Zodi Plays: Fire Emblem Path of Radiance (Fighting for friends, etc etc) [Archive]

LaZodiac

2016-10-07, 02:48 AM

https://misterslimm.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/fire-emblem-path-of-radiance.jpg

You voted on it, and you got it, my friends. It's time to play Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance. In the country of Tellius, a simple mercenary band goes about it's business, training the newer recruits (including the leader's son, Ike) and doing missions. Slaying bandits, rescuing kittens from trees, the usual for hired hands. But soon, their world will change. Drama, intrigue, violence and death at every corner. The game starts at a relatively peaceful state, but as you who are familiar with tactics games like this, peace rarely stays for long...

As is always the case, no discussing spoilers, even if you're REALLY tempted to. Have fun and contribute though, because as ever the person who gets involved the most gets a shiny trinket forcibly shoved into their inventory. That could be you! I'll be talking about mechanics PRETTY heavily in this series, given that it's a gigantic war battle simulator at the end of the day, mashing numbers against numbers to make other numbers. I'll also be talking about things, as I tend to do. Feel free to, as we get more units, recommend I use certain guys. It'll be helpful, to a degree. I can't promise I'll be able to use everyone that people want, but I'll do my best to give everyone some lime light. So without further circumstance, let us begin our path of radiance.

Zodi Plays: Fire Emblem Path of Radiance [1] Simple Beginnings (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-D-Et3Ie0XU)

Video Length: 15:57

And so our story begins. The youth Ike has a training battle against his...arguably fourth best friend Boyd, and then his dad Griel. A young, simple start to the future hero. Ah, but that is for later. For now let's just embrace the fact that this glorified tutorial teaches us how to play the game fairly effectively. You move around, you target enemies with attacks, you look at numbers, you bash people in the face with a giant sword. It's all good. We get some interesting flashbacks from the concussed Ike as he dreams of his Mom, and we see his sister Mist humming the same song. Cute! We see that Boyd's a very self confident axeboy, and that Griel could probably bench press a tree.

And really that's all the story component is for this video. So it's time to dive into deep maths.

------

So! Let's talk about math in Fire Emblem. Aside from the actual formula's, which are themselves fairly simply to understand, all the number are right there in front of your face for you to look at. Let's go over the stats and what they all do, then look at some math!

HP is right what it says on the tin. It's your health. If it runs out you dead, and in this game that means you're dead forever. Only very few NPCs get the honour of being "too wounded to continue fighting". Don't get dead.

Str is your strength, your ability to deal damage with physical weapons, and your ability to carry heavy weapons without being slowed down like a loser.

Mag is your magic, your ability to blow people up with magical weapons and magic tomes and stuff. Nerdstat for nerds, makes all sorts of brain based things better.

Skl is your skill! All that power in your arms isn't going to help you if you can't hit for damn. This basically governs accuracy with weapons.

Spd is your speed, how fast you move and junk. It factors into how you avoid getting hurt, and how many times you can bop someone in the face.

Lck is your luck. The game says it affects everything, because at the end of the day the game's a gigantic Random Number Generator and while you can influence it sometimes you just get your face punched in. Luck determines how often your crit, and how often you avoid getting crit in return.

Def is your defense. If you're not fast you can just eat punches to the face. It reduces damage you take and there's no minimum damage in this game so try your best to become invincible for me.

Res is your resistance. Magical defense, nothing much else to say on this? It's exactly what you'd expect at this point.

Those are the main base stats. There are others, but they're less important. Still a TYPE of important, but like, not SPECIAL. Mov is your movement, how many tiles you can move a turn. Wt is your weight, and it determines who you can and cannot rescue (pick up on your back) or be rescued BY. Pretty nice.

Now, all those numbers above can be combined into the following numbers down here, to figure out how combat is gonna go. Let's take a look at em.

Atk is your attack strength. It's your Strength plus the Might of your weapon. That's it! When attacking someone, you subtract your attack from their defense. Simple as that. There's more to it but more on that next time.

Hit is your hit rate, which determines how accurate you are. It's your weapons Hit rate plus your skill times two, then added Luck. It's reduced by avoid, which I'll describe below. If your hit rate is above 100 you hit them, great! If it's not you eat two rolls of the RNG and average them and that determines if you hit or not. Math.

Avo is their avoid, and it's how good you are at the whole not getting hit thing, math wise. It's attack speed (again, more on that below) times two, then adding in Luck. It takes away from the enemy hit rate in combat, obviously.

Crit is your crit rate, how likely you are to shred an enemy to pieces. Crit's are nasty and powerful, dealing 3 times the regular damage you'd actually do. It's your weapon's natural crit rate, plus your skill divided in half. Crits are dangerous business yo!

Dgd is your dodge, which lets you avoid critical hits. It's just straight your luck stat. Hope you brought your loaded dice.

AS is your attack speed, and it's how fast you can swing your stick or throw your book at someone. It's your speed minus your weapon weight minus your strength, and if the result is negative you just take it as a zero. If your attack speed is four above your opponents you get to hit twice with your weapon.

*deep breath* and that's all the complicated math out of the way. Using those simple formula's and highly visible math, you can easily figure out how, generally, combat is going to go. Those of you who know me well should realize why this means I'm probably gonna get my butt handed to me! There's more additional stuff to add to these maths but I'll detail those later. For now let's talk about, briefly, the dumb thing this game and it's sequel game does that doesn't matter and no one liked.

Biorhythm! Everyone has a random chart of how good they fell, and when it's at the top half of it they get a unstated +5 to their hit rate and avoid rate, and when it's at the bottom half they get -5 to hit and avoid. This is silly and no one likes it. When you beat a chapter everyone's biorhythm moves forward exactly 7 tics on the sin wave, and every ten fights a person gets into (by which we mean "engages an enemy in combat where he swings a weapon at someone, or gets a weapon swung at him) it'll advance by one tic.

Another thing to talk about mechanically: Skills! Skills are neat and I'll go more indepth into them once I can play around with them. For now we have Boyd's Tempest, which doubles the effect of Biorhythm, thus meaning Boyd can be REALLY good or REALLY bad depending on if he ate his cereal this morning. Griel's skill is "literally trying not to kill you" and I love it, and it's one of the reasons I love this game. I'll talk about that below.

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So, let's talk about that thing I mentioned at the end of my 2 in the morning written math lesson! Griel has a skill that reads, essentially, "I'm trying to be as weak as possible so you don't die like a chump". Looking at his stats we can tell that they are literally designed to allow Ike to win the fight if he uses the healing item once. Now, he's level 1, but those of you who are clever may notice that he clearly can't be level one, there's no way. This s because he's a "pre-promote". More on that next time. But the importance of this is that, in this game, the mechanical "stuff" of a person actually directly relates to their flavor "stuff". Griel is trying not to slice his son in two, he literally has a skill on that makes him weak enough to avoid doing so. They never had to do this, they didn't have to basically justify the stats to the story, and for some things they don't (Boyd here doesn't have the same stats he has in your army) but for the things they DO, it's really cool.

With that said, I'll leave you to look at the math, to yell at me for being bad at it, and to in general enjoy the video. I hope you do, and I hope to see you all again next time, when we get our first job as a mercenary.

DataNinja

2016-10-07, 03:43 AM

Darn you, Zodi! I was just about to go to bed after binge rewatching some of Super Mario Sunshine.

Anyway, let's get some charting to go with that new thread smell!

Unit
Class
First Ep
Last Ep
Dmg Dealt
Dmg Taken
# Defeated
Tally

Ike
Ranger
1
--
40
20
2
Boyd (Fighter, Tutorial)
Greil (Hero, Tutorial)

Episode
Turns Taken

1
11

Total
11

I'll probably have more to say when I'm actually awake. But... I'm a little worried about how expansive this might get... :smallbiggrin:

Oh, and: What's your win rate for Magic the Gathering? :smalltongue:

LaZodiac

2016-10-07, 09:31 AM

Darn you, Zodi! I was just about to go to bed after binge rewatching some of Super Mario Sunshine.

Anyway, let's get some charting to go with that new thread smell!

Unit
First Ep
Last Ep
Dmg Dealt
Dmg Taken
# Defeated
Tally

Ike
1
--
40
20
2
Boyd
Greil

Episode
Turns Taken

1
11

Total
11

I'll probably have more to say when I'm actually awake. But... I'm a little worried about how expansive this might get... :smallbiggrin:

Oh, and: What's your win rate for Magic the Gathering? :smalltongue:

Interesting idea about counting the damage inflicted and taken, I like that. I'd like to note that you shouldn't count Boyd and Greil here since, obviously, they don't die. Also, don't forget to note what their class is, cause I'm actually pretty curious about that! Sorry if that seems like an unreasonable request :smallamused:

Also while it's cool, the game does actually note how many turns you take on each map and says as such at the end of the game, so you don't have to do that one :smallbiggrin:

I'm glad you've been enjoying Super Mario Sunshine by the way. I think it's one of my better LPs in terms of sheer entertainment value. As for that...clever bit of strikethroughed text, let's just say that it's probably around the 10% to 70% range, depending on who I'm up against :smalltongue:

Deme

2016-10-07, 09:36 AM

DataNinja

2016-10-07, 09:59 AM

I'd like to note that you shouldn't count Boyd and Greil here since, obviously, they don't die.

Note I put "Defeated" rather than "Killed". :smalltongue:
I did note that they're from the Tutorial, now, though. Don't take these victories from Ike! :smallamused:

Also, don't forget to note what their class is, cause I'm actually pretty curious about that! Sorry if that seems like an unreasonable request :smallamused:

...I actually had that in, before. And then I removed it. Because I figured it was extraneous. :smallredface:

Also while it's cool, the game does actually note how many turns you take on each map and says as such at the end of the game, so you don't have to do that one :smallbiggrin:

Oh. Oops. Well, cool. :smallbiggrin:

LaZodiac

2016-10-07, 10:04 AM

I am a giant enough FE nerd that Zodi's been showing me the videos in advance, so here, I don't have much to say but that I like that they gave Boyd extra lines for if you try to bait him out.

You under (and over)-sell Luck. It doesn't actually effect the crit percent chance. It only effects your critical avoid, accuracy, and avoid. Which... Makes it the worst stat, really. Nothing less lucky than a level with only luck.

Deme here is one of my powerful friends who will be low key assisting me in making sure I don't actually make the game unwinnable! She's very strong.

Note I put "Defeated" rather than "Killed". :smalltongue:
I did note that they're from the Tutorial, now, though.

...I actually had that in, before. And then I removed it. Because I figured it was extraneous. :smallredface:

Oh. Oops. Well, cool. :smallbiggrin:

Aaah, I see. And nope, not extraneous, it's actually the part I'm most interested in since the game keeps track of your total kills, I want to see how it's divided. How many soldiers, fighters, and bandits did Ike break open? It's something that interests me!

DataNinja

2016-10-07, 10:17 AM

And nope, not extraneous, it's actually the part I'm most interested in since the game keeps track of your total kills, I want to see how it's divided. How many soldiers, fighters, and bandits did Ike break open? It's something that interests me!

Uh, yes...

Yes, that's absolutely what I thought you meant, and not the class of the player character itself. Totally 100%.

I AM GOOD AT CHARTS! :smalltongue:

PhantomFox

2016-10-07, 10:23 AM

Finally figured out something useful I can contribute. Level up stats are semi random, so I may put together a chart comparing each character's stats to their average for their level. That way you can tell if you have a 'good' Ike or not. I could spoiler a large chart or link to a Google spreadsheet. The latter would let me do some nifty stuff such as highlight stats that are above or below the common average for that character depending on where we set the threshold.

Sound intetesting?

Deme

2016-10-07, 10:48 AM

Comparing to averages is always super fun, so I'd be interested in seeing that. I'd probably want to look it up at a few points myself.

LaZodiac

2016-10-07, 10:54 AM

ShneekeyTheLost

2016-10-07, 01:45 PM

So, you have your classic JRPG/TBS opening where you have the Plucky Hero sparring against his Instructor, when a women comes in and distracts them. And hey, if you didn't want to get curb-stomped in front of the only female character on-screen to date (other than apparently your mother in a dream sequence), then you shouldn't have tried a dishonorable attack. Then again, considering you are a merc, dishonorable attacks are probably going to end up your schtick, so... keep practicing!

Resisting the urge to make a 'losing is for the Boyd' pun... and apparently failing miserably.

This is a game that actually rewards crunching numbers. Like, seriously. However, it can simply be played as a casual JRP/TBS (Japanese Roleplaying Turn-Based Strategy... a term I just coined because it fits this series better than any other label I've heard of) if you like.

Some things of note:

Your crit chance has very little you can actively do to affect it (other than just building Skill, which is always a good thing), so other than certain weapons which carry a bonus to crit, it is almost impossible to build a 'crit-fisher'.

Your Attack Speed has your Strength SUBTRACTED from it. So yes, the stronger you are, the slower you are. Literally. So either you can get in a BIG hit, or you can get in two decent hits. Also note that the weapon weight is negatively factored in as well. Don't expect axe-wielders to be getting in multiple hits. Also note that you need your Attack Speed at least FOUR higher than your opponent's to get that second attack in. And the reverse is also true. You can't just dump AS unless you don't mind your character getting hit twice frequently. Mind you, for someone clanking around with an obscene DEF, this isn't necessarily a problem. A character with high STR, low SPD, extremely high DEF is a very viable tank build, particularly if you equip a big heavy weapon that deals a lot of damage and can take maximum advantage of the STR stat. His mobility won't actually be all that bad with a high enough Str to lug all that gear around, and he can soak up hits pretty good.

The alternative is a 'fencer' style striker, with lightweight equipment, lower Str, but higher SPD and a fast weapon. He's more likely to get in multiple hits, and probably has a decent Avoid as well, making him harder to flat out hit. Keep in mind that this goes in the reverse as well. Opponents with a high Attack Speed are harder for your big klunky tank to hit. But when he does... it's gonna hurt. Death of a thousand cuts versus hulk smash. Actually, this is the biggest advantage of the 'fencer' style build. Since you get two chances to hit, odds are pretty good (unless you picked the wrong fight) of getting at least one landing. Remember, the RNG machine takes two rolls, and averages them out, to figure out if you actually hit or not, so this reduces lucky hits and lucky misses respectively, bringing combat closer to the 'bell curve peak'. So if your high speed character has high skill, odds are at least one hit is going to land. Now, if it is actually going to hurt is another matter, depending on what your opponent's DEF is versus the likely lower ATK the fencer has. It also means that the Fencer's bad day comes when he runs into a high DEF opponent, because the armor effectively is doubled value. He might hit twice... for almost no damage whatsoever. You're gonna need a tank with a heavy weapon to act as a can opener. Or go lateral with an alternate skill (i.e. Magic).

Fencers are absolutely brutal against casters and other lightly armored enemies (like Archers, iirc). Fencer vs Fencer tends to be a bloody affair, with whomever strikes first generally striking last. Fencer vs Tank is up to how much the Fencer is able to affect the Tank versus how likely the Tank is to land his hit on the Fencer. Unless you picked the wrong fight, this tends to weigh in favor of the Tank.

Lord Raziere

2016-10-07, 02:27 PM

On 01:
I know, I've tried playing two Fire Emblem handheld games, and both times, never beaten them. I got far on the.....watchamacallit.... Fire Emblem Sacred Stones one? but thats only because every time I made a mistake and got one of my troops killed, I would stop and reload until I do the entire battle without losing a single person, which allowed me to eventually get some form of strategy going. I like strategy yeah and figuring out how to do that though.

and even then, I like dislike some parts about the games like how weapons have a limited amount of uses, I guess to give the game a "resource management" aspect? But really it just feels annoying since that just means I always end up using and buying only Iron weapons because they have the most uses, even though STEEL weapons that have less, should have MORE uses since Steel is harder and more DURABLE than iron, so they just make the game make less sense. and of course, you can't use these the legendary super-weapons because they are irreplaceable and have only three or so uses before they break, so you just end up never using them. no one ever considered a super-fragile weapon that can deal far more damage than the reliable one more higher quality than the reliable one.

I mean I can understand the character death since its war, but the attempt at resource managing weaponry in them is just bad. To make it worse you still have to grind up your troops so that they will be good enough to win against later bosses and armies, which means using more of your weapon uses. so its combining a bad resource management system with the worst part of RPG leveling systems.

I mean don't get me wrong, I like the actual battling, I can do turn-by-turn or RTS and have fun, and I like the stories of Fire Emblem, but it has their faults and I don't think I'll ever be able to actually beat them because of some of the more frustrating aspects of it. Granted, the one time I played advance wars I couldn't beat that either, I'm kind of better at RTS's like Age of Empires 3.

Wow, Ike got beat bad. Far cry from his badassery in SSBB.

UUuuuuuuuuuh........Ike? Getting a little Oedipal there, aren't we?

Wait Mist is his sister and NOT his girlfriend? oh. that makes more sense.

and yeah, this RPG has the same problem with weapons having limited uses. sigh.

Deme

2016-10-07, 02:59 PM

Your Attack Speed has your Strength SUBTRACTED from it. So yes, the stronger you are, the slower you are. Literally

That is 100% untrue. The formula for attack speed is:

Speed – (Weapon Weight – Strength, take as 0 if negative)

Or, to put it another way, it's not Speed - WW - Strength. The strength effectively adds to your speed up to a point by reducing the impact of weapon weight until that impact becomes 0, so a character with insufficient strength is going to have problems doubling, not the other way around. This, I should add, is in contrast to earlier versions of the series, where weapon weight is mitigated by a set, unimprovable (except Thracia 776) stat, Build or Constitution, and the later games, where Weight doesn't exist.

Likewise, it's not really possible to "build" anything except for certain skill combinations. For the most part, your characters have their basic natures predetermined by their growths and bases, and built by luck. Rather than building, what you're doing is making investments and choices, and seeing how those play out as time goes on.

Illven

2016-10-07, 03:24 PM

LaZodiac

2016-10-07, 04:11 PM

And I'm not enough of an FE nerd to get videos in advance! :smalltongue:

I'm mostly sharing the videos in advance to get a good feel of what I'm doing and how to better do this. Besides, gotta keep SOME people in the dark :smalltongue:

(also I feel really bad because I think I know you from Skype related stuff but I'm completely blanking on who you'd be aaaaaaaah)

Illven

2016-10-07, 04:17 PM

I'm mostly sharing the videos in advance to get a good feel of what I'm doing and how to better do this. Besides, gotta keep SOME people in the dark :smalltongue:

(also I feel really bad because I think I know you from Skype related stuff but I'm completely blanking on who you'd be aaaaaaaah)

Unless you used to play forum emblem, I'm blanking on how I would know you on skype.

LaZodiac

2016-10-07, 04:30 PM

Unless you used to play forum emblem, I'm blanking on how I would know you on skype.

I have not and am just being self paranoid. Carry on! And I hope you stick around and enjoy the show :smalltongue:

DataNinja

2016-10-07, 04:42 PM

Besides, gotta keep SOME people in the dark :smalltongue:

:mitd: Awww...

Not to mention it sounds painful keeping people in me.

Illven

2016-10-07, 05:28 PM

You want those level ups to continue. What you don't think Speed is a good stat? Ike can get doubled forever as far as you're concerned? :smalltongue:

PhantomFox

2016-10-07, 08:50 PM

Okay, Spreadsheet (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Do5r6dbwo3GK7oxqPFZJ1vZNHlrUZp90W9r_FwvHrXY/edit?usp=sharing)up. Only Ike for now, as I'll add characters as they level up at least once. (That should weed out those you don't plan on using mid-late game). Haven't enabled the colored highlighting, as I'm not sure where to put the threshhold. +/-5 from average? 10% from average? Where do you think it becomes significant?

Qwertystop

2016-10-07, 09:20 PM

Voice feels... flat. Stilted?

Also, love seeing that the first tutorial message is "This is a tutorial. There will be more of these."

Though isn't there supposed to be a character giving them? The redhead, wossname. Definitely in Sacred Stones and Radiant Dawn tutorials, though I haven't played any of the others.

DataNinja

2016-10-07, 09:33 PM

Though isn't there supposed to be a character giving them?

Well the second tutorial box says "Anna, your helpful-hint girl, will explain and demonstrate any new features." So... I suppose?

Qwertystop

2016-10-07, 09:42 PM

Well the second tutorial box says "Anna, your helpful-hint girl, will explain and demonstrate any new features." So... I suppose?

Oops, blink-and-I-miss-it.

She wasn't there so it doesn't count. :smalltongue:

LaZodiac

2016-10-07, 11:29 PM

You want those level ups to continue. What you don't think Speed is a good stat? Ike can get doubled forever as far as you're concerned? :smalltongue:

I'd rather that not happen, but I also want more than five stats every five levels. I'll take what I can get but that doesn't mean I don't want good levels.

Okay, Spreadsheet (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Do5r6dbwo3GK7oxqPFZJ1vZNHlrUZp90W9r_FwvHrXY/edit?usp=sharing)up. Only Ike for now, as I'll add characters as they level up at least once. (That should weed out those you don't plan on using mid-late game). Haven't enabled the colored highlighting, as I'm not sure where to put the threshhold. +/-5 from average? 10% from average? Where do you think it becomes significant?

Nice. I literally don't know ask someone who's good at Fire Emblem like Deme what would be a significant number above/below average.

Voice feels... flat. Stilted?

Also, love seeing that the first tutorial message is "This is a tutorial. There will be more of these."

Though isn't there supposed to be a character giving them? The redhead, wossname. Definitely in Sacred Stones and Radiant Dawn tutorials, though I haven't played any of the others.

There are like...4 voiced cutscenes in the game. They didn't devout much effort to that part of the budget. Greil's is okay but Mist's is definitely "QUALITY" acting.

Those pop ups are the standard tutorials. Anna shows up on the indepth tutorials. I'll be showing those off LATER, but NOT next time for an important reason, that is VERY silly.

huttj509

2016-10-08, 12:20 AM

I'd say 3-4 points above/below average. Especially at low levels 10% can just get silly, as can % in general. For example, Ike's Def and Res are both >10% above avg just from a single 40% chance level up, and Mag is 20% below average, due to not getting a 20% chance, since his base Mag is so low.

Am I reading correctly his Luck is 6 when base is 7?

PhantomFox

2016-10-08, 09:18 AM

I think that's the game ordering the stats differently than my reference guide. It'll get fixed.

AsteriskAmp

2016-10-08, 05:59 PM

Your Attack Speed has your Strength SUBTRACTED from it. So yes, the stronger you are, the slower you are. Literally. So either you can get in a BIG hit, or you can get in two decent hits. Also note that the weapon weight is negatively factored in as well. Don't expect axe-wielders to be getting in multiple hits. Also note that you need your Attack Speed at least FOUR higher than your opponent's to get that second attack in. And the reverse is also true. You can't just dump AS unless you don't mind your character getting hit twice frequently. Mind you, for someone clanking around with an obscene DEF, this isn't necessarily a problem. A character with high STR, low SPD, extremely high DEF is a very viable tank build, particularly if you equip a big heavy weapon that deals a lot of damage and can take maximum advantage of the STR stat. His mobility won't actually be all that bad with a high enough Str to lug all that gear around, and he can soak up hits pretty good.

The alternative is a 'fencer' style striker, with lightweight equipment, lower Str, but higher SPD and a fast weapon. He's more likely to get in multiple hits, and probably has a decent Avoid as well, making him harder to flat out hit. Keep in mind that this goes in the reverse as well. Opponents with a high Attack Speed are harder for your big klunky tank to hit. But when he does... it's gonna hurt. Death of a thousand cuts versus hulk smash. Actually, this is the biggest advantage of the 'fencer' style build. Since you get two chances to hit, odds are pretty good (unless you picked the wrong fight) of getting at least one landing. Remember, the RNG machine takes two rolls, and averages them out, to figure out if you actually hit or not, so this reduces lucky hits and lucky misses respectively, bringing combat closer to the 'bell curve peak'. So if your high speed character has high skill, odds are at least one hit is going to land. Now, if it is actually going to hurt is another matter, depending on what your opponent's DEF is versus the likely lower ATK the fencer has. It also means that the Fencer's bad day comes when he runs into a high DEF opponent, because the armor effectively is doubled value. He might hit twice... for almost no damage whatsoever. You're gonna need a tank with a heavy weapon to act as a can opener. Or go lateral with an alternate skill (i.e. Magic).

Fencers are absolutely brutal against casters and other lightly armored enemies (like Archers, iirc). Fencer vs Fencer tends to be a bloody affair, with whomever strikes first generally striking last. Fencer vs Tank is up to how much the Fencer is able to affect the Tank versus how likely the Tank is to land his hit on the Fencer. Unless you picked the wrong fight, this tends to weigh in favor of the Tank.
This is almost entirely incorrect. STR only helps with speed it never detracts as already pointed out. Furthermore it IS an issue for high defence units, taking spells to the face is not something you want happening twice. In fact SPD is arguably THE most important stats in FE just because how centralizing to the game the doubling mechanic is. The heaviest weapons are also oddly enough not actual weapons but magical tomes, specifically the siege tomes, doubling with siege tomes is just outright beautiful. Mobility is a stat on its own and independent of STR, Astrid can attest to becoming an insane DEF tank while having all of the mobility of a horse rider (which happens more often to people than it probably should, courtesy of Paragon).

There are no more hits based on speed numbers than 2 (outside speed you have 4 counting brave weapons, or 8 if you have adept and brave weapons [which are unique in this game, aka one of each and a very limited number of uses] which everyone including slow and fast units can do and actually benefits slower units more, we will ignore astra because in this game it's not even worth mentioning due to how horrendously bad it is and how mechanically it corresponds to 5 weapon uses less likely than a crit, less damage than a crit and blocks crits from happening during it's activation in a class which has a high crit rate). Also almost certainly (outside a space with null measure) doubling is better than many many levels of str growths, it's just too good and unit viability puts an insane burden on speed alone (the glorious 16 by a certain particular chapter as an example that leaves a really really great unit that you'd love to field out of the level just because getting doubled is TOO bad). You REALLY want to double, and at the very least NEED to not be doubled at anything above normal.

Swordmasters are also extremely viable tank stoppers just based on the fact that their avo tends to be through the roof, and that your units will tend to out-stat enemy units outside of maniac (on maniac you still use them to draw tanks to then bust them with your own mages). Furthermore there's a usual combo on swordmasters and soldiers that involve wrath and resolve which fundamentally just makes them immortal can openers for limited amounts of time (though really scary unless you check your odds at the start of every turn).

On 01:
I know, I've tried playing two Fire Emblem handheld games, and both times, never beaten them. I got far on the.....watchamacallit.... Fire Emblem Sacred Stones one? but thats only because every time I made a mistake and got one of my troops killed, I would stop and reload until I do the entire battle without losing a single person, which allowed me to eventually get some form of strategy going. I like strategy yeah and figuring out how to do that though.

and even then, I like dislike some parts about the games like how weapons have a limited amount of uses, I guess to give the game a "resource management" aspect? But really it just feels annoying since that just means I always end up using and buying only Iron weapons because they have the most uses, even though STEEL weapons that have less, should have MORE uses since Steel is harder and more DURABLE than iron, so they just make the game make less sense. and of course, you can't use these the legendary super-weapons because they are irreplaceable and have only three or so uses before they break, so you just end up never using them. no one ever considered a super-fragile weapon that can deal far more damage than the reliable one more higher quality than the reliable one.

I mean I can understand the character death since its war, but the attempt at resource managing weaponry in them is just bad. To make it worse you still have to grind up your troops so that they will be good enough to win against later bosses and armies, which means using more of your weapon uses. so its combining a bad resource management system with the worst part of RPG leveling systems.

I mean don't get me wrong, I like the actual battling, I can do turn-by-turn or RTS and have fun, and I like the stories of Fire Emblem, but it has their faults and I don't think I'll ever be able to actually beat them because of some of the more frustrating aspects of it. Granted, the one time I played advance wars I couldn't beat that either, I'm kind of better at RTS's like Age of Empires 3. In higher difficulties there is no such luxury as not dealing with the finiteness of weapons, and the Fire Emblem difficulties are designed so you replay it in sequentially higher difficulties.

Super Fragile weapons become a need to have at least in standby when your units might or will die unless they can ensure a kill. Of particular note is Path of Radiance Maniac difficulty where there were several REGULAR TROOPS whom you are well advised to just throw all of your brave and unique weapons at because you don't want them to survive enemy face. You don't want some of the abominations that the game throws at you alive at certain ranges, of note anything with a bow to a Marcia/Jill/Tanith without the Full Guard or the plastered around Swordmasters with Killing Edges (of which some missions have SEVERAL in hard and maniac).

Weapon management becomes a realistic tactical concern in those points mainly because you don't want certain weapons to be equipped in enemy phase because they are too valuable or too strong (because killing enemies in enemy phase means someone else can take their spot and attack again) and conversely sometimes you don't want weak weapons on enemy phase because you are relying on vantage (100% activation in PoR) or not getting fully doubled (for some of the less speedy units) or just don't want to waste those uses on weak units.

It's also a balancing factor of the higher tiers of weapons and keeps earlier weapons viable. In Maniac for example, silver having less uses is of particular concern in certain chapters where the troop count and stats means that a fully silver loaded character could just become weaponless halfway through the chapter. It also means brave weapons are not just the legendary weapons you'll use for the rest of the game forever, and that you should carefully think those Ettard (of which there are only two), Armourslayers and whatnot VERY carefully. This obviously applies in much much lesser measure or not at all in lower difficulties.

Path of Radiance has a Fixed Growths mode after you clear it for the first time. But the RNG has a purpose in forcing you to diversify your strategy to account for this variations, occasionally you'll be forced to drop units you personally love due to lacking growths and learn to play without them and find alternate strategies (or just brute force levels into them). In Path of Radiance in particular you are given a supply of units big enough (with continuous infusions of units that are pre-levelled in case you had really bad luck) so that bad levels or death are not a problem. The game will outright give you late game units to prevent a soft-block in normal and hard (in maniac you MIGHT soft-block but if you are playing at this level you probably can figure how to solve the issue in some way). Personally I've had playthroughs were I was forced to do without mages because they just wouldn't be up to par and one or two play throughs were my endgame team ended up including characters that I'd never have used because of how horrendous their growths tend to be that just got blessed. That and sometimes you get a character that shouldn't be even looking at enemies just end up blessed in STR in such a way that it could realistically take down one of the end game bosses if only it could equip a weapon able to damage them.

Weapon durability, permadeath and the level up system are fundamentally the mechanical core of Fire Emblem that sets it apart from other turn and grid based games. That and the traditions like reinforcements on the most awkward horrendous spots ever and the many many cliches in the story and writing that you grow to love and bear through the series.

Wow, Ike got beat bad. Far cry from his badassery in SSBB.

UUuuuuuuuuuh........Ike? Getting a little Oedipal there, aren't we?

Wait Mist is his sister and NOT his girlfriend? oh. that makes more sense.

and yeah, this RPG has the same problem with weapons having limited uses. sigh.
Ike in PoR is not SSBB Ike, that's Radiant Dawn Ike. Ike here still has a personality. In fact most of his quotes in SSBB come from his allies in this game rather than himself. He becomes a meme machine in the next one, and also becomes Ike Slayer of Gods and whatnot that we know and love from SSBB. Granted by the end of PoR Ike does come mechanically closer to a monster but that's still a far far way ahead, unless suddenly this became an Ike solo run (which are doable in PoR just because Ike has the growths for that and because this particular game relies on you having to protect squishies as part of its difficulty in several missions, if you only have Ike... they become significantly easier [including a trial map that goes from insanely hard to trivial if you just deploy Ike or Ashnard {trial maps are bonus game mods after you clear the game, this does not imply Ashnard is or not recruitable in the main game}])

Likewise, it's not really possible to "build" anything except for certain skill combinations. For the most part, your characters have their basic natures predetermined by their growths and bases, and built by luck. Rather than building, what you're doing is making investments and choices, and seeing how those play out as time goes on.And supports, which can account for a 50 added avoid (Go Go Ike Oscar Tanith) and other interesting combinations. Additionally with the usage of the stat up items and the second play-through bands it's possible to go around trying to fix minor deficiencies. And as a last resort the forge allows you to make certain units far more viable, particularly STR deprived mages and making even more crit machine swordmasters, or in the Japanese version... literally anything a borderline deity.

LaZodiac

2016-10-10, 09:36 AM

On this fine chilly morning, I present, to you, another Fire Emblem.

Zodi Plays: Fire Emblem Path of Radiance [2] Archetypical Scummy Bandits (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPt1wY9teeQ)

Video Length: 17:11

In this video, Ike finally gets sent off on his first job. Joining him are Boyd, who we saw last time, Oscar, who is Boyd's brother and a chevalier (though in the case of this game, that means he's a lance knight) and Titania, a Paladin. Titania's a prepromote like Greil, which means she's already been through 20 levels of being a chevalier (in her case, an axe knight) and has class changed into Paladin. As a result, she's practically invincible at this stage of the game. Her stats dwarf the others in comparision. Which is why we'll be using her as more of a meat shield in these earlier missions than an actual unit. The bandits we're fighting consist of Myrmidons, who are basic sword wielders, axe fighters that are basic axe wielders, and bandits which are more aggressive axe fighters, basically. Pretty good staple of murder targets. Story wise...that's basically it. We get some interesting hints that something might be up with Titania and Greil, but other than that this is very much an episodic "and then our heroes punched bandits in the face" type episode. Ike's first mission: resounding success!

So, let's talk mechanics. This one won't be as lengthy as the last one, don't worry. Chevalier, and all mounted units really, have an unstated ability typically called "Canto" or "Re-Move". With it, they can use any remaining movement tiles to move after doing a thing. Typically this only works when they do non violent things, like Visiting a house (as we learn about today) or trading weapons. The Tellius games (Path of Radiance and it's sequel Radiant Dawn) have it so that a mounted unit can use their remaining movement after ANY action. This is super busted and I'm not used to it so anticipate a lot of me flailing around in the early game. Anticipate a lot of me flailing about in the late game too, I'm not good at these games.

Some commands we learned (and I made use of) are Visit and Rescue. Visiting a house is quite simple, you move to the door and say hi and typically you get something nice like a stat boosting item. If a bandit (as in the class) touches a building, they pillage it and that's bad. A fun little glitch or something in this game, by the way! If you DON'T read the detailed tutorial window on Visiting, Ike gets his inventory filled up with iron swords. Everywhere I've checked has said that that's the closest thing they can narrow it down to, no one really knows why. Rescuing is when a unit gives a piggyback ride to another unit. They've gotta have higher weight though. When rescuing someone you have all your stats cut in half briefly, or thereabouts. Titania could rescue someone and still oneshot basically everyone on this map, if you're curious on how strong she actually is.

Anyway, that's the episode! Ike has succeeded in his first mission! What could be next for the young boy? Well, you'll have to wait until Friday to find out. Hope you enjoyed, I'll see you then.

------

Two additional things before we go for today. On Wednesday I will be uploading a special video. I won't be doing it all the time, just consider it a nice and cool thing.

Secondly, I've got a question for all of you. As you've seen, this game can be pretty lengthy with it's animations in combat and stuff. Later missions can also end up taking like, an hour. So I'm curious: do you folks want me to turn off combat animations? Or would you rather they stay on? Please answer, and give like...suggestions and stuff.

DataNinja

2016-10-10, 10:40 AM

Seerow

2016-10-10, 10:42 AM

Is it possible to switch combat animations mid fight?

I feel like something along the lines of view animations for a round or two the first time new a character appears would be cool (if only because it seems like combat time uses different models than the overmap), but I agree that with later maps the animations could drag time out a lot with what is basically just filler.

If you turn the animations off, do you still get stuff like the bandit boss taunting you?

LaZodiac

2016-10-10, 11:01 AM

Man, this is certainly a lot more effort than spiders. :smalltongue:
The hardest part is just remembering which enemy sprite has which Class... So, uh, a word of warning, there is the small, minor, insignificant chance that I miiiiiiight screw something up along the way. (I wish that it wouldn't use the same unit names for the same unit Classes... Ah, well.)

Unit
Class
First Ep
Last Ep
Dmg Dealt
Dmg Taken
Ratio
# Defeated
Tally

Ike
Ranger
1
--
95
30
3.17
5
Boyd (Fighter, Tutorial)
Greil (Hero, Tutorial)
Bandit (Myrmidon)
Bandit (Bandit)
Zawana (Bandit)

Boyd
Fighter
2
--
63
26
2.42
1
Bandit (Fighter)

Oscar
Lance Knight
2
--
56
10
5.60
3
Bandit (Fighter)
Bandit (Bandit)
Bandit (Myrmidon)

Titania
Paladin
2
--
0
2
--
0
--

I've also added a Damage Ratio, to see who hits hardest in relation to being hit. A 2 would indicate they've dealt twice as much damage as being dealt, a 0.5 would mean the opposite. I'll probably just go to 2 decimal places. (Seems Oscar's way in the lead this first round.)

You don't have to list the unit names for the generic units killed. Ike's kill list should read like... "Named Units: Boyd (Fighter, KOd), Greil (Hero, KOd), Zawana (Bandit), and Generic Units: Myrmidonx1, Banditx1. That's how I'd do it anyway. Don't make cataloging things so difficult for yourself!

Is it possible to switch combat animations mid fight?

I feel like something along the lines of view animations for a round or two the first time new a character appears would be cool (if only because it seems like combat time uses different models than the overmap), but I agree that with later maps the animations could drag time out a lot with what is basically just filler.

If you turn the animations off, do you still get stuff like the bandit boss taunting you?

It is possible to do that, yes, and is what I planned to do if people wanted combat animations turned off. You do still get dialogue from combat if the animations are off, yes.

DataNinja

2016-10-10, 11:39 AM

You don't have to list the unit names for the generic units killed. Ike's kill list should read like... "Named Units: Boyd (Fighter, KOd), Greil (Hero, KOd), Zawana (Bandit), and Generic Units: Myrmidonx1, Banditx1. That's how I'd do it anyway. Don't make cataloging things so difficult for yourself!

That doesn't make it helpful for you, though. Because the Mymidon class, Bandit class, and Fighter class are all "Bandit" units.

So instead of the units in this encounter being:

~Zawana (Bandit)
~ Bandit (Fighter) x2
~Bandit (Myrmidon) x2
~Bandit (Bandit) x2

It would be:
~Zawana (Bandit)
~Bandit x6

If that's how you want it, sure, let me know, but it's counter to what you seemed to be interested in. :smalltongue:

Seerow

2016-10-10, 11:47 AM

That doesn't make it helpful for you, though. Because the Mymidon class, Bandit class, and Fighter class are all "Bandit" units.

So instead of the units in this encounter being:

~Zawana (Bandit)
~ Bandit (Fighter) x2
~Bandit (Myrmidon) x2
~Bandit (Bandit) x2

It would be:
~Zawana (Bandit)
~Bandit x6

If that's how you want it, sure, let me know, but it's counter to what you seemed to be interested in. :smalltongue:

I think what she meant was remove the "bandit" so the encounter would be

Zawana
Fighter x2
Myrmidon x2
Bandit x2

So that down the line you don't have Bandit (Warrior) x10 and then have Enemy Soldier (Warrior) x10 as separate categories.

DataNinja

2016-10-10, 11:49 AM

I think what she meant was remove the "bandit" so the encounter would be

Zawana
Fighter x2
Myrmidon x2
Bandit x2

So that down the line you don't have Bandit (Warrior) x10 and then have Enemy Soldier (Warrior) x10 as separate categories.

Oh. I am a smart. Honest. :smallredface:

PhantomFox

2016-10-10, 11:58 AM

I like combat animations, personally. But they do bloat the video time awfully. I'll leave it at your call.

Anyhow, level up analysis!
Spreadsheet (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Do5r6dbwo3GK7oxqPFZJ1vZNHlrUZp90W9r_FwvHrXY/edit#gid=0)
Right now, only Ike has had enough level ups to make anything resembling a trend. His good level ups are about average for him, since he has 50% or better in 4 stats, and the others aren't too shabby. Notably, so far he's been having good luck with Skill, getting +1 on every level so far with a 50% growth chance. So he's above the curve for that so far. Everything else is within 1 pt of average.

Oscar's best growths, according to his growths are HP and Skil at 50%, with Strength and Speed right behind at 45%. But of note, he has +3 Defense compared to to Ike and Boyd. Other than that? Too soon to tell

LaZodiac

2016-10-11, 06:21 PM

Anyhow, level up analysis!

This is going to be REALLY fascinating to look at at the end of things.

Also, screw waiting till Wednesday like I said. Golf now.

A Taste Of: 100ft Robot Golf (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cpomq29sr9I&feature=youtu.be)

Say hello to a new series from me, Zodi, a person. This is "A Taste Of" my little First Impression show. It will be rarer than my regular stuff, really only showing up when it's a game I'm super hyped for. Like say...100ft Robot Golf. Which owns, by the way. Most of what I have to say is in the video, though in short hand form. The end result is: I love this game buy it.

DataNinja

2016-10-11, 10:57 PM

Well, that was a... something. Much more easily judged by its cover than the last... something, though. :smalltongue:

It looks interesting. And also a golf game that I'd watch/play. (I'm not a golf person. Although I am in a family with three of them...) Adding robots and explosions to everything always makes it better, eh? :smallbiggrin:

LaZodiac

2016-10-14, 09:51 AM

Golf Is Over, so now is time for more Fire Emblem.

Zodi Plays: Fire Emblem Path of Radiance [3] Kidnappers (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIjFjtpEzSo)

Video Length: 20:54

In this episode, we open on another normal, quiet day for the Greil Mercenaries. We're introduced to the frail, likely anemic, Rhys! He's a priest, which means he's qualified to bop friends with a staff to heal them, and be murdered by a stiff breeze even on a good day. He brings a message, unknowingly, that Mist and Rolf, the children who live in the compound, have been kidnapped! Uh oh! Titania runs off, and Rhys tells the others, though notes Titania said to wait for her. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on how you look at it, Ike's not one to just sit around. It's time for some murdering.

This map is mainly composed of Myrmidons, Axe Fighters, and a few Bandits. Ikanau, the leader of this particular group of mountain men, has a Speedwing. This is another stat boosting item, which raises speed. That'll be useful later. Another thing of note on this map is the surprisingly very, very rare in this game terrain object of a Heal Hedge. These magical bushes of life heal you if you sit in them. They really only show up in the earlier game, for interesting and intentional reasons because they're only native to Crimean soil.

Other than that...nothing really much HAPPENS here, it's just another map to get you used to how these types of games place, and to further show that Ike is kind of impulsive when it comes to friends potentially being killed, especially his sister. We also get Rolf, the final of the three siblings of Oscar and Boyd. Neat! This map does show of the Talk mechanic, even if I did mess it up just a tad. Units can sometimes talk to each other if plot things happen, like when Titania shows up as reinforcements. Speaking of reinforcements, we're also introduced to the two high ranking members of the Greil Mercenaries: Gatrie and Shinon. Nice. More on them later.

The combat animations are on for this one because it and the next two or so were recorded before the thread started. I've been trying to do a lot of this series in advanced due to how the gameplay works and how long it takes, and how work gets in the way of stuff. Hope you don't mind.

Anyway, that's the episode. We have visited violence on a pack of bandits once more. We're still firmly in the super early game, but I'm sort of liking how everyone's going level up wise. Let's just hope things continue along this path...of radiance. Hope you all enjoyed I'll see you guys next time!

DataNinja

2016-10-14, 04:08 PM

Well, good news is, I'm getting better at remembering which battle sprite belongs to which class. Bad news is, I'm sure that'll get yanked away in the next few videos. :smalltongue:

Anyways, I don't actually know if Rhys can deal damage or not, so I'm putting how much he heals in brackets in the "Damage Dealt" column instead, and I'll use that as a ratio instead (assuming he ever takes damage...). If there's a different way you want me to deal with healing, though, Zodi, let me know. Or I can burn cross that bridge when we come to it. :smallwink:

Unit
Class
First Ep
Last Ep
Dmg Dealt
Dmg Taken
Ratio
# Defeated
Tally

Ike
Ranger
1
--
173
42
4.12
11
Boyd (Fighter, Tutorial)
Greil (Hero, Tutorial)
Zawana (Bandit)
Ikanau (Bandit)
***
Myrmidon x3
Bandit x 2
Fighter x2

Boyd
Fighter
2
--
128
47
2.72
4
Fighter x2
Myrmidon x1
Bandit x1

Oscar
Lance Knight
2
--
110
19
5.79
3
Fighter x1
Bandit x2

Titania
Paladin
2
--
0
7
--
0
--

Rhys
Priest
3
--
0 (34)
0
--
0
--

Oh, yeah... Someone else can keep track of the crits. :smalltongue:

LaZodiac

2016-10-14, 04:27 PM

Presenting it like that is quite okay, don't worry. And speaking of difficult work...hoo boy I hope the eventual future speed ups aren't TOO fast.

As for Rhys dealing damage...that relies entirely on how well he levels up. We'll see.

DataNinja

2016-10-14, 04:46 PM

And speaking of difficult work...hoo boy I hope the eventual future speed ups aren't TOO fast.

Oh dear. I feel like the 0.5x and 0.25x buttons might be seeing some use. Either that, or I'll just start using variables. :smallamused:

Or just add those accuracy disclaimers that are always on the bottom of statistics, and make up whatever numbers sound good.

PhantomFox

2016-10-14, 08:33 PM

DataNinja

2016-10-14, 09:53 PM

PhantomFox

2016-10-14, 10:09 PM

DataNinja

2016-10-14, 10:21 PM

Might want to label that X axis. I'm assuming that's tracks the chapters?

Yeah. I'm trying, but Spreadsheets is fighting me. It doesn't seem to like me telling it "add labels to horizontal axis". :smalltongue:

Edit: So... apparently entirely resetting the chart type caused my changes to stick? Oooookay, then. :smallconfused:

LaZodiac

2016-10-14, 11:57 PM

I had some free time, so I, too, am jumping on the spreadsheet train, complete with chart tracking your units' damage (dealt:taken) ratios. It doesn't look too impressive now, but give it time. (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11t1-sGVO82bFPkd8qLQ3NLouYJZs3hE8PEQz4gEjAP4/edit?usp=sharing)

And, as a note, General Zodiac... I expect that you will ensure those ratios rise, because you, after all, are good at video games. Expectations are high. :smallamused:

*Looks at graph intently*

Man this'd be really cool if I knew how to read graphs. Also god this thing is going to be an utter MESS by the end of the game. Hoo boy.

ALSO! Phantom Fox, the what you have for Rhys's base stats are wrong...but also MY Rhys's stats are ALSO slightly inaccurate to the ACTUAL base stats according to http://serenesforest.net/path-of-radiance/characters/base-stats/ which is the best site for knowledge on this stuff and that's...confusing. The only inaccuracy is my luck, which is ONE less than it should be, according to this.

Wait no according to this Rhys's stats are rounded to the nearest whole number, and...somehow this causes a discrepency? I don't understand this.

Further studying into the mystery that is Rhys reveals that what you said, about the starting at level 1 and then leveling up three times, is a theory that some people have, and apparently the coding is so confusing no one has figured out the truth yet?

DataNinja

2016-10-15, 12:30 AM

Man this'd be really cool if I knew how to read graphs. Also god this thing is going to be an utter MESS by the end of the game. Hoo boy.

Basically, it's just saying how "effective" each unit has been in all battles they've been in, up to the episode that each point represents. "Effectiveness" is based on damage dealt divided by damage received. So, a "effectiveness" value of 2 would mean a unit dealt twice as much damage as it has received, and vice versa for a value of 0.5.

In layman's terms: This is just a bunch of lines to say which units are doing good at damaging without being damaged themselves, and seeing how those values compare to each other and change over the course of the game. Higher on the graph means a unit is better at this.

...and, yes, it's going to be a mess by the end, depending on how many units we get, and how consistent "effectiveness" is. :smalltongue:

AsteriskAmp

2016-10-15, 01:50 AM

Interesting note: Apparently Rhys is a bit special, as his starting stats are slightly randomized. Which confused me to why it didn't match up with my guide. But from what I read, he starts at lvl 1 and then gets 3 invisible level ups before we first see him at lvl 4. And as far as I can tell, he's the only one who does this?

Spreadsheet (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Do5r6dbwo3GK7oxqPFZJ1vZNHlrUZp90W9r_FwvHrXY/edit?usp=sharing)
Oddly enough, Ike has been missing his HP growths oddly enough from what I'm told is a 70% chance. Two bad level ups for him this round, even with him hogging all the XP. About 1.5 behind the average. I'm sure he'll catch up though. Everyone else is still within tolerances.Enemy units for the most part have a pattern similar to this. They start at a given level and have growths based on their class and are applied said hidden level ups. Which is why enemy units vary on each instance of the map. This is more clearly seen on Maniac where the variance can potentially go up to 6 points (+/- 3) on attacking stats (and probably beyond).

Starbuck_II

2016-10-15, 12:55 PM

Try not to level Ike too fast, Ike upgrades class by plot not level (a few chapters I maxed him out and had to waste a few kills since he can't get anymore xp).

When I played (on rom since I couldn't find the game), it never got past chapter 13 (saves bugged out).

Mia was my favorite new member when she joins (keeper her alive when game hade her not evade was an issue til she leveled though).

LaZodiac

2016-10-17, 09:32 AM

Despite the snow, a Fire Emblem appears!

Zodi Plays: Fire Emblem Path of Radiance[4] Filthy Pirates (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6uogVmS0NM)

Video Length: 24:12

This time on Path of Radiance, Greil punishes everyone involved in the kidnapping situation...and then notes that since they're kind of a small group and money is important their punishments will have to wait. We've got jobs to do! Ike's being sent out with Gatrie and Shinon, mentioned last chapter, along with Titania, to clear out some stinky boat monkies from a port town. So let's get a move on, shall we!

Some notable things about this map is, there's a visit house where we get an elixir. The guy who gives it to us is...let's be fair, OBVIOUSLY important, but let's just assume for now he's a random traveller who we'll never see again. And speaking of people we'll never see again, this map also has Marcia appear, once we trigger her appearance by stepping forward past a specific line on the map. This spunky pegasus knight from Begnion is quite cute, and presented quite a bit of a challenge for me. You see, in order to recruit her later in the game, you need to have Ike talk to her now. I wasn't sure how she'd react to the enemies though, if she'd run off and fight them or if she'd stay put, or even if the enemies would go to punch her. It's complicated and in the future I may run practice runs of maps just to get a feel for them so I don't make embarrassing mistakes again.

Not that embarrassing mistakes AREN'T going to happen. Hoo boy.

Anyway, mechanically, this map is actually theoretically tough? It's a bunch of Fighters and Bandits and some Myrmidons, as well as an Archer, which attacks from long range. However, Gatrie is an Armor Knight who's kind of busted stat wise, and quite high level, and Shinon is a prepromote like Titania, a sniper that's gone through all those boring levels of archer. He's pretty strong, and is a very good "dodge tank" at this stage of the game. You just can't hit him, and because he's Shinon, you REALLY want to. Provoke is...interesting a skill, and I don't really know how it affects the AI. Basically, things will try to go out of their way to attack Shinon.

And...once all is said and done, we get some interesting hints from the old man that hired us that our group, Titania especially, are quite a bit fancier than you'd expect from simple sellswords. Titania sort of tries to explain/reveal something to Ike, but they brush it off when Shinon and Gatrie whine about how this isn't glamorous. Ike shows that he's an honest man by taking pride in his work. He should he talked to a cute lady on a pegasus today.

Anyway, that was the video. Hope you all enjoyed, I'll see you guys next time. Be sure to tune in, because next time...the plot actually begins!

PhantomFox

2016-10-17, 05:53 PM

DataNinja

2016-10-17, 09:00 PM

Well, time to start watching. *seven hours and several classes and other distractions later* Whoo.... that took awhile. :smalltongue:

In the future, Zodi, it would help me immensely if you show the stat-blocks of the enemy units at the start of each map. For instance, I didn't know whether to classify the big burly guys as Bandit class or maybe Pirate class (luckily, I guessed right with Bandit), while I wasn't sure whether the axe-thrower was an Archer or Fighter (thankfully I chose right, as I learned near the end of the video) nor whether the bow armed guy was a Archer (as you kept calling him) or Fighters (as that's what his sprite seems to be)...

Unit
Class
First Ep
Last Ep
Dmg Dealt
Dmg Taken
Ratio
# Defeated
Tally

Ike
Ranger
1
--
257
63
4.07
12
Boyd (Fighter, Tutorial)
Greil (Hero, Tutorial)
Zawana (Bandit)
Ikanau (Bandit)
***
Myrmidon x3
Bandit x3
Fighter x2

Boyd
Fighter
2
--
128
47
2.72
4
Fighter x2
Myrmidon x1
Bandit x1

Oscar
Lance Knight
2
--
110
19
5.79
3
Fighter x1
Bandit x2

Titania
Paladin
2
--
55
24
2.29
1
Fighter x1

Rhys
Priest
3
--
0 (34)
0
--
0
--

Shinon
Sniper
4
--
63
0
--
5
Myrmidon x 1
Bandit x3
Archer x1

Gatrie
Knight
4
--
126
8
15.75
5
Havetti (Bandit)
***
Fighter x2
Bandit x2

The chart (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11t1-sGVO82bFPkd8qLQ3NLouYJZs3hE8PEQz4gEjAP4/edit#gid=184818464) has also been updated. Unfortunately, the units that just started damage ratio this battle are little dots, so a tad hard to see, but it'll get better as time goes on.

I also want to know if there's a way that you'd like me to deal with the ratio for when a unit has dealt damage, but has taken none. Because, unfortunately, divide-by-zero errors are a thing. Right now, I've set the "damage taken" to 1, and simply capped the graph at a maximum of 20, that way the graph doesn't become ungodly zoomed out, but that seems inelegant. If there's some way that you'd prefer me to handle that, whether by simply not including them until they take damage, or something, just let me know.

Qwertystop

2016-10-17, 09:23 PM

Just watched video 3, and... Archer guy, you were not standing anywhere near there when you shot that. Did you walk around to behind the hut just to be able to walk out from behind it?

LaZodiac

2016-10-17, 11:48 PM

Not much to say for this video on my end. Only one level up, but that does add Gatrie to the chart.
Spreadsheet (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Do5r6dbwo3GK7oxqPFZJ1vZNHlrUZp90W9r_FwvHrXY/edit?usp=sharing)

A bit confused on why you gave so much kill XP to Shinon though. Would have been better on the two pre-promotes in my opinion.

Unless I give an explicit reason as to why I do something in video or in thread, the answer to "why did you do this bad tactical thing?" is going to always be because "I am an idiot".

Well, time to start watching. *seven hours and several classes and other distractions later* Whoo.... that took awhile. :smalltongue:

In the future, Zodi, it would help me immensely if you show the stat-blocks of the enemy units at the start of each map. For instance, I didn't know whether to classify the big burly guys as Bandit class or maybe Pirate class (luckily, I guessed right with Bandit), while I wasn't sure whether the axe-thrower was an Archer or Fighter (thankfully I chose right, as I learned near the end of the video) nor whether the bow armed guy was a Archer (as you kept calling him) or Fighters (as that's what his sprite seems to be)...

The chart (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11t1-sGVO82bFPkd8qLQ3NLouYJZs3hE8PEQz4gEjAP4/edit#gid=184818464) has also been updated. Unfortunately, the units that just started damage ratio this battle are little dots, so a tad hard to see, but it'll get better as time goes on.

I also want to know if there's a way that you'd like me to deal with the ratio for when a unit has dealt damage, but has taken none. Because, unfortunately, divide-by-zero errors are a thing. Right now, I've set the "damage taken" to 1, and simply capped the graph at a maximum of 20, that way the graph doesn't become ungodly zoomed out, but that seems inelegant. If there's some way that you'd prefer me to handle that, whether by simply not including them until they take damage, or something, just let me know.

Might just be me, but the archer model is pretty clearly different from the fighter model. And I mean...archers use bows and fighters use axes, but that's fair you don't actually know fighters are axe only. In the future I will try to do this, I just...had to do a restart or two on this map and thus forgot to.

I...have no idea how to solve this devious math question. Graphs!

Just watched video 3, and... Archer guy, you were not standing anywhere near there when you shot that. Did you walk around to behind the hut just to be able to walk out from behind it?

The battlefields that the fighting takes place in when animations play out is...not quite accurate all the time.

Illven

2016-10-17, 11:55 PM

Do you intend to play any other fire emblem games after this?

DataNinja

2016-10-18, 12:05 AM

Might just be me, but the archer model is pretty clearly different from the fighter model. And I mean...archers use bows and fighters use axes, but that's fair you don't actually know fighters are axe only. In the future I will try to do this, I just...had to do a restart or two on this map and thus forgot to.

Fair enough, it's probably me then. And possibly my screen.

And, I didn't know if different classes could use different weapons. Maybe I should have done a tad of Fire Emblem research before this. Because I've never played (or seen) a FE game before now. :smalltongue:

Really, though, if you can, it's great, if not... well, I'm the one mooching off your entertainment. Guess I'll need to work for it. :smallbiggrin:

And, as an aside, okay, so restarts aren't going to be shown on video? Gotcha. Because I wasn't sure if you were going to want those counted in totals, or if I was going to have to do a separate count, and add it afterwards, or something.

I...have no idea how to solve this devious math question. Graphs!

Okay, the make-it-up-as-we-go-along method. My favorite. :smallwink:

LaZodiac

2016-10-18, 12:25 AM

Do you intend to play any other fire emblem games after this?

Not like, immediately. I do a sort of alternating thing, where I do what I call an "A Series" game, and then a "B Series" game. A Series is currently a vote between "the next Zelda game" or "the next Kirby game" and B Series is comprised of all my Patreon selected games and all the games that people have put up due to winning the contribution award for any of my other threads.

I'm going to be introducing a C Series after the next A Series where I pick from the Patreon only games, though, to incentivize that.

Fair enough, it's probably me then. And possibly my screen.

And, I didn't know if different classes could use different weapons. Maybe I should have done a tad of Fire Emblem research before this. Because I've never played (or seen) a FE game before now. :smalltongue:

Really, though, if you can, it's great, if not... well, I'm the one mooching off your entertainment. Guess I'll need to work for it. :smallbiggrin:

And, as an aside, okay, so restarts aren't going to be shown on video? Gotcha. Because I wasn't sure if you were going to want those counted in totals, or if I was going to have to do a separate count, and add it afterwards, or something.

Okay, the make-it-up-as-we-go-along method. My favorite. :smallwink:

Let's not count the number of restarts because the answer will be "too many".

Illven

2016-10-18, 12:32 AM

Damn, was hoping for radiant dawn for reasons. Ah well.

DataNinja

2016-10-18, 12:40 AM

Let's not count the number of restarts because the answer will be "too many".

It was more counting the damage dealt and taken during restarts, but this'll be easier. I'm beginning to think my "Last Episode" column is going to be useless, though. :smallwink:

LaZodiac

2016-10-18, 01:29 AM

Damn, was hoping for radiant dawn for reasons. Ah well.

Sorry to disappoint, though there ARE ways you can shoot for that game being played.

Though do note I also don't actually own Radiant Dawn ooops.

Also yeah Dark Shadow don't expect anyone to die in this. Worst case scenario Last Ep can be for the time I throw them into the bench for all eternity because the game has like 40 characters? I'll talk more about this as we get deeper in, but Fire Emblem does...things, to deal with it's gameplay.

DataNinja

2016-10-18, 01:40 AM

Also yeah Dark Shadow don't expect anyone to die in this. Worst case scenario Last Ep can be for the time I throw them into the bench for all eternity because the game has like 40 characters? I'll talk more about this as we get deeper in, but Fire Emblem does...things, to deal with it's gameplay.

I see. I'll remove that column to conserve valuable space then. :smallbiggrin:

40 characters... well, that's going to be fun when dealing with characters at the bottom of the table as well as Ike. SCROLLING! :smalltongue:

That ratio chart is going to be a mess. I can't wait.

LaZodiac

2016-10-21, 10:10 AM

And so it begins. It's time for this game to actually start.

Zodi Plays: Fire Emblem Path of Radiance [5] Daein (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyacZBsQu8w)

Video Length: 27:45

We open with dramatic news. Soren, the adorable small boy wizard of the mercenaries, has returned! He's Ike's best friend so this is important. Also important: Daein, a war like kingdom to the north, has suddenly engaged in conflict with Crimea! The capital is under siege and bands of solders stalk the grounds. As mercenaries, we don't really have much of a stake in this war, and yet at the same time we do. Do we go over to the baddies who are certainly going to win and get rich...or do we stick with our morals and at least try to defend the dying nation we live in? Greil asks his small group of killmen what they'd prefer, and aside from Soren's view that blood money is still money, and Shinon's general rudeboy behavior, everyone decides they should stick with the good guys. So we're sent out to scout the border, see how things are doing.

They're not doing too well. Royal guard corpses litter the path, and it's generally pretty clear that they've been utterly routed. Also unfortunate, a Daein scouting party has found US. And they're quite saucy, demanding we disarm and probably be killed. It's time for a rough and tumble fight against a rather large force of mainly Soldiers, and some other smattering of classes. Soldiers are well rounded spear boys, and due to their general replaceability they are the bog standard enemy army unit.

For this mission we're given Gatrie, Shinon, Titania, Rhys, and Soren. Soren is a mage, and a potentially quite powerful one as well. He has a skill that's important enough that I'll actually talk about some math a bit. Adept is a skill that lets you, sometimes, get in an extra hit immediately. So if Soren would hit a guy once and then get hit back, he'd instant hit him twice then get attacked. If he would double someone, and he activated Adept on both hits, that's 4x attacks to the enemy's one. Soren has the possibility to kill anything that moves. But it comes at a cost. The chance of it activating is just a straight Skill percent chance, so it's a pretty low chance. And more importantly, Soren needs Strength BADLY. See, wizards aren't very tough, but that's okay they attack from range with their brain. But those magic tomes of theirs are still heavy. A good mage needs at least a degree of Str, otherwise they're just not going to be fast enough to contribute. So...good luck on that Soren.

A bit of primer on magic, while we're here. Magic in this game is divided into four schools of magic. Fire, Wind, Thunder, and Light. I don't believe there's any weapon triangle going on here, but in terms of raw mechanical value, Fire is basically spears, wind is basically swords, and thunder is basically axes. Light doesn't care about this and I guess by that logic is bows? Anyway the point is, magic!

Our main strategy here is to form a defensive wall and allow the enemy to come to us. Titania's breaking out ye old murder wedge, we can't afford her just serving as a meat shield. For the most part that's basically it, so expect to see some speeding up here. I'm...dreadfully sorry for Dark Shadow, and am glad at least some of my videos have the ability to change speeds :smallamused:

But after we've finally killed all those black armoured baddies and cleaned off our weapons...Rhys hears a noise. We investigate and find...a green haired woman in an elegant red dress.

Boys, we've hit peak anime. See you next time, for the first actual episode of Fire Emblem Path of Radiance. Hope you all enjoyed.

------

Anyone who has email alerts for my videos please send me the picture of the email they send. I'm testing out title card thumbnails, and I want to see how it looks.

DataNinja

2016-10-21, 04:46 PM

Qwertystop

2016-10-21, 10:02 PM

Well. That Knight Killer was less than effective at actually killing a knight.

Illven

2016-10-21, 10:17 PM

Well. That Knight Killer was less than effective at actually killing a knight.

I think it's anti-mounted, not anti-armor.

Qwertystop

2016-10-21, 10:21 PM

I think it's anti-mounted, not anti-armor.

...Huh.

I mean, his class is actually Knight, yes? If it's anti-cavalry it should have a better name.

Illven

2016-10-21, 10:31 PM

...Huh.

I mean, his class is actually Knight, yes? If it's anti-cavalry it should have a better name.

Well in this game, the base mounted unit, is called the Mounted knight.

Qwertystop

2016-10-21, 10:42 PM

Well in this game, the base mounted unit, is called the Mounted knight.

Yes, but then the base heavy-armored unit is the Knight.

Illven

2016-10-21, 10:47 PM

Yes, but then the base heavy-armored unit is the Knight.

Yeah, it's not the best naming system.

Seerow

2016-10-21, 11:00 PM

Yeah, it's not the best naming system.

Kind of curious if that's just a quirk of translation or if it's like that in japanese as well.

Anyway /wave, still watching, still don't have anything in particular to say. This let's play has put me in the mood for playing some FE myself, which is an unusal side effect for me (it's the first time one of these has made me want to play a similar game. Usually I'm pretty content, even happier, to just watch). I'm already grabbing a new 3DS for pokemon, I might need to borrow a FE game from my brother to scratch the itch.

PhantomFox

2016-10-21, 11:01 PM

Nuuu... Soren could have probably finished off the boss and gotten another level or more. Ah well, but yeah, we do need to even out the levels for when the company comes back together. Soren, Rhys, Boyd and Oscar are way behind everyone else.

Spreadsheet (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Do5r6dbwo3GK7oxqPFZJ1vZNHlrUZp90W9r_FwvHrXY/edit?usp=sharing)
Good luck getting STR on Soren, he has a 5% growth for it. :smallyuk: In other news, the RNG has helped Ike catch back up to par in HP and is 1.5 points above par in Skill. Gatrie is 1.2 points above par in Luck. Not much else to report.

LaZodiac

2016-10-22, 12:00 AM

Oh, gah, the lighting... :smallbiggrin:

...

Oh, gah, the fast battles! :smalleek:

Unit
Class
First Ep
Dmg Dealt
Dmg Taken
Ratio
# Defeated
Tally

Ike
Ranger
1
307
84
3.65
16
Boyd (Fighter, Tutorial)
Greil (Hero, Tutorial)
Zawana (Bandit)
Ikanau (Bandit)
Maijin (Knight)
***
Myrmidon x3
Bandit x3
Fighter x2
Archer x2
Soldier x1

Boyd
Fighter
2
128
47
2.72
4
Fighter x2
Myrmidon x1
Bandit x1

Oscar
Lance Knight
2
110
19
5.79
3
Fighter x1
Bandit x2

Titania
Paladin
2
151
32
4.72
5
Fighter x1
Soldier x3
Myrmidon x1

Rhys
Priest
3
0 (68)
15
4.53
0
--

Shinon
Sniper
4
85
8
10.63
7
Myrmidon x 1
Bandit x3
Archer x2
Soldier x1

Gatrie
Knight
4
292
11
26.55
9
Havetti (Bandit)
***
Fighter x2
Bandit x2
Soldier x4

Soren
Mage
5
59
0
--
2
Fighter x1
Soldier x1

(I really want to see a table of how many times attacks deal "no damage". Especially to Gatrie. :smalltongue:)

edit: And... our chart (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11t1-sGVO82bFPkd8qLQ3NLouYJZs3hE8PEQz4gEjAP4/edit#gid=184818464) is starting to get messed up, now that we're getting out of tiptoing-around-divide-by-zero-errors area. :smallamused:

Gatrie's definitely in the lead. He's dealing over twenty-five times as much damage as he's taking.

The next...TWO or so episodes are going to be torture for you, and I apologize profusely. It's hard to figure out how to edit these things yo!

Gatrie's kind of...indestructible, if you're lucky.

Kind of curious if that's just a quirk of translation or if it's like that in japanese as well.

Anyway /wave, still watching, still don't have anything in particular to say. This let's play has put me in the mood for playing some FE myself, which is an unusal side effect for me (it's the first time one of these has made me want to play a similar game. Usually I'm pretty content, even happier, to just watch). I'm already grabbing a new 3DS for pokemon, I might need to borrow a FE game from my brother to scratch the itch.

The Knight Killer is it's Japanese name, so it's just a literal translation here. In Japanese the Cavalier are called...Social Knights (please explain this) and Knights are Armor Knights, or just Armors. Which I've been calling them this entire time.

Effective weapons like the Knight Killer aren't actually SUPER great, I'll throw the math of them next update I think, but it's like...I overestimated them a lot sometimes.

And don't worry Seerow, plot's actually gonna happen for you to comment on soon. Also, I'd highly recommend Awakening or Fates, if you want to pick up Fire Emblem. That's just me.

Nuuu... Soren could have probably finished off the boss and gotten another level or more. Ah well, but yeah, we do need to even out the levels for when the company comes back together. Soren, Rhys, Boyd and Oscar are way behind everyone else.

Spreadsheet (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Do5r6dbwo3GK7oxqPFZJ1vZNHlrUZp90W9r_FwvHrXY/edit?usp=sharing)
Good luck getting STR on Soren, he has a 5% growth for it. :smallyuk: In other news, the RNG has helped Ike catch back up to par in HP and is 1.5 points above par in Skill. Gatrie is 1.2 points above par in Luck. Not much else to report.

Yeaah, I'm soort of bad at deciding who to feed, sometimes? I also didn't want to risk it. I'm...bad at just setting myself down and looking at the math to do it all out.

Seerow

2016-10-22, 12:56 AM

And don't worry Seerow, plot's actually gonna happen for you to comment on soon. Also, I'd highly recommend Awakening or Fates, if you want to pick up Fire Emblem. That's just me.

Plot has been happening! Sorta. I'll admit it's all fascinating to me just as a total outsider. I played some of the GBA fire emblems like over a decade ago, but never really got heavily into the series; at the time I was too heavily comitted to Final Fantasy Tactics to really enjoy another grid based RPG, especially one with so much heavier emphasis on logistics and RNG as opposed to the more traditional RPG trappings.

And I'll admit, when I play RPGs I tend to be a perfectionist, which makes FE games particularly daunting to me. Like I would be strongly tempted to reset after seeing a levelup with only 1-2 stats; or after missing an item. Never mind the whole thing with recruitable characters being easily missed just by being ignorant; and I've heard about some(all?) FE games with generational aspects, where you build relationships between units by having them fight next to each other or talking during a fight, and those relationships determine what your units are for the second half of the game. Like those kinds of things are really cool from a pure exploration aspect, but from the point of view of an optimizer, it's freaking terrifying unless you want to spend hours reading guides before you do any given map.

I guess what I'm saying is to start playing FE myself I either need to reign myself in and just roll with it, or do a deep dive into game mechanics before starting. The first is probably the healthier option.

DataNinja

2016-10-22, 01:27 AM

The next...TWO or so episodes are going to be torture for you, and I apologize profusely. It's hard to figure out how to edit these things yo!

Well, it'll give me a distraction from calculus, so, it's not entirely torture. :smalltongue:

And, really, it's fine, don't worry about it. It's not like you're making me do this. SEND HELP.

Gatrie's kind of...indestructible, if you're lucky.

Seems like a good trait to have. :smallamused:

Luck? You have aaaaaaaaaaalllllll the luck, right?

http://i.imgur.com/7BH495h.png

Seerow

2016-10-22, 01:28 AM

Well, it'll give me a distraction from calculus, so, it's not entirely torture. :smalltongue:

And, really, it's fine, don't worry about it. It's not like you're making me do this. SEND HELP.

Seems like a good trait to have. :smallamused:

Luck? You have aaaaaaaaaaalllllll the luck, right?

http://i.imgur.com/JWgiuRp.png

This image is possibly the best thing I've seen in any of the Zodi let's play threads. Good job.

Illven

2016-10-22, 01:34 AM

I'm like 90% sure, her avoid should be 119.

Or a odd number if the Hell mic is super heavy.

DataNinja

2016-10-22, 01:41 AM

I'm like 90% sure, her avoid should be 119.

Or a odd number if the Hell mic is super heavy.

There. :smalltongue:

I did what I could based on what Zodi mentioned about the stats in the first post... but, I'm not a Fire Emblem statistician. :smallbiggrin:

LaZodiac

2016-10-22, 01:43 AM

Well, it'll give me a distraction from calculus, so, it's not entirely torture. :smalltongue:

Luck? You have aaaaaaaaaaalllllll the luck, right?

http://i.imgur.com/EOG6WyL.png

Nice, glad I can help with that.

It's beautiful. I'm going to enjoy working this into the credits as a sort of fan art showcase thing. I also appreciate the subtleness of my weapon being the Hell Mic. Something tells me the Throwback Thursday videos are...having the effect I intended :smallamused:

This image is possibly the best thing I've seen in any of the Zodi let's play threads. Good job.

Same. I love fan art, and this is a hilarious piece.

I'm like 90% sure, her avoid should be 119.

Or a odd number if the Hell mic is super heavy.

Ah, the glorious power of math.

Illven

2016-10-22, 01:59 AM

Ah, the glorious power of math.

With the power of MATH. (Also because I literally played forum emblem on these forums for years a few years back)

We give you Hell Mic's stats!

Mt 45 Hit 18 (Incredibly low) Crit 31 Wt Less then 16. Rng 1-3. Uses N/A

DataNinja

2016-10-22, 02:14 AM

We give you Hell Mic's stats!

Mt 45 Hit 18 (Incredibly low) Crit 31 Wt Less then 16. Rng 1-3. Uses N/A

Do you want it to have a high hit rate? :smalltongue:

Totally intentional. And not just accidentally in the process of attempting to ensure my numbers weren't flat out impossible.

Illven

2016-10-22, 02:17 AM

Do you want it to have a high hit rate? :smalltongue:

Totally intentional. And not just accidentally in the process of attempting to ensure my numbers weren't flat out impossible.

I don't care.

La Zodiac might. :smalltongue:

Qwertystop

2016-10-22, 07:34 AM

Mic should have a low use count. How many games did it last for?

LaZodiac

2016-10-22, 10:11 AM

I don't care.

La Zodiac might. :smalltongue:

Considering it's the Hell Mic, it sounds appropriate.

Mic should have a low use count. How many games did it last for?

Like, 7.

DataNinja

2016-10-22, 12:27 PM

There ya go. All fixed up now that I'm not lacking sleep. :smallbiggrin:

HalfTangible

2016-10-22, 02:13 PM

Considering it's the Hell Mic, it sounds appropriate.

PFFFTAHAHAHAHAHA

'Sounds'. Microphone. Nice one.

heh...

I laughed way harder than I should have.

LaZodiac

2016-10-22, 02:17 PM

PFFFTAHAHAHAHAHA

'Sounds'. Microphone. Nice one.

heh...

I laughed way harder than I should have.

Well it IS my gratest weapon.

Illven

2016-10-22, 02:58 PM

The avoid's wrong again. :smalltongue:

DataNinja

2016-10-22, 03:13 PM

The avoid's wrong again. :smalltongue:

This is why you mark your versions more clearly, folks... :smallredface:

DataNinja

2016-10-24, 01:52 AM

So, this (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11t1-sGVO82bFPkd8qLQ3NLouYJZs3hE8PEQz4gEjAP4/edit#gid=1160097157) is what happens when you have time to kill, folks. Every battle that participants have been in (minus the one Rhys got into, because I'm counting his heals, not lack of damage). Each time they've critted. Each time the foe missed them. And each time the foe used a move that didn't affect them managed to go *ping* off their armour (No Damage).

And, because that apparently wasn't enough... I calculated damage dealt (or healed, for Rhys) divided by number of combats entered (note that this does count combats where they can't possibly even attack the enemy - sucks to be them :smallamused:). There's even a chart (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11t1-sGVO82bFPkd8qLQ3NLouYJZs3hE8PEQz4gEjAP4/edit#gid=5482773) for it.

Apparently Boyd does stuff. Too bad he hasn't been around to ruin those numbers.
And, poor Ike. He keeps getting into battles with Archers. That really skewers the ol' statistics. :smalltongue:

At least Titania's been getting more effective now that you've been letting her hit stuff. Apparently that does wonders... Who'da thought?

Lord Raziere

2016-10-24, 04:06 AM

On Ep 3:
We get a healer! huh, this is early for Fire Emblem games.

its sad that early game paladins like Titania have to play swordless meatshield for weaker characters to grow. I'm sure she'd be an awesome fighter....like they're canonically supposed to be.

huh, awesome archer is awesome.

On Ep 4:
yay, Titania gets to do things!

oh wow, that is pretty stupid.

lightning and thunder indeed. I predict that every time Zodi tries to just soften up a big boss that should be hard, a crit out of nowhere will easily dispatch them.

and heh, always that conflict between greater fame and fortune and being a good guy who just cleans up the dreck......

On Ep 5:
time for the plot to start! things are kicking into high gear then!

hooooooooh, thats a lot of guys to cut through..... with only what.....six people to use? two of them are ranged fighters, one them is a cleric, one is your leader who can't allow to die, and only two are real tanky and thus can stand up to a wave of foes attacking. Great.

yup, defensive formation is best formation. too bad you don't have that other knight guy to be a more legit tank than Shinon.

YAAAAAAAYY!!! Titania is a Badass!!

what did you think would happen, leaving your healer exposed!?

Well, Ike overuses a weapon on boss this time....but its not a crit....oh well.

so the plot is that the mercs are getting involved with a war between Crimea (Good Kingdom) and Daein (Evil Kingdom) through a royalty they picked up from their scouting mission. because its never not royalty. its never just a lord or a baron or whatnot, its the Crimean princess and she'll soon fall in love with Ike cause he is a male with a sword instead of a clumsy axe or overcompensating with a lance, at least we underdog fights because of it.

@ Zodi stats:
Oh I get it, its funny because Zodi had a microphone that broke after seven games! and the stats are funny because she knows a lot skill stuff with games and really weird improbable things keep happening!
.......I'm stating the obvious!

LaZodiac

2016-10-24, 09:50 AM

what did you think would happen, leaving your healer exposed!?

she'll soon fall in love with Ike cause he is a male with a sword instead of a clumsy axe or overcompensating with a lance, at least we underdog fights because of it.

I didn't think he waaas hahaha.

PFffth no. There's only one person in this world Ike has eyes for and it's not an anime princess. More on that later~

Speaking of which, new video today!

Zodi Plays: Fire Emblem Path of Radiance [6] Reverse Siege (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M24W67vmsrg)

Video Length: 22:19

And so, after a grueling battle along the road, we found an anime. After letting her rest we discover, much to no one's surprise, that she is the Crimean princess! This is actually a surprise in universe since she's a secret princess. Say hello to Elincia Ridell Crimea. She asks us to support her in the war, and our heroes debate this. After much deliberation, Greil decides that we'll do it...but considering the fact that the Daein's have surrounded our base we didn't really have much of a choice in the matter. So begins our defensive mission, protecting Elincia while trying to avoid getting crushed by the waves of bodies being thrown at us.

This mission is actually a pretty tough one. There's a bunch of dudes coming to get us, some with effective weaponry, all with a pretty solid mix of weapon types. If even one person gets to our defensive point and seizes it, we're done for. I'll be sending Gatrie and Titania to the southern exit because they're practically indestructible...but I'll also be pushing forward. These jerks aren't going to just see me turtle like a baby, I want the item their leader has. The rest of the squad will deal with the western entrance, having a generally good time of it, ignoring my minor misplays with positioning and some attacks.

Some notes on this one...I sped almost EVERYTHING up and I'm sorry. I'm still working on figuring out how to edit these, but next video should have a good balance of gameplay to speed ups. This is also the last mission where we have the combat animations up, because they do just take up too much time. Also, on harder difficulties this map is a FOG OF WAR map. That's horrifying. Your first defense mission ever and it's a "yeahno you can't see jack" mission. Good lord.

At the end of the day, I think I got a...somewhat decent handful of levels, and I managed to do a fairly ballsy move to get the Ashera Icon from the boss. With their offensive completely routed, they retreat, and we celebrate that we've become wanted by the most dangerous nation on the continent. Huzzah! Meanwhile in the shadows, a mysterious woman who also has green hair gets very upset that her little squad of men got completely destroyed by basically two people. We officially confirm that we're going to help Elincia out, and the chapter ends. Oh we also get to see Mist's fancy glowing icon. Neat.

Hope you all enjoyed. We're through the rough path with regards to editing, I believe. But the game's only just beginning difficulty wise...and actual plot wise, next time on Path of Radiance we're going to begin the game for real. Past is prologue, and the future is war. Hope to see you guys next time.

------

Just some math stuff. Effective Weapons, like our Regal Sword, the Knight Killer, and our newly obtained hammer, do effective damage on specific things. The actual math it does varies between games, but for Path of Radiance it effectively doubles the Might of the weapon. This is actually pretty dangerous...unless the target has so much defense that it doesn't matter, like Titania and Gatrie. But now that Boyd has it, he should be able to tangle with the big boys.

Seerow

2016-10-24, 10:26 AM

1) I know Soren is like your Fire Emblem crush/BFF and all, but I don't like him. Yes magic is awesome, but every time he says something it makes me feel like he's going to end up turning on us to save his own hide somewhere down the line. He has a traditional mercenary attitude in a group that is very obviously not traditionally mercenary, despite what they call themselves.

2) I love how in every episode so far you've said the game is actually starting in the next chapter. I assume this trend will continue until the game ends, when the real game (Zelda!) begins.

3) You dominated that map, and it was lovely to watch. Titania even managed to get a level! The level RNG was pretty sad though, I really wish FE was just a little less random with regards to level-ups.

DataNinja

2016-10-24, 03:02 PM

Well, this doesn't seem to be too bad. *looks around* So when's the black loading screen going to end? Oh...

Also, fun fact: Youtube's speed settings revert every time you change tabs... Like, say, to go record info.

(Uh... occasionally I only realized what was killed by the shape of their glowing, disappearing corpse... >.>; )

Y'know, feeding Soren things with 1hp isn't going to help any of his statistics. (Except, I guess, the ones that matter.) :smalltongue:

Unit
Class
First Ep
Dmg Dealt
Dmg Taken
Ratio
# Defeated
Tally

Ike
Ranger
1
384
90
4.27
19
Boyd (Fighter, Tutorial)
Greil (Hero, Tutorial)
Zawana (Bandit2
Ikanau (Bandit)
Maijin (Knight)
***
Myrmidon x3
Bandit x3
Fighter x2
Archer x4
Soldier x2

Boyd
Fighter
2
208
73
2.85
7
Fighter x3
Myrmidon x1
Bandit x1
Soldier x2

Oscar
Lance Knight
2
168
39
4.31
4
Fighter x1
Bandit x2
Soldier x1

Titania
Paladin
2
416
50
8.32
17
Fighter x1
Soldier x12
Myrmidon x1
Archer x2
Sword Knight x1

Rhys
Priest
3
0 (125)
15
8.33
0
--

Shinon
Sniper
4
130
18
7.22
10
Dakova (Knight)
***
Myrmidon x 1
Bandit x3
Archer x3
Soldier x1
Lance Knight x1

Gatrie
Knight
4
432
11
39.27
13
Havetti (Bandit)
***
Fighter x2
Bandit x2
Soldier x7
Archer x1

Soren
Mage
5
68
0
--
3
Fighter x1
Soldier x1
Sword Knight x2

I'll update the spreadsheets when I have a chance. It took me... an hour and a half to get through that video. :smalltongue:

PhantomFox

2016-10-24, 03:47 PM

So, I added a few new features to the Spreadsheet (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Do5r6dbwo3GK7oxqPFZJ1vZNHlrUZp90W9r_FwvHrXY/edit?usp=sharing). Namely, the total of each characters raw stats, and the total of their average stats at that level to calculate the Deviation from the average. Also, a total Deviation for the entire army.

So, unless I got the growths wrong, yeah, you are having bad RNG luck for the time being with a total of -7.25 stats below average across the whole army.
Things of note: Though -3.8 in total stats, Ike has +2 in Skill. But... a -2.4 in Speed. Gatrie is the lvl leader and stat leader with being 2.6 above average. Everyone else is more or less middling, or has had too few level ups to be notable.

LaZodiac

2016-10-24, 05:09 PM

Well, this doesn't seem to be too bad. *looks around* So when's the black loading screen going to end? Oh...

Also, fun fact: Youtube's speed settings revert every time you change tabs... Like, say, to go record info.

(Uh... occasionally I only realized what was killed by the shape of their glowing, disappearing corpse... >.>; )

In the future dark maps I'll be...upping the contrast so You Can Actually See, don't worry :smallredface:

So, I added a few new features to the Spreadsheet (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Do5r6dbwo3GK7oxqPFZJ1vZNHlrUZp90W9r_FwvHrXY/edit?usp=sharing). Namely, the total of each characters raw stats, and the total of their average stats at that level to calculate the Deviation from the average. Also, a total Deviation for the entire army.

So, unless I got the growths wrong, yeah, you are having bad RNG luck for the time being with a total of -7.25 stats below average across the whole army.
Things of note: Though -3.8 in total stats, Ike has +2 in Skill. But... a -2.4 in Speed. Gatrie is the lvl leader and stat leader with being 2.6 above average. Everyone else is more or less middling, or has had too few level ups to be notable.

Thank you for proving with Math what I've always held as true and self evident: never let me make dice rolls.

DataNinja

2016-10-24, 05:28 PM

In the future dark maps I'll be...upping the contrast so You Can Actually See, don't worry :smallredface:

Much appreciated! :smallbiggrin:

Clearly everyone just needs torches...

Lord Raziere

2016-10-24, 05:43 PM

I didn't think he waaas hahaha.

PFffth no. There's only one person in this world Ike has eyes for and it's not an anime princess. More on that later~

Speaking of which, new video today!

Zodi Plays: Fire Emblem Path of Radiance [6] Reverse Siege (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M24W67vmsrg)

Video Length: 22:19

He was within enemy movement range and had two clear paths of attack. thats exposed for a healer. This is why I don't rely on AI behavior to win.

You mean his sister? /gets shot.
But seriously, he is going to find some lass in Gallia, I'm guessing?

On Ep 6:
Wow, hurray for villains being too stupid to make a fair deal. There are times when its smarter to actually be on the level y'know. like when your in the position of power.

and wow, Zodi can pull off a reverse siege. for these missions I just form a defensive perimeter and sit tight. I don't go for 100%.

and wow, you have a glowing pendant....and you don't realize that its probably magic? especially with a mage around....

ah here is Daien's I mean Evil Kingdom's I mean Daien's general being all generically villainous. ok. I predict that she won't live long. or will she pull one of those plot-saving retreats when you defeat her the first time she shows up?

DataNinja

2016-10-24, 06:17 PM

Alright. Spreadsheets (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11t1-sGVO82bFPkd8qLQ3NLouYJZs3hE8PEQz4gEjAP4/edit?usp=sharing) are updated. Uh... I may need to start cutting out Gatrie, unless he starts getting some more damage. Because he's rather... outpacing everyone, ratio-wise. :smalltongue:

Near-invulnerability has its perks, eh? :smallamused:

Other than that, basically... things are getting tangled. Just as expected. :smallbiggrin:

LaZodiac

2016-10-25, 12:30 AM

He was within enemy movement range and had two clear paths of attack. thats exposed for a healer. This is why I don't rely on AI behavior to win.

But seriously, he is going to find some lass in Gallia, I'm guessing?

and wow, Zodi can pull off a reverse siege. for these missions I just form a defensive perimeter and sit tight. I don't go for 100%.

and wow, you have a glowing pendant....and you don't realize that its probably magic? especially with a mage around...

Yeah I didn't...notice that. At all. OOPS.

You'll see! Actually now that I look at it, and this is a minor spoiler, only TWO ladies show up on his Support list. I wonder how that'll look. Ah, but more on THIS later.

Thanks! Reverse sieges are...hard.

Glowing magic pendant, glowing magic pendant. What matters is WHY it's glowing. I wonder...

ShneekeyTheLost

2016-10-25, 06:48 PM

I think I'm probably just going to be skimming on this playthrough, unfortunately.

This game incorporates several things that I really don't much care for in an RPG.

First off, level-ups are either huge, or a huge letdown. A series of bad level-ups (of which you have no control over) can make an otherwise amazing character into an under-performing buffoon in relatively short order.

Biorhythm. 'nough said.

Math. I don't mind doing math, but when it comes to this game... that's a whole LOT of math to really be effective. Too much for my time off. If I'm playing an RPG, I just want to go kill not-so-helpless pixels. If I want to do that sort of math, I'd boot up Kerbal Space Program. Worse is that not all of the numbers involved are ones that are necessarily intuitive, and some of the derivatives are odd.

I mean, it's a great game and all, and I'm glad a lot of people are really enjoying the playthrough, and that you can enjoy this game, but... umm... don't expect a whole lot of input from me this time 'round. Now, if it had been from the Suidoken franchise, I'd have been all over it. But don't worry, I'll definitely be back for the next one.

LaZodiac

2016-10-25, 07:01 PM

I think I'm probably just going to be skimming on this playthrough, unfortunately.

This game incorporates several things that I really don't much care for in an RPG.

I mean, it's a great game and all, and I'm glad a lot of people are really enjoying the playthrough, and that you can enjoy this game, but... umm... don't expect a whole lot of input from me this time 'round. Now, if it had been from the Suidoken franchise, I'd have been all over it. But don't worry, I'll definitely be back for the next one.

For what it's worth I actually agree. I'm not the biggest fan of a lot of what Fire Emblem does, and I'll talk more on this later as we play. They're a good series, but even the most recent ones, which solve some of my biggest issues, are a little...wobbly, for me. I like them, I really do, they're just not my main choice for "a game to play". But that's the fun of Zodi Plays, I do what people will (except when I decide to play something else).

I do hope you enjoy the story, at least.

------

Oh hey speaking of enjoying things, I commissioned and now HAVE art for the Thumbnails for my "A Taste Of" and "Throwback Thursday" videos, which are really cool.

Peek at them here (http://i.imgur.com/DIhSEwv.png) and here (http://i.imgur.com/L4go9aW.png). Note that in the future, I'll be doing more A Taste Of videos! That'll help relieve the potential pain of Fire Emblem Math Hell and also be a cool way of showing off some nice games. I'll be taking a taste of games I've never played, games I've seen but not touched, and games I've seen but want YOU guys to take a taste of :smallamused:

DataNinja

2016-10-25, 07:37 PM

Oh hey speaking of enjoying things, I commissioned and now HAVE art for the Thumbnails for my "A Taste Of" and "Throwback Thursday" videos, which are really cool.

Ooh, those are nice.

Fire Emblem Math Hell

Meh, the Math isn't bad. It's mainly just the Lighting right now. And maybe Speed. But, part of that is Youtube's fault. :smalltongue:

Illven

2016-10-25, 07:42 PM

I really like the taste of art.

DataNinja

2016-10-25, 07:48 PM

I really like the taste of art.

Oh? With or without salt?

Illven

2016-10-25, 07:56 PM

Oh? With or without salt?

Typically with. :smalltongue:

HalfTangible

2016-10-25, 08:29 PM

What does biorhythm even do?

LaZodiac

2016-10-25, 08:49 PM

What does biorhythm even do?

Mentioned it in post one. If the little dot is in the top of the graph it's +5 to dodge and hit, -5 to dodge and hit if on the bottom half of the graph. For people who have Boyd's skill of whatever it's called it's +10/-10, and for people wit Rhys' skill of Serenity it's +2/-2.

Starbuck_II

2016-10-26, 02:12 PM

What does biorhythm even do?

Depending on the turn (even/odd), people will occasionally get a bonus to hit/evasion (there is this whole graph).

Some like Boyd get a bigger boost, but bigger penalty as well (his special ability makes it higher/lower).

It adds a little mystery to how combat will go: which can be bad or good, if you like that thing and prepare for it.

As mentioned above:
Rhy halves it's effects with his special ability.

LaZodiac

2016-10-28, 09:47 AM

This is the last time I'm gonna say this, but the plot begins today. Let's go.

Zodi Plays: Fire Emblem Path of Radiance [7] War (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJLVOasepXw)

Video Length: 19:49

Yeah this one is a short one. The lack of combat animations and general small size of this map means it's pretty easy to blow through, especially when I'm editing things a little. This one has us, as the name of the chapter suggests, has us running across a tiny little diversion. A Daein squad has blocked our path, so we've got to cut our way through. Greil, Gatrie, and Shinon are causing a diversion of our own, keeping the bulk of the forces off of us.

We get a couple decent levels, if I recall, and a few good drops. All in all, a good day's work for our team. But yeah this is basically just a filler chapter, the bulk of this episode is just explaining the world state on a pretty cool map with diagrams and art and stuff. Fire Emblem has some really good art design, if I do say so myself.

I joke about the actual like...quality of the plot in this episode, but Path of Radiance is actually REALLY well written and surprisingly deep. It just also follows the initial pattern almost all Fire Emblem games follow, and it's kind of hard not to notice. I do like the twist that Ike is essentially the typical Fire Emblem archetype of "The badass Mercenary with a mysterious past" character, while also being the protagonist. It's a neat juxtaposition from always playing as the prim and proper noble.

With all that said, I hope you've enjoyed. See you guys next time.

------

Okay, so, minor note I'm leaving here. At some point in November, I'm going to miss a week of uploads. I'm going to be watching my Dad's for a month starting this Saturday, and I'll be away from my recording stuff. I've tried to push through and record the six or so maps needed to cover this time but I was unable to finish more than four, and even then I might scrap the latest one of those for reasons that we'll...get to when that one comes up.

Worry not, I'll be making "A Taste Of" videos to sort of supplement that. I'd love to take suggestions on games to try out for it, actually. So feel free to recommend some.

Seerow

2016-10-28, 10:03 AM

This is the last time I'm gonna say this, but the plot begins today. Let's go.

https://media.giphy.com/media/7ycl4jNeyCn2U/giphy.gif

Maybe something more meaningful after I've actually watched the video. Maybe.

Edit: Okay got to watch the video, yay fancy maps!

Lots of good levels in this episode actually, the only one that was bad was Ike's first level.

The inventory juggling minigame continues to break my brain in how bad it is. Like seriously you get a reward and as a result have to throw something away? Even outside of battle? You can't be like "Yo, Boyd, bro. Our Pet Anime is trying to give me an awesome new staff, here take this axe back so I can carry it. You know I have like 0 strength". Or even just throw it on the ground and let someone else pick it up if they care about it! And are we really a mercenary company with no pack horses or any other form of supply lines?

...and yes I did start Fire Emblem: Fates; the improvements made to the series over the last 10 years really stand out.

As an aside, I like the tactical setup of this map, with the two possible points of attack. I'm kind of curious how the AI reacts when the General tells everyone to engage if you try pushing through both sides at once, or across the small bridge first.

Also I want to condemn our archer guy for being racist, but when we're talking about magical faerieland beastmen is it racism or speciesm? Either way just given the tone of the conversation I expect we're going to find out fairly shortly that he's wrong and ignorant and they are just people with funny fur and occasional quirky cultural norms.

DataNinja

2016-10-28, 12:38 PM

Yeah this one is a short one.
Oh, good. Shouldn't be too ba-

The lack of combat animations...
...there's always a catch, isn't there. :smallamused:

Oh, good, there's still some animation. It's not just numbers suddenly dropping. *whew*

Hey, this is actually easier. Because numbers float up, and I don't need to do subtraction. :smalltongue:

Unit
Class
First Ep
Dmg Dealt
Dmg Taken
Ratio
# Defeated
Tally

Ike
Ranger
1
507
151
3.36
23
Boyd (Fighter, Tutorial)
Greil (Hero, Tutorial)
Zawana (Bandit)
Ikanau (Bandit)
Maijin (Knight)
***
Myrmidon x5
Bandit x3
Fighter x2
Archer x4
Soldier x4
Priest x1
Knight x1

Boyd
Fighter
2
323
110
2.94
11
Fighter x3
Myrmidon x1
Bandit x1
Soldier x3
Archer x2
Mage x1

Oscar
Lance Knight
2
247
80
3.09
8
Fighter x1
Bandit x2
Soldier x2
Axe Knight x1
Myrmidon x1
Knight x1

Titania
Paladin
2
430
51
8.43
17
Fighter x1
Soldier x12
Myrmidon x1
Archer x2
Sword Knight x1

Rhys
Priest
3
0 (249)
15
16.6
0
--

Shinon
Sniper
4
130
18
7.22
10
Dakova (Knight)
***
Myrmidon x 1
Bandit x3
Archer x3
Soldier x1
Lance Knight x1

Gatrie
Knight
4
432
11
39.27
13
Havetti (Bandit)
***
Fighter x2
Bandit x2
Soldier x7
Archer x1

Soren
Mage
5
89
0
--
6
Emil (Halberdier)
***
Fighter x1
Soldier x3
Sword Knight x2

Also, one more unto the Gordian Charts (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11t1-sGVO82bFPkd8qLQ3NLouYJZs3hE8PEQz4gEjAP4/edit#gid=184818464)...

Lord Raziere

2016-10-28, 03:17 PM

On 7:
Ok, let me guess the usual:Evil Kingdom suddenly attacks Good Kingdom. Good Kingdom people must go to Good Ally Nation. There is at least two other nations who will be worfed.

yeah, Shinon, I suddenly don't like you now. My opinion just went from neutral to "dislike".

and oh, the group just split up twice. lets see what we have here....Ike, Titania, Soren, Oscar, Boyd and Rhys. two of them are priestly/magey squishies, two are cavalry, and the final two are foot soldiers, to take one how much of the enemy? guess not that much then.

Halberdier, never seen that character class before. guess they must've added that in.

LaZodiac

2016-10-28, 03:49 PM

PhantomFox

2016-10-28, 06:45 PM

Stats Spreadsheet (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Do5r6dbwo3GK7oxqPFZJ1vZNHlrUZp90W9r_FwvHrXY/edit?usp=sharing)

Well! Some decent level ups. Huzzah! Your total stat deviation improved significantly up to -1.5, a gain of around 6ish back towards par. Ike got a good level up but is still -4.0. But, he has the 1st Above Average stat meeting the +3.0 threshold. Halfway through the vid, Boyd had the first Below Average stat at -3.0 HP, but then got his 1st HP stat-up of the game, putting him back within tolerances. Everyone else (besides Ike, the bum) is more or less around par for total stats for themselves. Except Shinon, but who cares about him?

DataNinja

2016-10-28, 07:10 PM

Except Shinon, but who cares about him?

Presumably Shinon. :smalltongue:

Illven

2016-10-29, 04:18 PM

That throwing away the axe for the staff is just the worst. :smallyuk:

LaZodiac

2016-10-29, 04:22 PM

That throwing away the axe for the staff is just the worst. :smallyuk:

Every Fire Emblem person I know who's seen these videos alternates between laughing and cringing at the fact this KEEPS HAPPENING.

Luckily, it NEVER WILL AGAIN. I'll never throw a weapon away due to lack of space.

Illven

2016-10-29, 04:31 PM

Every Fire Emblem person I know who's seen these videos alternates between laughing and cringing at the fact this KEEPS HAPPENING.

Luckily, it NEVER WILL AGAIN. I'll never throw a weapon away due to lack of space.

Instead it'll be because you're bored, or hated the weapon, or spite, or you'll start on items now? :smalltongue:

DataNinja

2016-10-29, 05:23 PM

Instead it'll be because you're bored, or hated the weapon, or spite, or you'll start on items now? :smalltongue:

Nah. It won't be "throwing away". It'll be, uh, relinquishing. :smallwink:

LaZodiac

2016-10-31, 10:27 AM

It's time. This is a big one folks.

Zodi Plays: Fire Emblem Path of Radiance [8] Sparks (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luT23vNVMBc)

Video Length: 34:51

In this episode, after having succeeded in doing what his father asked and getting the princess to safety, Ike turns around and endangers himself and all of his friends by going back to find Greil, Gatrie, and Shinon. Good ole Ike. This leads to us all raiding a rather large fort all by ourselves! The place is filled with Soldiers, Axe Fighters, and even some Armor Knights! There are a few myrmidon as well if I recall, and we've got mages as well. Despite the overwhelming forces this map actually isn't that bad, and I have a pretty solid strategy. Sending Ike and the magic users north to intercept a thing and to loot the treasure chests up there, and sending the heavy cavalry west to crush that side of things, and to cut off the Thief that eventually appears. Thieves are capable of stealing unequipped weapons and all items, if they're fast enough (it's relatively simple math. Basically if they could double you while using the target item they can still it) and they can open up chests and doors for free. We're gonna want to kill this guy before he steals the treasure.

After turn one has passed, an ally enters the field! Mia, the Myrmidon! Mia will make a beeline towards Ike, slaughtering soldiers along the way, and once ether of them talk to the other, she joins our army! Statistically, Mia is ye old standard Myrmidon. She's made of paper, she hits like a rolled up news paper, but she's really fast and will probably crit you. The ultimate advantage ia has is she comes with the Vantage skill. Vantage is a VERY powerful skill that makes it so that you always go first, if you're capable of attacking. In the right situations this can make you virtually, or even literally, indestructible. Unfortunately, Mia's...at least for me, kind of the opposite of blessed. You'll see later.

After we approach the treasure chests, general Petrine arrives. That's...not good. She's a Paladin, and she's way too high level for us. Thankfully, Greil arrives in time to save the day, with Gatrie and Shinon in tow! The latter two add themselves back to the army and help shore up the northern enemies of the map, while Greil goes to a separate room to tango with Petrine personally. After we slice our way through the defenders and this map's ACTUAL boss, a rather underleveled Sage (the promoted Mage) we can advance. Greil's enjoying himself against Petrine, who is utterly baffled by how good he is, so after we arrive she calls in the rest of her garrison. As it turns out, she's one of the four Black Riders of Daein, the four horsemen of our destruction. We're kind of boned. Thankfully, with a roar, the warriors of Gallia appear...massive tigers and cats. The Gallian forces chase away Petrine and her battalion, but not before The Black Knight, another of the Black Riders, shows up to intimidate us briefly. He seems...serious.

With the fort captured, it's time for a nap. But Ike is restless, and finds his father leaving the fort. They talk awhile, and then Greil tells him to return to bed. Ike initially accepts this...but then gives pursuit. What follows is a pretty dramatic scene, which I have helpfully subtitled because The Black Knight is a bit mealy mouthed. Learn to enunciate dude. The fighting is intense, but Greil gets pushed back. The Black Knight offers him a blade, wanting to see him at his full strength. And as it turns out...Greil was not just some common sell sword. He was General Gewain, one of the Black Riders. Huh. Saying he discarded that name, and that the only weapon he needs now is his axe, the two continue to fight. But The Black Knight easily slips a strike through. No challenge, no resistance. Greil loses his life, and the only reason Ike and the rest of our army live is because of a roar in the distance. The beast king himself, judging from what The Black Knight says. He retreats, and we're left to sit there, father's blood on our hands.

Hope you all enjoyed. I'll see you guys next time.

------

Minor note, though no one really noticed so I'm sure it's fine. I won't actually be missing a week of updates. Woo!

Grytorm

2016-10-31, 02:44 PM

I watched that, and thought to myself. What are you doing you fool. Swords beat axes. Unless you were using a SwordReaver.

Edit: For the cutscene.

PhantomFox

2016-10-31, 08:18 PM

Stats spreadsheet (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Do5r6dbwo3GK7oxqPFZJ1vZNHlrUZp90W9r_FwvHrXY/edit?usp=sharing)

Well, lots of nice level ups. Tweaked with the sum growth rates, and found out that on average an 'average' level up is around 3 stats worth, sometimes 4. All in all, the army is swinging back towards par and is now +0.4 overall! Back into the positives! Ike is only -2.6 now from -4.0 last episode.

Notable stats:
Ike: Str +1.5, Skl +2.5, Spd -2.1, Def -2.4
Oscar: Skl +1.5, Lck +1.9, Res -1.5
Boyd: HP - 1.7, Skl +1.5, Lck +1.5, Def +1.2, Res -1.8
Soren: Skl +1.3, Re

Starbuck_II

2016-10-31, 10:14 PM

W00t, Mia, you go girl.

DataNinja

2016-10-31, 10:16 PM

*looks at time* 35 minutes? Including sped up stuff? :smalleek:

Oh. That wasn't so bad. There was a lot of plot. You know it's important when we get animated cutscenes. :smallwink:

Unit
Class
First Ep
Dmg Dealt
Dmg Taken
Ratio
# Defeated
Tally

Ike
Ranger
1
564
175
3.22
25
Boyd (Fighter, Tutorial)
Greil (Hero, Tutorial)
Zawana (Bandit)
Ikanau (Bandit)
Maijin (Knight)
***
Archer x4
Bandit x3
Fighter x3
Knight x1
Myrmidon x5
Priest x1
Soldier x6

Boyd
Fighter
2
430
136
3.16
15
Archer x2
Bandit x1
Fighter x3
Knight x3
Mage x1
Myrmidon x1
Soldier x5

Oscar
Lance Knight
2
354
90
3.93
14
Balmer (Sage)
***
Archer x1
Axe Knight x1
Bandit x2
Fighter x1
Knight x2
Myrmidon x1
Soldier x4
Thief x1

Titania
Paladin
2
528
53
9.96
19
Archer x2
Fighter x1
Knight x1
Mage x2
Myrmidon x1
Soldier x12
Sword Knight x1

Rhys
Priest
3
0 (318)
15
21.2
0
--

Shinon
Sniper
4
173
25
6.92
11
Dakova (Knight)
***
Archer x3
Bandit x3
Lance Knight x1
Myrmidon x 1
Soldier x2

Gatrie
Knight
4
538
15
35.87
18
Havetti (Bandit)
***
Archer x2
Bandit x2
Fighter x2
Knight x2
Myrmidon x3
Soldier x7

Soren
Mage
5
99
9
11
8
Emil (Halberdier)
***
Fighter x1
Soldier x4
Sword Knight x2

Mia
Myrmidon
8
49
5
9.8
1
Mage

As a note, I am not counting anything that any unit does when not under direct Zodi control. What the puppets do without their strings is no concern of mine. :smalltongue:

Also... One of these days, I'll organize the Enemies Killed things into something other than Chronological Order. (Well, at least the Generic Enemies. Is there any preference you have, or is, say, alphabetical fine?

And, once more The Tangled Spreadsheet (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11t1-sGVO82bFPkd8qLQ3NLouYJZs3hE8PEQz4gEjAP4/edit?usp=sharing).

Fun facts: Ye Immortal Horse Woman has taken an average of exactly 1 damage per battle she has been in. And has suffered no damage from over half of those battles. Which doesn't even count the ones that were finished before the enemy got to strike.

LaZodiac

2016-10-31, 11:09 PM

*looks at time* 35 minutes? Including sped up stuff? :smalleek:

Oh. That wasn't so bad. There was a lot of plot. You know it's important when we get animated cutscenes. :smallwink:

As a note, I am not counting anything that any unit does when not under direct Zodi control. What the puppets do without their strings is no concern of mine. :smalltongue:

Also... One of these days, I'll organize the Enemies Killed things into something other than Chronological Order. (Well, at least the Generic Enemies. Is there any preference you have, or is, say, alphabetical fine?

And, once more The Tangled Spreadsheet (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11t1-sGVO82bFPkd8qLQ3NLouYJZs3hE8PEQz4gEjAP4/edit?usp=sharing).

Fun facts: Ye Immortal Horse Woman has taken an average of exactly 1 damage per battle she has been in. And has suffered no damage from over half of those battles. Which doesn't even count the ones that were finished before the enemy got to strike.

These'll get longer. Trust me.

That's fair, it doesn't count battles unless they're in my army and control as well. I've no preference on ordering.

Titania's KIND OF indestructible. This may change next chapter, we'll see. We're closing in on the time where she starts being not invincible but is still a bit too strong to actually use.

Lord Raziere

2016-10-31, 11:15 PM

On Episode 8:
So, six as usual: Two cavalry, two foot soldiers, one mage one healer. Against an entire fortress of enemies. kay.

But we get a new foot soldier! a Myrmidon, always good.

Huh, guess if you throw a spear at Ike, he gets a good level up.

yup, you gotta take care of thieves before they take stuff you want.

and Father returns. we have a showdown, reinforcements arrive for both sides, and a mysterious black knight intervenes for unknown reasons.

whelp, Greil's dead. at the hands of a former apprentice.....who is in black armor.....after saving a Princess....poor Greil, your so Obi-Wan, you never had a chance of living past this point. I'm not surprised really, you were too experienced and certain of what to do to survive in heroic fantasy genre such as this, especially when there are War movie tropes also in play. the only heroic people that do survive in such conditions are the inexperienced protagonist growing into his own, and Ike is that guy.

But yeah, these beginning chapters seem oddly Star Wars-esque.

DataNinja

2016-10-31, 11:19 PM

These'll get longer. Trust me.

I don't care how long they are, it's just when it takes me thirty+ seconds to record about five seconds worth of footage that it becomes :smalleek: ...

I was just worried that it was going to be a half hour of perpetually sped-up battles, that's all. :smalltongue:

Edit: And it's all alphabetical, now.

DataNinja

2016-11-01, 05:23 PM

LaZodiac

2016-11-01, 05:46 PM

Sheesh, Zodi... I don't know how you find these games. They're all things that A) I'd never even think of existing, and B) have the strangest titles. :smalltongue:

Still, looks cool. Although, that opening... As Ned Frischman said, "Wow! That hardly ever happens!" :smallwink:

To explain, I posted an A Taste Of video. It's about "Bunny Must Die! Chelsea and the 7 Devils". Give it a look! (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FueWXczqS4)

DataNinja

2016-11-01, 05:55 PM

To explain, I posted an A Taste Of video. It's about "Bunny Must Die! Chelsea and the 7 Devils". Give it a look! (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FueWXczqS4)

Oh, uh, right. Context. There's a chance that it miiight be important to add that. Maybe.

ShneekeyTheLost

2016-11-01, 11:07 PM

To explain, I posted an A Taste Of video. It's about "Bunny Must Die! Chelsea and the 7 Devils". Give it a look! (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FueWXczqS4)

I'll be honest, once you get past the painful intro and kawaii chibi graphics... it's actually a pretty solid metrovania game. I really like how you can swap around your primary weapons, not just your secondary weapon, and each one is very mechanically different. Very interesting. I particularly liked the boomerang weapon, although that flail-like weapon was just... flailing around.

It had some very decent mechanics and puzzles based around said mechanics. I was pleasantly surprised.

LaZodiac

2016-11-04, 10:38 AM

Time for more Fire Emblem. I know, shocking.

Zodi Plays: Fire Emblem Path of Radiance [9] Siege the Day (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLemq3mt52k)

Video Length: 37:12

We begin this chapter with Ike thinking about his father, seguing into the funeral for Greil. We linger on his death, and this is...pretty heavy stuff. Ike's in charge now. He has to carry Greil's mantle, and now it's up to him to escort the Princess. The fate of a nation rests solely on his shoulders. What's worse, the mercenary group is in shambles. Gatrie and Shinon have abandoned us. The brothers, Soren, Rhys and Titania remain, but aside from Mia (who doesn't even get a mention here) we've done nothing but lose team members here. And so here we stand, unsure of what to do but to pack up and get moving.

And this brings us to the final bit of micro management that we'll be given. As the commander of the mercenaries we are now given access to the Base screen. Here we can buy weapons and items from the merchant caravan that happens to be in the area and decides to join us because who WOULDN'T want to team up with a gang of murderers for protection? We can also sell items, which I may do at one point just to remove the chaff of nearly broken weapons, and we can forge things. Forges are...interesting. I may play around with it more later, but in this episode I kinda sink all of my money into a very silly weapon to try and make Mia "able to participate".

The next thing on our list is checking up on our units and seeing how they're doing. We can give them scrollsto put Skills on them finally, and we can also REMOVE skills but that destroys the skill so we're almost never going to remove any skill ever. We can also dish out from Bonus Experience, which is stuff you get for clearing a map. You get more for clearing the map in under a certain turn limit and for doing specific bonus objectives, like getting everyone out of Escape maps before Ike. It's pretty fun and I'll be making use of BEXP to shore up some units, top off people, etc.

Third, and perhaps most importantly, is Supports! Supports let us view conversations between members of our army to see how they're doing. It increases the bond between these two units, providing bonuses so long as they're within three spaces of each other. It also provides some MUCH needed characterization because as you may of noticed only Ike Soren Mist and Titania matter. Mia doesn't even get a token mention in the "we're running low on men" scene. I say in video I'm doing supports out of video but after some thought that's a dumb idea. I WILL be showing off supports I ACTUALLY get in videos, at the end of the video for pacing reasons. I'll also be throwing any other interesting supports in the thread, as well as taking requests on which supports to show off in thread so please throw those requests at me! For now, we give Ike a C rank with Soren and Oscar. Happy days.

To explain Supports a bit more mechanically...the basic idea is that each individual unit gets 5 total conversations. They can only get one other person up to A rank, and the other person goes to B rank. You can spread them around a bit more but there's no real reason to. Additionally, each unit can only speak to certain people in the army. We only know a few people Ike is willing to speak to, but we can at least see a lot of potential future people. Notedly, he has none with Boyd or Mia, two people you'd think he'd be friends and shipping bait with. But no Ike's more buddies with Oscar and he only has eyes for Soren. In order to GET Support conversations, unlike every other Fire Emblem game, all you need to do is deploy the two characters on the same map a certain amount of times.

As for the benefits of Supports, the game doesn't tell you what they are exactly (one of the very few obscurences of numbers) but basically each unit has a "type" and that determines what they give. Heaven gives +5 accuracy, Earth gives +5 Avoid, Flame gives +0.5 Attack and +2.5 Accuracy, Dark gives +0.5 and 2.5 Avoid, Light gives +0.5 Defense and +2.5 Accuracy, Thunder gives +0.5 Defense and +2.5 Avoid, Water gives +0.5 Attack and +0.5 Defense, and Wind gives +2.5 Accuracy and +2.5 Avoid. Attack means both str and mag, Defense means bot Def and Res. And that's just the levels for C Rank support, B and A increase it by x2 and x3 respectively. Math wise you add the affinities of each unit together. So...

If Oscar and Ike are within three spaces they get (5+5) Avoid. If they're B rank they get 2x(5+5) Avoid, which is RIDICULOUS and why Earth pairs are objectively the best mechanically. Soren and Ike get (5+2.5) Avoid and 0.5 Attack, and you can divine the math from here. Also, final decimals round down. But yeah, that's Support. Pretty cool.

After that we have the Info dialogue. What this game makes up for in reasonable supports (I'll be honest I am NOT a fan of limited conversations. I get that mechanically it would be busted but I want to see the conversations) it makes up for in having cute incidental scenes of world building. They very rarely involve anyone that isn't "the new unit that just showed up for one scene and Ike" and in most cases Just Ike Himself, but they're fun cases of world building and minor character growth. They can also provide strategy hints for the upcoming map, as well as provide ITEMS or other interesting benefits. The game rates each Info by how relevant it is with a star but there's no cost to watching them so don't bother and just read em all.

And finally, after all that, it's time for the mission. Yo as it turns out Daein's at our throats. They didn't just leave us here to rest after the Black Knight and Petrine left. So now we've got to hold out against an oncoming storm of nastiness. Strategy wise I send Ike, Mia, and Rhys to the west to secure that area (and so we can recruit Ilyana, a poor wandering wizard who got press ganged into the Daein forces), send Boyd to the east so he can use his hammer to crush all those armor knights, and Titania (with Oscar) south to hold off the chevalier. Oscar's job here is very important, as the priest near the chevalier has a Red Gem that I want to get so we can sell it. Through tenacity and heavy thinking I have devised this strategy, and nothing could possibly go wrong.

*four hours later*

Hey guys I beat the map. That was absolutely a cluster of insanity but I managed to do it. It's very difficult but actually feels kind of rewarding? I don't know. As for how our level ups went this time...eeeh. I guess they're fine. Although...we did get the one thing I was dreading. Mia, poor poor Mia, got our armies first D E A D L E V E L. A dead level is where you level up and you fail all the rolls on your stat gains so you just don't get anything. It's........awful. They later made it so that if you would get a dead level it rerolls until you DON'T but yeah, this is...a bad mechanic, I think.

Despite that, we're able to hold our own and survive...although the enemy forces are far grander than originally thought. Close to death, our position is overrun. It appears our adventure ends here...where it not for the timely advance of Lethe and Mordecai, two Laguz outriders sent to help us out! With the Gallian army in tow we survive, and after Soren does his best Shinon impression we manage to make friends with them. Next time, it's about time we actually GOT to the beastlands, don't you think? Hope you all enjoyed.

------

As promised here are Supports. ENJOY!

Titania and Ike, Rank C
Titania: Hey, Ike. Training?
Ike: Yeah. You too, huh? Hey, do you want to spar? I learn a lot when we team up.
Titania: Really? I’m glad to hear that. I thought you no longer needed my lessons.
Ike: What are you talking about? You’re the one who put the finishing touches on what swordsmanship I inherited from my father.
Titania: Hmm. I’m honored to hear you say so.
Ike: I mean it.
Titania: But the talent you inherited from your father is one of a kind. I want you to cherish it.
Ike: Huh… Hey, Titania? When did you meet my father? You used to be a Crimean knight, right?
Titania: That’s right… But it’s a long story, and we need to train! Get ready! Focus!
Ike: Fine…

Ike and Oscar, Rank C
Ike: Hey, Oscar, can you spar with me for a sec… Wait! Where are you going?
Oscar: Sorry, Ike! No time! I have to prepare the evening meal today.
Ike: You? Where’s Mist?
Oscar: She’s off practicing with her staff. It’s been a while since I cooked. I hope I haven’t lost my touch.
Ike: I haven’t had one of your suppers in ages! I’m looking forward to it.
Oscar: Really?
Ike: Yeah, of course! You’re a great cook! Why do you ask?
Oscar: Well… I never knew that. Mist, Shinon, and Rhys were the only ones who ever commented on the subtle spices and flavors that I use… I mean, my brothers are used to my cooking, and Soren hates everything. I think he’d stop eating if he could… Sure, Commander Greil, Titania, Gatrie, and you ate everything on the plate. But… I feel like you’d eat anything.
Ike: Oscar, I didn’t just shovel the food into my mouth. I enjoyed it! I really did! Remember the first day that Mist took over your cooking duties? Just thinking about it makes me ill… Ha! Even my father was having trouble choking it down! But I think Mist is finally starting to get the hang of it.
Oscar: Just like you’re training to improve your swordsmanship, Mist is training to improve her culinary skills. You should give her more support. Hearing someone say “Delicious!” is the best encouragement a cook can get.
Ike: I see… Then I’ll make sure to say “Delicious!”
from now on.
Oscar: Ha ha! Thanks.

Ike and Soren, Rank C
Soren: So that’s how much we spent… Supplies are running low. We need dried meat, fresh fruit… Ike? Are you listening?
Ike: Huh? Oh, sorry. I wasn’t paying attention.
Soren: I would have never guessed.
Ike: Sorry, Soren. Look, could you run the report by me again?
Soren: You’re tired, Ike. You need rest. Go find a cot somewhere.
Ike: You can tell?
Soren: Of course. When you’re not feeling well, your left eye twitches.
Ike: That’s…odd. I never noticed.
Soren: Get some sleep. I can manage things for a few hours.
Ike: Well, I am pretty beat…
Soren: Go.
Ike: You know, Soren? You’re not nearly as insensitive as the others say. Deep down, you’re a big softie.
Soren: Excuse me?
Ike: Oh, nothing. I’m going.
Soren: Mmm. Don’t let the bedbugs bite.

All in all a good set of Supports. Ike's got concerns about being the boss, and his buddies try to help him out in certain ways. Titania grieves for the man she loved, Soren dotes on his sleepy boy, and Oscar and Ike train each other for the coming fights. Quite good.

Seerow

2016-11-04, 10:46 AM

LaZodiac

2016-11-04, 10:59 AM

Oh, hi! For some reason that break you mentioned I thought was starting right away, did not expect a new video today. Doubly surprised because I was actively youtubing when you posted and did not see it in my subs box. Apparently the video is still unlisted.

Going to go watch now.

I forgot to unlist it, it's up now. Also I told everyone that that break wasn't going to happen because I missjudged the time of everything right?

Seerow

2016-11-04, 11:52 AM

I forgot to unlist it, it's up now. Also I told everyone that that break wasn't going to happen because I missjudged the time of everything right?

If you did, I missed the post where you did. That's not to say it didn't happen, I realized about 5 minutes into the new episode that there was another entire episode I had missed. What I'm saying is I am really terrible at keeping up with stuff. I blame the overtime.

Lord Raziere

2016-11-04, 05:07 PM

On episode 9:
Alas poor Greil, and now Ike and Mist are without a father and must keep on going without his experience and the comfort of his presence....

oh the bright side, we got all the inventory stuff we can do! hooray.

oh no, the pendant! it heard that Mist, now the demon inside will take your wish as a pact with it and accept.

and of course, we get a battle right at our weakest. a defensive one, with the enemy surrounding us, Gatrie and Shinon left those deserting jerks, and now this is probably going to be a map where Rolf and Mist try to join to help even though they'll be weak units, this map would be the point where I start crying and wondering how could I possibly fight all this.

ah so, Ilyana will be our enemy joining us today.

AHHAHAHAHAHahahahahahhahAAAHAAA...........dead level.

WTH, SOREN!? Not cool!

Yeah, that strategy wasn't a good one. I'd have switched things around a little: have Titania go east with Ike instead of south because of the larger corridor and therefore more enemies in a confined space, therefore necessitating someone who can take a hit. have Rhys stay in the center with Boyd and Oscar tanking the other two passages with Oscar in range to heal them both back and forth, and place both Boyd and Oscar right in front of the chokepoint instead within it, thus making it so that only one enemy can go through the passage and attack the tank each turn, while giving room for someone like Soren to hit the one enemy at range on either side.

For example:

M WE
B E E
A WE

B= Boyd
M= Mage
A=archer
E=Enemy.
W= Wall

Archers can't shoot through walls in this game, while still being able to kill anything diagonally. thus both your ranged allies can kill enemies while your take only takes one hit. actually going into the passage is your mistake, because in that scenario:

WE
B E
WE

Your tank gets hit three times, one from one enemy and two from ranged enemies. while your ranged units cannot fire back in response. not a good scenario, because your in fact surrounded.

Illven

2016-11-04, 08:51 PM

I say you use both mages.

PhantomFox

2016-11-04, 10:51 PM

I mean, this (level up) seems okay, but I don't know how good it actually is given Titania's baseline power.
That's what the Stat Spreadsheet (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Do5r6dbwo3GK7oxqPFZJ1vZNHlrUZp90W9r_FwvHrXY/edit?usp=sharing) is for! Using that, we see that she has really good growths, averaging 3.9 stat points per level where as most other characters so far hover around 3ish. So that was an average level up in terms of raw stats. Unless you mean something else?

Also, good luck getting more STR on Soren, his STR growth is 5%.
Also, Ike's STR isn't that bad, he's actually +1.0 compared to average. His growth rate is 50%, and he started at STR 5, so on average he should be at 11 STR, and he's at 12! His SKL is pretty great too, but he's falling behind in SPD

But overall, yeah, this was not the best levelups, dropping a total of almost 8 points of stats compared to average compared to last video. However, we still have a long way to go and a larger sample size tends to even things out.

LaZodiac

2016-11-04, 11:50 PM

AHHAHAHAHAHahahahahahhahAAAHAAA...........dead level.

WTH, SOREN!? Not cool!

Yeah, that strategy wasn't a good one. I'd have switched things around a little

I will be holding a personal account of ALL Dead Levels in my own notes, noting who got them and if they're canon dead levels or not. This will be the least fun stat.

Soren is a good boy...when not being a TOTAL RACIST.

Their are two major problems with your strategy. Titania HAS to block the south entrance because no other unit can even pretend to survive the Canto Storm that is the army of Chevalier. Ike needs to go west to meet up with Ilyana so he can recruit her.

That being said, PLEASE DO, you and everyone else in the thread, talk about ways you'd handle the maps yourself. That's actually super fascinating to me.

That's what the Stat Spreadsheet (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Do5r6dbwo3GK7oxqPFZJ1vZNHlrUZp90W9r_FwvHrXY/edit?usp=sharing) is for! Using that, we see that she has really good growths, averaging 3.9 stat points per level where as most other characters so far hover around 3ish. So that was an average level up in terms of raw stats. Unless you mean something else?

Also, good luck getting more STR on Soren, his STR growth is 5%.
Also, Ike's STR isn't that bad, he's actually +1.0 compared to average. His growth rate is 50%, and he started at STR 5, so on average he should be at 11 STR, and he's at 12! His SKL is pretty great too, but he's falling behind in SPD

But overall, yeah, this was not the best levelups

That's what I meant basically. "Is this a good level, given that Titania has 20 less levels to gain compared to everyone else?"

D E A D L E V E L

PhantomFox

2016-11-05, 12:27 AM

That's what I meant basically. "Is this a good level, given that Titania has 20 less levels to gain compared to everyone else?"

Well, that's determined more by growth rates than progression. Taking the growth rates and averaging them out, she gains almost 4 stats per level up, probably as a way to compensate for her being promoted. Now, if you want to know if it and her base stats compensate for the missing 20 levels... well, that's gonna take some projection and comparison to other characters, which would include class-ups and stat caps, which I haven't implemented yet. I can do it though, if you want. It would involve lots of charts.

Illven

2016-11-05, 12:34 AM

Lord Raziere

2016-11-05, 12:43 AM

Their are two major problems with your strategy. Titania HAS to block the south entrance because no other unit can even pretend to survive the Canto Storm that is the army of Chevalier. Ike needs to go west to meet up with Ilyana so he can recruit her.

That being said, PLEASE DO, you and everyone else in the thread, talk about ways you'd handle the maps yourself. That's actually super fascinating to me.

Well if thats the quibble, put Titania South, don''t let her go past the square right before the passage, send Oscar with Ike West instead because Oscar is a better tank for West than a Myrmidon. because Myrmidon's are not tanks. you'd have someone better than Mia to back up Ike for recruitment of Ilyana, because Cavaliers are pretty solid health and defense wise when you don't have a paladin like Titania or a Knight like Gatrie to do the job. giving a paladin help to hold a chokepoint is almost overkill to be honest.

LaZodiac

2016-11-05, 01:18 AM

Well, that's determined more by growth rates than progression. Taking the growth rates and averaging them out, she gains almost 4 stats per level up, probably as a way to compensate for her being promoted. Now, if you want to know if it and her base stats compensate for the missing 20 levels... well, that's gonna take some projection and comparison to other characters, which would include class-ups and stat caps, which I haven't implemented yet. I can do it though, if you want. It would involve lots of charts.

Naw, that's fine.

From what I've heard, their are two types of the promoted Paladins that you start off with.

Jegians. Paladins that are absolutely worthless late game, and thus any experience that you dump into them is a waste. Marcus from FE 6 is a type of this paladin.

And Oifey's. Paladins that are absolutely fine late game, and thus just don't use them too early. Seth from FE 8 is a type of this Paladin, with frankly astounding growth rates for the game he's in.

From what I've heard Titania's the second type of Paladin.

This is correct. Though by my understanding it's worth noting that Titania makes even the best Oifey archetypical units look bad. She's kind of strong.

Well if thats the quibble, put Titania South, don''t let her go past the square right before the passage, send Oscar with Ike West instead because Oscar is a better tank for West than a Myrmidon. because Myrmidon's are not tanks. you'd have someone better than Mia to back up Ike for recruitment of Ilyana, because Cavaliers are pretty solid health and defense wise when you don't have a paladin like Titania or a Knight like Gatrie to do the job. giving a paladin help to hold a chokepoint is almost overkill to be honest.

Oscar, especially the way I have him, absolutely needs Rhys nearby to heal him every turn, or the Canto Storm will kill him without fail. It may seem a little overkill, but sometimes you need that.

huttj509

2016-11-05, 05:52 AM

The good thing about avg stats is someone's already done the work. I'm working from http://serenesforest.net/path-of-radiance/characters/average-stats/ .

I'll compare her to Ike, and 4 knights who upgrade to Paladins for comparison. Stats are at promoted level 20. I'm rounding decimals. Apologies if there's any "oh that char's just temporary," I don't know the game much past where we are now.

Character
HP
Str
Mag
Skl
Spd
Lck
Def
Res

Titania
48
21
9
24
24
20
19
16

Ike
52
26
11
27
28
19
23
17

Oscar
49
24
10
26
25
16
22
14

Kieran
49
26
7
26
25
15
23
12

Astrid
42
23
12
26
27
18
19
16

Makalov
50
26
8
22
27
15
25
11

So Ike's awesome, ok, I'll discount his stats for further analysis.

Titania has low Str for a paladin (3-5 lower than the others), avg Mag (of the low Mags), Slightly lower Skl and Spd but not much, Higher Lck by 2-5, low Def for a Paladin, but high Res.

In a vacuum one of the others might be preferred, but she looks plenty usable. Especially since her skill (Counter) is not bad at all.

DataNinja

2016-11-06, 01:57 AM

Ah, finally. After two long days, can finally relax. :smallcool:

Ooh, Forge. You clearly have something that would not-be-a-bad-idea-at-all-honest to make as best you can manage. :smallwink:

With the power of MATH. (Also because I literally played forum emblem on these forums for years a few years back)

We give you Hell Mic's stats!

Mt 45 Hit 18 (Incredibly low) Crit 31 Wt Less then 16. Rng 1-3. Uses N/A

*cough*

A-hem, uh, onto actual serious stuff.

Unit
Class
First Ep
Dmg Dealt
Dmg Taken
Ratio
# Defeated
Tally

Ike
Ranger
1
728
222
3.28
28
Boyd (Fighter, Tutorial)
Greil (Hero, Tutorial)
Zawana (Bandit)
Ikanau (Bandit)
Maijin (Knight)
***
Archer x5
Bandit x3
Fighter x3
Knight x2
Myrmidon x5
Priest x1
Soldier x7

Boyd
Fighter
2
579
175
3.31
19
Archer x3
Bandit x1
Fighter x3
Knight x4
Mage x2
Myrmidon x1
Soldier x6

Oscar
Lance Knight
2
584
117
4.99
20
Balmer (Sage)
***
Archer x2
Axe Knight x1
Bandit x2
Fighter x1
Knight x3
Mage x2
Myrmidon x2
Soldier x4
Sword Knight x1
Thief x1

Titania
Paladin
2
715
66
10.83
27
Archer x2
Axe Knight x1
Fighter x1
Knight x1
Lance Knight x4
Mage x2
Myrmidon x2
Soldier x14
Sword Knight x2

Rhys
Priest
3
0 (405)
15
27
0
--

Shinon
Sniper
4
173
25
6.92
11
Dakova (Knight)
***
Archer x3
Bandit x3
Lance Knight x1
Myrmidon x 1
Soldier x2

Gatrie
Knight
4
538
15
35.87
18
Havetti (Bandit)
***
Archer x2
Bandit x2
Fighter x2
Knight x2
Myrmidon x3
Soldier x7

Soren
Mage
5
136
10
13.6
11
Emil (Halberdier)
***
Fighter x1
Knight x2
Soldier x5
Sword Knight x2

Mia
Myrmidon
8
171
47
3.64
5
Fighter x1
Mage x2
Myrmidon x1
Soldier x1

Ilyana
Mage
9
22
0
--
3
Myrmidon x1
Soldier x2

Thanks for putting Mia and Ike together, by the way. Lovely to have to keep jumping between the top and bottom of the list. :smallwink:

By the way, I'm not counting cutscene kills. :smalltongue:
...and you seem to have anticipated me.

So, spreadsheets (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11t1-sGVO82bFPkd8qLQ3NLouYJZs3hE8PEQz4gEjAP4/edit#gid=184818464)...

In general, peoples' ratios are going up. Dealing even more damage exponentially than they're taking. Sign of good generalship Of course, the mages get really good ratios by default. They can stand to take a few hits to get those numbers back to the non-mage levels. :smallwink: Linear warriors, quadratic wizards...

Looks like Boyd and Ike are riiiiiight next to each other, ratio-wise.

Poor Mia. Getting the short end of the stick on both charts. Don't worry, we still love you, even if your numbers suck. :smalltongue: (Wait, do we?)

Edit: Oh, right, also: Yet another weird, wonderful, wacky, interesting-looking game to snack on. Just what I've come to expect from this channel. :smallbiggrin:

LaZodiac

2016-11-07, 11:58 AM

I should actually post the A Taste Of's to the thread I keep on forgetting. Anyway, new Fire Emblem!

Zodi Plays: Fire Emblem Path of Radiance [10] Beach Fort (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=af92bOrhqmw)

Video Length: 42:18

With the cat people joining us, it's time to head onwards to Gallia proper. But first, Soren's gonna give us a report of the last mission. It's quite an interesting little thing, and I can't even begin to understand how the game decides who's the MVP is. It also tracks all the combat and bonus EXP you get in the mission, which is fascinating if nothing else. We pump some of that BEXP into our boys in the base screen, etc etc. All that typical base management that I'll be trying to make as concise as possible. Speaking of which...this is when we actually GET those supports I mentioned. Oops! Anyway yeah, we get up those supports and stuff and then it's time for some Info. The gist of our Info talks is that "man, we sure are packing up to leave this fort we squatted in. Also cat people. Also Mia makes the case for why she is fighting with us."

So, how about the actual mission then? Well...it's actually quite a simple situation. We're in Gallia and we end up discovering a contingent of Daein soldiers, and we gotta fight em. The end. There's also some bandits we have to contest with but that's fine. Honestly, there's only one notable thing ABOUT this map, and that's that Mist, Rolf, and eventually Marcia the pegasus knight from like, episode 3, all join us. Mechanically this map is as simple as you can get, and story wise all we really learn is that Ike was sort of born in Gallia. The most interesting mechanical thing here is the Partner system. Basically, sometimes, units will join the battle as Partners, the yellow army. You can order them around or let them do their own thing. It's best to shove them in a corner so you can avoid them dying or stealing EXP.

But here's the thing. This map is fairly...lets say, "iconic" in my run, because of how it actually happened recording wise. This map took around 5 hours or so. Many, many attempts that almost all got to the very end, with only the boss remaining and nothing else. And then I'd just screw up, or panic ever so slightly due to not being SURE if the boss will or won't move, because while yes this is a seize map and he won't move, that doesn't mean he won't actually move anyway. Stranger things have happened. And it really speaks to the...I guess, gameplay loop of Fire Emblem that this kept on happening. I suppose I could of endured the death of Marcia the THREE TIMES IT HAPPENED due to my own idiocy, but...that's not fun. We don't want people to die in these videos, for multiple reasons. If too many units die I'll be screwed over and be unable to complete the game, just straight up. It'll become a dead save. If many units die, a lot of the fun of the game (character interaction) is just removed, and the only stuff left to fill the enjoyment gap would be the raw mechanical stuff, which...is not even remotely compelling to me. So I had to restart my runs, some very good successful runs with 5+ stat ups on almost every level, because some fool ass idiot can't hit a 90% chance. I know some of you experts on the series are gonna say "never leave it up to chance" but at some point you HAVE to. It's just, in a word, frustrating.

And none of this would of been even a concern if permadeath didn't exist. So consider this episode the "tirade against permadeath episode" because hoo boy this level really reminded me that a Fire Emblem where a single mistake ends an hour long playthrough utterly is a Fire Emblem that I do not really enjoy playing. That's not to say I'm not enjoying this LP, I am, but in the moment it is INFURIATING and TEDIOUS to have all that time and effort wasted because of one tiny error. This is why I often consider the Fire Emblems where you can turn off permadeath to be...not "better" but "more fun", while also being harder. Let me explain.

In the typical Fire Emblem experience you are incentivized due to how it's mechanics work to never let anyone die. As such, each map becomes easy as you gravitate towards the best units mechanically, building them up, occasionally getting blessed/cursed with good/bed levels that you need to work around, but overall the experience is you getting the best guys to the best heights so you can win. If at any point anyone so much as trips and falls on their sword, you reset. You're encouraged to do this. The way Supports work in this game basically demand it, imagine having a rank A support get ended because someone died. Now that unit only has two conversations left and thus will be forever mechanically gimped out of goodness.

Meanwhile, in a Fire Emblem where death is not forever, where dying is just retreat, you're ALLOWED to experiment with units. You're ALLOWED to progress if someone dies, making the map HARDER since now you're continuing with the map, sans a unit. Sometimes sans a GOOD unit, who could really help out. Now, there have been times where losing someone in one of these games as incited a reset because "well, I can't actually win this level it's too much pressure" but due to the fact of "being allowed to have someone die" I got to LEARN that, and got to LEARN THE MAP in the meanwhile, allowing me to get a better strategy. It ends up being more fun and interesting to play. Does it let you do "bad" tactics like using human meat shields to delay enemies so you can do something? I mean yeah I guess, but those people don't get EXP in the fight, and if you try doing something like that in say, Fates - Conquest, you're gonna have a bad time because that game's hard and doesn't allow grinding like Awakening or Fates - Birthright/Fates - Revelations. It's actually challenging, and I know pushed ME to the limit. That may not say much given I'm awful at these games and have really bad luck with everything but my point stands.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the video, my little rant about permadeath, and the silly pirate dance. See you guys next time.

huttj509

2016-11-07, 04:47 PM

In terms of permadeath, I think people rightly have their preferences in the matter, I LOVE that it's an option in the newer games. If you prefer no permadeath? Turn it off. If you prefer permadeath? Turn it on. If you prefer me to play with permadeath, $%^$%^&%^&%$&$% off with a #@$#!%# it's a single player game and I don't even know you.

PhantomFox

2016-11-07, 07:27 PM

Personally, I like the permadeath, but I also am something of a perfectionist, so I do the same thing you are doing now. But honestly, that's part of the appeal for me. It's a strategical puzzle to solve on both a strategic and tactical level. ...yes, I also almost always play Pokemon in a Nuzlocke, why do you ask? :smallbiggrin: Not much to speak about in this video, the level ups weren't that great, but Oscar joined Ike in the Really Good Skill club.

Qwertystop

2016-11-07, 10:21 PM

21:10 "Pirates are just wet bandits." No, pretty sure the Wet Bandits are something else entirely.

Just realized - are there really no units yet who can use multiple classes of weapon? Is that unusual? The only Fire Emblem game I've played any time resembling "recently" is Sacred Stones, and there you basically start off with multiple sword-and-lance users.

Illven

2016-11-07, 10:34 PM

Lord Raziere

2016-11-07, 11:22 PM

On 10:
Knew those two would join as units eventually.

Yay, Rolf has finally become a murderer! Wait.....I mean, oh no what poor loss of innocent youth and how war makes monsters of us all noooooo.

YOU MISSED! THREE TIMES! I never found Pegasus knights all that useful, to be honest....

and yeah, Permadeath is one of those things that can be annoying to deal with sometimes. even at higher levels you can still be annoyed by it, because by then you have SO MANY units and are so powerful that things are complex and such.

How I'd Do The Map:
Hm, I'd probably not know enough about the map like Zodi, so I'd probably stick together as one group to straight to the boss or be a defensive turtle on the right side of the screen. But even if I was doing the optional stuff, I'd still stick together as one group for it. I'm cautious and dislike any of my units being too far away from my healers, or my healers having so little fighters around them that they might get hurt. that and defensive turtling on the right would pretty much net me an auto join from Marcia when she appears.

so yeah, I'd probably be playing less riskily than Zodi.

Though, no permadeath would probably make me less cautious, to be honest.

DataNinja

2016-11-08, 01:23 AM

Geez, Zodi, it's like you expect us to keep track of every little thing in the game. :smalltongue:

Also, I apologize for likely being the cause of having you show all the poison and healing... :smallsigh:

Oh, hello speed-ups, my old friend. I was wondering if you were going to show your face here. I can just hear the Acapella music playing in my background. :smallamused:

*watches fight* Oh, drat, I missed catching the number. *goes back 3 seconds* Great. I need to watch another two fights. :smalltongue:

Unit
Class
First Ep
Dmg Dealt
Dmg Taken
Ratio
# Defeated
Tally

Ike
Ranger
1
728
222
3.28
28
Boyd (Fighter, Tutorial)
Greil (Hero, Tutorial)
Zawana (Bandit)
Ikanau (Bandit)
Maijin (Knight)
***
Archer x5
Bandit x3
Fighter x3
Knight x2
Myrmidon x5
Priest x1
Soldier x7

Boyd
Fighter
2
723
186
3.89
22
Kotaff (Halberdier)
***
Archer x3
Bandit x2
Fighter x3
Knight x4
Mage x2
Myrmidon x2
Soldier x6

Oscar
Lance Knight
2
735
168
4.38
25
Balmer (Sage)
***
Archer x4
Axe Knight x1
Bandit x2
Fighter x1
Knight x4
Mage x3
Myrmidon x3
Soldier x4
Sword Knight x1
Thief x1

Titania
Paladin
2
794
92
8.63
27
Archer x2
Axe Knight x1
Fighter x1
Knight x1
Lance Knight x4
Mage x2
Myrmidon x2
Soldier x14
Sword Knight x2

Rhys
Priest
3
0 (477)
15
31.8
0
--

Shinon
Sniper
4
173
25
6.92
11
Dakova (Knight)
***
Archer x3
Bandit x3
Lance Knight x1
Myrmidon x 1
Soldier x2

Gatrie
Knight
4
538
15
35.87
18
Havetti (Bandit)
***
Archer x2
Bandit x2
Fighter x2
Knight x2
Myrmidon x3
Soldier x7

Soren
Mage
5
183
24
7.63
15
Emil (Halberdier)
***
Fighter x1
Knight x3
Myrmidon x2
Soldier x6
Sword Knight x2

Mia
Myrmidon
8
241
73
3.30
7
Bandit x2
Fighter x1
Mage x2
Myrmidon x1
Soldier x1

Ilyana
Mage
9
122
21
5.81
9
Nedata (Bandit)
***
Fighter x3
Mage x2
Myrmidon x1
Soldier x2

Mist
Cleric
10
0 (92)
0
--
0
--

Rolf
Archer
10
28
0
--
2
Mage x1
Myrmidon x1

Marcia
Pegasus Knight
10
49
16
3.06
1
Mage x1

Abracadabra! Squiggly Wiggly! (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11t1-sGVO82bFPkd8qLQ3NLouYJZs3hE8PEQz4gEjAP4/edit#gid=184818464) The charts are becoming even more tangled. (Poor Soren.)

I've taken the liberty of reducing the range of the y-axis to 75% of what it was before, to more easily see differences. All we really lose is Gatrie and, since he isn't with us, I'm sure I won't hear any complaints. :smallbiggrin:

LaZodiac

2016-11-08, 10:43 AM

I haven't been posting them here because I'm lazy, but we've got a new A Taste Of video today so I figured I'd share here just so I can explain some of the context of what the hell you just watched.

A Taste Of: Savant - Ascent (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AF27AmDCd9Q)

Video Length: 18:30

Savant - Ascent is a very simple game. It is extremely "exactly what it is" and I love it, but it's not for everyone. Aesthetically it looks amazing, and the music is intense. The ending is...extremely weird and out of nowhere unless you know the context. I shall explain it here.

So, Savant is actually a rather famous EDM musician. Considering the fact that I love EDM why the hell do I not know him? Because I'm bad at music, okay? Anyway, Savant is great, and Savant - Ascent, the first game by D-Pad Studios, is meant to be a sort of "video game album", an album of music that you actively play to listen to. It's pretty neat. The game stars The Alchemist, Savant's stage persona, on his quest for the Ultimate Power. In the end we discover inside an orb a strange creature called Vario, which is Savant's stage persona but as Mario. He did this for his Savant - Vario album, which is composed of a bunch of video game based songs, including "Vario 64" which features Mario sound effects and the whole "It's a me, Vario!" line. It's pretty damn good as an album, definitely check it out.

Anyway, hope you enjoyed this...very surprising game. I know I sure as hell did.

DataNinja

2016-11-08, 01:55 PM

What did I just-

*reads context*

Ohhhhhhhhhhh...

Well, regardless of how confuzzled I was while watching it, it still looked pretty fun. And, yeah, awesome music.

Lord Raziere

2016-11-09, 03:27 AM

Wow, I think Savant: Ascent showed me how a 3.5 Warlock is supposed to look and play in an action scene.

also, this gives me an idea: a game where shooter players and danmaku players fight against each other: one fires all the blasts, the other dodges them. the shooter wins if they hit the danmaku player, the danmaku player wins when time runs out and he is still alive. the shooter cannot move, while the dodger player cannot shoot back.

but yeah, it was fun just to watch this. this game really communicates that this guy is a magic using blaster badass really well.

ShneekeyTheLost

2016-11-09, 03:44 PM

Interesting take on the SHUMP genre.

LaZodiac

2016-11-09, 07:28 PM

I was gonna save this for later but EH, let's do it now.

A Taste Of: Owlboy (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HN6t7cHBJJw&feature=youtu.be)

Video Length: 22:15

Made by the people who made Savant - Ascent, we have their first real game that is their own thing. Owlboy, a beautiful game with beautiful music and animation and artistry and unnngh my god just looooook at iiiiiit. It plays wonderfully, it looks wonderful, it is amazing.

I have nothing really much to say about it other than all that so...go hog wild. Tomorrow is Throwback Thursday and then Friday is more Fire Emblem.

DataNinja

2016-11-09, 10:35 PM

Huh. Looks pretty cool. Love the graphics. And I'm sure there are easter eggs by the bucketload... such as the floating tetris blocks at 17:34 (https://youtu.be/HN6t7cHBJJw?t=1054).

And this "stuff" you mention has me intrigued...

LaZodiac

2016-11-11, 11:01 AM

It's Remembrance Day and Veteran's Day, so let's go press gang some prisoners into our murder army.

Zodi Plays: Fire Emblem Path of Radiance [11] Stealth Mission (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7IUruPtBpo)

Video Length: 37:56

We spend some time in Gallia, relaxing, resting and recuperating for the journey ahead. The boat trip will take...a very long time, so we've got to get ready. We learn some interesting stuff in our time in Gallia, like how "human" is to Beorc what "sub-human" is to Laguz, which is a thing I kinda like. We also, after some finagling from Ranulf, get paid quite a lot of dosh, hell yeah. Now our army has a lot of funding to push it forward, and we've even got time to spend it. I...wooon't be using it to forge an impractical ridiculous weapon this time, honest. Other things that happen in the base screen/build up phase, Lethe and Mordecai join us, giving us five new units to play with. I'll be going into detail on how Laguz units work later in the post, but suffice to say here they're...flawed, but interesting.

I hand out our somewhat substantial pool of BEXP around to our units, and get some...odd but reasonable levels for Mist, an okay Rolf level, and we slowly begin feeding what will inevitably be the whirling death machine that is Marcia, though she hasn't nearly gained the foothold she needs yet. We also throw some stuff at Mia to see if she'll stick and...yeah, she needs work. Soren makes up for it though!

Info wise we get some basic world building, and Ike interrogates the new recruits aside from Mord, Rolf, and Mist. So Marcia and Lethe. Turns out Marcia is FROM Begnion, and a former royal knight to boot. And we get some hints of Lethe's minor character arc of learning how to chill the hell out about hating Beorc. With all this said and done (and no supports to dish out because I just really don't want to do it mechanically speaking) it's time for the mission proper! Turns out Gallia doesn't boat, so it's back to Crimea to find a port that'll take us to Begnion. It's uh...surrounded by mountains, thus why we can't just WALK there. This is dangerous, but as long as we're careful it should be fine.

Which is why Ranulf suggests we knock over a makeshift POW camp and pressgang the people inside. I'm kidding of course Ike will be polite about it, but it still FEELS silly. Anyway, this map is ridiculous because you CAN do it stealth wise, but...there's really no real reason to? You get a load of BEXP for not being detected but it's barely more than the combat EXP you'd get and it's really stupidly difficult and tedious. So let's just slam our face into them and see what happens. I actually DO go about this tactically and carefully, since the boss here is a GENERAL and thus PRETTY STRONG. And it continues to be unclear what enemies do and do not move.

Anyway, before the mission begins, Ranulf chickens out on us. But we also discover a man looking for Greil. Volke, a fireman. Just a regular ole fireman. He puts out fires. He opens fires. He finds burnt stuff in the fires and gives them to us I guess. He charge a veeery tiny amount of money to do so. Volke is, as you can tell, a thief. Thieves can steal unequiped weapons and items from enemies, if their speed makes it so that they can double them. For items that's pretty easy, for weapon's that factor in the weapon's weight. Volke is actually a very good unit when it comes to combat I'm just super dumb and hesitant to use him so we'll sadly probably not get to see much of him IN combat? We'll see.

As for the OTHER people loitering around in this area, we've got Nephenee, the first female Soldier in the entire series, and one of the first recruitable Soldiers in the series. Neph is like a super soldier, in that if Soldier's are "The Mario" in that they're average across the board, she's SUPER Average. By which I mean she's actually RIDICULOUSLY GOOD. She comes with the skill Wrath, which makes her crit rate shoot up if she has half health or lower. Risky, but fascinating a power, and one that seems really dumb to employ since it's luck based. There are ways to make it better, and I'm sure you guys can figure out what that is on your own until I find a scroll to teach it to Neph. We've got Brom, who is a classic Armor Knight. Tanky, slow, and strong. We also have the...ridiculous Keiran, a chevalier who employs the use of axes. As we learn later he's part of the Crimean royal guard and thus even knows Oscar! He's the closest this game gets to having a proper red oni to Oscar's blue oni, the archetypical Red Chevalier to Oscar's Green. Ah, the classics. There's also some simple monk Sephiran but I'm sure he's not important, he doesn't join us.

With all the murder done, the freed prisoners (sans Sephiran) join us, and we continue on our merry way. I wonder if Daein will notice their prison got raided...hope you all enjoyed. Next time....HOO BOY, we're gonna have fuuuuuuuuuun.

------

So, mechanics stuff! It's time to talk about Laguz units. Also some stuff I've forgotten to talk about!

Each Laguz has a meter that slowly fills up to 20. In non beast form, they gain +4 to the meter a turn, and +2 when attacked. While transformers they lose -3 a turn, and lose -1 for each battle. Once they're done to 0 they poof back into their base state, and vice versa when they hit twenty. Transforming gives a large bonus to almost all your stats, meaning the stats you see for the untransformed Laguz are technically wrong. Each Laguz also starts with a different amount of the meter filled.

Cat transformation gives: +6 Str, +4 Skill, +3 Spd, +5 Def, +3 Res, +15 Con, +2 move

Tiger transformation gives: +7 HP, +4 skill, +3 spd, +3 def, +3 res, +15 con, +2 move

Both of the transformations also make Fire weapons and magic deal effective damage to you, so be careful! It also makes Laguz slaying weapons effective as well. Also of note, the Beorc Guard Lethe has, it makes Laguz slaying effects weaker, it does NOT shield from all Beorc attacks. That'd be too broken. The Laguz units can also use Laguz Stones to instantly transform, which is nice. There's also another item that influences transformation but I'll touch on it later.

Laguz don't promote, and don't even upgrade weapons, like other units. They have a max of 40 levels like any other unit, but they actually GET to level 40, not level 20/20. All Laguz have higher than 100% hp growth so they'll always gain at least one hp, sometimes two. Overall the Laguz are a fascinating experiment that is just a bit clunky and almost impossible to actually use.

Another thing I forgot to mention is that, even for some units that don't have a Support, there is a special Bond bonus that comes into effect, based on plot. As long as they're within 3 steps of each other it'll be active.

Ike and Mist give each other a 10% crit boost, which is nice for later.

Oscar, Boyd, and Rolf all give each other a 10% crit boost when within 3 squares of each other. They'll also later be able to Do A Thing, but I'll talk about THAT later.

Lethe and Mordecai give each other a 5% bonus to crit rates.

Then we have Crit Negation. As long as certain characters as standing right next to each other, the buddy CANNOT be crit, at all. Of those that exist we only have one. So long as Ike is standing by Soren, Soren will never be crit.

PhantomFox

2016-11-11, 01:01 PM

(Note: Master Seals and Lumina have not been elaborated on in the thread as stated, or is that for later? Also, why are the battle animations all foggy? Is it the level?)

Every time I see Brom's name, as a LoL player, I can't help but think of Braum (http://ddragon.leagueoflegends.com/cdn/img/champion/splash/Braum_0.jpg). Brom is here for you! Stand behind Brom!

Mia... has been bitten by the Bad RNG bug, she's at -6.6 stats compared to average. Hopefully things will be kinder to her to catch her back up, or will you bench her?
Speaking of the bench, I've separated the Total Deviation stat into Total and Active. Total is for all characters, whereas Active is excluding those party members absent or have been benched for 3 or more missions (or you say in thread that you're not going to use)

Also, Mordekai is awesome. I equipped him with that special item you get later in my playthrough, and he's a very tanky, bruisery guy with HIGH mobility. Pretty cool.

Anyhow, Level Up Analysis:
Spreadsheet (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Do5r6dbwo3GK7oxqPFZJ1vZNHlrUZp90W9r_FwvHrXY/edit?usp=sharing)
Boyd: Falling behind on HP, into the red zone. +2.8 STR, and -3.0 HP to be specific.
Oscar: Green zone Skill along with Ike at +3.0.
Illiana: -1.2 HP, -1.5 Mag, -2.2 luck, +1.5 Luck
Soren: Returns to a positive stat total. +1.2 Mag, +1.6 Mag, -1.4 Luck.
Mia: -6.6 total stats as mentioned. That's 2 levelups worth. -2 HP, -1.6 STR, -1.8 SKL, -1.8 LCK, +2 RES.

LaZodiac

2016-11-11, 01:47 PM

Lord Raziere

2016-11-11, 10:28 PM

On 11:
Whoa, Begnion is huge! how is IT going to get worfed!? Or will it be the last bastion of goodness?

and we're stopping to recruit guys who got imprisoned. Lets hope none of them are crazy murderers!

So our recruitable guys include......a soldier, a tank knight, a bishop and an axe knight with a stupid ability that makes no sense. well 2/3 good units isn't bad....

Wait, this is a stealth mission, yet its impossible to be stealthy? well thats frelling great. how is an army supposed to be stealthy anyways?

"I won't let you not have my fun"......ok this general tortures people. noted.

wait, do you have to actually pay 50g per lock picked or is that just a story thing?

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA- Kieran is Oscar's rival! an Oscar is just like "uh....yea.....cool... how you been?" as if he doesn't really remember him.

Yeah, best at "stealth" if by that you mean "killing everything."

yeah, this map doesn't seem big on tactics, but you got a Master Seal! If I remember, that does the important class promotion thing.

DataNinja

2016-11-11, 11:32 PM

Man, we are really racking up the characters. :smalltongue:

Also, thanks for the contrast increase during battles...

Unit
Class
First Ep
Dmg Dealt
Dmg Taken
Ratio
# Defeated
Tally

Ike
Ranger
1
754
234
3.22
29
Boyd (Fighter, Tutorial)
Greil (Hero, Tutorial)
Zawana (Bandit)
Ikanau (Bandit)
Maijin (Knight)
***
Archer x5
Bandit x3
Fighter x3
Knight x2
Myrmidon x6
Priest x1
Soldier x7

Boyd
Fighter
2
874
220
3.97
26
Kotaff (Halberdier)
Danomill (General)
***
Archer x3
Bandit x2
Fighter x3
Halberdier x1
Knight x5
Mage x2
Myrmidon x2
Soldier x7

Oscar
Lance Knight
2
830
171
4.85
27
Balmer (Sage)
***
Archer x4
Axe Knight x1
Bandit x2
Fighter x1
Knight x4
Mage x3
Myrmidon x3
Soldier x6
Sword Knight x1
Thief x1

Titania
Paladin
2
794
92
8.63
27
Archer x2
Axe Knight x1
Fighter x1
Knight x1
Lance Knight x4
Mage x2
Myrmidon x2
Soldier x14
Sword Knight x2

Rhys
Priest
3
0 (477)
15
31.8
0
--

Shinon
Sniper
4
173
25
6.92
11
Dakova (Knight)
***
Archer x3
Bandit x3
Lance Knight x1
Myrmidon x 1
Soldier x2

Gatrie
Knight
4
538
15
35.87
18
Havetti (Bandit)
***
Archer x2
Bandit x2
Fighter x2
Knight x2
Myrmidon x3
Soldier x7

Soren
Mage
5
221
24
9.21
18
Emil (Halberdier)
***
Fighter x1
Knight x4
Myrmidon x3
Soldier x7
Sword Knight x2

Mia
Myrmidon
8
241
73
3.30
7
Bandit x2
Fighter x1
Mage x2
Myrmidon x1
Soldier x1

Ilyana
Mage
9
202
21
9.62
13
Nedata (Bandit)
***
Fighter x3
Knight x2
Mage x2
Myrmidon x2
Soldier x3

Mist
Cleric
10
0 (145)
0
--
0
--

Rolf
Archer
10
28
0
--
2
Mage x1
Myrmidon x1

Marcia
Pegasus Knight
10
49
16
3.06
1
Mage x1

Volke
Thief
11
37
14
2.64
1
Archer x1

Lethe
Beast Tribe
11
61
0
--
3
Mage x1
Myrmidon x1
Soldier x1

Mordecai
Beast Tribe
11
51
5
10.2
2
Knight x1
Soldier x1

And, also, spreadsheet (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11t1-sGVO82bFPkd8qLQ3NLouYJZs3hE8PEQz4gEjAP4/edit#gid=184818464), if anyone's actually reading it.

If not, well... I like numbers. :smallbiggrin:

Edit: Oh, yeah, what's the limit to party size? Because I've noticed some are being left behind now.

Knaight

2016-11-12, 12:32 AM

Edit: Oh, yeah, what's the limit to party size? Because I've noticed some are being left behind now.

Both the available characters and the number of characters that can be brought to a mission vary per mission. There's a general upward trend to both of them, and mission specificity is comparatively low in this game - the sequel takes it and cranks it way up.

As for the earlier discussion on pegasus knights - they are really useful as transport units to move infantry around quickly, and their mobility advantage gets really nice in fights with a lot of water or swamps.

LaZodiac

2016-11-12, 12:50 AM

Also, why are the battle animations all foggy? Is it the level?

I meant to answer this and COMPLETELY forgot OOPS. As Dark Shadow said, it was my attempt at upping the contrast to see the combat better.

On 11:
Whoa, Begnion is huge! how is IT going to get worfed!? Or will it be the last bastion of goodness?

Wait, this is a stealth mission, yet its impossible to be stealthy? well thats frelling great. how is an army supposed to be stealthy anyways?

wait, do you have to actually pay 50g per lock picked or is that just a story thing?

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA- Kieran is Oscar's rival! an Oscar is just like "uh....yea.....cool... how you been?" as if he doesn't really remember him.

Yeah, best at "stealth" if by that you mean "killing everything."

yeah, this map doesn't seem big on tactics, but you got a Master Seal! If I remember, that does the important class promotion thing.

Begnion is an interesting case. We'll see!

I was under the impression that due to how the mechanics of the level worked it's impossible to GET ALL THE ITEMS, while being stealthy. It IS possible to stealth this entire mission, it just takes upwards of 49 turns.

It literally takes 50 gold from your army treasury whenever he does a lock picking.

If everyone's dead then no one saw you. It's just simple logic. When I eventually get to playing Dishonoured or Deus Ex things are going to be...fascinating.

The Master Seal is something I will make sure to make note of next time, since the dude there also gives us a Master Seal pretty sure.

Man, we are really racking up the characters. :smalltongue:

Also, thanks for the contrast increase during battles...

And, also, spreadsheet (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11t1-sGVO82bFPkd8qLQ3NLouYJZs3hE8PEQz4gEjAP4/edit#gid=184818464), if anyone's actually reading it.

If not, well... I like numbers. :smallbiggrin:

Edit: Oh, yeah, what's the limit to party size? Because I've noticed some are being left behind now.

Reminder I think we get like a total of 40 dudes in this game.

Thanks for noticing! And reminding me I did that!

I'm paying attention. I barely comprehend it because I'm bad at math but ooh pretty lines.

DataNinja

2016-11-12, 01:26 AM

I'm paying attention. I barely comprehend it because I'm bad at math but ooh pretty lines.

Basically, higher line = better.

The first graph means they're hitting more without being hit (hence why mages have generally high numbers, and also sharp curves - even a few points of damage can drop the ratio sharply if you're going from [100 damage given/5 damage taken] to [100 damage given/10 damage taken]).

The second graph is more straight forwards. It's the average damage a character has dealt per battle. So a high number means A) they're good at dealing damage, B) they've avoided missing too much/getting into battles at a range they can't hit at, and C) you haven't been feeding them people with 1hp left (as that's only 1 damage dealt).

Regardless, I just want to see how much of a Gordian Knot I you the puppets can make out of this. :smalltongue:

ThePhantom

2016-11-12, 02:12 AM

Ah this game, quite fun. Although, I had the guide to it, which helped, a lot. I did it about five times, both because its good, and because it links up to its sequel.

Starbuck_II

2016-11-13, 08:43 PM

That Stealth mission was hard: I kept getting caught. But after 12 try I succeeded without being seen.
It was a unique mission though.

LaZodiac

2016-11-14, 11:17 AM

It's time for another video that took upwards of five hours to record. Woo.

Zodi Plays: Fire Emblem Path of Radiance [12] Danger House (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FS4vqwJ3ps)

Video Length: 42:52

And so we arrive at the port town we'll be using to step off into Begnion. We hang around to get supplies, and generally just relax until it's boat time. Ike and Soren discuss victim blaming and the general crap style most people live their life, and in general we just have some good character and world building? It's really cool and helps solidify the themes of the game.

In the base screen I throw some money at our boys (and one girl) to outfit us. Spears and axes for everyone! We sell the Statue Frag, which I LEGITIMATELY FORGOT I GOT last episode. They increase constitution, which means they can push and lift heavier units, but are likewise unable to be picked up and pushed by lighter units. They're useless in every single sense of the word so we sell it. We then get into throwing out some BEXP, giving Marcia some decent levels all told and Boyd a poopy one but it's serviceable. Then we get to the info gathering and hey, this time we actually get something substantial out of it beyond just world building stuff.

Specifically, in talking with the local vigilantes, we learn that they have a bunch of laguz hunting idiot vigilantes going around town trying to be good boys. They give us a sword designed for slaughtering animal people if they're in their animal form and Ike just awkwardly puts it in his bag for later use. After that and the typical round of interrogating our new recruits (and poking at Marcia some more, much to the happiness of soon to be crushed with sadness shippers) we can actually continue on with the mission at hand.

Everything seems to be going well and then the Daein's arrive, putting the town under martial law almost immediately and trying to find us. Luckily they don't know who we are, they just know we want a boat, so we should be fine. Unfortunately...some fool civilian slams into Ranulf and reveals his catboy-ness, and they start messing with him and causing a scene. Ike could leave now, let Ranulf get beat to death and escape...or he could jump in and incite the entire Daein army to fall on him. Again.

You know what we do. In the process, the boss of this stage (Mackoya) runs to a certain house, where we see...he is here.The Black Knight. Uh oh...but he says he'll stay back until something proves to him that Mack's lost it.

So, this mission is VERY difficult, because it has a time limit of five turns. Not saying it's a direct hard and fast super time limit or we lose, but...it IS a time limit in that beyond 5 turns, getting out of this map is difficult. So, here is what we're contending with. On the western side of the map is a bunch of chevalier, two houses with loot we want (an Elwind and a Dracoshield, def boosting stat item) and a thief who'll pillage said houses. We'll be sending Kieran, Titania, and Oscar over there to deal with them with Rhys and Soren as support. The eastern half of the map is...far trickier. There's soldiers, but those are easily dispatched at this point. The Myrmidon and Bow using Chevalier however are...far more threatening. The true issue here though s the Vigilantes. If yo don't kill them, you get a pretty good sized pot of BEXP. They're level 1 so they give almost nothing for actual combat at this point in the game, so you really want to.

Problem: If you are attacked and have a weapon, you will counter attack if able. Always. So these damn fools will die on our blades if we aren't careful. However, with the ACTUAL dangerous enemies around, that becomes quite troublesome and you end up getting locked up in some way. The other concern is that one of te vigilantes is a recruit for our army, Zihark. He'll automatically run up to any Laguz to try and help them escape, joining you in the process. Zihark, being a myrmidon, is fairly fragile. The enemy Myrmidon is pretty strong and will love to kill him, and the loser Vigilantes might take a potshot at him too. Aside from Zihark we'd NEVER have to actually deal with this area though, except...there's a house up there with a Killer Lance. Killer weapons like the Killing Edge Zihark has and this lance are very useful, having an increased rate of critting. Super powerful. So we want to get it. This leads to more potential fighting from the Vigilantes and the actual legitimately strong dudes up there. And yet this is not even the worst part of this mission. Let us discover the Danger House.

As we are all aware of due to the cutscene, the Danger House is the house THE BLACK KNIGHT in it. Now, this is horrifying to you as a player since you know he's a big deal. So what triggers him? Getting into combat with the boss, who in this mission DOES move if you're within his range. As a paladin, his movement is quite good. To the point that for the northern squad, the areas where Mackoya's range force them to loiter at to avoid triggering the boss...puts them all within range of The Black Knight, more or less. And this spicy boy gets to move on the turn he shows up so if you're in range YOU DIE. And as you've noticed, the Vigilantes are persistent. They will NOT stop. So we need to get Away From The Danger House before inciting Mackoya into action. But that's impossible because after five turns pass, the entire starting area (ie, the path that lets us LEAVE THE DANGER HOUSE) becomes full of dragons.

Specifically Jill and two Wyvern Riders appear. Jill is spoilers, someone we WILL recruit in the future. But she's not very nice. She'll fight us. If she dies here, she's DEAD dead. So we can't get her angry. And since she rides a flying mount, she outspeeds everything we have movement range wise. So here we are. Stuck between a very strong paladin boss who's initiation of combat will summon up the strongest warrior in existence and a character who will gladly slaughter herself on our swords if given the chance. And in the middle of it all, a bunch of racist whiny babies who want to stab us for being friends with a furry, that we are encouraged to let live to get a nice bonus of liquid death to feed into our army to level them up.

In the end, after playing ring around the rosie with these asses for five hours, and getting into a mistaken spot due to just being exhausted and bored and having one die on Boyd's axe...I decide to rip them all open. LET NONE SURVIVE.

So, one final thing before we end off the mission. Let's actually look at The Black Knight shall we? He's a very powerful man in story...but how strong is he mechanically? Does he live up to the hype? The short answer: oh my GOD YES. LOOK AT THAT?!!?!?! He's RIDICULOUS. The long answer is, he's a fully leveled up General with all the stats that are important capped at 30. He's level 20/20 and statistically we need 31 strength to even begin to pretend to damage him, just going by raw numbers. He is literally indestructible. He has a special sword with a range of two that also negates critical hits. Skill wise he has Luna, a skill% chance to just decide our defense is half of what it actually is, and he has Renewal. Renewal makes him recover 10% of his MAXIMUM HP. Every turn. Without fail. Always. This means that in order to deal any appreciably damage to him, we'd need to have a strength of at least 38 or so. I'm fairly certain 30 or 35 is the hard cap for the strongest units in the game. There are...ways around it of course, because we WILL be expected to beat the Black Knight eventually but...mechanically, this man is every bit as horrifying as he should be.

But in the end he's a lazy boy and won't move at us unless we're within range. So we slaughter Makoya and get on the boat and The Black Knight takes the town for Daein. He and his buddy Norris work the people of the town, punishing those that betray us to them as a traitor deserves, and that's the episode. We on a boat now. Hope you all enjoyed.

------

Like I said last post, let's talk about that Master Seal!

Master Seal's let you promote a unit that's level 10 or higher to their advanced class. They start over at level 1 with all their stats, plus a big hearty bonus of stats for promoting. However, you want to wait until level 20 to DO this, because in this game every number counts and missing a level up AT ALL is far worse than a bad level. If I promoted Boyd at level 11 to his advanced form and got him up to level 20, he'd be level 11/20, so 31. That's NINE WHOLE LEVELS he missed out on. Never promote early unless you're blessed by god and max out enough stats that leveling up is no longer actually doing anything.

However, unlike...EVERY other Fire Emblem, in Path of Radiance if you hit level 20 you still gain experience. If you roll over to level 21, the unit auto promotes! You don't get any actual level ups for that level, I'm PRETTY sure, but yo do get to promote without using an item. This is important as Master Seals are few and far between.

Also: Ike doesn't promote like a normal unit. His promotion is more...literal, than most.

ThePhantom

2016-11-14, 04:13 PM

Oh shoot, last I checked you didn't mention what I talked about but now you do.

Well, at least its nice the connection of the stats and story match up with such an enemy.

DataNinja

2016-11-14, 04:47 PM

40 recruitable units? :smalleek:

Well, better get a-cracking on what ones we do have.

Unit
Class
First Ep
Dmg Dealt
Dmg Taken
Ratio
# Defeated
Tally

Ike
Ranger
1
782
234
3.34
30
Boyd (Fighter, Tutorial)
Greil (Hero, Tutorial)
Zawana (Bandit)
Ikanau (Bandit)
Maijin (Knight)
***
Archer x5
Bandit x3
Fighter x3
Knight x3
Myrmidon x6
Priest x1
Soldier x7

Boyd
Fighter
2
998
238
4.19
29
Kotaff (Halberdier)
Danomill (General)
***
Archer x3
Bandit x2
Bow Knight x1
Fighter x3
Halberdier x1
Knight x5
Lance Knight x1
Mage x2
Myrmidon x4
Soldier x7

Oscar
Lance Knight
2
1014
188
5.39
31
Balmer (Sage)
***
Archer x4
Axe Knight x1
Bandit x2
Fighter x1
Knight x4
Lance Knight x1
Mage x3
Myrmidon x5
Priest x1
Soldier x7
Sword Knight x1
Thief x1

Titania
Paladin
2
954
124
7.69
31
Mackoya (Paladin)
***
Archer x2
Axe Knight x2
Fighter x1
Knight x1
Lance Knight x6
Mage x2
Myrmidon x2
Soldier x14
Sword Knight x2

Rhys
Priest
3
0 (532)
15
35.46
0
--

Shinon
Sniper
4
173
25
6.92
11
Dakova (Knight)
***
Archer x3
Bandit x3
Lance Knight x1
Myrmidon x 1
Soldier x2

Gatrie
Knight
4
538
15
35.87
18
Havetti (Bandit)
***
Archer x2
Bandit x2
Fighter x2
Knight x2
Myrmidon x3
Soldier x7

Soren
Mage
5
245
24
10.21
19
Emil (Halberdier)
***
Fighter x1
Knight x5
Myrmidon x3
Soldier x7
Sword Knight x2

Mia
Myrmidon
8
241
73
3.30
7
Bandit x2
Fighter x1
Mage x2
Myrmidon x1
Soldier x1

Ilyana
Mage
9
224
21
10.67
13
Nedata (Bandit)
***
Fighter x3
Knight x2
Mage x2
Myrmidon x2
Soldier x3

Mist
Cleric
10
0 (170)
0
--
0
--

Rolf
Archer
10
28
0
--
2
Mage x1
Myrmidon x1

Marcia
Pegasus Knight
10
111
16
6.94
4
Mage x1
Myrmidon x2
Soldier x1

Volke
Thief
11
37
14
2.64
1
Archer x1

Lethe
Beast Tribe
11
61
0
--
3
Mage x1
Myrmidon x1
Soldier x1

Mordecai
Beast Tribe
11
51
5
10.2
2
Knight x1
Soldier x1

Nephenee
Soldier
12
39
0
--
2
Priest x1
Soldier x1

Brom
Knight
12
13
16
0.81
0
--

Kieran
Axe Knight
12
96
31
3.10
5
Archer x1
Lance Knight x1
Solder x1
Sword Knight x1
Thief x1

Zihark
Myrmidon
12
5
0
--
1
Lance Knight x1

Hmmm.... methinks the table might need to be getting into Spoilers soon. :smalltongue:

Oh, yeah... Brom now has the dubious honour of being the first (and only) unit to have less than a 1.0 damage dealt:taken ratio. As well as less than a 1 damage:battle ratio. It's okay. I'm sure he'll be fine. Probably.

Also: Fun fact. Your stat card was based off that of the Black Knight, because that's the only one I could find online.

As for the Spreadsheets (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11t1-sGVO82bFPkd8qLQ3NLouYJZs3hE8PEQz4gEjAP4/edit#gid=184818464), a trend seems to be emerging. For people actually in the thick of things, there seems to be a rough range of dealing 3-8x the damage dealt than that received, with most centered closer to the 3-4x range. So, not bad. It means you're at least 3x the general your opponents are, right? :smalltongue:

Knaight

2016-11-14, 04:54 PM

So, one final thing before we end off the mission. Let's actually look at The Black Knight shall we? He's a very powerful man in story...but how strong is he mechanically? Does he live up to the hype? The short answer: oh my GOD YES. LOOK AT THAT?!!?!?! He's RIDICULOUS. The long answer is, he's a fully leveled up General with all the stats that are important capped at 30. He's level 20/20 and statistically we need 31 strength to even begin to pretend to damage him, just going by raw numbers. He is literally indestructible. He has a special sword with a range of two that also negates critical hits. Skill wise he has Luna, a skill% chance to just decide our defense is half of what it actually is, and he has Renewal. Renewal makes him recover 10% of his MAXIMUM HP. Every turn. Without fail. Always. This means that in order to deal any appreciably damage to him, we'd need to have a strength of at least 38 or so. I'm fairly certain 30 or 35 is the hard cap for the strongest units in the game. There are...ways around it of course, because we WILL be expected to beat the Black Knight eventually but...mechanically, this man is every bit as horrifying as he should be.

I'm not saying that the BK isn't a ridiculously competent unit based on stats alone, but that 30 defense isn't as strong as you're making it sound - you need a strength+(weapon damage) over 30 to hurt him, not just a strength over 30. As for Renewal, it's not really that powerful. It's a minor boost that mostly serves to effectively immunize him to being poisoned.

LaZodiac

2016-11-14, 05:13 PM

I'm not saying that the BK isn't a ridiculously competent unit based on stats alone, but that 30 defense isn't as strong as you're making it sound - you need a strength+(weapon damage) over 30 to hurt him, not just a strength over 30. As for Renewal, it's not really that powerful. It's a minor boost that mostly serves to effectively immunize him to being poisoned.

Right, shouldn't post when I'm still half asleep. Forgot to clarify that part.

Lord Raziere

2016-11-14, 05:58 PM

On Ep 12:
Yeah, thats the problem with feudal systems: the nobles get all the power, while the peasants think its all just a chair that doesn't actually mean anything until they get bothered.

wow, Ike got handed a racist sword, what the hell. this means we're going to face evil Laguz eventually, right? though I wonder what the two Laguz would think if they found Ike carrying that thing around....

......does Nephenee have a crush on Ike? cause it sounds like she does.

I'm trying to figure out how Elinica finds Ike funny...... "as long as I got my sword and my cape, I can find food anywhere.....if you know I mean.."

and wow, things went from bad to worse real fast. like, that really escalated quickly. and wow, things can get even worse-erer. and there are enemies we CAN'T attack!? I never faced any situation like this in the Fire Emblem games I've played.....no wonder this took five hours to get right.....

and your supposed to clear as much as possible by turn FIVE!? what is this mission!? difficulty spike much!? its just piling on difficulty after difficulty!

.....oh Kieran isn't as bad as I thought, I though he'd be constantly missing and not killing anyone.

ok so....after five turns you need to be out of range of the Wyverns.....but the Black Knight will show up and start killing people once you get to the boss.....What crazy person designed this map?

Yeah......I would be more ruthless, and just kill the vigilantes for siding with Daien at all and recruit Zihark. I wouldn't feel bad about it or passing up the Bonus EXP. just not worth it for their kind of scum.

but he won't move unless your in range. oh good. HOLY-60 HP!? 30 IN EVERY STAT? Might as well be facing Lu Bu.

.......Ranulf is going to die, isn't he? sacrificial idiot. cool he didn't. Sephiran must be really strong if he can make Black Knight withdraw.

.......the traitor is Volke, isn't it? he is a thief, he comes out of nowhere, claims to be an intel agent of Greil, offers ludicrous price for information, takes 50g for each lockpick, practically story-required, he is pretty much the most likely guy to be Ashnards "worm". the fact that Titania and Soren don't know who he is, is a big tip off, cause I'm pretty sure they would notice Greil hiring him before. that and he speaks like....this. as if he is....pausing to come with up some plausible.....lie.

What would I do in this map? lets see recruit Zihark, kill the vigilantes, get out of the starting area, probably through the north, and if its my first time,probably get owned by Black Knight once I try to bait out Mackoya with one of my stronger guys. Second time around, probably do something similar but with trying to not be in the Black Knight's range. Probably not work as well, since I'd keep putting all my units in one group that the Black Knight could reach, instead of spreading out. I'd probably be screaming in fear the whole time to.

Edit: yea another reason why I'm bad at Fire Emblem is because I kept early promoting the units once they got to level ten, not knowing that I was actually stopping them from getting the rest of their levels. I just reveled in the promoted power. stupid weird grinding system.

DataNinja

2016-11-14, 06:30 PM

.......the traitor is Volke, isn't it? he is a thief, he comes out of nowhere, claims to be an intel agent of Greil, offers ludicrous price for information, takes 50g for each lockpick, practically story-required, he is pretty much the most likely guy to be Ashnards "worm". the fact that Titania and Soren don't know who he is, is a big tip off, cause I'm pretty sure they would notice Greil hiring him before. that and he speaks like....this. as if he is....pausing to come with up some plausible.....lie.

Ooh, are we guessing?

Uh, I want to say Neph, but I'll go with Brom. Mainly because I have far more conspiracy-type stuff to levy against him. Because black armour, talks to inanimate objects that certainly isn't a communications device, is affable, nobody knows him. And, most importantly, has managed a grand total of a single hit on an enemy and has a score across the board of 0.82 for damage per combat, and damage given compared to damage taken. The filthy traitor. (And that last bit is TOTALLY HIS FAULT, and NOT BECAUSE OF THE WAY HE WAS ORDERED AROUND.) That's my story, and I'm sticking to it. :smalltongue:

Knaight

2016-11-14, 07:12 PM

(And that last bit is TOTALLY HIS FAULT, and NOT BECAUSE OF THE WAY HE WAS ORDERED AROUND.) That's my story, and I'm sticking to it. :smalltongue:

Sounds reasonable to me, but then I was never a fan of Gatrie-Lite as a mechanical unit.

PhantomFox

2016-11-14, 07:54 PM

Knaight

2016-11-14, 11:05 PM

Yeah, I never bothered to save the vigilantes. Not worth the trouble, as your 5 hours will attest. Not much to report on the levelups. Though Ike is lagging on speed. But since he excels at skill, he'll crit a lot more. And activate any special skills he may be given more often.

I did, but I'm pretty sure it was a case of sending Titania out completely unarmed and letting them wail on her turn after turn for absolutely no effect. I used that strategy a lot in the early levels.

LaZodiac

2016-11-16, 09:24 AM

On this day, today of all days, I've decided to post the next A Taste Of. It's...a thing.

A Taste Of: Final Dusk (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liwH_h8cNIs)

Video Length: 24:07

It's a phone game puzzle game port to steam. I think it's actually perfectly fine it's just in the process of editing it I went insane because hey guess what there's not a lot to talk about a puzzle game that's on a slow burn.

One thing that I do feel worth mentioning is that I do find it funny how the mechanics these type of puzzle games have, plus the obsession with garlic, makes the main character of this seem almost jokingly suicidal and that's really messed up and I don't know how to respond to that.

DataNinja

2016-11-16, 03:13 PM

Knaight

2016-11-16, 03:49 PM

So, note to Future-Zodi: No more puzzle LPs? :smallamused:

I'm sure there's some that will work well. I'd watch Zodi playing DROD for instance.

LaZodiac

2016-11-17, 01:54 AM

More vampires! That seems to be a semi-reoccurring thing. :smalltongue:

So, note to Future-Zodi: No more puzzle LPs? :smallamused:

I mean, it didn't seem bad. But I can't imagine playing it on a phone, with a tiny screen. "Oh, you meant to tap that?"

So, are you doing a second Taste of Owlboy (no complaints), or was that just the magic of upload times/scheduling? :smallbiggrin:

A little!

Eeeh...it depends.

Final Dusk isn't bad it's just supremely what it is.

...wow I completely forgot I said that and forgot I bumped up Owlboy to Wednesday because I felt everyone needed from joy.

I'm sure there's some that will work well. I'd watch Zodi playing DROD for instance.

What's DROD?

DataNinja

2016-11-17, 02:41 AM

...wow I completely forgot I said that and forgot I bumped up Owlboy to Wednesday because I felt everyone needed from joy.

Suuuuure. We'll totally believe that you aren't a time traveller, who forgot to check their chronology. Honest. :smallwink:

Knaight

2016-11-17, 07:04 PM

What's DROD?

It's a puzzle game series with a dungeon crawler aesthetic, about navigating your one guy through a series of puzzle rooms. There's nearly perfect information, it's very watchable, and it's just generally cool. There are a couple of places to get it, with GOG having the first 3 in the series in a bundle for $10 (https://www.gog.com/game/drod_1_2_3). The 2nd and 3rd are probably best suited for watching, the 5th is what you play if you're freakishly good at the game and still looking for a challenge.

LaZodiac

2016-11-18, 10:40 AM

More Fire Emblem today! I know, shocking.

Zodi Plays: Fire Emblem Path of Radiance [13] Boat Party (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWbuEw_d_FM&t=18s)

Video Length: 34:25

In this episode, if we're being completely honest, nothing really happens. We begin our two month trip to Begnion via boat, and the narrator helpfully informs us that we'll be passing by Kilvas, Phoenics, and Goldoa on the way there. The last three countries in the continent, and the last three types of Laguz. The ravens of Kilvas, the hawks of Phoenics, and...the dragons of Goldoa. Kilvas and Phoenics are pirate nations, while Goldoa is an isolationist nation surrounded by mountains. All in all it's a pretty nice set of countries that really help round out the world a bit.

I do kind of like how the opening scene for the chapter, and some of the Info chats this chapter, really sell home the fact that hey guess what TWO MONTHS ON A BOAT are pretty damn boring. We do however learn that Nasir, the tan skinned man with cotton candy hair that owns this boat, is apparently a Laguz! He's just..."removed" his animal parts, he says. I wonder...anyway, after doing all the busywork for the map (I get some alright BEXP levels and teach Ilyana how to use wind magic for Reasons) we do our info chats and ooone of them is quite important. It seems we've got a sneaky little stowaway on board! This is Sothe, and this is not his story. He's a thief like Volke, but statistically he's kind of bad. That said he has the skill Blossom! It makes it so that when he level ups, he rolls each stat twice to see if he gains a point in it or not. No double point gain, but it makes him far more prone to getting lots of stat ups. He's still a thief though, and notedly far too weak for the next couple missions so I'll be showing him off in combat later.

So...plot time! We see some ravens off in the distance, and they're probably pirates. We go to escape and...oops, Nasir accidently put the boat on some rocks. Boats don't go on rocks. So now we're stuck and need to fight off a bunch of rude boys on a very small bit of area, and the boys in question are very strong, rather tanky, and very fast so they'll probably get to double us. This is actually a pretty tough mission if you're not careful.

That being said I think it goes about as well as can be expected. I do some strategy that may or may not of been super appropriate or good, and I think I forget to do some stuff that'll make the really tactical minded of you upset. That being said, it's all good. We get through it with some good levels, and looting everything of import minus a Secret Book, which isn't a concern given I keep on getting skill on everyone who needs it anyway. Loot wise the only thing worth talking about is The Coin, which is notable only in that it is useless, but do NOT sell it. You must save it until...later. By which I mean the sequel to this game, where the coins will carry over and be used for actual things.

After slaughtering Seeker and his army of acid raven pirates, Ike goes on land to ask for help because god damnit he's not going to be stopped on his revenge quest that happens to coincide with saving a princess by some dang ass boulders. This is bad and five dragons immediately jump him. Turns out where in Goldoa and they don't...they don't like people who step on their land without permission. That being said Ike's frankness and general lack of giving any craps, except when he realizes he's done bad and is genuinely appologetic, makes the young prince of dragons, Kurth, help us out of the rock situation. Huzzah for muscle dragons!

With that, we continue sailing. One more month to go Ike. You can do it. Hope you all enjoyed, I'll see you next time. Next time will be...interesting, as I've really only got one day to record and edit it since I'm finally back home, we JUST enough time to spare to avoid missing an update. Wish me luck!

As for what we'll be DOING next time...well. Boat! Only plural!

Lord Raziere

2016-11-18, 12:51 PM

On Episode 13:
Sothe, eh? replacement thief for Volke. awesome, I knew he was a traitor.

see? Volke disappears so much and he charges to eat FOOD with you. when your commander contemplates telling his sister that your dead instead as a solution....

and we have a battle with bird people. kay. THEORETICALLY difficult, but in practice....?

......scary from my point of view. can attack from any angle, hit hard and have good hp to boot. thankfully there aren't many of them.

wow. Zihark: became an infiltrator and joined Ike's crew to save Laguz from oppression! Next mission: ends up killing Laguz! talk about irony.

oh hey Jill. oh hey, cool this map is actually probably the best place for you to join.

wow, Jill you miss a lot.

and yeah, sub 80 chances to hit, ouch. this guy is bull.

and Kurth is a cool guy.

as for tactics, I honestly don't know what I would've done on this map....the other fire emblems don't have Laguz, so wouldn't know what to do with a bunch of crows.....I guess they basically a bunch of recolored wyvern riders without any durability to worry about? but those always gave me trouble to....

LaZodiac

2016-11-18, 02:02 PM

Oh god right I forgot to talk about Jill.

Right! Jill is a slower, tankier Marcia, mechanically. Wyvern Rider's are kind of "that thing" in general. Jill's actually a really good character both mechanically and flavorfully. Please don't hate her just because she wants to gut and skin all the animal people she...she's just got problems.

ThePhantom

2016-11-18, 03:36 PM

Actually, Raziere, crows are based off of thieves. You don't see in this map, but in maps with chests and buildings, you will be most displeased to see them. Especially since they hit harder than thieves do, at least while in crow form. Out of that, all they can do is run away.

Also, foreshadowing. :smallcool:

PhantomFox

2016-11-18, 07:18 PM

Is it just me, or is youtube being slow about uploading the hires version of the vid?

Soren is a bit... weaker than I'd like...
On what front? Soren is 4 levels behind Illiana, and is pretty comparable at the moment. Get them to the same level, and you'll be fine I think. Here are the stats during the base
Illiana lvl 13: 22/2/10/14/12/7 /4/15
Soren lvl 9: 21/0/12/14/11/6/4/12

Marcia is so fast that every bit of str helps her become the murder machine that she is honestly destined to be, stat growth wise
... not sure what you're referring to here. Seems average to me? Perhaps if I separate the 'average level up' into offense and defense... but speed is counted as both. And HP is almost always the biggest stat for anyone. Not sure what to do there.

But, in the Spreadsheet (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Do5r6dbwo3GK7oxqPFZJ1vZNHlrUZp90W9r_FwvHrXY/edit?usp=sharing) I added a new stat called "Base @ lvl 1" effectively approximating what their base stat total at lvl 1 would be, considering most units start out elsewhere.

Also, Mia and Rolf are absent for 3 missions, and are now Benched and excluded from the Active Deviation stat, raising it (thanks to the great levels) back to positive!
Also, Ike is falling a bit behind in levels now. Overcompensating for his early head start?
Alas, Illiana is the new victim of the bad-levelup bug, and is now sitting at -3.4

Anything else you'd like to me to puzzle out?

LaZodiac

2016-11-19, 01:55 AM

On what front? Soren is 4 levels behind Illiana, and is pretty comparable at the moment. Get them to the same level, and you'll be fine I think. Here are the stats during the base
Illiana lvl 13: 22/2/10/14/12/7 /4/15
Soren lvl 9: 21/0/12/14/11/6/4/12

... not sure what you're referring to here. Seems average to me? Perhaps if I separate the 'average level up' into offense and defense... but speed is counted as both. And HP is almost always the biggest stat for anyone. Not sure what to do there.

Also, Mia and Rolf are absent for 3 missions, and are now Benched and excluded from the Active Deviation stat, raising it (thanks to the great levels) back to positive!
Also, Ike is falling a bit behind in levels now. Overcompensating for his early head start?
Alas, Illiana is the new victim of the bad-levelup bug, and is now sitting at -3.4

Anything else you'd like to me to puzzle out?

I think I'm greedy and meant "strength" wise there.

As for Marcia...I've always been told that Marcia almost always ends up being some kind of whirling dervish of murderdeathkill.

Ah...bad level ups. Next episode is...gonna be a thing.

Knaight

2016-11-19, 01:05 PM

I think I'm greedy and meant "strength" wise there.

As for Marcia...I've always been told that Marcia almost always ends up being some kind of whirling dervish of murderdeathkill.

Ah...bad level ups. Next episode is...gonna be a thing.

Marcia's solid, but it's more that she's got enough mobility to pick off irritating enemies than anything. This is particularly relevant once mages with extreme range show up - she's got the resistance to handle them, enough general fighting ability to handle others nearby (other than archers), and the mobility to fly over and drop them. Plus, most of the other pegasus knights are less solid, so there's that.

Illven

2016-11-20, 06:35 PM

So this base at level 1, made me wonder.

What if we took Pent, (Famous for really good bases, and mediocre growths) and figured out what his level 1 bases were.

Hp 16.5 Mag 9.5 Skl 16 Spd 7 Luck 4 Def .5 Res 4.25

Hp 19 Mag 11 Skl 17 Spd 9 Luck 6 Def 2 Res 6

Hp 21.5 Mag 12.5 Skl 18 Spd 11 Luck 8 Def 3.5 Res 7.75

Based off this, I think we can assume Pent is Ike's true father? :smalltongue:

DataNinja

2016-11-21, 12:46 AM

Eheheheheh... Uh, this is a tad late. Totally didn't spend all my free time the last few days playing a new game. Nope, nosireebob... >.>;

Unit
Class
First Ep
Dmg Dealt
Dmg Taken
Ratio
# Defeated
Tally

Ike
Ranger
1
819
250
3.28
31
Boyd (Fighter, Tutorial)
Greil (Hero, Tutorial)
Zawana (Bandit)
Ikanau (Bandit)
Maijin (Knight)
***
Archer x5
Bandit x3
Fighter x3
Knight x3
Myrmidon x6
Priest x1
Raven x1
Soldier x7

Boyd
Fighter
2
998
250
3.99
29
Kotaff (Halberdier)
Danomill (General)
***
Archer x3
Bandit x2
Bow Knight x1
Fighter x3
Halberdier x1
Knight x5
Lance Knight x1
Mage x2
Myrmidon x4
Soldier x7

Oscar
Lance Knight
2
1040
207
5.02
32
Balmer (Sage)
***
Archer x4
Axe Knight x1
Bandit x2
Fighter x1
Knight x4
Lance Knight x1
Mage x3
Myrmidon x5
Priest x1
Raven x1
Soldier x7
Sword Knight x1
Thief x1

Titania
Paladin
2
954
124
7.69
31
Mackoya (Paladin)
***
Archer x2
Axe Knight x2
Fighter x1
Knight x1
Lance Knight x6
Mage x2
Myrmidon x2
Soldier x14
Sword Knight x2

Rhys
Priest
3
0 (532)
15
35.46
0
--

Shinon
Sniper
4
173
25
6.92
11
Dakova (Knight)
***
Archer x3
Bandit x3
Lance Knight x1
Myrmidon x 1
Soldier x2

Gatrie
Knight
4
538
15
35.87
18
Havetti (Bandit)
***
Archer x2
Bandit x2
Fighter x2
Knight x2
Myrmidon x3
Soldier x7

Soren
Mage
5
315
24
13.13
20
Emil (Halberdier)
***
Fighter x1
Knight x5
Myrmidon x3
Raven x1
Soldier x7
Sword Knight x2

Mia
Myrmidon
8
241
73
3.30
7
Bandit x2
Fighter x1
Mage x2
Myrmidon x1
Soldier x1

Ilyana
Mage
9
248
21
11.81
14
Nedata (Bandit)
Seeker (Beast Tribe)
***
Fighter x3
Knight x2
Mage x2
Myrmidon x2
Soldier x3

Mist
Cleric
10
0 (240)
0
--
0
--

Rolf
Archer
10
28
0
--
2
Mage x1
Myrmidon x1

Marcia
Pegasus Knight
10
139
31
4.48
5
Mage x1
Myrmidon x2
Raven x1
Soldier x1

Volke
Thief
11
37
14
2.64
1
Archer x1

Lethe
Beast Tribe
11
61
0
--
3
Mage x1
Myrmidon x1
Soldier x1

Mordecai
Beast Tribe
11
51
5
10.2
2
Knight x1
Soldier x1

Nephenee
Soldier
12
65
12
5.42
4
Priest x1
Raven x2
Soldier x1

Brom
Knight
12
35
26
1.35
0
--

Kieran
Axe Knight
12
96
31
3.10
5
Archer x1
Lance Knight x1
Solder x1
Sword Knight x1
Thief x1

Zihark
Myrmidon
12
25
23
1.09
2
Lance Knight x1
Raven x1

Sothe
Thief
13
0
0
--
0
--

Jill
Wyvern Rider
13
41
24
1.71
1
Raven x1

Fun fact: Every time I see the capitalization "Laguz" it throws me off guard. Because I'm used to in certain things Race names being Capitalized, so I always pronounce "laguz" in my head as 'eye-uh-guz'.

Anyhow, spreadsheet (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11t1-sGVO82bFPkd8qLQ3NLouYJZs3hE8PEQz4gEjAP4/edit#gid=184818464) time. Survey says, those birds were tough. :smalltongue:
Average damage drops across the board, as well as more damage taken.

At least Brom is out of the 'below par' club? But not soon enough. I saw what was up with those numbers. You can't hide your true nature, traitor. :smalltongue:

AsteriskAmp

2016-11-21, 03:04 AM

Marcia's solid, but it's more that she's got enough mobility to pick off irritating enemies than anything. This is particularly relevant once mages with extreme range show up - she's got the resistance to handle them, enough general fighting ability to handle others nearby (other than archers), and the mobility to fly over and drop them. Plus, most of the other pegasus knights are less solid, so there's that.In Low Turn Count/Speedrun/Lunatic Marcia IS a monster. Partially because of her mobility but also because she joins extremely early, has very respectable growths and if pumped with everything will be immortal on the early game, and in the late game she has the full guard to laugh at silliness such as effective damage. While in Lunatic she will require a hefty amount of resets to recruit, this are turn 1/2 resets in a map where you don't really have to think that much, which are infinitely preferable to some of the turn 8+ resets one starts experiencing midway through the game.

And while one could argue that pumping all of your stat boosters is going to make any unit great and hence the game a breeze this isn't actually true; Marcia and Jill are the only two units which actually pull off this trick properly due to mobility, having respectable defensive growths+bases and the offensive stats to justify making them the carry, and because they join early enough so that actually reaching them doesn't require herculean amounts of efforts due to not using said boosters until that point and that they speed things up for quite a longer while. And also mobility, because there is a series of particularly annoying maps where them ignoring the geography is just the icing on their amazingness cake.

In a regular play-through Marcia's growths and bases let her be relatively relevant if allowed to get some levels in, but she really shines in the more specialized playing's of the game. Watching any speedrun of Path of Radiance should be enough evidence of Marcia's key position and most turn count records for maps rely on pumping Marcia with literally anything and everything you find and letting her blitzkrieg the objectives. As for Lunatic, if you are playing without glitches, either Jill or Marcia (or both) are going to be vital to preserving your sanity.

LaZodiac

2016-11-21, 09:52 AM

I have pulled myself away from Pokemon Sun and Moon to give this Fire Emblem to you, directly.

Zodi Plays: Fire Emblem Path of Radiance [14] Boat, But Plural (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mE-wO_WM8Ik&t=6s)

Video Length: 43:24

In this episode: BOAT. AGAIN! So many boat. Okay to actually elaborate a little we're finally almost at Begnion. Our two month journey is almost over. So let's check up with the crew and see how they're doing. One of the merchant boys is giving us some vague and useful hints on how to complete the next map, Boyd is trying to convince his brothers to do something stupid, and Jill has been reminded "you spent two months chasing after us on a wyvern and are a racist and are our enemy, why do you still exist here?" and she doesn't really have a good answer, as far as Ike is concerned. Funny how these things work out. Also the merchant lady, Aimee, tries to hit on Ike and it's nothing but awkward. Hoo boy.

We shove some BEXP into our mans and then head forward with the mission. Turns out an envoy from Begnion is here! She tells us the Apostle has boarded a ship and is coming out to see us! That's great. If she doesn't like us we'll probably be in trouble though. Not so great. Also not great...oops pirates are attacking the Apostle's ship. Bird AND blade, not just Kilvasian (Kilvan?) Corsairs. Though...as it appears, these "pirates" are led by Norris, the nerdiest archer ever and the Black Knight's right hand man. They've stripped themselves of their iconic gear to appear as simple folk. This should be good. Ike and company sail in to protect them, and it's time for a very aggressively slanted defense mission. We've gotta keep the Apostle's boat from being boarded, and also loot all the treasure on this map. Easier said than done.

So, first off, Gatrie and Astrid! Good ole Gat is back in the same form as he was back when Shinon convinced him to abandon us when our Dad died. He's still completely usable here, but in order to recruit him we must use Lady Astrid to get his attention. Astrid herself is recruitable only by Ike, and given she's a fragile horselady with naught but a bow, within range of some decidedly deadly dastards, we've got to go about it quickly. After shoving Ike a couple feet he's able to run up to her to say that hey, fighting is dangerous. She insists she wants to fight and Ike is like eh sure whatever. Such a good leader.

Secondly, the treasure. Volke has a lot of work cut out for him here. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on your point of view, the Raven's here are...quite the backstabbers. Norris doesn't pay the King of Kilvas (Naesala~) nearly enough, so mid way through the fight he orders his Ravens to focus on stealing stuff. And they will do so, focusing on looting the treasure chests and then escaping. This is bad for a couple reasons, but also good as well. If they steal an item we can kill it out of them. But the guest soldiers can kill them too, and that'll basically erase the item from existence. Same as if they...you know, get away. Also, despite having no reason in universe to do it, the ravens WILL go into the ship if it's open and they can. A good example of the AI deciding that you, the player, losing is more important than plot or anything.

So, what is the loot we get from all this? Well...we get Elfire, a Speedwing, an Energy Drop (the str boosting item), a Laguz Slaying Axe, a Killer Bow, and most importantly the Occult Scroll. And let me tell you, the THREE OR FOUR TIMES I played this to the end and won, that one Raven who gets his talons on the scroll KEPT ON DYING TO THE SOLDIER GUEST! The Occult scroll is a VERY important item, of which there are only 7 in the whole game. They give a Mastery skill to a unit who's been promoted, and thus is very important. More on what those skills are later.

The final little joke or two for this map is, in all my playthroughs, in all of my watching of this game...Norris has NEVER moved. I seriously put Gatrie infront of him and just beat him to death once, dude never moves. But this time, of all times, he moves in to fire some arrows at a guest soldier. I don't...I don't even begin to understand how or why this happened. Point is, **** like this is why I don't trust this game!

With the entire enemy boat looted of treasure and covered in corpses, and the ravens driven off, it's time to meet the Apostle! Except she's missing. Oops. We go around trying to find her, but all we find is some fancy young girl with a sprained ankle, so Ike hefts her up over his shoulder (it's probably more bridal style but this is funnier to me) and carries her to Mist for healing. He proceeds to just casually carry her around the ship until, after meeting up with everyone, she decides she's had enough and reveals herself as the Apostle, Sanaki. Uh oh.

Ike's...not one for first impressions. I hope you all enjoyed, and I'll see you guys next time! There's...an ever so slight chance I might miss two updates because of the pain and suffering of "being one day off" for a thing I need to do for my aunt. Oops.

Lord Raziere

2016-11-21, 05:32 PM

On 14:
so yeah, Jill is still here. awkward.

Oh wow, the apostle is one of THOSE leaders.....one of the reckless types with no sense....

and Gatrie and Astrid are the recruitable soldiers of the mission. cool.

yes Gatrie.....think whatever you want about being a role model. because a good role model totally brags about being one.

.......a dead level. on a weak unit like that. WOW. JUST......WOW.....this game hates you, Zodi. either that or the luck is screwing you over this time. you break any mirrors? let any black cats cross your path lately?

TWO DEAD LEVELS. yup, this game hates you.

AHAHAHAHA........Ike is the one to find the Apostle, even though he was the only one not searching. *clap clap* priceless.

Ike really is a walking international incident. The guy can't go two nations without tripping over some form of nobility and saying something that would get him a duel of honor or punishment otherwise.

ThePhantom

2016-11-21, 07:52 PM

Wow, you are very unlucky indeed. I've never had a dead level, and you got two of them. Which is strange, because I thought the knight ward has a hidden boost to the growth of speed.

And be grateful that Norris didn't decide to pay up, we would have been killed if the crow king had entered the fight.

PhantomFox

2016-11-21, 08:55 PM

Yeah, that was bad level ups all around. Ike is falling behind as well. I can't recall him having any particularly good levels either. Illiana is starting to go the way of Mia as well.

Qwertystop

2016-11-21, 11:04 PM

I am amazed at how utterly casual the Oscar/Gatrie conversation is. "Oh yes, my job is going quite well. Actually, someone's life is depending on me right now!" "Oh, that's so good to hear!" :smallbiggrin:

LaZodiac

2016-11-22, 12:59 AM

Illven

2016-11-22, 01:18 AM

Oscar and Gaitre want your love.

Illyana and Astrid want to drown in the sea.

That's my headcanon and I'm sticking to it.

DataNinja

2016-11-22, 10:38 PM

Ooh, Gatrie's back. Hmm... wonder how the chart'll look now. Uh, I mean, yay, meatshield! :smallwink:

I believe the term you're looking for is "yoinked" your kill. :smalltongue:

Why Volke in particular, and not Sothe?

Man, the most annoying part here is telling the Soldiers and Halberdiers apart. All that's different (so far as I can tell) is their stance. :smalltongue:

Unit
Class
First Ep
Dmg Dealt
Dmg Taken
Ratio
# Defeated
Tally

Ike
Ranger
1
864
259
3.34
34
Boyd (Fighter, Tutorial)
Greil (Hero, Tutorial)
Zawana (Bandit)
Ikanau (Bandit)
Maijin (Knight)
***
Archer x5
Bandit x3
Fighter x4
Knight x3
Myrmidon x7
Priest x1
Raven x2
Soldier x7

Boyd
Fighter
2
1013
250
4.05
30
Kotaff (Halberdier)
Danomill (General)
***
Archer x3
Bandit x2
Bow Knight x1
Fighter x3
Halberdier x1
Knight x5
Lance Knight x1
Mage x2
Myrmidon x4
Raven x1
Soldier x7

Oscar
Lance Knight
2
1190
239
4.98
37
Balmer (Sage)
***
Archer x4
Axe Knight x1
Bandit x2
Fighter x1
Halberdier x1
Knight x4
Lance Knight x1
Mage x3
Myrmidon x6
Priest x1
Raven x2
Soldier x9
Sword Knight x1
Thief x1

Titania
Paladin
2
954
124
7.69
31
Mackoya (Paladin)
***
Archer x2
Axe Knight x2
Fighter x1
Knight x1
Lance Knight x6
Mage x2
Myrmidon x2
Soldier x14
Sword Knight x2

Rhys
Priest
3
0 (602)
15
40.13
0
--

Shinon
Sniper
4
173
25
6.92
11
Dakova (Knight)
***
Archer x3
Bandit x3
Lance Knight x1
Myrmidon x 1
Soldier x2

Gatrie
Knight
4
679
37
18.35
20
Havetti (Bandit)
Norris (Sniper)
***
Archer x2
Bandit x2
Fighter x3
Halberdier x1
Knight x2
Myrmidon x3
Soldier x7

Soren
Mage
5
344
24
14.33
20
Emil (Halberdier)
***
Fighter x1
Knight x5
Myrmidon x3
Raven x1
Soldier x7
Sword Knight x2

Mia
Myrmidon
8
241
73
3.30
7
Bandit x2
Fighter x1
Mage x2
Myrmidon x1
Soldier x1

Ilyana
Mage
9
259
21
12.33
16
Nedata (Bandit)
Seeker (Beast Tribe)
***
Fighter x3
Knight x2
Mage x2
Myrmidon x3
Raven x1
Soldier x3

Mist
Cleric
10
0 (354)
0
--
0
--

Rolf
Archer
10
28
0
--
2
Mage x1
Myrmidon x1

Marcia
Pegasus Knight
10
211
61
3.46
7
Mage x2
Myrmidon x2
Raven x1
Soldier x2

Volke
Thief
11
37
14
2.64
1
Archer x1

Lethe
Beast Tribe
11
61
0
--
3
Mage x1
Myrmidon x1
Soldier x1

Mordecai
Beast Tribe
11
51
5
10.2
2
Knight x1
Soldier x1

Nephenee
Soldier
12
65
12
5.42
4
Priest x1
Raven x2
Soldier x1

Brom
Knight
12
35
26
1.35
0
--

Kieran
Axe Knight
12
191
64
2.98
8
Archer x2
Halberdier x1
Lance Knight x1
Myrmidon x1
Soldier x1
Sword Knight x1
Thief x1

Zihark
Myrmidon
12
36
32
1.13
2
Lance Knight x1
Raven x1

Sothe
Thief
13
0
0
--
0
--

Jill
Wyvern Rider
13
101
39
2.58
3
Archer x1
Raven x2

Astrid
Bow Knight
14
27
0
--
2
Mage x1
Soldier x1

Incidentally, Zodi, should you ever decide to perma-bench anyone, if you could let me know, and I'll put them in a separate table in this thread, which I'll then recombine at the end. Just saves me a lot of scrolling when recording things. :smalltongue:

So, spreadsheet (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11t1-sGVO82bFPkd8qLQ3NLouYJZs3hE8PEQz4gEjAP4/edit#gid=184818464). Gatrie is back, so I've re-expanded the chart to include him. He's taking significantly more damage now. For a given definition of significant.

Though, I'll probably at the end, split the ratio chart into two. Those who are in the thick of things, and those who aren't. Because it significantly skews things towards mages. Mist is at over 350, just by dint of never being hit once. Poor Ike, being at only one-tenth of that. :smalltongue:

LaZodiac

2016-11-22, 11:33 PM

I believe the term you're looking for is "yoinked" your kill. :smalltongue:

Why Volke in particular, and not Sothe?

Man, the most annoying part here is telling the Soldiers and Halberdiers apart. All that's different (so far as I can tell) is their stance. :smalltongue:

Incidentally, Zodi, should you ever decide to perma-bench anyone, if you could let me know, and I'll put them in a separate table in this thread, which I'll then recombine at the end. Just saves me a lot of scrolling when recording things. :smalltongue:

So, spreadsheet (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11t1-sGVO82bFPkd8qLQ3NLouYJZs3hE8PEQz4gEjAP4/edit#gid=184818464). Gatrie is back, so I've re-expanded the chart to include him. He's taking significantly more damage now. For a given definition of significant.

Though, I'll probably at the end, split the ratio chart into two. Those who are in the thick of things, and those who aren't. Because it significantly skews things towards mages. Mist is at over 350, just by dint of never being hit once. Poor Ike, being at only one-tenth of that. :smalltongue:

I'll be sure to remember that for later.

I'll explain more on this later but basically Sothe's stats are absolute trash to the point where Blossom doesn't even redeem him.

Halberdier's have fancier armour.

Rolf's killed a man he's good for the game. Other than that, I don't think anyone's on permanent bench warming duties just yet. Especially after my last recording session today.

DataNinja

2016-11-23, 01:22 AM

Rolf's killed a man he's good for the game. Other than that, I don't think anyone's on permanent bench warming duties just yet. Especially after my last recording session today.

Not even Sothe? :smalltongue:

And, I take it that either means good level ups, or you got so mad you destroyed the game cartridge so it couldn't plague you any more. No benchwarmers if there's no bench to warm. :smallwink:

LaZodiac

2016-11-23, 01:31 AM

Not even Sothe? :smalltongue:

And, I take it that either means good level ups, or you got so mad you destroyed the game cartridge so it couldn't plague you any more. No benchwarmers if there's no bench to warm. :smallwink:

You'll see. He still needs to get to show off his skills.

It's gonna be hard for me to destroy the cartridge of a Nintendo Gamecube Disc System, Dark Shadow :smallamused:

DataNinja

2016-11-23, 02:07 AM

It's gonna be hard for me to destroy the cartridge of a Nintendo Gamecube Disc System, Dark Shadow :smallamused:

Ah, right, I forget this is on gamecube. In that case I could actually try and look for a copy in order to see how poorly I fare. :smalltongue:

Knaight

2016-11-23, 02:45 AM

Ah, right, I forget this is on gamecube. In that case I could actually try and look for a copy in order to see how poorly I fare. :smalltongue:

You should. It's a great game; I'd even argue that it's the best in the series.

AsteriskAmp

2016-11-25, 04:37 AM

Ah, right, I forget this is on gamecube. In that case I could actually try and look for a copy in order to see how poorly I fare. :smalltongue:Path of Radiance is sadly one of the hardest gamecube games to find, and when one does so it's at a pretty hefty price. It predates the Fire Emblem popularity explosion and it's production run was extremely short (much alike Xenoblade Chronicles for the Wii) and after the popularity explosion from SSBB most of the copies floating around were rapidly snagged. Nintendo has yet to make it available in the WiiU shop either. Though marine mammals and an international standards organisation occasionally allow one to play the game with very minor quirks.

LaZodiac

2016-11-25, 12:43 PM

Bwom bwom. Fire Emblem alarm.

Zodi Plays: Fire Emblem Path of Radiance [15] Merc Work (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EigzJf8lEHI&t=6s)

Video Length: 40:45

In this episode, Ike continues his streak of messing up first impressions with very very large political figures. We've hit it off well with Elincia, we're on friendly terms with ye olde lion king, we uh...we kind of accidently violated Goldoa's sovereign borders, and both of the bird kingdoms kind of have a distaste for us. And now Ike has basically told everyone to take their Game of Musical Chairs nonsense and bugger right the hell off. Thankfully, Sanaki is a forgiving 12 year old pope child, so Ike and company aren't executed on the spot for The Heresy. In order to make up for it, and to better get in her favor for Elincia's sake, it's time to do some mercenary work for the great lolipope.

That's basically it for plot summery, so let's look at the map and what we're dealing with today. It's a handful of bandits plus some axe fighters, a chevalier or two, some wizards with fire spells. I do like how some of the units hve Laguz slayer axes, since these guys are obviously poachers. The fire spells too, since Laguz are weak to fire. It's a type of mechanical sensibility that helps sell the "reality" of this encounter, I guess. Also, fire spells are generally rather weak and slaying weapons aren't useful against your typically all beorc army, plus we may be fighting some Laguz in the future so getting more slayer weapons is good. It's actually a really well designed map.

Speaking of, this is THE map. There is a reason this chapter is called training, and it's not because Ike has to learn how to deal with noble idiocy. This is one of the best chapters to train up your lower level guys and really solidify your team. Which is why I played this map at like 7 in the morning in order to make sure I got it recorded due to my time constraints, and ended up feeding Oscar way way WAY too much, and FORGOT TO BRING NEPH. Oops. Suffice to say I messed up big time on this map, in multiple ways. Many of which you'll see and hopefully find very amusing.

We pick up a few interesting things this map, too. We get a Vantage scroll, which may or may not allow us to create an ultimate super beast if we're at all careful and good at the game. I'll try my best. We get some more stat boost items, as well as meet a flamboyantly dressed lady who's certainly not going to come back again, like how Nasir never came back into the plot after giving us that Elixir so long ago. And finally...against our better judgement if nothing else, we get Makalov. Who I call Makarov for THE ENTIRE VIDEO. OOPS. Makalov is...not all that great. His character is very..."giant pink haired idiot" and I mean statistically I guess he's okay but he's so low level fr when you get him, and without a thing like Paragon to boost his EXP gain to a degree where using him is viable. Makalov is here to replace Kieran and Oscar if you somehow got them killed or they've just been cursed with awful level ups. Overall though, if you can tolerate him, he is usable, if needed.

And that's basically the end of it. I don't have much to say that isn't said in video and I don't really see a point to rant about my dislike of the sheer vagueity of "will the horrifying murderboss move or not" because I mean it should be self evident why this is a bad gameplay thing. It sure is fun losing an hour of progress because you're not sure just how willing the game is to kill you. Hope you all enjoyed, I'll see you guys next time.

------

Oh right Mastery Skills.

So, each class promotes, and each promoted class has a specific skill they can put on using the Occult scroll. I'll go over em here if you're at all interested, with the caveat we'll be seeing only some of these.

Paladin's and Mist get Sol, which is a skill percent chance to turn all the damage they do into self healing. Yes, Mist can get this. We'll see more of that later but there's a chance we might not so I've brought it up here. Mist has the potential to be one of your best murder units.

Warriors (Axe Fighter promotion we've yet to see) and Berserkers get Colossus. Gives a skill percent chance to, if their Con is higher than the enemies, give 25% more damage. Given these classes tend to have low skill, even if they're usable, Colossus is in general just a bad ability.

Swordmaster (the myrmidon promotion we've yet to see) gets Astra, which has a Skill/2 percent chance to activate. If it does, yo do half damage on all attacks, but one attack becomes five hits, and two attacks become ten hits. It's...unclear if this is good or not, given that it rips your weapon to flinders and halving a Myrmidon's strength can lead to them just not doing damage.

Generals, Halberdiers, they get the Black Knight's skill of Luna. It halves Defense and Resistance when activate, skill percent chance as always. The trade off is that you cannot crit when it turns out, but given what it DOES that's fine.

Wyvern Lords and Falcon Knights, all promotes of our flyers, get Stun. Skill/2 percent chance to paralyze the enemy for two turns. They can't move, can't attack, nothing. This is a good skill but is rare to activate, but with good reason.

Sniper's get Deadeye. Skill/2 chance to double the accuracy of your attack, and the hit gives them the status effect of Being Asleep. I...why?

Sages and Bishops (Rhys's promotion) get Flare. Flare is a skill percent chance to reduce enemy resistance by half. Its real good and against enemies it matters on, it basically kills them dead.

Now, as you may know, the Laguz don't promote. However, they DO get mastery skills. Get em to level 15 and you can slot an occult scroll onto them.

Tigers and Cats get Roar. It's an active ability, usable once per battle, that makes an enemy unable to move on their turn. I...just kill them. This is dumb.

Hawks get Cancel. If it activates, all damage done to them is instead zero for that attack. Skill percent chance to activate. It's kind of busted, balanced by "being on a laguz".

Crows get Vortex. It gives the bird a permanent reusable wind spell. I mean. That's it. That's it. It doesn't even say how strong it is I think it's JUST a base ole wind tome.

Dragons get Boon. At the start of turn, anyone next to the dragon is cured of status ailments. Not actually useful given how rare those are, and how rare dragons are.

Note that just because they're listed here, doesn't mean we'll actually GET any of these classes. That...really only relates to the Laguz, but still. Anyway, you may be asking: what about Ike?

What ABOUT Ike? We'll find out in a few chapters.

Illven

2016-11-25, 02:55 PM

But but La Zodiac. What is your special move :smalltongue:

LaZodiac

2016-11-25, 03:05 PM

But but La Zodiac. What is your special move :smalltongue:

Make me play a game I'm good at and you'll see :smallamused:

Illven

2016-11-25, 03:52 PM

Make me play a game I'm good at and you'll see :smallamused:

Are they rhythm games? :smallconfused:

LaZodiac

2016-11-25, 04:10 PM

Are they rhythm games? :smallconfused:

N...no. I'm super bad at those. I mean like action games and stuff. But yeah my special movie is "actually being good at video games". That was the idea anyway :smalltongue:

Illven

2016-11-25, 04:53 PM

N...no. I'm super bad at those. I mean like action games and stuff. But yeah my special movie is "actually being good at video games". That was the idea anyway :smalltongue:

Ah, I was guessing that because the hell mic weapon, singing and dancing are both perform skills.

It made sense in my mind. :smalltongue:

Lord Raziere

2016-11-25, 05:27 PM

On 15:
Rude Protagonist, meet realistic handling of guy who tries to screw the rules to do whats right.

He is totally a traitor, Zodi. the only question is whether he is a redeemable traitor or not, and whether we will get a map revolving around him finally revealing it.

hi randomly Australian racist barmaid. Bye randomly Australian racist barmaid....thanks....for....the....tip?

Gatrie! I'm pretty sure they're not fish you can reel in if they're handmaidens.....just saying, I mean yeah, hard to get forbidden fruit factor, but c'mon....

oh good! We're killing slavers! I love killing slavers.

unfortunately, this slaver leader is a Berserker with a killer axe. very bad.

Astrid, Astrid.....Astrid......*facepalm*

IIiiiiiits the missing axe duo! watch Boyd and some random guy attempt to hit each other and fail miserably-TWICE!

Zodi, this entire game is about playing it obnoxiously safe. at least from my defensive minded standpoint. a strategist isn't about being reckless, its about winning, and taking unnecessary risks doesn't lead to that. only take risks when you have no other choice.

always embrace cowardice! living another day is the better part of valor.

Mist your an angel, not caring about who is from what nation.

So yeah.......that map could've gone better in a lot of ways. I don't think I'm going to say how, or what I'd done differently because its so obvious and you seem to have a good grasp of that already.

PhantomFox

2016-11-25, 08:09 PM

Level Up Spreadsheet (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Do5r6dbwo3GK7oxqPFZJ1vZNHlrUZp90W9r_FwvHrXY/edit?usp=sharing)

The fact that Soren keeps getting sub-par levels... annoys me
Huh? He's pretty much exactly on target if you look at the average stats for him at this point. Lowest stat compared to average is -1.0 Luck, and that's hardly bad! He's +1.5 overall.

Ike continues to refuse his strength stat as much as he can.
I was just about to correct you on this, but then you go and do it for me. *shakes fist* His speed on the other hand... he's at 12 when he should be around 16ish. Apparently he's traded it for his 17 skill when he should have 14.

Oscar is the first to hit 20. Huzzah! A bit lacking in the Resist department (-3 to par), but is was never going to be that high to begin with.
Boyd is making rapid Strength gains, is now +3.0! (19 vs. 16)
Rhys is... +3 to HP. Tankier healers are never bad.

Random stats time!
Top 3 active characters compared to their average stat totals!
1) Oscar: +3.4
2) Zihark: +2.7
3) Gatrie: +2.2

Bottom 3 active characters compared to their average stat totals:
1) Illiana: -6.4
2) Mist: -5.2
3) Ike: -4.6

Illven

2016-11-25, 09:56 PM

Woot Oscar MVP!

Also Sanaki is a generous goddess for sparing Ike's life.

And of course Ike ignores Elicinca. He only has eyes for Soren.

LaZodiac

2016-11-25, 10:08 PM

Level Up Spreadsheet (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Do5r6dbwo3GK7oxqPFZJ1vZNHlrUZp90W9r_FwvHrXY/edit?usp=sharing)

Huh? He's pretty much exactly on target if you look at the average stats for him at this point. Lowest stat compared to average is -1.0 Luck, and that's hardly bad! He's +1.5 overall.

I was just about to correct you on this, but then you go and do it for me. *shakes fist* His speed on the other hand... he's at 12 when he should be around 16ish. Apparently he's traded it for his 17 skill when he should have 14.

Oscar is the first to hit 20. Huzzah! A bit lacking in the Resist department (-3 to par), but is was never going to be that high to begin with.
Boyd is making rapid Strength gains, is now +3.0! (19 vs. 16)
Rhys is... +3 to HP. Tankier healers are never bad.

I guess it's more that Soren's level ups never seem exciting. He gets exactly what is needed and never more. Or less. And man, Ike...get you some speed boy, you need to double things.

Rhys is absolutely determined to be a combat unit. Can't wait till he promotes.

Woot Oscar MVP!

Also Sanaki is a generous goddess for sparing Ike's life.

And of course Ike ignores Elicinca. He only has eyes for Soren.

The whims of a 12 year old loli pope are fickle, so we must tread carefully.

If you go with the interpretation that Ike just doesn't care about ladies and has Soren as jut a good friend, which is honestly just as viable a theory, it's still kind of a shame that so many girls are crushing on him THAT HARD and they're going to go nowhere.

Illven

2016-11-25, 10:16 PM

The whims of a 12 year old loli pope are fickle, so we must tread carefully.

If you go with the interpretation that Ike just doesn't care about ladies and has Soren as jut a good friend, which is honestly just as viable a theory, it's still kind of a shame that so many girls are crushing on him THAT HARD and they're going to go nowhere.

I'm aware it's just I ship everything, so. :smalltongue:

HalfTangible

2016-11-25, 10:46 PM

N...no. I'm super bad at those. I m

Rhythm game it is!

AsteriskAmp

2016-11-26, 03:48 AM

Oh right Mastery Skills.

So, each class promotes, and each promoted class has a specific skill they can put on using the Occult scroll. I'll go over em here if you're at all interested, with the caveat we'll be seeing only some of these.

Warriors (Axe Fighter promotion we've yet to see) and Berserkers get Colossus. Gives a skill percent chance to, if their Con is higher than the enemies, give 25% more damage. Given these classes tend to have low skill, even if they're usable, Colossus is in general just a bad ability.Boyd actually has pretty decent skill growths and Colossus does come in quite handy in general if only because most mastery skills in Path of Radiance are utterly atrocious, Colossus breaks even and a bit beyond.

Swordmaster (the myrmidon promotion we've yet to see) gets Astra, which has a Skill/2 percent chance to activate. If it does, yo do half damage on all attacks, but one attack becomes five hits, and two attacks become ten hits. It's...unclear if this is good or not, given that it rips your weapon to flinders and halving a Myrmidon's strength can lead to them just not doing damage.Astra is not only not good, it's arguably ACTIVELY DETRACTING from your unit capabilities. Having Astra makes a unit WORSE, it's better to not have the skill even if you had to lose the slot anyway.

Astra:

Uses 5 weapon uses when it procs.
Cannot proc. off continued attacks in Path of Radiance (no Adept comboing, no Brave Weapon for 40 hits) and furthermore blocks other skills from activating in the same attack (you can't get adept and astra resulting in 5 hits followed by the adept hit).
Cannot critical (astra will proc even if you'd critical otherwise meaning it blocks criticals in certain situations, Astra runs up 5 weapon uses and does 2.5 times damage, a critical does 3 times the damage but can proc. adept meaning Astra could be blocking up to 4 times the damage at the cost of 3 additional weapon uses) [Observation corrected as per Illven mention]
Can miss all of the hits beyond the first (while a swordmaster shouldn't ever be below 100% hit rate at that point this is just shameful for a "Mastery Skill")
Will not proc. in indirect combat.
As a side not-saving-grace-but-Astra-is-not-that-insanely-bad at least it stops when it gets a kill.

Still you are better of not having astra even burning the scroll to NOT have it would be preferable.
Particularly when the best weapons in the game tend to have 20 uses and Astra cares not for your durability ever and does pitiful amounts of damage compared to a run of the mill crit (which your swordmaster should get repeatedly) for the durability cost it has.

Astra, not even once.

Sniper's get Deadeye. Skill/2 chance to double the accuracy of your attack, and the hit gives them the status effect of Being Asleep. I...why?
Sleep in this game is not like those other sane RPGs where being hit wakes you up, I always just saw deadeye as putting the enemy in a coma, from which they won't wake up anyway.

Sages and Bishops (Rhys's promotion) get Flare. Flare is a skill percent chance to reduce enemy resistance by half. Its real good and against enemies it matters on, it basically kills them dead.While not THAT useful as most enemies already have single digit Res outside of Lunatic (and mages which you shouldn't be killing with other mages) it has THE best animation in the entire game out of the sheer absurdity of how magic is fluffed to work in the series.

Crows get Vortex. It gives the bird a permanent reusable wind spell. I mean. That's it. That's it. It doesn't even say how strong it is I think it's JUST a base ole wind tome.It's an Elwind tome in terms of power. Even if it does effective damage, doubling elwind might is ... not exactly massive damage when their beak will just overpower said doubled might anyway in almost every case.

Illven

2016-11-26, 03:53 AM

Don't crits deal triple damage? :smallconfused:

AsteriskAmp

2016-11-26, 04:08 AM

Don't crits deal triple damage? :smallconfused:Yes, I mixed my numbers up with effective damage only being double in this particular game. This makes Astra objectively even worse, as a crit is just outright better in every single sense.

While most mastery skills not named Sol, Luna and Colossus are bad or mediocre, Astra takes the cake in how it's actively detracting from your character. (The only thing even close to it in the series would be Devil Axe as an item (suicide ahoy!), Bane which would leave enemies at 1hp, usually in your second attack and Mercy in Radiant Dawn which would be given to a major unit stealthily only for you to find after its almost first kill that it was unable to kill enemies for that entire map... FUN! and well just playing Thracia, but that last one is highly enjoyable).

LaZodiac

2016-11-28, 11:36 AM

It's time for a Fire Emblem staple.

Zodi Plays: Fire Emblem Path of Radiance [15] S A N D (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXS58v7Cbms)

Video Length: 33:54

In this episode, Sanaki sends us out to a desert to beat up some thieves. Only once we get there it turns out their all Laguz. And here I am forgetting to bring Fire tomes. Oops! Ah well, I've got a Laguz Axe that'll help. Anyway, there isn't MUCH plot here except at the end, so let's speed through the mechanical interesting bits of this map.

What we've got here is ye olde standard Fire Emblem Desert Map. It's all sandy, so all ground units are reduced by 2 movement, except for armor knights and Chevalier who are reduced by four. Mages and thieves are able to move without any hindrance, and the thieves can find loot in the dunes, which I'm sure to collect. All the loot is nice, but the best of it is the Boots, a magical pair of shoes that'll increase someone's move speed by one. I'm thinking we should give this to Ike, what're all your thoughts on this?

I brought Sothe and Mia on this mission in the hopes that the untransformed Laguz could be beat up for some quick EXP but they're both generally two weak to do any damage. Mia and Sothe are officially shoved onto the bench with Rolf. Sothe was to be expected honestly, but I am dissapointed in Mia, she can be a good unit! Ah well. My main goal of this map was trying to get some EXP for Nephenee but I'm dumb and didn't bring any weaker weapons for my really good units, so I ended up having to have Neph not really kill anything, but instead just poke things to get some pittance EXP. I'll be doing my best to save Neph from uselessness because she IS a good unit, don't worry. Also, this map gets you BEXP in droves if you manage to avoid killing everyone but the boss, but...that's just not practical. So sorry, Laguz rebel forces, but we had to beat you down.

While all the actual fighting is going on we sent Lethe up to the northeast and she found some rando desert man with a super katana. We've got a swordmaster now, say hello to Stefan. He's entirely usable, though Astra is a detriment. I won't be removing it because I do want to maybe show it off at some point. I won't be like, focusing on using this guy, he's a bit too much.

Anyway, after beating up all the rebels we meet with Tormod, the leader of this group. He and Maurim explain they're actually freedom fighters and Ike is all "well crap" and that's basically the end of it until next mission. We do however get a scene of Naesala...selling his heron fiend to the ever creepy Duke Oliver. Something tells me next mission is going to involve a lot of stabbing fat priests.

That said, hope you enjoyed! This mission was pretty simple so there isn't much to talk about. I'll see you all next time!

------

Okay so let's talk supports! We got a few this time, like maxing Ike and Oscar out to A rank!

Oscar and Ike's relationship is an interesting one. The way Ike interacts with him is basically how I expected, and in all honesty THOUGH, Ike interacted with Boyd. Oscar is Ike's buddy and closest friend, and together they play off each other well. Oscar's calm demeanor mixed with Ike's somewhat rash personality. They're a good pair mechanically and flavor wise as good friends. There isn't anything special about this support, it's just kind of nice.

We also begin the...agonizing process of making Mist and Boyd support. I hate this support because it just doesn't work in my eyes. Mist is a good girl and after realizing Boyd isn't even Ike's friend, it makes it a little weirder.

I also subject Marcia and Rhys to Kieran, because at the end of the day Kieran is a really funny character and his supports rule. In the future I'll be going over Kieran's support with other characters, like Mia. I'll also be finishing Marcia and Rhys's supports in thread eventually because Kieran wants to give his last conversation to Oscar. That'll give him one more conversation, and it'll probably be Rhys based on how my units are going.

Illven

2016-11-28, 08:05 PM

So did Boyd cap Str?

LaZodiac

2016-11-28, 09:03 PM

So did Boyd cap Str?

He did in fact cap strength, first stat cap of the series. I did not notice or realize he did until just today while recording new episodes to shove into the backlog. Everyone throw a party for Boyd.

Illven

2016-11-28, 09:16 PM

He did in fact cap strength, first stat cap of the series. I did not notice or realize he did until just today while recording new episodes to shove into the backlog. Everyone throw a party for Boyd.

Woo! Go Boyd!

You also seemed unwilling to grind our healers on the boss. Any particular reason for that?

LaZodiac

2016-11-28, 09:22 PM

Woo! Go Boyd!

You also seemed unwilling to grind our healers on the boss. Any particular reason for that?

You really have a couple of options on this one so pick for yourself.

1: Zodi's an idiot
2: Still on the tail end of "gotta rush recording before I go to watch my Aunt's house"
3: Afraid of tiger based violence being far too much to heal through/crits
4: Zodi's really just actually a idiot.

Lord Raziere

2016-11-29, 02:06 AM

On 16:
So zealous human hater and scumbag sellout talk.....and ho boy, Naesala....you really are a scumbag....

Makala heheheheheh.....can't outfox the Greil mercs!

bad day for Zihark indeed.

......oh yeah, Laguz freedom fighters how surprising.....uh...not... So we're finally going to do some REBELLION stuff next eh? awesome.

Reyson, don't trust him.....DON'T TRUST NAESALA.....

DataNinja

2016-11-30, 02:49 AM

Alright, well, finally able to catch up after various debates, tests, and assignments, looks like I have two videos to catch up on. Whoops. Gotta love the week before finals.

Unit
Class
First Ep
Dmg Dealt
Dmg Taken
Ratio
# Defeated
Tally

Ike
Ranger
1
980
259
3.78
36
Boyd (Fighter, Tutorial)
Greil (Hero, Tutorial)
Zawana (Bandit)
Ikanau (Bandit)
Maijin (Knight)
***
Archer x5
Bandit x3
Fighter x5
Knight x3
Myrmidon x7
Priest x1
Raven x2
Soldier x7
Tiger x1

Boyd
Fighter
2
1044
259
4.03
32
Kotaff (Halberdier)
Danomill (General)
***
Archer x4
Bandit x3
Bow Knight x1
Fighter x3
Halberdier x1
Knight x5
Lance Knight x1
Mage x2
Myrmidon x4
Raven x1
Soldier x7

Oscar
Lance Knight
2
1274
239
5.33
39
Balmer (Sage)
Gashilama (Berserker)
***
Archer x4
Axe Knight x1
Bandit x3
Fighter x1
Halberdier x1
Knight x4
Lance Knight x2
Mage x3
Myrmidon x6
Priest x1
Raven x2
Soldier x9
Sword Knight x1
Thief x1

Titania
Paladin
2
954
124
7.69
31
Mackoya (Paladin)
***
Archer x2
Axe Knight x2
Fighter x1
Knight x1
Lance Knight x6
Mage x2
Myrmidon x2
Soldier x14
Sword Knight x2

Rhys
Priest
3
0 (657)
38
17.29
0
--

Shinon
Sniper
4
173
25
6.92
11
Dakova (Knight)
***
Archer x3
Bandit x3
Lance Knight x1
Myrmidon x 1
Soldier x2

Gatrie
Knight
4
725
53
13.68
22
Havetti (Bandit)
Norris (Sniper)
***
Archer x2
Bandit x3
Fighter x3
Halberdier x1
Knight x2
Mage x1
Myrmidon x3
Soldier x7

Soren
Mage
5
391
42
9.31
21
Emil (Halberdier)
***
Bandit x1
Fighter x1
Knight x5
Myrmidon x3
Raven x1
Soldier x7
Sword Knight x2

Mia
Myrmidon
8
241
73
3.30
7
Bandit x2
Fighter x1
Mage x2
Myrmidon x1
Soldier x1

Ilyana
Mage
9
327
21
15.57
17
Nedata (Bandit)
Seeker (Beast Tribe)
***
Fighter x4
Knight x2
Mage x2
Myrmidon x3
Raven x1
Soldier x3

Mist
Cleric
10
0 (381)
0
--
0
--

Rolf
Archer
10
28
0
--
2
Mage x1
Myrmidon x1

Marcia
Pegasus Knight
10
293
61
4.80
10
Archer x1
Bandit x1
Mage x2
Myrmidon x2
Raven x1
Soldier x2
Tiger x1

Volke
Thief
11
37
14
2.64
1
Archer x1

Lethe
Beast Tribe
11
61
0
--
3
Mage x1
Myrmidon x1
Soldier x1

Mordecai
Beast Tribe
11
51
5
10.2
2
Knight x1
Soldier x1

Nephenee
Soldier
12
65
12
5.42
4
Priest x1
Raven x2
Soldier x1

Brom
Knight
12
35
26
1.35
0
--

Kieran
Axe Knight
12
234
75
3.12
9
Archer x2
Halberdier x1
Lance Knight x1
Mage x1
Myrmidon x1
Soldier x1
Sword Knight x1
Thief x1

Zihark
Myrmidon
12
106
32
3.31
4
Bandit x1
Fighter x1
Lance Knight x1
Raven x1

Sothe
Thief
13
0
0
--
0
--

Jill
Wyvern Rider
13
126
53
2.38
4
Archer x1
Myrmidon x1
Raven x2

Astrid
Bow Knight
14
57
0
--
3
Bandit x1
Mage x1
Soldier x1

Makalov
Sword Knight
15
23
0
--
0
--

I keep wondering... who gives the report if Soren falls in battle?

Nah, not all of us think Volke's a traitor. Clearly it's Brom, the worm!

...well, that sentence regarding Soren almost seems prophetic now.

And Oscar becomes the first to break 100 fights. Titania's in second with 84, though Boyd and Ike are at 79 and 76 respectively (at the time of Oscar hitting 100). Gatrie's in fifth with 58, followed by Rhys with 57 heals. Then we fall down to Mist at 39 heals. Only Soren and Marcia are above 30. Well I can sure see who your favorite meatshield is. :smallwink:

Incidentally, I don't count Wards or other buffs (including item use) in a unit's battle count. Only when they hit people to (try and) cause damage, or hit people to take their damage away. :smalltongue:

Ouch. That's going to be a dent in poor Rhys' numbers. Er, I mean health. Yes, my concern is for his well being. Honest.

"Nephenee becomes a god" method? Sure, I'd like to see that. If my vote still counts. Because, well, this is from the past, and I'm not caught up.

Huh. Even a "no damage" hit can cause poison.

And, double feature...

Unit
Class
First Ep
Dmg Dealt
Dmg Taken
Ratio
# Defeated
Tally

Ike
Ranger
1
1056
298
3.54
38
Boyd (Fighter, Tutorial)
Greil (Hero, Tutorial)
Zawana (Bandit)
Ikanau (Bandit)
Maijin (Knight)
***
Archer x5
Bandit x3
Cat x1
Fighter x5
Knight x3
Myrmidon x7
Priest x1
Raven x2
Soldier x7
Tiger x2

Boyd
Fighter
2
1109
270
4.11
35
Kotaff (Halberdier)
Danomill (General)
Muarim (Beast Tribe)
***
Archer x4
Bandit x3
Bow Knight x1
Cat x1
Fighter x3
Halberdier x1
Knight x5
Lance Knight x1
Mage x2
Myrmidon x4
Raven x1
Soldier x7
Tiger x1

Oscar
Lance Knight
2
1274
239
5.33
39
Balmer (Sage)
Gashilama (Berserker)
***
Archer x4
Axe Knight x1
Bandit x3
Fighter x1
Halberdier x1
Knight x4
Lance Knight x2
Mage x3
Myrmidon x6
Priest x1
Raven x2
Soldier x9
Sword Knight x1
Thief x1

Titania
Paladin
2
954
124
7.69
31
Mackoya (Paladin)
***
Archer x2
Axe Knight x2
Fighter x1
Knight x1
Lance Knight x6
Mage x2
Myrmidon x2
Soldier x14
Sword Knight x2

Rhys
Priest
3
0 (696)
38
18.32
0
--

Shinon
Sniper
4
173
25
6.92
11
Dakova (Knight)
***
Archer x3
Bandit x3
Lance Knight x1
Myrmidon x 1
Soldier x2

Gatrie
Knight
4
725
53
13.68
22
Havetti (Bandit)
Norris (Sniper)
***
Archer x2
Bandit x3
Fighter x3
Halberdier x1
Knight x2
Mage x1
Myrmidon x3
Soldier x7

Soren
Mage
5
462
42
11
24
Emil (Halberdier)
***
Bandit x1
Fighter x1
Hawk x1
Knight x5
Myrmidon x3
Raven x2
Soldier x7
Sword Knight x2
Tiger x1

Mia
Myrmidon
8
241
73
3.30
7
Bandit x2
Fighter x1
Mage x2
Myrmidon x1
Soldier x1

Ilyana
Mage
9
418
21
19.90
20
Nedata (Bandit)
Seeker (Beast Tribe)
***
Beast Tribe x1
Cat x1
Fighter x4
Knight x2
Mage x2
Myrmidon x3
Raven x1
Soldier x3
Tiger x1

Mist
Cleric
10
0 (462)
0
--
0
--

Rolf
Archer
10
28
0
--
2
Mage x1
Myrmidon x1

Marcia
Pegasus Knight
10
369
94
3.93
12
Archer x1
Bandit x1
Bird Tribe x1
Hawk x1
Mage x2
Myrmidon x2
Raven x1
Soldier x2
Tiger x1

Volke
Thief
11
93
14
6.64
3
Archer x1
Beast Tribe x1
Cat x1

Lethe
Beast Tribe
11
111
16
6.94
4
Bird Tribe x1
Mage x1
Myrmidon x1
Soldier x1

Mordecai
Beast Tribe
11
51
5
10.2
2
Knight x1
Soldier x1

Nephenee
Soldier
12
87
12
7.25
4
Priest x1
Raven x2
Soldier x1

Brom
Knight
12
35
26
1.35
0
--

Kieran
Axe Knight
12
234
75
3.12
9
Archer x2
Halberdier x1
Lance Knight x1
Mage x1
Myrmidon x1
Soldier x1
Sword Knight x1
Thief x1

Zihark
Myrmidon
12
144
32
4.50
7
Bandit x1
Beast Tribe x1
Cat x2
Fighter x1
Lance Knight x1
Raven x1

Sothe
Thief
13
0
0
--
0
--

Jill
Wyvern Rider
13
210
77
2.73
5
Archer x1
Cat x1
Myrmidon x1
Raven x2

Astrid
Bow Knight
14
57
0
--
3
Bandit x1
Mage x1
Soldier x1

Makalov
Sword Knight
15
23
0
--
0
--

Stefan
Swordmaster
16
0
0
--
0
--

Looks like your error regarding Ilyana's level up was in saying "I was certain I was certain I had made an error". Balance restored to the universe. As long as all your errors are post-game, you should be fine. :smalltongue:

Volke seems to be working on an alphabet of kills. In order. Archer, Beast Tribe, Cat...

How in the world are you supposed to know to trigger him?

Hey, could have been worse. Could have been s a n db i r d level. :smallwink:

Oh, also chart (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11t1-sGVO82bFPkd8qLQ3NLouYJZs3hE8PEQz4gEjAP4/edit#gid=184818464). Not much to say about that other than squiggly-wiggly-I'm-done-with-numbers-for-now. :smalltongue:

LaZodiac

2016-11-30, 10:33 AM

Alright, well, finally able to catch up after various debates, tests, and assignments, looks like I have two videos to catch up on. Whoops. Gotta love the week before finals.

I keep wondering... who gives the report if Soren falls in battle?

"Nephenee becomes a god" method? Sure, I'd like to see that. If my vote still counts. Because, well, this is from the past, and I'm not caught up.

Huh. Even a "no damage" hit can cause poison.

How in the world are you supposed to know to trigger him?

Hey, could have been worse. Could have been s a n db i r d level. :smallwink:

Oh, also chart (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11t1-sGVO82bFPkd8qLQ3NLouYJZs3hE8PEQz4gEjAP4/edit#gid=184818464). Not much to say about that other than squiggly-wiggly-I'm-done-with-numbers-for-now. :smalltongue:

Ah, that's where you've been. Blasted school.

Soren, Titania, and Mist are the only units that, if they die, are considered "gravely wounded and unable to fight" instead of "just outright dead". Everyone else is expendable except for Ike who'll game over you if he dies. So, still Soren.

I'm doing my best but Nephenee requires a lot of work, especially since I sooort of gimped her by not using her in Training by mistake.

Yup! Sure, the axe doesn't do no damage, but it's still covered in goo. You gun get poisoned son!

The Info talk about the sands mentioned "mysterious figures wondering in the North East of the sands" and that's basically your whole clue. You basically have to step on every spot to find him trial and error wise. If a non Laguz steps on the spot he gives you his sword but does not join. He is a very mysterious person, that Steve.

Sand Biiiiiird.

DataNinja

2016-11-30, 11:25 AM

Ah, that's where you've been. Blasted school.

Soren, Titania, and Mist are the only units that, if they die, are considered "gravely wounded and unable to fight" instead of "just outright dead". Everyone else is expendable except for Ike who'll game over you if he dies. So, still Soren.

I'm doing my best but Nephenee requires a lot of work, especially since I sooort of gimped her by not using her in Training by mistake.

Yup! Sure, the axe doesn't do no damage, but it's still covered in goo. You gun get poisoned son!

The Info talk about the sands mentioned "mysterious figures wondering in the North East of the sands" and that's basically your whole clue. You basically have to step on every spot to find him trial and error wise. If a non Laguz steps on the spot he gives you his sword but does not join. He is a very mysterious person, that Steve.

Sand Biiiiiird.

Yeah. Don't worry, I didn't just pack up my stuff and vanish. :smalltongue:

Well, that makes sense (and answers why Soren mentions wounded), given the amount of Plot Stuffs™ that seem to revolve around them. Or just exposition and character development. I take it that that means that they're still out permanently, though? No healing?

Well, whatever happens, happens. Yes, I know that's not helpful or informative in the slightest.

Well, it sure started to put more damage on Gatrie than almost any other mission. Clearly I need to invest stock in whoever makes them, because whatever they're doing is working. No guarantees about the aptitude of the wielders, though. :smallamused:

Oh boy. Trial and error. My favorite. :smalltongue:

Knaight

2016-11-30, 01:24 PM

And Oscar becomes the first to break 100 fights. Titania's in second with 84, though Boyd and Ike are at 79 and 76 respectively (at the time of Oscar hitting 100). Gatrie's in fifth with 58, followed by Rhys with 57 heals. Then we fall down to Mist at 39 heals. Only Soren and Marcia are above 30. Well I can sure see who your favorite meatshield is. :smallwink:
...
"Nephenee becomes a god" method? Sure, I'd like to see that. If my vote still counts. Because, well, this is from the past, and I'm not caught up.

That Rhys-Mist bit isn't bad considering how much later you get Mist. She's worth entirely replacing Rhys with too - once she classes up you get a mounted healer who can also fight with a sword, and while her strength and defense aren't great she's got high speed and is nearly immune to enemy magic. You know who tends to have low speed and next to no defense? Enemy mages.

Also Nephenee is just a rock solid character, and I strongly support all Nephenee based strategies.

DataNinja

2016-11-30, 02:22 PM

That Rhys-Mist bit isn't bad considering how much later you get Mist.

I was more commenting on the fact that I thought that there would be more people above Mist. She shot up fast. Watch out, Ike, she's coming for your position. :smalltongue:

Knaight

2016-11-30, 02:39 PM

I was more commenting on the fact that I thought that there would be more people above Mist. She shot up fast. Watch out, Ike, she's coming for your position. :smalltongue:

Mist is one of those characters really worth grinding (although my primary technique there has always been assigning enough bonus experience to start 1 XP below leveling up for every stage), so I'm not surprised. There's two big reasons here, one of which is how much better she is than Rhys once they both class up and the other of which is a spoiler.

Illven

2016-11-30, 03:47 PM

But Rhys just wants to make La Zodiac happy, doesn't he deserve to come along, because of his good level ups. :smalltongue:

AsteriskAmp

2016-12-01, 11:26 AM

Well, that makes sense (and answers why Soren mentions wounded), given the amount of Plot Stuffs™ that seem to revolve around them. Or just exposition and character development. I take it that that means that they're still out permanently, though? No healing?
It's implied there are wounds beyond magical healing in-universe.

Oh boy. Trial and error. My favorite. :smalltongue:
To be fair Stefan is entirely optional and probably not intended for players to get him on a blind run. He'll still come around and have his dialogue with Ike to give him training, even if you don't recruit him, no Vague Katti or joining though. He's a prepromoted unit that's actually likely better than all of your swordmasters when you get him (he's the best swordmaster mid game and late game he's just slightly worse than Zihark because Zihark has Adept instead of Fail-stra), with great base stats, solid growths (Zihark>Stefan>>>Mia growth wise) and an improved killer edge. He's kinda of a reward for actually finding him.

His recruitment method is equally precise in the game's sequel but if you already recruited him in this game, you know what to expect and it's at least nominally easier in that sense. (Also not even close to the most annoying recruitment method in the series, just the most obscure).

Mist is one of those characters really worth grinding (although my primary technique there has always been assigning enough bonus experience to start 1 XP below leveling up for every stage), so I'm not surprised. There's two big reasons here, one of which is how much better she is than Rhys once they both class up and the other of which is a spoiler.While Mist has amazing growths and her promotion is pretty good, there's three factors against grinding her. You have to dump a massive share of the BEXP on her to get her anywhere, Mist won't get going until MUCH farther ahead and while there are few units that want it as badly as her, those units pay for themselves almost immediately. Rhys is a better healer out of the box, and around the point Mist starts to outclass him your other mages will be hitting promotion, and getting access to staves meaning you don't have to rely only on Rhys entirely for healing anymore as you will have other healers to extend your healing range (outside a horrendous bout of luck where both Ilyanna and Soren get almost no magic throughout the game and you are forced to bench them). The spoiler reason unless you get a monster of a Mist it won't change much, you are still relying in an RNG proc, you just swap elixirs for a Mist (which while economical if you already have her it's not exactly reason to dump at least 15 levels of BEXP on someone).

Granted offensively you are right, Rhys is the only one with access to light magic... and it's heavily nerfed and has little reason for existing, he has better magic growths than Mist but light magic is not the way to use them; while Mist with a rune/sonic sword is scary even if she got str screwed and she has more speed so she'll be doubling more reliably. And while there are much better mage hunters Mist is serviceable within reason.

LaZodiac

2016-12-02, 11:45 AM

Now how's about that Fire Emblem eh?

Zodi Plays: Fire Emblem Path of Radiance [17] House Crashing (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWKo-SctVIg)

Video Length: 47:40

Today's episode is a bit of a treat. It begins with Ike, rightly so, pointing out that the last two missions have all been very subtle "look at the bad of this country" tests Sanaki has sent Ike out on. With it firmly aware to him that this was all a test, he confronts Sanaki and he basically pats him on the head and then hires him out to go over Oliver's place and maybe kill everyone inside. It's all to make sure he has slaves or not. I'll be honest, I really like this plot development. The idea that Sanaki isn't some rude petulant child, but is actually genuinely trying to fix things, while also keeping faith in the theocracy it's all founded on.

Of course, it ACTUALLY begins with Duke Oliver of Tanas being...himself, with Reyson, and getting socked in the face for it. Man it's a good thing Sanaki sent us to raid his house specifically, this is the only laguz slave he probably even has given his...tastes. Ugh. I hate writing about this character, lets move on to the mechanical whatever.

So, it was kind of lowkey and not really touched upon at all, but Tormod and Muarim joined our army last time? They just kinda showed up and never left but that describes like half of it so...yeah. Tormod is your third wizard in case Soren and Ilyana have somehow failed to be good or died. He's not AWFUL, but he's...certainly not great either. He also uses fire magic which just bugs me in general because he's a Laguz freedom fighter so you'd think he'd use not fire for flavor reasons? Meanwhile Muarim's basically just Mordecai but I think slightly tankier? He comes with the Demi band and that'll be useful to use later, potentially, but other than that they're basically just there. For some reason I also show me taking off Steve's vague katti and outfitting him with I think the very last of our glitch obtained iron swords. I also show off that yes, Boyd has capped strength. It won't stay capped for long since he's close to promoting, but still!

We then get into dissing out EXP and hooo boy. Mist and Neph get some decent to great levels out of it, and everyone is looking to go my way. We round out some of our supports, and sadly end Ike's ability to do supports, but I'll be sharing the rest with you in thread. I intend to share a bunch of them but I'm not really sure how to go about it. Feel free to throw out your ideas. In the meanwhile we've also got info chats, and these ones are quite important! First is "Muarim" but in truth it's basically a continuation of the opening cutscene with Tormod and Muarim and Soren that really should of been unmissable because it kind of sort of feels important? We also get to talk to Steve, and he offers to train us! You only get this scene if you recruit him, and the training somehow creates an Occult scroll. This will be important in the future. 2 down 5 to go.

Now we get to the meat of the level. Ike and company get to Oliver's house and explore it on the order of Sanaki. Unfortunately for everyone involved, Mist and Titania have spotted Reyson. Oliver decides the best way to prove his innocence is to order all his men to kill us, so WELP guess it's time to cut through his personal army. While we're at it let's loot the joint I'm sure he's got some cool stuff for us to steal (he do).

Overall this mission isn't actually all that special? We're firmly at the point of the game where, baring a few exceptions, we can take what it's going to throw at us with...relatively unharm. There's still an occasional mission that's going to be an utter cluterfumble, and sometimes I will not realize that Tormod is within range of the archer and almost have to restart because this small child takes an arrow to the throat, but other than that we've got this. The one surprise this mission has is that if you're too slow or leave people at the start, enemy reinforcements appear from behind! And these are the classic Fire Emblem reinforcements that get to move when they show up, so that's pretty scary. Other scary and rude things is that of the three loot rooms, two of them have two guys in them each. One has a killer edge user and the other has a killer bow user, and I feel that's a bit of a "gotcha" moment that I don't like the design of. After the first room you can (and should given it's Fire Emblem) expect the other room to have guys in it, but there's no reason to assume it'll be those same two guys just with a killer bow instead of an edge, and no matter your planning or caution, someone's going to get hit with a killer weapon to deal with this and that's just a risky proposition.

Also...there's a recruitable man on this map. Devdan, an orange halberdier that's more of a tank focused Nephenee. He's...certainly a character. What's weird is that the game gives no direct hint that he's recruitable, or how you recruit him. The only hint you can get is that, if Tormod, Mist, Soren, Sothe, or Rolf are within his attack range, he won't hit them. If those people talk to him he'll join your side due to the innocence of children (or because Soren offers to actual pay him). One wonders why he doesn't react this way to Jill given she's the same age as Mist...but the she's also riding a huge dragon and can kill people. But then also at this point you could have Mist promoted so I guess it's just story and gameplay segregation. Anyway we kill the boss and he provides us with my favorite "wow you're an idiot" death quote these NPC bosses have given me yet. "Is this my fate for my compliance in the evils that went on here?"

YES. YES IT IS. WOW.

We storm the room and sadly Oliver vanishes into fat air and escapes, and Reyson...also just kinda screws off somewhere but the scene is so weirdly cut I wonder what all even HAPPENED. We return to Sanaki and we tell her about him and we get a big ole plot dump about how OOOPS Begion is stupid and burnt down the ancestral home of the Herons, killing all of them. Or, it would seem, not all. At least one survived, and as WE the audience now, two survived because Reyson's Dad is DYING, not dead. And so begins the heron hunt, so Sanaki can talk to the pretty boy.

And that's our episode. Hope you all enjoyed, I'll see you guys next time for...a thing. A thing and a half. Hoo boy.

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Supports!

Mist and Jill hit B rank and it's quite sweet. It's a short scene but it furthers their characters and also sort of solidifies who they are. Mist is trying to be as nice as possible, and directly avoiding mentioning the bad thing as much as possible. Jill continues to wonder why everyone tolerates her existence here.

Ike and Soren hit B rank and we get a bit of an info dump on Soren's backstory...which Ike rightly calls one of the worst things he's ever heard happen to anyone ever. Soren learned magic thanks to the man who bought him from his mother who likely wasn't even his REAL mom to begin with, and...he never actually learned how to speak. Good lord.

Finally we get Ilyana's first two supports, with Mordecai and Zihark. I don't know why I picked Mordecai I guess I just wanted to show off a support that wasn't less than half a minute long. Look, Ilyana...has some degree of character. But one of the consequences of how Fire Emblem works as a game is that a lot of it's characters are one note and llyana...she's REALLY one note, even for this series. She wants food. She eats food. She will manipulate everyone into feeding her as much food as possible because she desires to shove more food into her body. I relate to this immensely but lady please have some degree of character beyond this, even a little.

And that's our supports for today.