down has been slightly ruined by Setsuna standing on it. What idiot put her there???   I guess Setsuna needs to move before I do anything. She hitches a ride with Felicia and pops the boss for a pretty nice level. MVP!  This looks much more surviveable. Rinkah's bulky enough to go another round against the wyvern brigade, I just need to get rid of the others.   Hinata gets an alright level, Rinkah is 100% committed to being freakishly strong. I approve.  The range of these tempests is bigger than it looks. Circles don't really translate to grid-based games all that well!  Oops, I forgout about you. Good thing I had that dual guard!  I don't have any safe way to deal with this guy actually. Oh dear, I'm going to have to cobble something together or risk a crit...  A flash of insparation leads me to bring Orochi over with a pair-up chain and oops she dies cleanly to a Mjolnir-boosted crit...  I'll just take the risk with Hana. She dodges what would have been a fairly unlikely crit...  ...and that's still not enough to kill. Hmm.   Pair-up chain the second will solve this problem. I really need to save these stupid mistakes for the start of the map and not the end.  At least Orochi ends the map on a high note. Now that she's started doing good I should maybe think about her A+ support? Rinkah Kagero or Oboro...  Close calls are usually what I end with in this map. Too many high crit weapons.   Oh no, there was one enemy I missed! Zola noooooooooo   Just kidding he's fine. I'm just putting this here because it's set up for one of the few story moments in this route I like! Next time: The chapter I said it would be last time but actually
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Dec 17, 2021 22:16
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 My Iron Yumi stockpile grows... I'm not sure how many of these I can reasonably expect to acquire and forge, but hopefully it's enough to get the Yumi Nikki stronger than the Fujin Yumi.  This was very satisfying. Maybe I can't use Takumi against ninjas during actual maps, but at least he can crit them to death in the arena.  This Snake Spirit was held by the Mjolnir Malig Knight that almost caused me a reset last chapter. It's stronger than Nohr's Lightning tome, but also has a higher weapon rank requirement and is much less accurate. Instead of a -2 mag/skl debuff it halves the user's magic until they attack again. I guess Orochi might want it? She can't reach A rank until she promotes though.  This is the sort of thing I'd want to give to a freshly promoted Master of Arms. Basically useless for unpromoted units with only a single weapon rank.  At long last, Kevin and Kaze reach A rank. If you don't get this support before Chapter 15 then Kaze will have this conversation while dangling off of the edge of a cliff, falling to his death presumably because he took too long explaining his tragic backstory. It's a bit silly.     Otherwise I got 2 accidental C supports, Azama & Setsuna'a A and B for Hana and Hinata. The fast building supports between retainers make them very easy to pair up, it's a shame Setsuna!Mitama won't be very useful.             There were quite a few levels last chapter... I'm not sure how many I'll see in the next, it's quite difficult to do it "properly" without skipping almost the entire thing. I'll definitely have to invest in some tonics if I don't want to do it the cowards way and just fly Kevin to the end.  Mozu Villager (HS: Archer) A+ Support Partners: Oboro (Spear Fighter) Personal Skill: Forager (Recover 20% of max HP at start of turn if on Woods, Mountain, Waste, or Field terrain) Pair-Up Stats (C B A S): Skl Lck Spd Skl+Lck Growths* (With Base Class): HP: 40% (50) STR: 50% (60) MAG: 15% (15) SKL: 60% (70) SPD: 65% (75) LCK: 55% (75) DEF: 45% (55) RES: 40% (40) *With Aptitude's 10% boost Previous analysis Mozu might be the exact same unit in all 3 paths, but Birthright's environment is least kind to her. Her Archer access isn't special, her Brass Naginata is no longer a novelty, and in the end she's just another underlevelled fast and fragile unit who needs to be fed EXP to work well. Heart Seals are also in shorter supply, so spending one on her to give her a better class is more of a tough sell. She can still pass Aptitude onto a second gen unit I guess, although both the Villager class and Mozu's personal pair-up stats are really, really bad, so whoever she's glued to won't benefit much from her support. Spear Fighter is at least a super cool class for her to inherit, and that's exactly what I'm going to have her do. Yeah sure it's an incredibly long and time-consuming process that only results in a Spear Master who's slightly better than Oboro when trained, but shush.
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Dec 18, 2021 18:04
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LiefKatano posted:The impression I got is that they like Mozu a lot in Conquest, because she's a Hoshidan unit in the Nohrian campaign - it's Birthright where she's unimpressive, because she's no longer "out of water". Keldulas posted:I actually misread what the OP said about Mozu, with the bit about 'Birthright is least kind to her'. I reread it and get their original point now. I think I prefer Kaze as a Master Ninja in Conquest and a Mechanist in Birthright? I've never really thought too hard about the difference but in CQ he won't have access to Sting Shurikens and appreciates having the Armourslayer, and in Birthright the extra bulk and Golembane go a little further. Yumi are much better than bows so that helps with the decision too.
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Dec 19, 2021 15:43
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  Time to go to the opera. I took way too many plot screenshots and I have a failed attempt I would like to show off, so I guess I'm going to split this chapter into 2 different updates to stop it from being too long and confusing. Does that mean there will also be 2 different Kevin MacLeod royalty-free tunes for this chapter? Maybe. Maybe...  This view gives me Professor Layton vibes... It's certainly very pretty. If only we got to explore this city fully! Or country? Is this a city or a country I forgot.  Now I'm imagining passive-aggression beach deck-chair wars being waged between Nohrian and Hoshidan tourists like British and German holidaymakers supposedly do. Getting up at the crack of dawn to claim the nicest spots with towels patterned with the Hoshidan flag before the Nohrians can do the same.  The opera chapter is always where the furry characters show up, even in Rev. I don't know why. Surely both versions of the ninja chapter could be gutted for a friendly visit to each nation's allied tribe...    Anyway, this NPC who only shows up once with a unique portrait can't sing for Garon because her mother is dying, so Azura's going to take her place, sing her song while magically disguised as her by Zola, and then we're going to use this distraction to very heroically attempt to capture Garon while he's unnarmed in neutral territory. We are definitely doing this poor girl a favour by implicating her in a plot to capture the famously violent and spiteful king of Nohr.  Elise is also here enjoying the opera. She's the one royal sibling who never shows up as an enemy after Chapter 6, we don't get to beat her up for a stat booster like Sakura in Conquest.   Azura in Conquest was allegedly using this magical song to purge Garon of his demons, here in Birthright she is actively trying to harm him. I don't have any sympathy for Garon because he sucks but these are the kind of underhanded strategies we killed our allies for employing in Conquest.   Oops, Zola was a traitor the whole time and his entirely pointless sacrifice was a set up! I quite like this little scene, having a bad guy sacrifice themselves for someone else is an obvious way to redeem them, but Zola's dive for Takumi was entirely cynical and calculated. He literally just jumped in the way of an attack because he knew there was a healer right next to him and he saw an oppurtunity to score some brownie points.   Zola's not completely betraying us though, he still wants Garon to spare Kevin. Obviously this does not work and Garon kills Zola for the crime of asking him to do anything.  I am genuinely sorry for all the plot. Anyway, this map! This map is really... weird? It's the only Escape map in the series, and it mirrors Conquest's Chapter 12 escape map with Ryoma and the pots.  The escape point is located at the top of the map. Getting here is stupidly easy, just pair Corrin up with one of your 3 fliers and have them escape as early as turn 2 with pretty much no opposition whatever. Even if you got every single one of them killed, you can still either Heart Seal Sakura or spend a Master Seal to promote Setsuna or Takumi.  If you want to do the chapter "properly" however, you'll have to fight your way through a gauntlet of pretty powerful enemies to reach this dragon vein that'll freeze all the water and allow easy passage for your grounded units to the exit. Doing things this way can be very difficult if you don't have a powerful and bulky 1-2 range attacker, there's a huge amount of 1-2 range enemies to break through and the narrow passageways mean most of your army will be stuck queuing up behind a chokepoint with nothing useful to do.  Oh and Garon is here. There is no styling on Garon for bragging rights unless you spend hours upon hours grinding in optional chapters, his stats are insane and thanks to his 1-3 range there is nowhere safe to attack him from. I don't think his stats are quite as high as his endgame ones (spoiler, you fight garon!!!) but he is not a guy you're expected to defeat.  It's only a short distance to the vein and the treasure chest next to it, but good luck reaching it easily. All of these enemies have Javelins or Hand Axes or bows (except this guy), and their stats are pretty powerful too. These Great Knights in particular are a menace, they hit incredibly hard and they're decently fast too. The Hammer this guy drops does help muscling through some of these enemies at least!  I really want two fliers for this chapter, one to carry Kevin and the other for backup. Reina will be a big help here but even she doesn't want to get shot with anything. Mozu won't be contributing anything and Hinata I can't see doing much either. I'm going to try and do this map at least sort of properly, in that I won't just skip it in 2 turns. I want that precious EXP too badly!  I'm probably going to need some tonics. Trial and error is my general way of figuring out which ones I'll need. I send Orochi and Subaki over to the exit to try to kill some guys for EXP but even with the pair-up she's not fast enough.  Kaze pairs up with Rinkah for more physical stats and takes Kagero's Sting Shuriken to muscle through these armours. The Sting Shuriken is an armourslaying shuriken, it's immensely helpful for this chapter. I assume Kaze won't be bulky enough for this without tonics and will die, this is kind of a trial run to see what exactly I need.  Otherwise nobody at the start really gets to do anything. Felicia can stand near Kaze to give him some bulk, but any unit who gets attacked instead of Kaze is just going to make things harder by not killing in retaliation. Not even Kaden, who's stats I forgot to take a screenshot of. Whoops!  Kaze's got the front line handled so my fliers are just taking out random guys at the top. This Outlaw could kill Reina in a single hit on enemy phase so this wouldn't be a safe thing to attempt normally, but it's turn 1 and I'm just doing whatever so who cares.  Here's the real reason why this chapter is such a pain - this guy. He shows up at the beginning of enemy phase on turn 1, moving as soon as he appears. In Conquest's Chapter 12 you could defeat Ryoma to get a Secret Book as an optional bonus, but here...  Kaze one-rounds and takes little damage in return, nice. It makes me wonder though, what if I just gave him a tonic and swapped out Rinkah for Mozu instead? They get to build support, Mozu gets EXP, his defense remains pretty much the same...  This guy is by far the scariest of the bunch and even he doesn't manage to deal too much damage. Unfortunately he doesn't die in one round either, but perhaps that's actually good? One of my other guys could finish him off.  The Great Knight I sent Orochi to fight can at least be doubled on enemy phase thanks to his Javelin. Unfortunately he is strong and Orochi's accuracy against him is not good.  There's a reason I paired Kevin up with Reina - having him here will bait Xander over to the exit, instead of towards my other units. Constantly having a flier take him in and out of attacking range will have Xander move back and fourth, effectively stalling for time while I activate the dragon vein... ...the dragon vein I need a royal to activate. Kevin is my only royal. Oops! It's a good thing this attempt failed so early, it wasn't very well thought out.  Here's what Big Bro's stats look like. These are straight up higher than the stats he'll have in the final fight against him in Chapter 26. You are not meant to defeat him... ...but you can. I've done it before with an RNG blessed Saizo stuffed to the gills with tonics, but my early promoted Kaze might be able to do the trick? He's got insane defense and a 1-2 range sword, so the trick is to debuff him with shurikens and very very slowly whittle him down.   Peri and Laslow are also here, with much scarier stats than they had in Conquest. Laslow will use Fancy Footwork to boost the stats of his nearby allies. +1 strength and speed isn't much, but it can mess you up.    My attempt ended immediately after when I discovered I had no way of safely dealing with the Great Knight at the top of the map I'd foolishly decided to fight. Whoops! So what I've learned is: I can pair Kaze with Mozu instead of Rinkah for support points and EXP, Orochi needs tonics if she's going to go attacking random promoted units at the top of the map, and Kevin needs to be ready to activate the dragon vein when I need him to since he's the only one who can. I never post these failed attempts normally so hopefully this was interesting or educational! Sometimes when you don't know what to do you kind of have to throw poo poo at the wall and see what sticks. Next time: An easy win???
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Dec 19, 2021 15:44
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  That's an HP, strength, and defense tonic for Kaze, and a speed tonic for Orochi. My funds are a little tight but I'm sure I'll get some more to waste soon. I didn't want to find another song so here's the same one again. It's very escapey.   Here are Kaden's stats, I neglected to post them last chapter. He is a Kitsune, Birthright's beast unit. Unlike the physically powerful and defensive Wolfskin of Nohr, Kitsune are much faster and more resistant at the cost of worse physical stats. Resistance is somewhat wasted on units limited to 1 range attacks only, but Kitsune can be useful. Unfortunately Kaden does not start with a Beastrune to boost his bulk like his Conquest counterpart, so he's stuck with an item that makes him even more fragile than usual. His Beastbane skill can be useful against the mounted units of this chapter, but otherwise Kaden won't be contributing a huge amount this chapter. Thankfully the 3 maps after this one are all full of beasts for him to deal effective damage against...  Someone needs to be undeployed to make room for Mozu. I'd rather bring Hayato along to unlock support points with Felicia, so Hana unfortunately must stay home.  Otherwise things are pretty much the same. Kaze on the front line, Felicia backing him up with her defensive aura. Mozu's there instead of Rinkah just to build support points and maybe steal some EXP.  Orochi is airlifted to the top of the map to clean out the enemies there. She can double this Great Knight thanks to her speed tonic. I don't know if I need anyone to do this but it's good EXP so why not.  Oops, it seems like Kaze can't one-round anything anymore! I might have assumed Rinkah only boosted his strength as much as a tonic...  ...and Orochi was fighting against the odds to kill this guy without dying herself next phase thanks to her poor accuracy. Hmm, despite my alleged "learning from mistakes" last attempt I sure haven't thought this out.  On the bright side, Kaze's inability to kill has left some fresh meat for my weaker recruits. Normally this would be wasting time for Xander to advance on my army, but with Reina flying Kevin over to bait Xander away from the front lines I might have more time to waste,   I don't mind Hayato getting kills if they all look like this. That magic's going to be a hard pit to climb out of, but suddenly these stats don't seem so bad?  Rinkah will appreciate this for defeating any other Great Knights, although some inventory shuffling might have to be done to get it to her.  Look, there's Kaden being useful! I want to support him with Rinkah, so I'll be doing my best to keep them together.  Kaden deals good damage against the Cavaliers, but he also takes a lot in return. Skills such as Beastbane only double the might of weapons, as opposed to how regular effective weaponry works which is that their might is tripled when they're effective against their opponent.   I'm going to swap Kaze to his Brass Yumi - he'll one-round Outlaws with it and all but one enemy will be forced to engage him at 2 range anyway. Felicia moves with Kaze to keep his defenses buffed.  Orochi's going to get killed by Xander if she stays here, so I swap her to Subaki and pin this Cavalier so he'll be forced to attack and be defeated on enemy phase. I think someone drops a Beast Killer soon...  With Xander all the way back here I no longer have to worry about activating the vein before he arrives... Although it might be an issue if he's in front of the escape route.  More stats for Rhajat when I eventually unlock her. Felicia is far to weak to hurt anyone now.   Oh, here's a time incentive I'd forgotten about - this Outlaw has Locktouch. I hadn't even noticed until I'd already attacked him. That's one less thing to worry about! I guess I could stall out the whole chapter if I really wanted now.  Meanwhile Reina takes Kevin and flies around killing random enemies to clear a path for an eventual escape. Her personal skill heals some HP after every kill, it's quite helpful when she's got nobody to heal her.  I'm almost at the chest, I may as well put Kevin down here and activate the vein to complete the chapter "properly".  At the start of turn 5 Azura will remind you that you need to escape, presumably confused that you haven't flier-skipped the map yet. All enemies will aggro on you from this turn onward, so things will suddenly get a lot more dangerous.  There's a lot of guys you'll suddenly have to deal with. Managing single tile chokepoints might be easy, but when you activate the dragon vein all the water will turn into traversable land...  Like so. There's a clear path to the exit! Good thing this isn't Conquest and the center platform isn't full of Hexing Rod Shrine Maidens and Lunge Archers.  I guess it was good of me to have sent Orochi to clear out the Great Knight at the top, otherwise he'd be there to foil my escape. Reina cleared out all the other enemies.  A Dracoshield is very nice indeed, a lot of my army is lacking in defense. Who to give it to though...  Unfortunately the front line is now going to be a lot harder to hold. Kaze's bulky enough to take hits in single file but he does not want to be surrounded.  The ice itself gives a slight movement penalty - 1 extra point of movement to traverse for infantry, 2 for mounted units. All the more reason just to fly over it...   Most of the advancing enemies follow the path made by the boats as it's the path of least resistance. Xander however has decided he's going to camp the exit instead of going around... This might be a problem! Also he replaced Peri with a generic Outlaw. I guess that's probably an improvement.  Not to worry, Reina's going to reach the point next turn regardless of where Xander stands. This game isn't mean enough to have him sit on the escape point.   Kaze's going to have to hold out for another turn. There's nowhere safe for Felicia to heal him from, so Rinkah has to step in to shove her up a single tile. I think that's the first time I've used this skill?  Unfortunately all the enemies are now piling on her. I don't particularly care about EXP for Kaze, but EXP for Mozu from dual-guards would have been nice.  So I could end this chapter this turn and I will probably have to to avoud dying, but not needing to worry about enemy phase means I can make some aggressive last minute moves to get some EXP.  First things first, Rinkah needs her Hammer. It would have made sense to have traded it when Rinkah shoved Felicia, but oh well!  Remembering to have Rinkah equip it in combat is one step too much for me though. This frozen terrain looks really cool, although it's odd how how lumpy this frozen lake is.    Three happy couples all get a chance to kill together. I'm glad Mozu got to do something to justify me bringing her!  I could do this if I really wanted to see Xander's battle quote... but I won't. I don't think I would have been able to defeat him even if I wanted to!  What a mess, and what a weird chapter. It's strange to only half cheese a map, but skipping it entirely would have been boring and I did need feel like prolonging it to rout everybody but Xander and Garon. I'm just glad I'm done with it...  I think his strength has actually gotten worse since he reclassed. Please don't kill your poor defenseless brother!  Don't worry, Elise is here to save the day. Sakura never did this for us in Conquest... I know which family I prefer.  It sure does! Innocent people like that poor songstress we just framed for the attempted murder of Garon. Things are probably going to suck for her. Next time: Hoshido backs a coup in Nohrian territory
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Dec 20, 2021 20:36
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Walla posted:I've never had good luck with Kaden. Keaton is a range-locked barbarian who can be a decent bruiser and tank. Kaden is a range-locked ninja made to kill horses who dies to 2 hits. It doesn't help that it's another 3 maps before he gets any damage upgrades either. His heart seal option is mage I think and his growth and base are atrocious. I guess you could marry him off to Oboro or Rinkah for something weird but I just don't bother with him. Ventadour posted:My main use for Kaden has been passing down Rend Heaven to his kids. I think it worked out best when I paired him with Azura once.
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Dec 22, 2021 13:47
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 A character must make 20 kills before you can build them a statue, so it's always interesting to see who unlocks their statue when. Kaze's levelled up so many times and been immensely useful so far and yet he unlocked his at the exact same time as Mozu. I guess he's usually weakening foes for others while Mozu's always stealing kills that have been set up for her?  Next chapter is when I'll unlock the level 2 versions of each shop so I'm saving my DVP for then. I don't mind only upgrading the jade spring, it's not as if I'm ever at any risk of running out of fish, and surplus minerals can be swapped for more useful ones.   Kaze's got an A support with Rinkah and only a B with Mozu. A little annoying considering it's Mozu I want him to marry... Kaze/Rinkah builds pretty fast thanks to them both being in the prologue chapters and all things considered it's not a bad support at all, although I think Kaze benefits from it more than Rinkah does.    Subaki and Orochi have hit their S support, and that means it's Babyrealms time!!! Funny that their conversation revolves around Subaki wanting to become a Diviner since that's what S supporting Orochi will allow him to do. I wish I could put Hayato in the babyrealms.  Just out of curiosity I decided to see what his stats would look like as one. His magic might be complete garbage, but the rest of his stats don't seem so bad? He'd certainly be very physically bulky for a magic user, and Orochi would help his magic considerably. Orochi herself has already been quite blessed by the RNG though and I'll have Rhajat joining soon, so I won't do it.   Here's a quick comparison of Subaki's daughter's stats compared to his own. I'm not sure I want to commit to recruiting her just yet, but I might? She's certainly a lot better than he is anyway. That's +3 strength, +6 magic, +4 luck, and +2 resistance she has over him, compared to the +2 HP, +5 skill, and +4 defense he has over her. She's also slightly lower level... I'm certainly up to replacing him. Maybe I should change my plans and do her paralogue before Chapter 13.  I also need to decide who gets this Dracoshield, I'm genuinely unsure... Orochi's weirdly blessed in physical bulk, maybe she deserves it? Giving defense boosters to units with no defense at all is normally a bad idea, but hers is just about good enough that she could take multiple attacks in one enemy phase. I don't want to hoard boosters so I'll force myself to use it next chapter, but I'm happy to take suggestions!              Here is everyone. I have no long term plans to use Reina, even if she is quite good. I just think she deserves a spot on the list for her contributions so far.  Takumi Archer (HS: Spear Fighter) A+ Support Partners: Jakob (Troubadour), Ryoma (Samurai), Hinata (Samurai) Personal Skill: Competitive (+3 damage dealt, -1 damage taken, and +10 crit when unit is in the lead and supported by a unit of a higher or equal level) Pair-Up Stats (C B A S): Skl Spd Str Skl+Def Growths (With Default Class): HP: 50% (60) STR: 35% (50) MAG: 0% (0) SKL: 60% (75) SPD: 40% (55) LCK: 45% (50) DEF: 35% (45) RES: 20% (20) Oops I started writing Takumi's analysis and then realised that the next unit I'm supposed to write for is actually Oboro... Oh well! I'll just write hers next. Takumi's growths are actually a little lower than what I remember... 35% strength is surprisingly middling for a royal. Archers have great class growths and his performance is good enough (and his competition bad enough) for it to not really matter, but it surprised me when I was typing them out. Neither his growths or his bases particularly stand out compared to your other units, but Takumi's immediate draw is his 14 might personal weapon, the Fujin Yumi. It might not compare to the 1-2 devastation machines that are the Rajinto and Seigfried, but 14 might on a weapon with 0 drawbacks as early as Chapter 10 will make Takumi's invidual attacks the strongest until Ryoma joins, even if he's only making one of them per turn. I've said before that Birthright's map design isn't too kind to bow users, but Takumi's recruitment time is extremely beneficial to him. Assuming you don't KO him for laughs like I did, the Fujin Yumi will help out immensely in Chapter 10, bypassing the ninjas high avoid with WTA and dealing enough damage to potentially 1 shot them with the right support partner. In Chapter 11 Takumi will one-shot every enemy he fights thanks to the Fujin Yumi's effective 42 might against flying foes, and in Chapter 13 there are many Wyvern Lords your non-magic attackers will struggle to handle. Unfortunately once that gauntlet is over Takumi merely becomes okay. His stats aren't as busted as you might expect from other royals, and enemy fliers stop appearing in large numbers until the game's final stretch in which every map becomes a giant open field of strong enemies that are very hostile to units who can only counterattack at 2 range. Still useful enough to perform decently well without EXP investment and worth bringing along if there's room, but he won't be anywhere near as powerful as the Conquest royals. Competitive, while potentially powerful, is somewhat of an inconvenient skill to make use of - if you're attaching a higher level unit to Takumi then you're more than likely depriving yourself of one of your better units, and Archers generally prefer to go unpaired to make better use of dual strikes. The bonus still applies even if Takumi is in attack stance, but dual attacks can be difficult to set up consistently. Unlike Ryoma's Bushido it's not a good idea to dedicate a unit for the sole purpose of gluing themselves to Takumi to keep his personal skill active. The Fujin Yumi's ability to ignore terrain costs makes Kinshi Knight's flying utility less of an upgrade to Takumi than it is to other Archers, but it does still provide him with an extra point of movement and the ability to cross gaps or mountains. Otherwise Sniper is the better choice for both stats and class skills, as well as the instrinsic boosts to hit and crit it provides. Takumi won't do terribly as a Spear Fighter, but it's arguably a downgrade when it takes away his access to the Fujin Yumi. Rend Heaven and Seal Defense are pretty good skills for him to pick up at least, and dipping into the class tree briefly will let him build lance rank for Kinshi Knight. Troubadour's class skills aren't awful for Takumi, especially since he likes to stand near other, higher level units that would appreciate the AoE buffs, but the class itself is not good for him at all. Samurai's skills don't syngerise well with Archers 2 range, but Takumi's skill is high enough that he could activate Astra a little more consistently than others. A Takumi that's dipped into Spear Master and Master of Arms could have all 3 of Seal Speed, Defense, and Strength could be the perfect unit for setting up kills for others I guess? A Takumi that S supports Setsuna will gain access to the Ninja class tree and therefore Mechanist, a class that can use bows as well as shurikens. Pros
My Thoughts: The only person immune to Corrin's mind controlling powers
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Dec 22, 2021 13:48
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So I was going to ask for some last minute votes on the Dracoshield since right now I'm sitting at 1 for Orochi and 1 for Setsuna, but it seems someone has tried to swing the vote by buying me a new avatar. They were 100% successful and now I am going to waste this Dracoshield on my flimsy Archer who's never going to get hit. Thanks for that by the way, I really appreciate it : )ApplesandOranges posted:It's worth noting that if you give Takumi access to Samurai (via Ryoma, Hinata or Hana), he gets a unique Swordmaster skin based on his father. It's a shame none of the Nohr kids got the same outfit treatment, even if Garon's class is a unique one nobody else gets. Garon!General Xander would have been a fun little easter egg theshim posted:Man, that Caeldori's gonna be a bit of a mess. I say pick her up and use her!
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Dec 23, 2021 22:37
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 It's a choice between two 13s... I said I wanted to recruit Caeldori and I will, but it did occur to me that she'll perform best with the Bolt Naginata and I won't get that for another chapter. If I were to do Chapter 13 I could recruit her after I've bought it, autolevelling her in the process...   Time to liberate Cheve! Then we can install a puppet ruler who represents Hoshidan interests instead.  Oh god oh no run over, the destroyer of worlds is here!!! I've seen what Camilla can do and I don't want any of that.   This is one of those scenes that can make you feel a little embarrassed to be playing Fates while taking public transportation or whatever, Camilla's introduction is a slow walk towards you full of boob and butt shots.   The hug was just one last gesture of affection before she totally murders Kevin and all of his friends. Supposedly the parts of Camilla's backstory you can infer from her support with Niles and Elise's support with Leo imply that Camilla was forced by her mother to kill or at least assist in killing some of his other illegimate children to secure political power, but looking at them I don't really see that? Maybe I'm looking in the wrong place or maybe it's a localisation thing, who knows.  Chapter 13 is Cheve time, except now we're the goodies instead of the baddies. Camilla starts where your army starts in Conquest, and we start where Scarlet and her squad would normally be. There's surprisingly few maps in Fates that get turned on their head like this, it's a shame this type of switcheroo wasn't done more often.  Camilla's non-HP and magic stats are actually worse than they are when she joins in Conquest, but she's still a pretty big threat. She'll move as soon as you enter her range and she will use dragon veins too. Bowbreaker is pretty scary on a bulky flying unit, and her Ragnarok tome gives her WTA against yumis too. You'll want a high res ninja like Kaze or Kagero to bait her over.   Royal retainers in Conquest are minibosses loaded with powerful skills, retainers in Birthright are just there so their faces can entice you into trying the other route. Selena is mildy threatening but won't approach you until the chapter's pretty much over on account of her being a footlocked unit behind a moat, Beruka's pretty much a generic Wyvern Rider.  Hans is also here and no you do not get to kill him for good this early in the game. Luring Hans over is a daunting process thanks to his huge crit rate (10% higher than displayed thanks to Gamble!), so you might want to aggro Camilla to trigger him to start moving of his own accord. Otherwise he's fairly easy to whittle down with ranged attacks.   Promoted generics are just a fact of life you'll have to deal with now. The Generals are paired with Outlaws to boost their speed and movement, and the Wyvern Lords require you to bring a bow or tome user to deal decent damage against them. Otherwise the other enemies are mostly filler.    The dragon veins in this chapter drop all units in a certain area to 1 HP. They can be quite useful for dealing with tough enemies (Hans especially!), but watch out - Camilla will use them too. The one she's most likely to go for is the one right next to her which targets the leftmost bridge across the moat, so it's best to go around the long way to reach the enemies back there.  Oh and this one exists too if you're struggling to kill this Outlaw right next to your starting point with your entire army righr next to him. You will not struggle to kill this Outlaw with your entire army right next to him.  There's no room for Reina, Oboro has to be benched once again, but Subaki's here for a special reason - one of these villages gives a Heart Seal, and I want him to grab Duellist's Blow for his daughter. Hopefully the EXP from assisting in dual guards will be enough for him to level up without having to fight a single enemy.  I suppose if someone bought an avatar for me I can't not waste this defense item on my fragile Archer. Setsuna's fairly strength blessed, maybe she can go Kinshi and be a frontliner? Or maybe I have just been bribed into doing something very silly for no good reason.  Some of the rightmost villagers will be targetted by Outlaws if you leave them for too long, otherwise this is kind of a chill chapter. Things don't get too bad until you aggro Camilla and every enemy starts to rush you the turn after. The two villagers north of your starting location make for an excellent chokepoint and the bottom right path has few enough enemies that your weaker units can get some easy EXP there.  First up: this thing, at long last! I'll have to ferry it to Subaki soon if I want him to get Duellist's Blow. I don't have to worry about reclassing him back if his daughter's going to replace him...  Using Orochi to choke this point is somewhat risky, but it's also turn 1 so if she dies I can just reset. All the axe users have a hit rate of about 45% on her and I'm pretty sure with Kevin's Troubadour aura she only needs to dodge a single one to survive...   Some day Mozu will be getting kills on her own steam... My plan to make her a Spear Master isn't going very well, I should really start undeploying some people in order to bring Oboro along.   Underdog can be a useful skill, but it's also one I tend to forget exists. Mozu being as unverlevelled as she is should mean she'll benefit from it for a while. Her accuracy isn't terrible but the 15 extra hit should be nice.   Yum yum, Spirit Dust. Caeldori might appreciate this, seeing as Hayato's probably getting benched and magic is the one thing Orochi doesn't need any more of.   Oops, I miscalculated and it turns out Orochi dies in exactly 2 hits! And she got hit by the first 2 enemies to attack her. This is okay, I can just replay the whole chapter with the exact same moves except I'll have someone else choke this point instead.  At least she'll still get this great level thanks to Lunatic's fixed level RNG. Speed is very cool, you could actually call her fast now!  Subaki will tank the point instead to earn some EXP. The plan is for him to reclass just before he levels up, at which point he'll just have to perform a dual guard or 2 in his new class to level up and get Duellist's Blow.  Weapon triangle doesn't matter too much when you've got 18 defense. His terrible offense doesn't matter, I don't actually want him to kill any of these enemies.  In a game with GBA style RNG and avoid formula Hana could solo almost the entirity of this map, but her dodge chances are dicey enough that I really won't want to leave her in range of more than one enemy at a time. Still though, this is all very satisfying to watch.  Unfortunately I did not think this chokepoint point through much beyond the firs turn, there's now a large number of high movement enemies charging me. Maybe I should have had Rinkah do it instead...  I'll just pretend Subaki is a wall and have all my ranged attackers peek over his shoulders and steal kills. This should be sustainable for at least a little while.  If this were Thracia I wouldn't be complaining about Kevin's needlessly high skill. Heal staves can miss in that game.  I could just restart and handle this chokepoint more sensibly, but I'll work with what I've got. That one Fighter isn't going to kill anyone.   I love this one villager portrait, I almost wish that Conquest got a villager character with her design... I don't know who to give the Talisman to. Rinkah?  Kaden is tearing poo poo up on the opposite side of the map where his help isn't really needed... Rinkah's a great support partner for everyone, but she's especially great for someone fast but fragile like he is. She also appreciates the extra speed he gives him.  Oh, now all the mounted enemies have reached my other units. Kaden will easily one-round all of the Cavaliers, but considering his poor bulk I want to do my best to make sure he's only fighting them and nothing else.    There's nothing more satisfying than two units levelling up at the same time from the same combat. Hana's speed is never going to be a problem so long as Hinata's paired up with her, but 18 isn't quite fast enough to double everything on her own...  Now here's a thing I expect from myrmidon units. I don't actually think they were a very useful class out of a select few games, but I sure have memories of all my fast sword guys dodging axes and critting everything!  A very Setsuna level. Not all of them can involve her getting strength, I guess.  Time for Subaki to take on a new role! What an exciting change this will be for him. Those stats certainly suit him more...  I didn't even give him a weapon, he's just here to be a roadblock. I probably should have at least given him the Brass Katana?   Rinkah's support lets Kaden avoid the 2HKO from Cavaliers, making him extremely useful for taking them out - thanks to dual guard he can take out groups of 4 at a time. That's also an extremely good first level for him! Kaden's strength is actually quite decent, he just can't boost it much until he gets the Beastrune.  The situation has finally calmed down and Orochi can come back out from behind Subaki's back. Hopefully Subaki can secure a level without ever having to do anything.   Both Setsuna and Hayato take potshots from behind the chokepoint to make things just a bit more safer. Setsuna has Azama to build support points with, Hayato is unfortunately on the opposite side of the map to Felicia. I'm not taking this as seriously as I did my Conquest playthrough, if I were I probably would have restarted a long time ago and approached this map with some proper forethought.  Is Hayato finally good? His last few levels seem to have been winners. Unfortunately he's got a blessed and invested Orochi to keep up with.   Underdog boosts Mozu's avoid to pretty decent levels, although definitely not to consistent dodging level. I never realised how mediocre Mozu was in any other class but Archer...  This guy's inventory sums up Birthright's item distribution. Enemies love to carry Hoshidan weapons for the sole purpose of giving them to you. I don't know if they're coded to avoid using them or not, but they never seem to.  The Outlaws have finally started moving and they're out for villages. I can't bring the fight to them on account of the pair of them cowardly hiding in Hans's kill radius, but I can stick Rinkah on a village tile and force them to eat her Throwing Club counerattacks.  The Wane Festal is similar to the Physic staff, just way cheaper and less effective at actually healing. They're so plentiful that you can sling them around without much worry for wastage, but expect to see a lot of crappy single digit heals.  The top half of the map is a bit of a scary place to me. There are many promoted flying units with deceptively large ranges, and if you make the mistake of aggoring Camilla then soon the entire map will be upon you. This red range represents a Wyvern Lord who could OHKO Hana...   15 defense for a level 15 Monk is crazy even for Azama. Perhaps he should have been the unit I used for that initial chokepoint... Rinkah meanwhile has fully commited to being strength blessed and is now 4 points over her average. At this rate I could make her a Ninja and still have her 1 round most of her foes.  I guess I should reclass Felicia into a Hero as soon as this chapter is over and I upgrade the Rod Shop. The support bonuses she'll provide to Hayato as one will boost both his speed and defense by a lot... My plan is to have her pass Sol onto Rhajat so she needs to unlock it soon.  Money is nice. I've not been screenshotting every enemy drop I get, but all the thieves carrying around their pocket money along for robberies have been enough to sustain my coffers for now. Seems like every foe with Locktouch also comes with a 3000 gold bounty.   This is the Wyvern Lord I was worried about baiting earlier. He's not so bad when you aggro him and nobody else, but when he's charging you along with half the map after you accidentally aggro Camilla he can be very tough to deal with.  He's not very scary when Setsuna deals his max HP + 1 with a single hit.  Now I need to start thinking of how I handle Camilla. Allowing all the enemies to charge me of their own volition will mean I don't have to deal with dismantling their fortified positions across the moat, but at the very least I want to take out Hans first if I can. Being pinned between him, Camilla, and a paired up General could be scary.  Good thing he's stood right on top of the blast radius of a dragon vein. This damage won't aggro him but it will set him up for an easy snipe.  Here's the last village on the map. I don't know where this Nohrian got a Hoshidan weapon from... Did they steal it from someone's corpse??? Setsuna's +2 forged Iron Yumi already outclasses it and Reina doesn't have the rank to wield it, but maybe someone will want it.  There is one minor obstacle to rushing him - whoever does so is going to get attacked by this Wyvern Lord. A high movement unit like Kaze could easily snipe him and survive, but I'd prefer someone more in need of EXP did the deed.  You know what, gently caress it. Mozu can hitch a ride with him and do it herself. 91% hit is good enough!!!    Oh? Well Mozu's going to polish your bald scalp and hang it up to use as a mirror. That's a very nice level but all I see is the lack of HP, I think she's somewhat HP screwed.    May as well bait Beruka too while I can, she won't aggro anyone else. She's not very scary...  Oh god oh gently caress I might not have taken weapon triangle into account when I sent Mozu in. Good thing she levelled up in defense!!!  I can lure a few more enemies over before I aggro Camilla. This guy in particular really needs to go, Rinkah should be able to flatten him with a Hammer.  ...or not, seems like he doesn't move at all until Camilla does. I could send in Rinkah to bonk him, but then she'd have to take a Ragnarok to the face.  Suddenly I'm not so sure that was a good idea. Setsuna could take out this Outlaw to minimise the damage Rinkah takes, but all those Knights are going to get to toss Javelins at her...  ...and then I remembered the Rescue staff exists, and it's really cheap and plentiful to buy. Let's not get Rinkah killed for no reason.  This is much safer. Kaze doesn't fear Camilla's Ragnarok at all, and he can take a few physical hits on top of that with Felicia supporting him from afar. Let's go!  It's a little sad to make Kaze fight his wife from an alternate timeline. How would Camilla feel knowing her husband replaced her with a Hoshidan commoner?  It's odd to see her using tomes as her primary form of offense when in Conquest I only ever had her use them for softening up foes for others. The opening cutscene for this chapter also has her attack with Ragnarok instead of her axe.   The combination of shuriken debuffs and Ragnarok's silver weapon stat drops has already shredded her stats quite a bit, but Camilla's still free to fly around the map and axe my squisher units, and actually reaching her to deal the finishing blow is going to be quite tough...  Setsuna's accuracy is too heavily impacted by Bowbreaker for her to go for it, so she takes out one of the Knights instead.  Now that I've committed to wasting Rescues I can just send Kevin in to warp whoever I want over. Getting to waste these charges is very liberating, I wonder how many more I can buy?   It's still a big team effort to take out the Queen of Conquest. Orochi's now overlevelled enough that boss kills are the only thing that give her any decent amount of EXP.  Nice nice. Not that it matters, but Orochi's actually a little behind on strength!  One turn after Camilla goes, all the other enemies start moving. They won't be so hard to deal with, none of them fly or have mounts.  Selena's not scary, but she's got a cool sword. Did swords ever get that big IRL? I doubt she could really lift that with only one had.  Rinkah bonks the other General with a hammer and gets a weird level. I guess magic is nice if I do the Bolt Axe thing, but I've got another unit joining soon who will want it even more...   Hana wins the battle of the sword girls and gets the Practice Katana, an extremely weird Hoshidan sword that grants +5 speed. It's pretty decent for someone like Hinata or Silas who would otherwise struggle to consistently double. I have no idea how Selena got it...  Speaking of sword guys, Subaki still hasn't mananged to get his level. I might have to take drastic measures, such as actually giving him a weapon.....  Hayato's getting bulkier and bulkier. Some part of me thought it might be funny to make him a Butler, but I'm not sure I'll have room on my team...   Very reluctantly I allow Subaki to steal a kill to get him the last bit of EXP he needs. This was the last enemy on the map.  That took a while... Not really in terms of turncount, but more the amount of screenshots I took. I didn't use them all, but most chapters only go about half this long.   This seems like a pretty sensible assessment of the situation. Why couldn't Corrin have come to this conclusion in Conquest?  Unfortunately Leo is here to ruin Kevin's plans to recruit Camilla to our cause. I want a Bowbreaker flier on my team...   And then Ryoma and Scarlet show up to save the day, conveniently waiting for us to have finished the entire chapter before making their presense known. A bit of a dick move for Ryoma to abandon his family to go help in some revolution halfway across the continent, even if it might have helped Hoshido strategically. I'm pretty sure he left Takumi for dead!   Ryoma is a "win game" button, he's got great stats and a 1-2 range sword and his personal skill makes him even more bulky than he is already. He also has a Sun Festal for some reason?. I am not allowed to use him. Scarlet is a very powerful and often overlooked unit I will be using just because I don't think she gets enough love otherwise - I specified bad and overlooked units in the OP so I could justify using her. Unfortunately she's got Kevin as her only marriage prospect so I guess she's stuck with him. At least that means she can benefit from Supportive since he's not allowed to participate in combat at all. Next time: Caeldori
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Dec 23, 2021 22:38
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 This is non-lethal combat, Reina! Or at least I think it is. Who are all these strangers we're fighting here, anyway? Have I been killing random outrealm dwellers for sport all this time?  For some reason I think of Reina as being a yumi user as opposed to a naginata user, but her naginata rank is actually higher so that's what she fights with. Kinshi Knight does have a higher yumi rank cap than naginatas, but I don't think that's why I assumed that.  Beating Chapter 13 means I've unlocked the level 2 versions of both shops, and I may have bought just a little too much. I now have a Dual Katana, Naginata, and Club, a Bolt Naginata, a Pike-Ruin Club, an Axe-Splitter, and a Horse Spirit. All of these weapons are cool and good but now I can only afford a single Heart Seal.  With Subaki reclassed and on the bench I no longer have anybody to wield all these cool naginatas I bought... Reina could use them, but she's only deployed when I need her and not really a team member. I guess Caeldori starts with C lances? I really should think before I spend.  You and me both, Felicia... I mean obviously Hero Felicia is a very goofy class choice but I'm also not 100% sure about my decision to have Rhajat inherit Sol - it's a very powerful skill but Rhajat's skill growth is very low at a base value of 10%. Felicia as her mum will boost it, but probably not to an extent that she'll be able to activate Sol at all reliably. I guess I could have her inherit Quick Riposte instead, but that's boring.  At least she looks cool. I love the little hair flip female Heroes do after a battle, Fighter and Mercenary are some of my favourite talents for Corrin because of it.  Speaking of reclasses, here's why I wanted more than one Heart Seal - Scarlet's extremely powerful in her base class, but as a Corrinsexual (I really hate that term) she gets more reclass options than regular first gen units at base. My plan is to have her go Malig Knight and be a mixed attacker, but there's other classes I think she would like skills from too. I'm thinking I'll have her go Adventurer first? She won't be able to level up from combat for a while though, so there's no rush. As a promoted unit she's not going to get much more than 1 EXP per kill.     Setsuna Kaze B, Hayato Felicia A, C everyone else. Felicia please don't say Hayato is like a younger brother, it's only going to make your eventual marriage even weirder.  The Spirit Dust and Secret Book I'm saving, but I guess I should hand out my Talisman at some point. Rinkah would appreciate it, but it would be funny to give it to Setsuna... Hmm.               Everybody is enjoying their brand new weapons! Everybody except Orochi, I forgot to give her her Horse Spirit. I sure hope I don't leave it in the convoy for like 10 chapters in a row.  Oboro Spear Fighter (HS: Apothecary) A+ Support Partners: Rinkah (Oni Savage), Mozu (Archer), Orochi (Diviner) Personal Skill: Nohr Enmity (+3 damage against Nohrian opponents (opponents with a Norhian base class - their current class does not matter, so Master Ninja!Shura would take 3 extra damage even though he's not a Nohrian and Master Ninja is not a Nohr class)) Pair-Up Stats (C B A S): Str Def Spd Skl+Lck Growths (With Default Class): HP: 30% (45) STR: 40% (55) MAG: 20% (20) SKL: 40% (55) SPD: 40% (55) LCK: 40% (45) DEF: 40% (50) RES: 30% (35) Oboro! Her parents died and now she's out for revenge, she's basically Batman. She's cool and fashionable and has one of the most interesting classes in the game, so I think she's a lot of people's favourite Hoshidan character. Much like Hinoka, Oboro is someone I kind of struggle to say much about. Not because she's bad or mediocre or anything, she's pretty solidly good. It's because she's pretty good at everything that she's hard to talk about. All her stats are very well balanced, Spear Fighter's class growths are above average across the board, Oboro does basically anything well but not perfect. Fire Emblem characters tend to have worse defenses than offenses, especially in Birthright, so in practice Oboro's very average stats mean she's bulkier than most while maybe also being a little slower than average. Oboro's most likely the only Spear Fighter you'll have for a while, so when judging her I kind of have to judge the Spear Fighter class itself. Spear Fighters are one of the best tanky classes Birthright has to offer - they have good defenses, no weakness to effective weaponry besides Pike-Ruin Clubs, and they use naginatas which raise their defenses even further. Oboro with a Guard Naginata will be one of your most reliable tanks once she's gotten a few levels. Seal Defense is an extremely useful tool for setting up kills for others, and Swap can be nice for getting units to the front line faster or pulling away weaker units who are in danger of being killed. If Oboro has any real flaws it's that she's not quite specialised enough - her attack and speed are both good but not great, she doesn't have a mount, and her bulk is slightly undercut by her poor HP. Her speed is also a little shaky at base, but that's easily fixed by swapping her Steel Naginata for an iron one. Oboro is predominantly a physical unit so Spear Master is the obvious promotion choice for her, but her magic is just workable enough that she could run Basara with a magic-boosting pair-up partner like Hayato and a Bolt Naginata, especially if she can steal Magic + 2 from him. Both promotion options have great skills so either one is worth visiting no matter which you choose. Oboro will do okay as an Apothecary and every physical unit does well as a Mechanist, but Merchant is an especially interesting option for Oboro as she'll get to keep her lance rank and it'll make her good bulk even better, although it is somewhat of a hard sell over the already powerful Spear Master class. Archer's not a bad choice for Oboro and she'll do pretty well as a Kinshi Knight, and since Mozu appreciates A+ supporting Oboro as well it's not a bad idea to put them together. Orochi can give Oboro access to Diviner for Magic + 2 as a Basara, but if Oboro's going magical then she probably wants to S support Hayato for it instead. Oboro does well as an Oni, but so does pretty much everyone. Going Oni would let her have a skillset consisting of 3 seal skills plus Shove and Swap if you wanted the ultimate assist unit though. Nohr Emnity's a bit weird, although for the most part it's just +3 damage against Nohrian units. The weird technicalities don't come into play unless you're fighting other people's armies online. One strange thing to take note of however is that the generic enemies you face in optional grinding chapters don't take extra damage from it, no matter what their class is. For the most part though it's a pretty reliable +3 damage bonus, in Birthright at least it is a good skill. Pros
Cons
My Thoughts: I wish children weren't just limited to men in this game because I love the idea of Oboro having a reverse-weeb goth girl daughter who's obsessed with Nohrian fashion and culture who wants to leave her deeprealm to live in Nohr midnight lasagna fucked around with this message at 11:13 on Dec 28, 2021 |
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Dec 27, 2021 14:39
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Malah posted:RIGGED! Walla posted:Wait, you're using Scarlet but not Reina? That's a drat travesty. Also wow, Hayato sucks. Blaziken386 posted:recently started playing this because I needed something to scratch the fire emblem itch and I'd heard it was very bad and cringey, so I expected to jump in and immediately start rolling my eyes at everything I never bought any SoV DLC but I loved messing around with unit growths in Thracia, more games should let you do that imo. I'd give Setsuna every growth booster just to see what happens. Walla posted:So you want Oboro to be Rhajat's mother. Blaze Dragon posted:You have Felicia's stats twice in the last update.
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Dec 28, 2021 19:14
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  Truly Talented? We must be getting a new unit this chapter because that doesn't describe anybody in my army, dohoho!!! ...that's not even true, I have lots of good units. I just like complaining about the bad ones.  Meet Caeldori! She is Subaki's daughter, just in case you didn't think having a perfectionist pegasus rider with red hair wasn't referencing Awakening enough. Caeldori is one of 3 Birthright kids who are almost identical clones of popular first-gen Awakening characters. Guess who this one is??? Caeldori is a fairly clumsy anagram of Cordelia, it sounds vaguely Gaellic but I don't think it means anything. I would believe it was a name if I heard it out of context though. Personality wise she's somewhat of a pre-Awakening Cordelia - no crush on Chrom, no TPKO-induced PTSD, and no insecurity about her perfectionism. Unlike the retainrs in Conquest however she is not actually Cordelia, her resemblence is merely coincidence with no travel between worlds involved.  Oh and I did make sure to give Orochi her Horse Spirit, just in case you thought I would forget! I thought I would forget.  Conquest exclusive child paralogues range from mildly annoying to direct and brutal kicks to the vitals, Birthright exclusive ones are mostly just rout maps like the route they come from. They do tend to be a little harder than shared paralogues though, and they have noticeably higher level enemies than Birthright's story chapters themselves do later on in the game, so they can be quite good for grinding levels if you're not allowing yourself to do that with the grinding maps the game gives you. Caeldori's is definitely one of the easier ones, it's got easy to manage chokepoints and enemies that approach in small and easily manageable groups. The promoted enemies can be a little scary, but the map itself gives you the tools to deal with them in the form of Caeldori herself.  The boss is a little scary for this point of the game, he's got 27 magic and he moves! He won't move until provoked though, so I can save him for last when every other threat has been eliminated.    The other promoted enemies hit pretty hard and fast too. Having to deal with them is the price for extracting their delicious EXP...  I'm sorry Setsuna but this Talisman needs to go to someone and I have identified a unit who actually needs it. I'd rather Rinkah avoid magic enemies but she can't always do that...  Scarlet's not coming, she wouldn't earn much EXP and there's not really any room. I was hoping that Benching Subaki would free up room but he's forced deployment in this chapter and his daughter's going to take his empty slot. At least when I get Rhajat I can dump both Felicia and Hayato?   There are three little islands your units start deployed on, but for simplicity's sake I've paired up half my units so I only start on 2 of them. It'll be easier to manage chokepoints that way. Each island gets 1 healer, Felicia's taken up the club and won't be helping anyone anymore.   Showing up just after the map starts to prevent you from seeing her stats in the pre-battle deployment screen, here's Caeldori! She's inherited Duellist's Blow from her father and Magic + 2 from her mother. Her stats are a bit all over the place thanks to her mother being a slow magic user, but right now she's still pretty useable. What's most important of all is that she starts with a Swordcatcher, a naginata effective against all types of swords. It is a very cool and powerful weapon and will allow her to make mincemeat of all the troublesome Heroes dotted about the map and maybe even one of the two Paladins. Starting with a non-iron weapon makes her somewhat unusual compared to the other kids, I wish they gave them more interesting starting inventories more often.  Caeldori might be half snail from her mother's side but thanks to her bases and Darting Blow she's fast enough to double and kill these Heroes almost exactly. That crit rate is a bit scary though!  In some games I think characters with enough support points to have unlocked a conversation effectively have that support even though the conversation hasn't been viewed yet, but I don't know if that's the case in Fates. If it is then Caeldori should be getting C level support bonuses from both of her parents already.  Felicia's support bonuses as a Hero are very handy, she gives a lot of defense and speed thanks to her class but also the magic she naturally gives. It's strange to see Hayato get one round KOs!  This part of the map is so much easier to manage with only one island to worry about, bunching up my units here means I only need to keep 2 chokepoints in mind instead of 4. Sadly I don't think it's possible to have everyone start on the same island if you're using all deployment slots available.  Mozu's quite unusually bulky, she'll only get bulkier when I reclass her to a Spear Fighter... 20 maps down the line because I keep not bringing Oboro.  My tougher units (and Mozu) have this much smaller island to hold down.  Without Darting Blow to help her, Caeldori needs a support partner to finish foes off for her on enemy phase. I'm interested to see how her stats will turn out with such an odd choice for a mother.  Rinkah's making absolute mincemeat of all these swordies with her Dual Club. I'd like Kaden to get EXP too but he's still a bit fragile.  I guess Rinkah was starting to feel a little slow. It's hard to notice with her strength being as blessed as is, but Rinkah's doing quite well on the magic front too.  Heroes naturally have high skill so my unpaired units are seeing a lot of 1 or 2% crit chances against them. I'm not too worried about a restart this early in the map, but I'll have to watch out when I'm baiting out the remaining enemies at the end...  The huge amount of EXP these promoted units give compared to anything else make unlocking paralogues very important for EXP gain if you're not grinding like I am. It's tough to decide whether I should give promoted unit kills to either my weak units who need EXP or my stronger units who struggle to gain EXP from any other source.  Assuming you're done listening to whatever Kevin MacLeod thing I listened to at the start of this update, you should totally click this screenshot to hear the map music. Conquest is one of my favourite songs from Awakening and it plays during all the Awakening-clone unit's paralogues. It makes me feel extremely nostalgic even though I don't really like Awakening and it only came out... 8 years ago? ...this is my cue to say OH NO I'M AGING but somehow 8 years for Awakening doesn't seem so bad? It does feel like a long time ago since it first came out.  This is unfortunately what happens when Orochi and a Sky Knight have a kid. Somehow on my first playthrough I didn't realise Caeldori was meant to be Cordelia at first despite knowing that Awakening-clones were a thing in Birthright, and hearing this music in her join chapter, and Subaki being an obvious homage to Cordelia already...  The enemies on the left will move unprovoked after a couple of turns, the ones on the right side of the map following them a few turns after. There's so few of them that you're not likely to get overwhelmed, this chapter is quite relaxing besides the occassional crit rate.  The Paladins do hurt a little. I can't wait for Kaden to get his Beastrune, he really needs just a little extra bulk.   Conquest is the perfect relaxing song to listen to while I peacefully farm all of this EXP. Kind of an unfitting name for such a nice song come to think of it.  Kaden's base strength growth is quite good but his class growth less so, they add up to 50%. So 2 in a row is quite lucky!  I guess Mozu's a magical tank now, that's cool. I could make her a Basara if I really wanted. It might be funny!    Hayato's now got more defense than magic, Kevin heals very accurately, Hinata's just a bit crap. I now want to see Kevin cap his skill before he promotes, if nothing else it's funny.   Hana's not faring much better, she's still below her averages and I think I've been neglecting her lately. She and Hinata spend all their time paired up so it might be time to start favouring one of them instead of the other...  Two 1 stat levels in a single map, how unfortunate. I can't complain about Azama though, he's otherwise been doing excellently.  Left side is done, now the rightmost units will trickle into my chokepoints. The mix of physical Mercs and magical Dark Mages is a little intimidating.  Hana noooo! You were my second best unit for a while...  I'd go for this without a second thought at the start of the map, now I'm not so sure. Missing an 88% is unlikely but not impossible.  Hayato can have it, he's bizarrely tanky and can handle being smacked around by the two Mercenaries this puts him in range of. I'm almost annoyed that he's doing better now, I wanted to bench him to make room!  All these 1 tile bridges make this a good map for the Illusory Yumi. 10 extra res is very nice!  Stop being good! I want to get rid of you!!! At least Rhajat will inherit these great levels.   Luring the boss can be a little tricky, his range overlaps that of 2 other powerful units and he doesn't like to move unless he can hit someone. Thankfully a potential dual attack lured him out...  ...a completely pointless dual attack. Enemies thinking they can dual attack units in defensive formation is silly but it does make my life easier.  Magic tanking is supposed to be something Kaden's good at, but his Beaststone eats into his resistance. Plus he'll be attacked by a load of enemies if he stands here... I might have to retreat a little.  Kaze to the rescue. I'm so glad I promoted him, he's like a mini-jagen with the added bonus of debuffing everyone he hits!   He's not immortal though, even with WTA and super high res. Sorcerers are scary!   A weird level for Setsuna, and a very nice level for Kaden! He's not normally this good.   Dealing with the rest of the enemies is a matter of luring them with Kaze and piling on them with everyone else. I didn't have any better action screenshots to establish a bunch of combat was happening so here's Hinata dodging by balancing himself on the MISS!! text.  Kevin will hit his skill cap at 23... That's 3 more oppurtunities to hit skill once on a 55% growth, I believe in him!!!  Not much to this chapter, or any of the other Hoshidan paralogues really. They're mostly going to consist of level up screens.  Caeldori your father gained strength twice across like 8 levels, the bar you have to cross is so low it's beneath the ground. Next time: The tragic deaths(?) of Charlotte and Benny
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Dec 28, 2021 19:14
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 I'm having some really bad lottery luck this playthrough, all I'm getting is the same two minerals over and over. If I had the money I'd forge a naginata for Mozu...  It's okay, I'll just build a new lottery! This one will be better and give me cooler prizes, I think. I'm not actually sure what upgrading it does...  At least this is new. Amber is used to forge scrolls, something that might come in handy soon.   Would a green dress match blue hair? I know very little about fashion but I know "blue and green must never be seen" is or at least was a popular saying. Fashion is complicated and scary, I don't know how anyone has the confidence to wear anything.  Oops, I was wrong about children starting with C rank at the lowest, I was thinking of Awakening... So nobody can use this Bolt Naginata. I guess I'll just have to train Caeldori up next chapter, this isn't worth wasting an Arms Scroll on.      Caeldori meets her absent parents, Kaze/Mozu and Hana/Hinata hit their A support, and I get one accidental C between Hayato and Orochi.    And Setsuna and Azama hit their S support. Setsuna's too dumb to realise Azama's a jerk, Azama doesn't feel the need to annoy or belittle Setsuna because there's no point, it's a match made in heaven??? This support is somehow more sweet than it should be. Mitama might be my favourite Birthright kid in terms of personality, but she's probably one of if not the worst as an actual unit and having Setsuna as her mum does not help. I'll swing by and do her paralogue for EXP eventually, but I'm not in any hurry to put her on my team...  ...also her paralogue is one of the scariest in Birthright and I don't wanna do it : ( No unit stats this time. Instead here's a lame "I don't really know what to say about this person" analysis for Caeldori. I won't be giving the kids "proper" analyses since I'm not too familiar with them, but at the very least I'll show their growths and try my best to say something insightful about them.  Caeldori Sky Knight (HS: Samurai (Subaki), Diviner (Orochi)) A+ Support Partners: Mitama (Shrine Maiden), Rhajat (Diviner), Kana (Variable) Personal Skill: Progidy (If WHICHEVER IS HIGHER of unit's str/mag < WHICHEVER IS HIGHER of enemy's str/mag, unit deals 4 more damage in combat. In caps because how this skill works isn't clear and a lot of people get this wrong!!!) Pair-up Stats (C B A S): Def Skl Def Mag+Res Growths (With Default Class) [Base]: HP: 45% (45) [55] STR: 20% (30) [35] MAG: 40% (40) [15] SKL: 45% (55) [40] SPD: 27.5% (42.5) [40] LCK: 40% (60) [45] DEF: 30% (30) [35] RES: 32.5% (52.5) [20] One look at Caeldori's growths should probably tell you that Orochi is a bit of a weird mother for her to have. Normally Caeldori's somewhat of a watered-down Subaki - still bulky and physically defensive, but a little bit faster and stronger in exchange for less extreme stats. In practice she still tends to be fast and fragile due to the nature of her class and the influence of her mother, but a theoretical motherless Caeldori would be quite similar to her father in terms of stats. The interesting thing about Caeldori is her amazing personal skill, Progidy. +4 damage is a very strong bonus and it lets Caeldori pick classes with poor offense like Kinshi Knight without having to worry about poor offensive stats dragging her down. Mothers like Setsuna or Rinkah with bad strength and magic growths aren't nearly as bad for her as they can be for other units. Setsuna especially is great for Caeldori, it allows her to get Quick Draw if she promotes into a Kinshi Knight, giving her a damage boost that doesn't interfere with Progidy by raising her strength. This doesn't mean you should deliberately sabotage Caeldori's offenses though, Progidy is not always reliable and sometimes it's better just to have good offensive stats instead. Otherwise she's another Sky Knight in a route with lots of Sky Knights. Either promotion can take advantage of Progidy, Kinshi Knight with its poor strength and Falcon Knight with the Bolt Naginata. I'm going Falcon Knight just because Orochi is her mother, it would be a waste not to take advantage of that 40% natural magic growth. She's probably fine as a Priestess or a Basara if you support her with Mitama or Rhajat, and the class she gets from Kana can be almost anything. Incidentally Caeldori does not get to inherit the Wyvern Rider class if Jakob is her father unlike Shigure does, she just gets Subaki's Samurai class. Oh and it is possible for Selena/Severa to be Caeldori's mother in Rev. Yeah. midnight lasagna fucked around with this message at 17:24 on Dec 29, 2021 |
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Dec 29, 2021 12:25
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theshim posted:Caeldori (a dumb name) usually blows her father out of the water in basically every way, but with Orochi as a mom she's going to be really weird. I'm still kinda baffled at the design choice to include Awakening expys as child units on Birthright, it's just weird to me. Shiny777 posted:I'm pretty sure it's nowhere near optimal -even when I was doing spreadsheets I never spent much time considering what the actual better alternatives might be for her- but turning Severa's life into a horrible Ouroboros of mommy issues is too funny not to go for on Rev any time I'm either being a completionist or giving Subaki one more chance to let me down. Ventadour posted:I've found Caeldori is nicely suited for Swordmaster, myself - my first playthrough of Revelations I had Hana as her mom (but actually I was passing down Luna from an Effie A+ support - I grinded a lot that time), currently I'm playing with the gay hack with Laslow as her other parent. Both times I had a very balanced, surprisingly sturdy counter to Berserkers. Certainly better than any of the units who start in Samurai and aren't Ryouma. Zoran posted:I’m very sorry to have missed the Conquest LP and will be very interested in this one.
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Dec 31, 2021 13:49
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  This is another chapter named after the lyrics of Ocean's Grey Waves so you know it's going to be an important one. Time to go invade Nohr I guess?  Welcome to Fire Emblem: Awakening's barracks! I don't think this actually the same background but it's what comes to mind when I see it. I would like to pick up some glass weapons in a random event please.  Turns out Cheve already has some existing ties with Hoshido, and Scarlet herself was related to one of the king's servants. I don't really like this reveal but I'm not sure why exactly I don't.    Anyway, the enemy has us surrounded and outnumbered and our plan is to... leave the already outnumbered resistance forces behind and charge straight into Nohrian territory to assault Garon head on, a situation in which we will face even more enemies with even less allies to back us up? Maybe finding Ryoma was a bad idea, his plans don't make a lot of sense.  Scarlet's cool though, shame she's not plot relevant past this one cutscene. She really deserved to be an actual character with real supports. She doesn't even get to support Ryoma!  Great plan, Ryoma.  Oops I'm sorry for all those plot screenshots in a row. Here's some gameplay! This chapter is a defeat boss objective in a big open field full of symmetrical formations of enemies. We really did stumble into Awakening... This map is a slight jump in difficulty from previous maps, but it's not one that will last. The Cavaliers and Paladins move far and hit hard, and the lack of terrain makes it difficult to hide your squishier units. Not all the formations will aggro at once, but even small groups of enemies can potentially be difficult to deal with, especially as it helps to split your army to prevent yourself from being overwhelmed. Of course Ryoma can cheese all of this easily but I'm not allowed to use him! He would also earn like 1 EXP per kill, he's really overlevelled.  Strategist isn't a gender locked class but the boss of this map is a highly rare Generic Woman character. I love Daniela's portrait and Strategist is a cool class, and as far as capturable enemies go you could definitely do worse. She's bulky, her offenses are pretty good, and Savage Blow is a cool skill you're otherwise only getting if you reclass Scarlet. As an actual boss she's not at all threatening though, just attack her with shurikens and she'll go down easy.  The entirity of this map's upper half will be empty until there are 10 or less enemies on the field, at which point a load of reinforcements will instantly teleport in. If you're routing the map like I am this gimmick is just "oops here's a bunch of enemies that weren't here on the prep screen", but I guess if you're trying to rush the boss as fast as possible you could take advantage of this? Leave as many of the outside enemies alive as possible and rush through the fort while it's undefended...   Various 4-strong formations of mounted units are scattered around outside, some with swords and some with lances. From turn 2 onward one set on either side will begin moving unprovoked each turn. Throwing Ryoma at the Paladins and having your weaker units pick up the scraps is the easiest way to do this, otherwise pay attention to what weapons they're using and respond with the appropriate X-Ruin weapon. Scarlet and Reina are both great for this, Rinkah can work well if she's trained too. Kaden can tear through Cavaliers but they'll also tear through him, he'll need a defensive pairing and tonics if he wants to take on more than a couple of enemies at a time.  Benny and Charlotte are also here, and they're both paired up with one another. They have the exact same join stats they do in Conquest besides 5 extra HP on Lunatic, and they're both... not very intimidating. They don't even move! I guess Benny can stick you with his Beast Killer and throw a Javelin at you...  ...but Charlotte is just there to advertise Conquest. I guess if you dangle a female unit in her face they might have a chance at being crit to death thanks to Charlotte's Unmask personal skill, but it would be 100% your own fault if that happened.   It's gonna be tough without Ryoma, but I'll manage! I'll be splitting my army to prevent my more fragile units from getting trapped between 2 oncoming groups of high move enemies. Once again I don't have room for Oboro. Will Mozu ever get to be a Spear Fighter? At least Felicia and Hayato should be S supporting this chapter, if Felicia gets Sol I can get rid of them both.  Time for Kevin to fulfill the most noble purpose of all - helping someone cooler than him be better. Scarlet benefits from none of these stat boosts right now, but as soon as the two of them unlock a C support she'll be getting the benefits from his Supportive skill. I should probably promote Kevin so he gives better boosts but at the same time I want to see if he can cap skill first...   These Outlaws aren't very threatening, but getting rid of them now will stop them from annoying me later. Most of the other enemies here only attack at 1 range.   And the one on the other side for good measure. Kaze gets a decent amount of EXP for this on account of his internal level being lower, but Scarlet only got a single point.  Neat. He still can't use the Steel Yumi I've got going spare, but I think I have some iron ones...  Rinkah will tank the lance users on the right. I think Scarlet has the Pike-Ruin club but that's okay, if Rinkah doesn't kill them then that's more EXP for other people.  Orochi will tank a couple of hits on the left with her Horse Spirit. The Paladin in the closest group has a Javelin which makes them a little annoying...  ...I really should memorise the WTA formula for this game. I don't like that it changes with weapon rank! I prefer it when it's just a simple and consistent +1 damage and +10 hit or whatever.  Hinata will tank them with a Dual Katana instead. He's bulky but he won't hit all that hard...  Rinkah's in no danger, although maybe I should have given her a better weapon. As strength blessed as she is her damage output still isn't all that good, Kaden doesn't boost her strength and clubs are quite weak.  Oops, seems like I put Rinkah in range of a Paladin I didn't spot before. Thankfully he aggro'd separately from the rest of his group who have not moved.  Scarlet almost one-shots him but can't quite make the numbers or double... A Butler Kevin would have boosted her speed I think?  I'm sure with just a few boosters Kaden could tear this map apart. Maybe I should have given him some... He's very blessed in strength, but I can't remember if he's levelled up in defense more than once.   Kaze and Mozu enter combat paired up and manage to level up at the exact same time. A little disappointing from Mozu, but I suppose she does need strength...  Rinkah and Scarlet are bulky enough to be self-sufficient, but the rest of my army have to bunch up to kill enemies together before they're overwhelmed. Some of them are more capable than others...  I might have perhaps failed to consider how I'm actually going to get Felicia the levels she needs... She is a bit weak and being stuck with brass equipment certainly doesn't help. I'm sure Hero Felicia would have been quite good in like Chapter 7 but her class bases can't make up for her terrible physical stats here.    Caeldori steals a kill to boost her lance rank and gets a level the same time as Setsuna, skillfully avoiding all the useful stats. She's still better than an RNG-screwed Subaki but I don't think she's going to be very good...  Yet another Nohrian carrying a Hoshidan weapon for me to take from their corpse. Silver weapons aren't useless, but the debuffs they give make them hard to use and high level forges outclass them entirely. I don't have anybody with the lance rank to use this so I'm just going to sell it to buy a Heart Seal for Scarlet.  HP! That's rare. Keep in mind that Rinkah's had a robe used on her, so over 14 levels she has only gained... 3 points of HP. Oh dear.  This map starts to get tricky when the range of enemies starts overlapping. Isolated groups are fairly easy to take down, but when going on the offensive starts putting you in range of other enemies things get tricky.   Azama is good as always, but Hana's poor speed is really starting to concern me. She can only rely on Hinata's support bonuses for so long...  Minor frustrations aside, it's fun to have to use my whole squad and not just lobster everything to death. Maybe if Hana doesn't work out as a combat unit I could glue her to Setsuna for supports... Kinshi Setsuna with Darting Blow could be fun.  Come to think of it, the Pike-Ruin club is basically a Hammer. It's big and it's bludgeon-y. I wonder if there's any practical reasoning for why a weapon of this shape would do well against lances...  This game has a special track it plays whenever one of your units is facing combat that could kill them, but the game seems bad at determining when it should play sometimes. It's playing here but Hana's perfectly safe. I guess it might not be taking into account Hinata blocking the enemy's dual attack, but sometimes it plays even when the enemy is in a defensive formation.  Benny has a droppable Beast Killer which I really wish I had right about now. These Paladins are tanky and this group's only way of dealing with them quickly relies on them having a sword equipped so the Swordcatcher can take them out. Kaze's good at weakening them with Poison Strike but his attacks don't deal much damage themselves...  Oooooh no I was relying on that second hit connecting! Now I've got a Paladin free to attack my squishy units on enemy phase. I think everyone's at near full HP?  Okay good he just wants to bully Felicia. I thought he might have been able to one-shot Hana but it seems not!   Scarlet might not have good 1-2 range but otherwise she's basically Ryoma right now. I love the Wakizashi in this game, it's such a silly concept. A 2 range sword specifically designed for throwing that you can't use to hit someone with for some reason...  Scarlet's been tearing poo poo up on her own but the rest of my units have been forced to retreat, and I'm rapidly running out of retreating room. My best units are just a bit too far away from their attackers to go on the offensive this turn...   Scarlet uses Lunge to drag an enemy away to give me more breathing room. It's not a perfect escape, but it'll do...  Sometimes I forget that being promoted does not make Kaze invincible. I've had my share of close calls with him.   Felicia gets a surprisingly good level and the mostly useless Good Fortune skill. Her luck's high enough for it not to be worthless, but Rhajat wouldn't want to inherit it.  Kaden still hasn't missed a single strength proc. He could cap it before promotion, but that would require him to get it on every single level... Can it be done?  The last few enemies get cleaned up and suddenly there's an army that wasn't there before. This Berserker drops a Bolt Axe and has absolutely no magic at all. Not letting him spawn in would be one drawback to doing this chapter as fast as possible!   This fort has even more tough enemies to fight, although the promoted ones are easily baited out and isolated. The Heroes aren't as scary as the ones I fought in Caeldori's paralogue.  Kevin's still a healer even if he's now serving double duty as a fashion accessory for Scarlet. I do miss Felicia's healing a little bit, it's not as if her combat is making up for not having a third healer.  Benny and friends won't move, so only the Bolt Axe Berserker can reach your units from right outside the fort. He might catch you by surprise but with literally no magic he's not very tough.   A wizard he is not. Nice to see Orochi get even more defense, even if Hayato's now got her beaten on that front.   These guys will happily stand still and let you dismantle them from afar. Benny's personal skill will lower the avoid of units within 2 tiles of him so his presence is a mild annoyance...   There's only one magical axe stronger than the Bolt Axe... The Frost Club! Bonk.  Unfortuately Felicia doesn't have the rank to use this and she's never going to have it. I'll give it to Rinkah for now, but my endgame plan is to have Malig Knight Scarlet use it.  Nothing personal? But it was the guys behind you who teleported in, not you...  Oh right, Benny can throw things. He's still kind of strong! If this were Conquest he'd have Wary Fighter and Countermagic and probably a Steel Javelin or some enemy-exclusive weapon to ruin your day.   Hayato and Benny can support one another in Revelation, but in this world no such co-operation can exist.  yoink  Charlotte can't hit anything, but she might be able to crit one of your girls thanks to the combination of Gamble and Unmask. Lots of 20s on this forecast screen...   0 is a much more comfortable hit rate for me to face. This is what it feels like fighting Hana in Conquest's Chapter 22!  She really is, she never gets speed! Also she got 2 EXP from this combat lol. Charlotte is super underlevelled!   Now for one big gauntlet of unpromoted guys. This entryway is thin enough that they keep Three Stooges-ing themselves and can't all attack at once, so it's not as scary as it looks.   Lots of strength for my magical units. Azama's levelling up quite fast now that he's my primary healer.  Inside the fort are 3 different dragon veins that deal 10 damage to every enemy inside. There's basically no reason not to use them, they can't hurt you and they're very easily accessible.  Okay there's one reason not to use them and that is to make sure your units don't OHKO everything and build guard gauge half as fast. Thankfully an Outlaw stood in front of Orochi to shoot Hana.   Quick Riposte! I could leave it here and have Rhajat inherit this probably better skill, but part of me still wants to grab one more level for Felicia so she can get Sol.   I just noticed that Felicia's gloves appear to be missing and it's really distracting. Battle damage is a thing in this game, although it mostly exists in the form of hats flying off whenever you hit someone. How did this even happen?  The combination of all 3 veins leaves most enemies with only a few hitpoints left. It's a fairly straightforward path to the boss who will most likely die in a single hit, but these weakened Generals and Berserkers look like sweet EXP...  I shall bait enemies from all sides with maximum efficiency. They'll all die to a single attack so I don't have to worry about being overwhelmed.  Hmm, for how much I claim to love the mechanics of Fates I am really bad at remembering that dual strikes are a thing. Good thing Setsuna had that Dracoshield!  Oh, I guess you have to be able to damage a General in order to finish them off. I haven't talked about it yet, but Hinata's Triple Threat personal skill deals some of the damage from sword/lance/axe hits back to his attacker. It's midly helpful, but I never remember it exists so I always mash start to skip combat before I can take a screenshot of it in action.   Setsuna's back on the strength train while Kevin betrays me by not capping his skill. How's he going to hit all those heals now???  Oh right, I have a tool for defeating these guys. With how good the Hammer is I sometimes forget this alternative exists.  There's those Orochi genes in action. Magic will be nice as soon as Caeldori's capable of using the Bolt Naginata...  It's really hard to set up kills for Felicia sometimes. At least she can take a hit with her dual guard and then finish him off?    Quick Riposte in action!!! I'm glad to finally be done with her.   Nothing left but the last few drops of EXP now. Hana's speed is really starting to worry me...  I might have to replace her with her son, the pickle man. Hinata's kid is boring and lame but with Hana as a mother he'd at least be okay.    Daniela doesn't even get to have a fort to sit on to restore her lost HP. Caeldori's stats are so all over the place, it'll be interesting to see what they look like at the end of the game.  That's it! Lots of units almost but not quite at level 20, Caeldori and Mozu are still stuck at D lances, but at least I am now done with Hayato and Felicia. Hayato's not so bad and Felicia would be good as a Maid but I do want to free up space in my army.  Ryoma's the main character now, we're just following him. I think he makes all these stupid plans knowing that he's basically immortal in combat...  Oh and Azura is melting but don't worry about it. I'm sure she'll be fine! Next time: Rhajat's paralogue, maybe.
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Dec 31, 2021 13:49
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| # ¿ Apr 25, 2024 23:29 |
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 Even if you can repeatedly try to cook Mess Hall meals over and over until you get the desired effects you want, I still don't like using it until I've got the level 3 version that gives the bonuses to all of your units instead of just half. I don't want to cook 500 fish dinners in a row until Orochi finally decides she's hungry!   1000 gold for the Silver Naginata... That's just about about to let me buy a Heart Seal, but I wanted more. Maybe this is a sign I should hold onto it instead but nah, I want that Heart Seal now.  Oops, it seems like I'm also very short on healing rods. For all the free ones this game gives you I seem to burn through them very fast, maybe I shouldn't have been healing every single 1 HP injury for EXP? Rhajat's paralogue doesn't give any money rewards either so this might become an issue.  Unfortunately I am committed to reclassing Scarlet for skills so I guess I'll just have to go without. Scarlet's got an interesting class set, Wyvern Lord or Malig Knight are both great classes for her to stay in but there's a few other classes she can shop around for skills in. My plan for her is to go Malig Knight after she's grabbed a few things. Not counting the level 15 promoted skills she's unlikely to get before Endgame without grinding, she's got Defense + 2, Natural Cover, Wary Fighter, Luna, Locktouch, Movement + 1, Rally Skill, Lucky Seven, Rally Defense, and Savage Blow, and then Strength + 2 and Lunge which she starts with. That's quite a lot!  For the sake of not wasting too many seals I'm just going to have her grab the skills from Adventurer before she ends up in Malig Knight. This is absolutely a downgrade for my wyvern-riding juggernaut, but it's only going to be a temporary one. Kaze is currently my only team member capable of opening chests, he needs a partner in crime.   Scarlet and Kevin C, Rinkah and Kaden B. I hope Scarlet's not trying to mine for rare ores by shooting arrows at breakable rocks, that's wasteful!   Caeldori's B support with her mother always contains a unique expression of indignation that changes depending on who her mother is. Figgleworts...   Oh and these two are married I guess. Some of these S supports are awkward to read.  However, given my current money situation, I might have to put off Rhajat's paralogue for a single chapter. I really don't want to do two chapters in a row with only a few healing rods, and she'll join at a higher level if I leave it anyway. Child unit stats in this game are entirely deterministic in this game - each child has their own base stats, they inherit some stat boosts from their parents, and then if they join at a higher level than 10 then they'll be autolevelled up with their average stats. So kids are immune to being RNG screwed until you recruit them. This means I can work out what stat boosts Rhajat has inherited from her parents by working out her normal average stats at level 15 and then subtracting them from her actual stats. They are... HP + 0 STR + 2 MAG + 0 SKL + 2 SPD + 1 LCK + 2 DEF + 1 RES + 0 That's under the assumption that this game always rounds down when working out a child's stats from their averages anyway. Rhajat's 8 skill makes me think I should just be boring and have her inherit Quick Riposte instead of Sol, an 8% activation rate isn't very reliable.             Rhajat's stats don't matter right now though, I'm off to Wolfskin Peak to steal all their gold. A task I'm sure would be easier had I not reclassed my Wyvern Lord with enough lance rank to wield a Beast Killer into an Adventurer...  Hinata Samurai (HS: Oni Savage) A+ Support Partners: Takumi (Archer), Kaden (Diviner), Subaki (Sky Knight) Personal Skill: Triple Threat (When user is under half HP, half the damage received from swords lances or axes is dealt back to the enemy) Pair-Up Stats (C B A S): Def Str Def Str+Lck Growths (With Default Class): HP: 55% (65) STR: 35% (45) MAG: 0% (0) SKL: 25% (40) SPD: 15% (35) LCK: 45% (60) DEF: 45% (45) RES: 15% (25) Hinata is forgettable. He's got okay bases but pretty poor growths, he's yet another Samurai, and personality wise he doesn't really stand out either. His strange growth distribution would be more interesting if his growths weren't so low... Hinata is another Subaki in that his growths don't really match his class at all. Just like Subaki he's very slow with good HP and physical bulk, although he's also a bit stronger and luckier in exchange for having much worse skill and no magic at all. His base stats are actually quite solid, he's fast and decently powerful with good physical bulk for a Samurai too. Unfortunately with growths like his he's unlikely to get much better, and his join time invites unfavourable comparisons to Oboro who's got equally good bases and better growths in nearly every stat. He starts out a little faster than she is, but don't expect that to last. Much like Subaki, with Hinata you can either keep him in his base class to keep his stats fairly average and give him just enough speed to double semi-consistently, or you can reclass him to take full advantage of his physical bulk. A level 10 Oni Savage Hinata will have 27 HP and 16 defense, and with a 75% and 65% growth in each respectively he'll only get bulkier, and even his 11 speed base will be okay for a while until his 25% speed growth catches up with him. Hinata's a unit fairly suited to early promotion thanks to his good bases and poor growths - promoting a unit early means you're sacrificing long term viability for short term gains, and Hinata's not someone who's going to be useful in the long term anyway. His son has the same class as him and will most likely have better growths too, replacing Hinata will be easy so long as you can S support him with someone. As a Swordmaster Hinata shouldn't have too much trouble doubling his foes, especially with the speed boost he gets from using katanas. He'll be fairly middling in all of his stats though, even his naturally high bulk will suffer under Swordmaster's bases, and his speed will never be good, just passable. As a Master-of-Arms he'll trade speed for power and bulk, although if you're going to be doing that I personally would go all out on making him an Oni Chieftain. Oni Chief Hinata will have to suffer through his poor axe rank for a while, his bulk will be unmatched and he'll have a fairly good shot at capping his defense at 38 if he can reach 20/20. Blacksmith Hinata functions pretty much the same as Master of Arms but without a lance rank, their stats are very similar. Otherwise Hinata is kind of just a guy who's there. Go all out on making him a tank as an Oni or promote him early and then have him be a stat backpack for someone else as soon as he stops being good, otherwise he's not much more than mediocre deployment slot filler. At least he's better than in Heroes where he's just a guy you grind into paste for Fury 3! Triple Threat requires you to take large amounts of damage from close range to be useful, it's sometimes handy but not reliable. Archer and Quick Draw can help make Hinata's offenses a little better but doesn't really syngerise with his stats, Diviner is not suited to Hinata at all, and Sky Knight just makes him Subaki but worse. He's already got all the classes he needs imo, he doesn't gain much from S or A+ supporting others in that regard. Pros
My Rating: They should have made him an Oni by default...
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Jan 2, 2022 13:17
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