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heroes barracks tour: infantry part 1 (colourless)

As infantry units are by far the most common, it only makes sense to split them up into several posts. I’m starting with colourless as that covers two different physical weapons and all of my army of healers.

But first, as usual, updates!

Armour update

Build improvements

Refined w!Tharja’s Candelabra for +def.

New units

+def –atk

I just pulled her this morning :D

The bane is really unfortunate; if my sources are correct it’s a superbane (-4 instead of -3) which frankly kind of sucks. That said, I intend on building her with Blarblade+ which would make up for the loss in damage.

Otherwise there’s nothing but great news here. I’ve completed the mage armours trifecta, got another unit with Armour March, and a 40% bonus for the upcoming Tempest Trials. The only reason I haven’t levelled her yet is that I refuse to do it in the Training Tower and today’s training maps (all fliers) are really not suited for –atk magic users with 1 movement. 

Plans

Blarblade+, Moonbow, Draw Back for Lyn. I should have enough feathers for that fairly soon.

Flier update

Build improvements

1. Caeda now has access to a personal weapon, the Wing Sword, although I don’t have enough SP for it yet. 2. Gave s!Camilla Gronnblade+, Draw Back, and Darting Blow 3. 3. Inherited LaD3, Glimmer, and Reposition to Shanna (my free summon on Love Abounds was a 4* Sothe) 4. Gave Renewal 3 to Nowi 5. Beruka is now +4 and has Bonfire

New units

+hp –def

I got her from Love Abounds actually and not Sacred Memories, and also yesterday, which is why she’s still unlevelled. It’s kind of ironic; I tried summoning for her on SM and got pitybroken at 4%, then I summoned on a different banner and she pitybroke me at 4%.

-def is hindering to her as Great Flame’s effect relies on it, but oh well. It does make me consider giving her Lightning Breath+ instead. It would give me access to another DC flier at a relatively low cost, and I could refine it for more def. I still have that one Hector lying around, which is an option, but I don’t want to use him on yet another green.

Whatever I do with her, it’s awesome that I have her, as she fits two separate teams. On the one side, she provides Hone Dragons (although to be honest that’s not anything gamebreaking for me as all of my dragon builds rely on QR making the +6 speed boost rather pointless). On the other side, she is another source of magic damage for my fliers.

Plans

Nothing new short-term besides figuring out a B slot for Myrrh

Cavalry update

GUESS WHO’S BACK

yaaaaay i only waited like 9 months

Yes I got him this morning like everybody else and immediately levelled him I WAITED NINE MONTHS, I saved that PA Olivia and that 2* Subaki for ages, fucking FINALLY

I gave him one of my Wind blessings, largely because I just wanted the SP boost, but it doesn’t hurt that if I ever pull Gunnthra she’s likely going to be on the same team as him and he could really use the extra Res. Distant Defence helps, of course, but only so much.

I’m going to merge him later, obviously.

Back to infantry

Bows

+atk –def

I got her randomly from Rite of Shadows (Celica and co’s first banner).

This build is an absolute mess. I just threw together a bunch of scraps for her when she was a bonus unit in the second ever Tempest Trials. It functioned okay there but there’s not a whole lot she can do now. She’s just really not suited for her own default build, Firesweep weapons are for fast glass cannons while Faye is slow and bulky.

Usage: She has 3k HM. The bulk of it was from the aforementioned TT, and the rest I grinded out afterwards on autobattle just for feathers. Now with the rise of shit like Zelgius, Firesweep + Poison Strike can be useful in AA provided there’s a dancer (not a problem considering I have 7) and only one foe left.

Future improvements: I’m interested in a Guard Bow build. In fact that was going to be the next thing on my to-do list (chosen randomly), but V!Lyn’s arrival overthrew Faye there, sorry girl

+spd –def

Baby boy. Baby.

I got him on the first day I’ve had this account, with the 10 Nintendo Network gift orbs from a full colourless circle, and I love him very much. He was my summoner support for a while. Then he became overshadowed by a different unit I built who did the exact same thing as him but better and also I loved him more because you know who he is, but I’ve missed using him so I didn’t hesitate at all in feeding off the dupe Faye I got from Legendary Ike’s banner. Now he has a niche again.

Usage: Oh boy. I used him for the first four Tempest Trials, and those were a lot more difficult than the ones now and I didn’t autobattle, so you can imagine. He was one of the first units to max HM... twice... and he has 3500 HM again now and going to be a bonus unit in the new TT so lol. I’ve also used him to clear high-end content like GHBs many times.

Improvements: LaD3 as soon as I get another Sothe. I’m also going to start merging him. I got a ton of Kleins while trying to pull for NY!Takumi, and I have 3 in my barracks. I’ve decided that every second one I pull goes towards merges, so that’s one merge for now.

+hp –spd

From Fjorm’s banner.

Unbelievably shitty IVs, of course, but it doesn’t matter. I wanted her primarily because her art is amazing. I wasn’t going to build her with BB+ or Firesweep over Klein and my baby, so in a way I was kind of relieved she wasn’t +spd or +atk, that way I had a justification for prioritising them that wasn’t just personal bias :D

Usage: As you can see she doesn’t even have her default C slot learned yet. I’m planning on using her as a TT healer at some point (through BoL6).

I’ve said before how I feel about Corrin as a character, but Maiponpon draws him so cute I can’t stay mad at him. Look at his wittle face

Anyway, this is a very simple build, pretty much just his default set with Bonfire + Bowbreaker, to capitalise on his own bulk and the defensive buffs he provides to other units. Also, this screenshot was taken before I refined his Hama Ya (for +def).

Usage: He does stuff in AA sometimes, his primary function is to be a bow Lyn counter

+spd –res

The apple of my eye, my child whom I raised all these years etc etc. From Hero Fest 1 :D

All I ever wanted when Heroes was announced was to have a Takumi. Well, here he is with perfect IVs to boot. I love him so much. It’s impossible to tell from menu screenshots like this (unless you know the stats by heart I guess), but he’s my current summoner support.

Quad builds are very powerful; I know not everybody likes them but I do. Oh I do.

Usage: he has 9999 SP take a wild guess

Improvements: Threaten Spd isn’t really the best C slot, but I haven’t really figured out what it can possibly be replaced with

+atk –something, +9

I just realised looking at this that he has the same def/res as Takumi :D

He’s actually +10 now, I just didn’t bother taking the screenshot. Virion, similarly to Est, is a product of spite more than anything, but I do actually kind of like him as a character, so there’s that.

I don’t really have a lot to say about him, he’s just there. I’m going to merge 4* Virions I get instead of sending them home, so that maybe one day I can upgrade him from here to a 4*+10.

Daggers

+hp –res

Got her on the first day of Performance Arts.

Honestly there’s not much to say, she’s a dancer and does dancer things with her dancer build. And her chibi sprite is unbelievably adorable.

Usage: dancer tier

+atk –hp

Apparently I pulled her at 4* on the first day, so when I switched mains and looked at what I had it was a pleasant surprise. I’d had great experiences using a +atk Kagero on my other accounts by then, so it wasn’t a difficult decision to promote her.

Usage: I actually don’t use her all that much outside of AA because she doesn’t do very well against non-infantry teams. Still, I’d say she’s worth the investment even in the current meta.

neutral

mochi baby

The other day I was reading my old comments on the FEH subreddit and found this gem in a thread that was about which characters you wanted to be added drawn by which artist:

Naturally I had to do everything in my fucking power to get him and at 4,50% (...after another 4% broken by Airzura) he came home <3

I don’t know what this build is supposed to be. Antimage, I guess? The double BoLs are because I used him as a combat medic in the two TT minis. He also has Iceberg learned but for TTs a big nuke with Glacies is better, considering Kagami Mochi has a killer effect anyway.

Usage: See above, combat medic for TTs. I’ll probably continue to use him to fill an extra slot and cover healing until he maxes HM (although for the next TT the main team slots are all taken, sorry boo)

Improvements: Desperation is kind of silly now that he no longer has boosted stats from being a bonus unit and I should replace it with something but I haven’t decided what. I might also throw him a Sothe at some point for a neat 51/41 offensive spread.

+1 iirc, +spd –something

This is a consideration more than anything. I don’t really like Gaius’ art but I do love Gaius, and daggers are in a marginally better place than before or at least more interesting, so if I get more 4* copies of him I might build something out of that, probably with a Smoke Dagger.

Staves

+spd –hp

Free summon from Maria and Minerva’s BHB banner, and my only 5* healer, lol.

I have the exact same IVs on a 4* copy, which is now merged to +4. My plan with all healers (that aren’t 5* exclusive, not that I have any of those) is to make them 4*+10s with 5* unlocked staves, so I guess once I get 3 or 4 more Marias I will merge this one into the 4* copy as well. I like the golden sparkles and everything but stats are more important, and I’m just not willing to work on 5* merges for healers on my main.

Since healers don’t really differ that much from one another, at least not when they’re 4*, here’s the rest of the ones I have. I’m not going to look up their IVs because who cares. Most of them will have theirs changed before I’m done with them.

(both +4)

(+2)

(+1 iirc?)

That’s pretty much all. I’m going to promote a copy of Azama/Serra/Wrys/Lissa/Clarine (who’s a horse but I didn’t talk about her or Prissy last time) once I get them to a high merge level to unlock their staves. As for Sakura/Lucius/Lachesis/Priscilla I’m probably just going to wait until they inevitably pitybreak me so I don’t waste my feathers.

Part 2 will cover tomes and also probably V!Eliwood!

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heroes barracks tour: cavalry + updates

exactly what it says on the tin

Note: I started writing this post last year and some things have changed since then. I’ve decided to keep the stuff I originally wrote and cross it out rather than replace it outright. Additionally, aside from the write-up on my cavalry units this post contains a small update to my armour and flier intros as it’s been long enough that I’ve acquired a few more units and changed some plans I had for the old ones.

Armour update

Build improvements

Not much in this category. I gave both BK and Arden Swap (although only BK had the SP available to learn it), and Henry learned Draw Back (which ended up being surprisingly useful in combo with Armour March).

New units

I made the first armour post before summoning on Winter’s Envoy. Here’s what I got from it:

+def –atk

Got her from the last orb on the first summoning circle.

Despite her awkward IVs, awful outfit, and my general distaste for Tharja as a character, she quickly became one of my favourite units (see also: summer Corrin). I enjoyed using her in the Arena so much that I bothered to invest into improving my score, which is how I got into tier 20 for the first time. I’ve tried using her again last week and failed because the maps weren’t as favourable (she survives and counterkills brave Lyn on defensive tiles, but last week’s rotation included the stupid fucking boat map where she got wrecked all the time because there’s nowhere to run).

Her default set is just so damn good. It’s very gratifying to have another unit with Close Counter that isn’t poor defenseless Takumi (who doesn’t even run it anymore), and Vengeful Fighter is, of course, mindblowing. Hone Armour is for Henry’s bladetome. She also has Hone Atk 3 that I gave her in a desperate rage trying to put together an arena team last week, which I regret a bit since it’s unlikely to see use again but it’s not a big deal in the long run.

Usage: I had an absolute blast running her in the last Tempest Trials in tandem with Henry and (spoilers). The boost to her defences and the Close Defence 3 seal turned her into an all-purpose tank with very few things that scared her. I might try to incorporate her into future arena teams again, and she’s of course quite the green counter option for AA.

Future improvements: I’ve seen people replace her special with a 4-charge one, since it works perfectly with Vengeful Fighter and also deals more explosive damage. I hesitated on doing that while her Tempest was running as the boost to her stats combined with the support bonuses from (spoilers) meant she wasn’t always getting doubled, but for general usage it would make sense. I’m holding out a bit since I’d rather focus on units who don’t have already functional builds first. Another thing is refining the Candelabra (haven’t decided whether to go for even more Def or round out her Res yet). I don’t see myself replacing her weapon for now except maybe with Raudrowl, but I don’t have even one Katarina yet.

neutral

Second summoning circle yielded me this strapping gentleman.

Unlike with Tharja I don’t have a very long ode to his abilities, he’s a good unit but his kit just isn’t Close Counter + QR on steroids. That said, he’s an excellent all-around blue counter with good mixed bulk, so I’m glad to have him. (Plus his voicelines are hilarious. “Party?”)

I don’t really know what else to do with him while I’m this low on quality A skills, so I just left his default kit untouched and added Fortify Armour (mostly for Henry, but Tharja obviously made good use of it too) and Ignis (Bonfire would be better with its lower cooldown, but I didn’t have available fodder and didn’t want to spend feathers on this).

Usage: See above about countering blues. He also provides Fortify buffs to those who need it in AA. Otherwise he’s stuck in the same rut as other armours: they’re great and all, but the movement makes it awkward to use them, and the colour overlap makes gluing him to Henry for Armour March a bit inconvenient.

Future improvements: IDK. Giving him a Slaying Axe could be something, but I like to leave seasonal units with their default weapons if I can help it, I think it adds to the charm. That leaves refining Sack o’ Gifts, although same as with the Candelabra I don’t know whether to go with +def or +res, and replacing Ignis with Bonfire.

Change of plans

Gwendolyn is dead. Thank god I’m free. I used her to give Tharja Hone Armour as I didn’t have an unmerged 4* copy and didn’t want to waste feathers. Rip in pepperoni, I won’t miss you. (I’ve summoned another fucking one since then but I’m not even going to bother merging her again, I just hate her art so much.)

Flier update

Build improvements

I got enough SP on Shanna for Firesweep L+ and on Tana for Swap and Hit & Run, and inherited Desperation 3 on Caeda. Otherwise nothing new.

New units

Happy New Year to me!!

+res –hp

Finally an Azura with IVs that don’t suck. In general I’m beyond happy that I have her; I love Azura, I love dancers in Heroes, her art is great, she has Hone Fliers, she’s a goddamn flying singer when I adore flying units, what is there not to love?

Very simple kit, I don’t want to waste Fury on dancers hence Spd+3 as a budget solution for improving her most important stat (TA is an option, of course, but I think with access to flier buffs Airzura needs it less than other dancers). Kind of wish I waited a bit for The Most Important Unit I’ve Ever Summoned (who will be shown in the next update) before launching to refine the Hagoita... but I really needed the Divine Dew and besides, it’s not like it doesn’t help.

Usage: She’s a dancer...

Future improvements: She has WoM3 inherited, hopefully she will get a lot of kills in today’s TT with the buffed stats (as it’s torture to grind SP for dancers otherwise).

+hp –spd

Bummer IVs, but as I wasn’t expecting to have her at all (she came in the same circle as the Most Important Unit; as the pity rate was at 4,50% I just decided to summon the rest after getting him and there she was) it’s fine. Camilla also has boosted BST to make up for bad IVs lol. In general it’s great that I have her as she fills exactly the niche I was looking to fill, a tanky sword flier.

Keeping her default kit and adding Hit & Run. With flier buffs I think her bane doesn’t hinder her so much that I need to give her something else.

Usage: I just got her four days ago... She’s about to see a lot of action in the new TT though, and afterwards I will probably arrange a secondary flier team with both Camillas and Airzura on it, fourth member being debated (Shanna? or I might replace Cordy with Cherche on the first team and put Cordy here?)

Future improvements: I’m going to refine the Kadomatsu (for +spd) instead of replacing her weapon, I think. Slaying Edge is an option, but as I said before I try to keep seasonal weapons whenever possible. I’ve also seen this video on the effectiveness of a build utilising the Deflect Melee seal and Vantage; it worked excellently there because the test subject with Michalis with WoDaoclere-charged Ignis so it might not be as good elsewhere, but there’s always the option of giving Cammy Wo Dao? We’ll see.

Change of plans

1. Since I got NY!Camilla, I don’t need to build a Palla anymore. I will hold onto the 4* neutral version, maybe even merge her into a +spd 4* if I get one, and use her for HM grinding just because I really like Palla, but I’m not investing into her.

2. I made up my mind about spring Camilla. I summoned a Nino and now that I have Hone Airzura it makes even further sense to just go for my favourite build of all time, blade nuke.

Back to cavalry, finally

My main cavalry team isn’t particularly well-put together or impressive, and in general as it turns out I don’t have a whole lot of horses available, but I did go through a period where my horse team carried me through a bunch of difficult content and they’re still my closing act in Arena Assault as I can usually expect them to be able to handle anything.

5* builds

(I don’t have ANY sword cavaliers. This isn’t true anymore, but I still wish I had Xander as well. I didn’t get him because back then I didn’t expect that I’d change my mains and I didn’t want to try dealing with a GHB when I didn’t even have a single level 40 unit on this account yet. I have everything ready for Xander’s rerun that will probably not ever happen now, I have fucking Distant Defence fodder ready, WHERE IS HE INTELLIGENT SYSTEMS IT’S BEEN EIGHT MONTHS)

neutral

No, he’s not my freebie from CYL, I got him off Gunnthra’s legendary banner. Very happy about it because that’s a (relatively) fast offensive sword cavalier, something I didn’t have before. Also he’s adorable and I love his art and wah he says “Roy’s our boy” when you go into battle

I think his default build is fine, maybe he’s a bit on the slower side for Desperation but with emblem buffs, who cares?

Usage: Clearly I haven’t even got around to completing his default skillset... I’ve been busy with fliers and armours :( I’ll put more effort in later

Improvements: Needs an assist. He has Fortify Cavalry inherited but not learned, and also needs to learn his default skills.

+atk –res

Also from Gunnthra’s banner, a defensive sword cavalier to complement the offensive one. Sigurd is really awesome all around so I have no complaints. It’s so convenient that the newer units they release tend to have good builds from the start so I don’t have to scramble around trying to find anything worthwhile to put on them among the piles of trash in my barracks

Usage: Unlike Roy he got to get his default set filled out at least...

Improvements:

I should probably give him Hone Cavalry.

+res –def

My one and only red cavalier, yay!

So Leo’s been sort of shafted by Heroes in terms of default builds (aside from the fact that motherfucker comes with QR3, one of the absolute best skills in the game). Brynhildr is now overshadowed by the goddamn Gravity+ staff, Elise has better offensive stats despite being a healer, etc etc BUT.

I’ve said it before and I will never get tired of saying it: I love monotype bladetome nukes. Who made me love them so much? Cecilia Leo. He was the first unit for whom I bit the bullet and promoted another unit to 5* just to sacrifice them, and what a dazzling fucking introduction to the world of weapon SI that was

Darting Blow seems silly at first glance, dude has 22 whopping spd, but with it, Hone, Goad, and a support he gets up to 40 and can double quite a lot in PvE, and various armours in Arena Assault. Leo in particular is thriving now with all the OP green armours melting when he breathes in their general direction. QR is for when he needs to soak some magic hits, something he did quite well even before Raudrblade.

Usage: Maxed 3k HM, of course! For the rest, see above. Definitely in my top 10 favourite units. I’m very very happy I chose to summon on Male Mages over Female Mages during the third gauntlet (because lol I got all of those female mages as pitybreakers later anyway...)

Improvements: He has everything he needs for now. I could maybe give him Glimmer over Iceberg just for the reduced cooldown, but eh.

At least I made the account switch in time to get him. If I missed both of the DC cavs I’d have died of an ulcer by September

Camus is good. He’s capable of doing both enemy and player phase fairly well (unlike Xander who would be a purely enemy phase unit). Sort of like a blue horse Ryoma. I think he desperately needs merges though.

Usage: Maxed 3k HM. He doesn’t really do a whole lot of work these days even when I get out the team for Arena Assault, but that’s because I’m usually dealing with, like, armours and Ayras and I don’t want a special to trigger so I ORKO them with the ranged cav trio instead. Camus faithfully provides Goad Cavalry and an S support to Leo, and Swaps units around, and he CAN do combat if necessary, so that’s all I can ask for.

Improvements:

Going to +1 him. EVENTUALLY IS will feel maybe a tiny bit of shame and they’ll fucking give him a rerun, that would be two more copies since he didn’t have an Infernal difficulty the first time.

I haven’t been paying attention to him a whole lot before fairly recently, but I was always sitting on some plans for him just because he’s a TT unit and I sort of want to have some kind of functional build going for all of them as I only have copies of them on my main (unlike GHB units who are a lot easier to get).

Now he lucked out. I did three circles on Winter’s Envoy. The first two got me Tharja and Chrom, and the third one somehow contained THREE off-banner 5*s: Catria, Hawkeye, and Cain. They were all used as SI as they all had shitty IVs. Clive got Catria’s lance. Now he can enjoy 2 charge Bonfires.

Usage: I used him a bit in the TT he came from, haven’t done a whole lot since then. I’m hoping to put together a bunch of second-string horse teams (horse mages are a bit more available than flier mages, I’ll get a fucking Reinhardt EVENTUALLY) and he’ll make it on one of those. Plus there’s always walling reds and blues in AA.

Improvements: After I refine the weapon of the Most Important Unit, I’ll evolve his Killer Lance to Slaying Lance. Then he’ll be put on the waiting list for refinements. I’m also not that sure what to do with his B slot. Lancebreaker 1 came from the same Arthur as Swap. IDK if I should just give him LB3, or wait until I have more Subakis (but there’s a very long queue for that). I’m also debating if I should give him Fortress Def.

+atk –res

Another pitybreaker from Ylissean Summer. I don’t mind much since that same summoning circle gave me a very special unit (you will see them in the next post) that I wouldn’t have opened if I hadn’t seen that Peri’d reset my rate.

Peri gets a lot of flak, but she’s not at all a bad unit, she just has a lot of competition in her niche, as Roderick and now Oscar both have similar offensive statlines to hers. Peri is lucky in that I find her amusing and don’t give a shit about either Roderick or Oscar.

Usage: For now I occasionally get her out when I need to deal with an annoying DC Vantage red in AA. Winter Tharja’s also a pain in the ass that she can help deal with handily.

Improvements: Clearly I’m going for a Firesweep build, but I haven’t inherited the + version to her yet. She needs to learn LaD2 (I didn’t bother taking a new screenshot, but she has LaD1 learned now, everything else is the same) and inherit an assist. I’m also on the lookout for a +spd copy to merge her into because I think +spd would be a lot better.

(It’s only now that I’m adding new units to this post that I realised I didn’t have any axe cavaliers originally...)

+def –atk

Bit of an odd one. When the Christmas TT banner dropped, I had a lot of orbs since I was saving for the next legendary and spent considerably less on Winter’s Envoy than I expected. I decided I can afford to pull all reds (for Lucina) and greens on that banner. There were, in fact, only two greens and no reds, and the green was this Frederick. I’ve been considering building one for a while, so it was welcome, even though his IVs are questionable.

He picked up the Hawkeye from Winter’s Envoy. DB3 is just nice to have, and it’s going to sit around for when (if) I give Fred a Brave Axe.

Usage: See Clive.

Improvements: I’m looking for a +atk or +def copy that isn’t –def or –atk respectively, so I can merge. He needs an assist, probably a different B skill, refinement on the axe, and to learn Bonfire.

neutral

My freebie from CYL. I don’t regret picking her, but I am kind of reluctant to use her a lot outside of Horse Emblem because frankly Arena has made me resent her. I’m so fucking tired of seeing this face. When will she fall off her horse. I have no love left for her and I’m gleefully killing the copies of her I have on alts for Swift Sparrow left and right and it gives me a rush every time. It’s kind of sad since I was initially very excited to get her but that’s what countless deathless runs ruined do to a person. I just had to unglue a Brave Bow Lyn from a QP Moonbow Reinhardt earlier today*. Ugh.

* when I originally started writing this post

Usage: She’s on my main cav team and is quite helpful, and has around 2600 HM. Those are the nice things I can say about her.

Improvements: I am not giving her anything else ever as an act of protest

4* merge projects

+spd –hp, +3

I originally intended to make him a +10 thinking I’d never get a brave Roy. Well, I have a brave boy now, but I still want to build his dad, if only because they’re a bit different. I also quite like Eliwood; he’s not the most interesting lord character in the world, but I have a soft spot for him. His Heroes art is atrocious but what can you do.

Short term goals are continuing to merge him (right now I have two more 3* copies waiting), giving him an assist, Fury 3, and probably Swordbreaker.

Long term goal is eventually, once he hits +7 or so, merging in a 5* copy to acquire the Durandal, then evolving it to Blazing Durandal.

+2

The only blue mage cavalier I have :(

Short term goals are merging in the last 3* copy I have, giving her Blarblade & Moonbow from an Odin, Darting Blow 3, some kind of B skill (undecided on that one), an assist, and probably a horse buff.

Long term goal is merging in a 5* copy (that one is a very long way off) to acquire Keen Blarwolf+ (and Death Blow 3) for some anti-horse options in AA.

+spd –forgot, +1

I really like Titania’s art and clearly I’m lacking in the green cav department. I just don’t know what to do with her build really. I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it (aka when she’s got a bunch more merges)

+spd –res, +4

The fourth member of my “main” cavalry team. An excellent testament to the power of bladetomes when combined with emblem buffs, as on my old main I in fact used a 3* -atk copy in this role to great effect.

I have a 3* copy hanging around, but I’m conflicted on whether to use her for the extra merge or to give somebody else Escape Route 3.

I’m also on the lookout for a +spd –hp copy instead, as –res bothers me a bit.

I don’t think I’ll change anything else in her build, besides maybe giving her G Tomebreaker at some point. Gronnblade works perfectly fine without upgrading it to its + version, and my obsessiveness about these things doesn’t quite trigger when it’s a 4* unit in question.

+spd -def, +2

+atk –hp, +2

Healers who require standard healer improvements, not much to say here. They might both see some kind of 5* sacrifices at some point so I can get my hands on those sweet sweet Wrathful refinements on their staves (and better healing staves too), but that’s miles and miles out there.

Not pictured

Berkut. Same as all other GHB units that I don’t want to build.

[blahblahemblem]

heroes barracks tour: fliers

same as last time, but with a different unit type!

note: I wrote this about a week ago, lol. I haven’t changed anything since then.

Fliers are probably my favourite unit type right now. The reason is quite simple – their unparallelled mobility makes them highly flexible and allows them to pull off feats that other movement type teams can only dream of. I’m also very lucky in that I managed to acquire all 3 of the currently existing ranged fliers. As of the moment I’m typing this, my main flier team is my arena offence and defence (Michalis is a bonus unit <3). It’s also only thanks to them that I cleared Chain Challenge 11 & 12 (namely, they got me through the chapter 11 bit), and I’ve been liberally using them to clear Infernals of various BHBs and GHBs.

(Note from today: using a mixed team with Michalis on it during the first week of the Winter’s Envoy bonus set, I was able to get into tier 20 for the first time with a score of 4890!)

5* builds

+spd -hp

Random pitybreaker from Ylissean Summer. The story is as follows:

Mercifully this was only at 3,25%.

I’d not spent any effort on her yet at all aside from throwing her the Iceberg. She doesn’t even have enough SP to learn Fortify Fliers which she comes with.

Usage: None whatsoever. Her attack is pitifully low to the point that she does awfully against units she’s supposed to counter because she can’t ORKO them and she takes massive damage in return. Admittedly she could do some mage countering. But she doesn’t.

Future improvements: I have grand plans for poor Caeda. I intend on giving her a Wo Dao+ and refining it for extra MT. As for passives, the good ole Fury Desperation combo. Then she could either do massive damage through Iceberg while also being capable of charging it a bit by soaking up magic hits, or inherit Moonbow to go and go to town on that. Unfortunately that’s quite a long way away because I don’t even have any Athenas anymore and when I do pull one there’s a very long queue for those feathers.

+atk –res

Pulling Nowi was nothing short of a miracle which you can see here under Henry’s section. It’s especially amazing in her case because the reason I only had 9 orbs ready for a limited units banner was that I’d blown all of them trying to get Hinoka, you know, the girl famous for being the only permanent source of Hone Fliers.

I don’t see any reason to change her default build. I quite like Atk/Res Bond as Nowi is glued to other units all the time anyway. Hone Fliers is a given. Renewal keeps her HP in range of Grimoire’s passive effect (which is amazing and I love it on Nowi but Takumi really doesn’t need it).

Usage: As the only carrier of Hone Fliers in my barracks, Nowi is essential to my flier team, so I’ve been working her to the bone since the moment she got here.

Improvements: I don’t have access to Renewal 3.

+spd –res

I had promoted her before I decided to make this account my main, as part of my now realised effort to own a 5* copy of every unit in the game. It’s kind of a funny coincidence that Shanna just now experienced a rise in popularity thanks to the Voting Gauntlet. Personally I’m currently not a very big fan of Shanna even though there’s nothing wrong with her, a fact that has absolutely nothing to do with loving Takumi too much and being bitter.

Usage: She has over 1k HM mostly thanks to the time when she was one of my very few trained 5* units and I had to rely on her in the first two Tempest Trials. I haven’t been using her often lately (see above). When I finally get over myself, I will continue my attempts to create a mixed team with her and BK.

Improvements: She has Firesweep Lance+, LaD2, and Drive Def 2 inherited but lacks the SP. She also needs an assist.

+atk –hp

My first free 5* summon on this account, coming from the Ephraim & Eirika’s BHB banner.

So far this is just her default build. I’ve been focusing on units that fit specifically on monotype teams, so Tana, who would of course be better off on a mixed team so Guidance doesn’t go wasted, has been left behind.

Usage: See above. I do take her out for AA quite a lot because I can then use her to Guidance-drop an armour somewhere convenient.

Improvements: She has Hit & Run and Swap inherited but not learned. I’m also planning on giving her Close Defence from the second Joshua so I can take advantage of Vidofnir’s passive effect.

+spd –hp

First summon from Nohrian Summer; too bad that one was before free summons became a thing. It came as quite the convenience since I was planning on promoting a Cordelia anyway (I had a +atk 4* one in my barracks).

Another constant presence on my main flier team, although unfortunately also the most expendable, as the bulk of player-phase damage is handled by the mages and she can’t tank at all.

Usage: Maxed HM. As part of my flier team, she is fielded very very often, but, again, she is also the member with the lowest kill count. Fortify Fliers is a very big contribution on her part however, as pretty much everybody else on the team appreciates it, and so is Reposition.

Improvements: Merging her might not be a bad idea since she’s so common, but I’m just not feeling it yet so that’s up in the air. LaD3 is also something she probably wants, but I’m not going to give it to her unless I pull a Minerva again by accident; even then it’d probably go to Shanna first over her. Death Blow is on the table, but there are no Kleins available and she’s not a priority for it.

+atk –res

I suffered for her so fucking much. I hit a 5% rate on Nohrian Summer and have given up twice along the way. It was all so fuCKING WORTH IT

I don’t hide the fact that I fucking hate Corrin as a character with a passion, but honestly I love my summer Corrin a lot. She has pretty art and an adorable chibi sprite and she’s the deadly centrepiece of my Flier Emblem. I can’t believe Heroes made me feel positive emotions towards Corrin but here we are.

Build is as standard as it gets, monotype team bladetome nuke.

Usage: Maxed HM, honestly after what I said above you can already infer that she’s one of my most used units

Improvements: I could give her Fury but her default Swift Strike has been working well for me thus far so I see no real reason to.

+2, neutral (obviously)

HIM

I don’t know why but I’m in love with this stupid edgelord. I had him promoted kind of just to promote a GHB unit on my old main and ended up getting very attached and promoted him again when I switched to this account the first chance I got. Now he’s my first deliberate merging project. I gave him a Hector. He’s my pride and joy and my favourite unit (sorry to any tacos that were hurt by this).

I absolutely adore the Hauteclere upgrade as well, because it lets me do so much amazing bullshit, like this:

Usage: LOL

Improvements: I missed one copy of him during his first rerun so unfortunately I’ll only be able to merge him to +3 for now, but you bet your ass I’m going to keep merging when we get more copies. QR3 is in the plans as well. Aether is a distant possibility.

neutral

She’s the reason I don’t have Hinoka. I got her off Flier Boost Skills when there were no blue orbs. I got Nowi literally the next minute though, so it’s fine, I’m glad to have Minerva now.

I’ve literally just thrown DF and Desperation at her default build so far. I may be happy I have Minerva, but I haven’t used her much yet.

Usage: See above.

Improvements: Needs SP to learn Desp 3 and Ward Fliers. Needs an assist. Once I get around to upgrading her Hauteclere (and believe me there’s quite the line ahead of her), I might go for the touted Moonbow spam build instead of building up a big nuke with DF. That’s her brother’s domain (see above).

+atk –hp

Cherche’s Brave build is quite famous and I like her so I made it happen, end of story.

Usage: I’ve been busy with my main team on which Michalis reigns supreme so I haven’t got around to doing anything with her yet after she learned the important skills. I might consider replacing Cordy with her once she learns Fortify if only so that somebody keeps earning HM, but we shall see.

Improvements: Needs SP for Fortify Fliers. I might give her one merge for that one extra point of atk. Might also give her Desperation once I get around to upgrading the Brash Assault seal so I can try that bucket of fun out.

+hp –def

I got two Hectors and a Deirdre from Fjorm’s banner. I decided to give up. Then I had some orbs and an itch to try again. There was one green orb and it was Cammy.

Now that I have her I have zero clue what to do with her. Right now I’m leaning towards Gronnblade, but I don’t have any Ninos at all. We’ll see I guess.

Usage: None yet

Improvements: Different tome, different assist, passives, everything basically

Lower rarity builds and merge projects

neutral

Palla has served me very well as the designated red flier on my makeshift 10th stratum quests team up until I pulled h!Nowi. Yes, I was using this free Palla we got from those Whitewings quests ages ago over my 5* Caeda with good IVs, because well. Palla can tank, and has Goad Fliers. She’s sort of retired now, but I’m considering making some kind of 5* build for her if I get one with good IVs. I’m thinking of capitalising on her good bulk since the other two sword fliers are more glass-cannon like. (Not that I’m about to get an Elincia any time soon...)

+2, +def –res

More bulk, this time in green. I’m sitting on a ton of 3* Berukas, but I don’t really want to spend extra feathers since aside from Glimmer which is still a questionable choice despite the lower cooldown she has nothing to offer as inheritance. Anyway, once I get her past +7 one way or another I will be giving her a Slaying Axe+ from a promoted version of herself. At some point. She’s on the list somewhere.

+10, +atk –forgot

Est haunts my dreams. I just merged all of them to get rid of the plague in my barracks and now I have this. Now, at 3* +10, she has the same raw stats as a 5* of her would, and in fact even has +1 to HP and def. She’s never getting a 5* weapon or expensive inherits unless I’m overrun with pitybreaker Abels, but she might prove to be a good asset in a pinch. With a simple Brave Lance, Atk+3 in A slot and the Atk+3 seal that’s 49x2 atk before buffs. If only I would bother to train her...

Not pictured:

Narcian’s default build is excellent for niche AA usage, but I haven’t needed him in a while. Valter is still untrained. Both of them are going to be kept around for HM purposes and because of GHB quests, but neither are getting any merges. I don’t know what I’m going to do with Panic Ploy yet but I want it as an option, and Lancebreaker 3 is obvious.

[blahblahemblem]

heroes barracks tour: armours

henlo and welcome to the series of posts where I brag about my Heroes account that I promised half a year ago! I tried doing a more wordy series, similar to my first post, but I prefer this play-by-play just talking about each unit separately instead of wracking my brain trying to sort them by teams or whatever

note: ignore the seals, I didn’t bother making sure they made sense when I was taking these screenshots so some of them are really silly

Before I go into detail, a disclaimer: I don’t like running armours as a team and I have no intention of ever building a complete decked out Armour Emblem like I did with other movement type-based teams. I find them unwieldy and difficult to use. I’m also not interested in chasing down high rankings in Arena Assault where armour teams shine as a starter. That said, I don’t mind them much when they’re part of a mixed team with access to Guidance and dancers. Armour March mitigates things somewhat as well.

The number 1 use for my armour “team” is doing the monthly 10th stratum quest.

NB: I wrote all of this before the trailer for Winter’s Envoy dropped, and I’m posting it before summoning on it.

5* builds

Not much to say here. Arden is quite the amazing gift to be given out for free, with his access to constant quadding (well, provided he stays above half HP) and incredible physical defences. I still don’t use him that much.

Earth Boost is a natural choice considering that Arden has the highest HP in the game and thus benefits from it pretty much constantly. The C slot is either an armour buff or his native Drive Def depending on which kind of team he’s on.

Future improvements: Swap for the armour team set. (Pivot is best for mixed teams.) I suppose I could replace Earth Boost, but Death Blow, the only other readily available option, seems like total overkill and is also hotly contested for. If Fire Boost is ever dropped into the 4* pool, I might go for that.

I don’t have any plans on merging him. I’ve already used my 4* copy to give Drive Def to one of my young dragons, and whenever he is finally rerun in a TT mini or something I would likely just keep the 5* around as Brave Sword+ fodder. Sorry, Arden.

Usage: I’m trying to get him going in a tandem with Tana, where he could be Guidance-dropped to quad the stuffing out of something, but it’s not taken off so far, mainly because I haven’t really built Tana yet. Otherwise he’s buffing Henry on the armour team.

Another great gift to free players that I’m not utilising to his full potential because hnnng armour movement.

He also has Vantage and Spur Spd 3 inherited as his “mixed team” set. To be honest, I should just give him Quick Riposte, because Vantage is rather useless in player hands and I haven’t got much mileage out of WoM, but I’m low on Subakis.

Improvements: Needs QR2 and Swap. Unfortunately he’s very low on my priority list for that.

He’s not getting any merges either. The 4* copy became WoM3 food. Future copies will be used for that and Steady Stance 3 (highly doubtful that I’m about to swim in Shiros any time soon, so BK is my only lifeline here).

Usage: Sometimes I pull him out for Arena Assault when there’s like an archer and some greens. He’s also now attached to the hip with Henry because of Hone Armour. Another thing I’m trying to do is make him work together with my Firesweep Shanna, sort of so he can drop in to protect her and she can lug him around with Guidance (the seal), but it’s going about as well as the Tana/Arden thing.

+res -def

Hector is the reason I even have this account, so I’d be immensely grateful to him even if he hadn’t basically carried my ass through the early stages and the first three Tempest Trials (+ the mini one). There are very few units that are better for a fresh account than him.

I love these IVs as well. I’ve seen people act like they’re bad somehow, but honestly he wants extra res a lot more than he mourns the loss of def. I actually have a +atk –spd copy lying around now from the Fjorm banner and I don’t feel like switching at all.

This is his armour team set-up. Normally he has Pivot and Spur Atk 3 (for which he killed his own daughter, the monster) equipped. He also has Vantage learned because of course, but just as with BK I don’t like it very much. Renewal has been on him since the first TT when I was desperately trying to find any source of sustainment, and I love how it works because it keeps him in Armads range. Draconic Aura was originally a substitute because I didn’t have Bonfire fodder, but I don’t see any reason to change it now, it works just as well.

Improvements: In line for Renewal 3. (I’ve pulled exactly one Fae total.)

Usage: Stupid question to ask about Hector. Although to be honest I haven’t been pulling him out very often lately except for armour quests. He’s maxed HM ages ago which is one factor. Now my other units can pull their weight and I don’t have to fall back on ole Heck anymore. And in AA I suffer from this syndrome where I try and save my strongest units for a more difficult challenge later and end up not using them at all. It just feels silly to pull out your Hector against like one Fjorm or something, you know?

+def -res

I really lucked out with him! I had nine orbs, and I’ve already done the free summon on Trick or Defeat. This was what I got:

Yeah.

The IVs are a bit silly, trading one of his best stats for one of his worst, but the result is a nice mix of bulk so I can’t complain.

I suppose with those IVs it would only have been natural to go for a Gronnowl build, but I’m a big sucker for bladetome nukes, so here we are.

Improvements: I’ve already given him everything I wanted for a “budget” build, in as much as changing one’s weapon can be considered budget. If I ever pull another Takumi (and what are the odds of that), I will invest into an owl build with Quick Riposte or something.

Usage: Now that he has Gronnblade, I’m hoping to make him see more use, but we shall see. So far he’s mostly still in armour hell. Armour March only helps so much.

4* merge projects

+2, neutral

Basically Effie’s fate depends on whether or not I can pull more of her. If I do, I might promote one to get DB3 and Silver Lance+ (I will probably stick to using the Brave build, but it’s nice to have options).

Effie used to be pretty vital to my armour “team” but then BK/Arden/Henry happened so she’s kind of gathering dust. I actually think it’d be better if I replaced one of BK or Arden with her again so they actually resemble a team of some sort (two greens and two reds is pretty dumb), but I think she needs more merges first.

+3, no clue about IVs

I don’t like Wendy, let’s get that out here first. She was part of the “team” initially solely because I needed that fourth unit for the quests and she has Hone Armour. Training her even thus far was a nightmare. But I keep fucking pulling her, and with the exception of that one 4* I gave to BK I’ve just been merging them. If she continues to haunt me past ~7 merges I will promote one so she can have an actual weapon.

I’m passing over Sheena and Draug even though I could work on them because frankly I have enough green and red armours.

Not pictured

Zephiel. I don’t plan on merging him as I’d like to keep some Wary Fighter/LaD fodder around, and with BK/Arden existing he’s not really part of any team anymore. But he is a GHB unit, so I’m not going to get rid of that one 4* lvl 40 copy.

[blahblahemblem]

my quest to shoehorn klein into every single piece of pve content continues. valter infernal, here is lunatic also

[blahblahemblem]

FEH main account summary & plans: part 1 (origins)

Full history of how and why this account came to exist, lol, because I fucking love talking.

I will start from very far away.

I have been playing FEH since release day. I was looking forward to it ever since the first cryptic announcement of a FE mobile game and when it was finally revealed in the FE Direct stream I could hardly wait until February 2nd. Obviously, the unit I was hoping to obtain the most was my absolute favourite FE character - Takumi. Those of you who have started the game within the first two weeks will remember that, in fact, he was on one of the two first focus banners, which I was of course very happy about... except I never got to summon him. My first two 5* units were a random unexpected Cordelia and then another just as random Elise. (I’ve since deleted that account.) Somehow the thought of restarting the game until Takumi showed up with my starting orbs never occured to me, so I didn’t get him on my first alt either (I still own that one however and I’ll talk about it in a separate post eventually). For a while I was fine with that. Then I finally tried rerolling, except by the time I came up with the idea Deep Devotion was already gone, and I had to reroll on Family Bonds. It was fairly torturous, what with having to redownload the entire game every time on my unrooted tablet, and I didn’t last very long. In the end I decided to just give up on hunting for Takumi and rerolled for “any nice 5* like Lucina or Eirika”, finally ending up with this. That was my main account for a fairly long time, until the end of May.

However, after a while the urge to have Takumi in my possession came back to haunt me. I have been casually rerolling every now and again for new unit banners so I could check out the new units that I wasn’t guaranteed to get on either my main or my alt (I only got Sanaki off Sibling Bonds for instance), but no Takumis ever showed up. Eventually I got my phone rooted which made the process much easier and allowed for me to have as many alts as I do now, which is what let me get down to business and reset-hunt fairly seriously. That was the end of March. I was doing something like a dozen resets per day and occasionally I would pull on all the colours instead of just colourless because there’s only so many Azamas a person could stand to see in one day. What I ended up with doing that was a Hector instead. I have understood the value of Hectors fairly early on, which is why when I first accidentally pulled a Hector during my painful Family Bonds slog I linked that account and gave it to my girlfriend, so I didn’t want to just let him go. I linked that account. The starting orbs also happened to give me a Karel (Blazing Shadows was the main focus at the time). I was still not convinced that I needed to keep this alt since back then I haven’t yet sold my soul to Satan and thought four accounts was way too much to juggle. Summoning a surprise Lyn with my first few summons off the story mode orbs made me feel a little more invested even though I already had a very good Lyn elsewhere (I quite like Lyn/Hector even if it is het), so I redeemed the free 10 orbs from having a linked account and the yolo pull I did with them netted me a 5* Klein. I was still contemplating whether keeping this account was necessary a couple weeks later as I acquired more alts (including, finally, one with Takumi on it), but then trying for bunny Lucina somehow rewarded me with an Azura, which put an end to that.

This alt eventually ended up being my favourite. I continued getting 5* only units: y!Tiki, Leo, Faye, and, most importantly, a beautiful +spd -res Takumi from the first Hero Fest. The deal was sealed when on the first day of the brides banner my then-main produced nothing even after a donation from my girlfriend while this one gave me bride Caeda with 10 orbs (to be fair that was the last goddamn time I’ve seen a focus unit on a new banner here, and I’ve spent a LOT of orbs on Ylissean & Nohrian Summers and a decent chunk on New Mystery/Celica’s Army/Sacred World but oh well). I transferred this account onto my unrooted tablet (no error 803, plus bigger screen) and that was that.

(My biggest wish when I first got the game was that eventually I could own an account with Takumi on it alongside one of the two people I wanted to reunite him with the most, so either Leo or Azura...... and this account has both, lol.)

I’ve been settling in ever since. I’ve acquired a bunch more 5*s, I’ve promoted the starters, Camus, and Michalis. I’ve rummaged around in my barracks and found out that my 4* box contained a +atk Kagero and Fae, so they were promoted as well. I picked up all the seals except Attack +1 and Speed +1 (really wish they’ll be rereleased with those upcoming quests). I got all three of the Tempest Trials free 5*s. I’m making plans for a whole bunch of projects, including some potential 4*+10s. That is the story up till now.

Next part I’m going to talk about my arena core and what I’m going to do with it in the future.

[blahblahemblem]

oh wow i havent posted in forever making posts abt main fe titles is so time consuming i dont want to do it anymore unless highly condensed (x went left and killed everything) BUT i was inspired by a blogger who makes posts abt their heroes account so i want to post about mine! my main and maybe potentially later my side accs (of which i have A Lot, im a hoarder. i have 12 accounts in total)

so ill try and write up a comprehensive series of posts about the units i own on my main and what im hoping to do with them and my goals and so on.

but later

[blahblahemblem]

BR bond units only run ch 7

it’s time! thanks to the people who responded to my pleas for help, i can now start this run.

the rules:

1) all three runs (i will be playing conquest and revelation later as well) will be on hard/classic. 2) obviously, i can’t deploy anybody but corn and bond units. i have all 14 already ready to go, so i will be switching them at will from the very beginning. raising 14 units from lvl 1 is already a chore without the last one joining as late as ch 22! 3) they must all survive until endgame. i can let somebody die come ch 27/endgame in case something happens because fuck replaying all of that, but before that losing a unit requires resetting. 4) i can’t reclass them after the run’s started. it’s okay to switch their classes before to have a balanced team, but once they’ve been deployed that’s it, one class only. corn is also banned from reclassing and has to stay a nohr princess. 5) corn is a lazy bum and will not lift a finger unless her life is in danger. so although i’m strictly speaking not forbidding myself from letting her see combat (it will be inevitable in conquest anyway, ch 15 anybody?), i am going to avoid it as much as possible. 6) DLC classes and skills are off the table entirely. the only thing i can do with the Dragon Gate is get the free 10k gold and boots. 7) path bonuses (the stat boosters anyway), battle/visit rewards, and anything randomly found in the castle is fair game. 8) i can use lvl 3 mess halls in other castles until i upgrade my own, and i can buy heal/mend staves (rods in conquest). forging/buying weapons/seals is verboten. 9) (in br/rv) if i feel like my team is falling behind on levels, i can play the challenges that spawned on their own, but i can’t buy them myself. 10) i’ll play invasions 1 and 2 on all routes. 11) i will not be playing any of the paralogues except mozu’s.

now that that’s out of the way... we’ve got some mouths to feed:

oh boy what a massive boost. truly i should ban myself from using mess halls.

NOW THE CHAPTER

this is a fairly easy map for training a bunch of underlevelled scrubs. there is a bit of a time pressure (silas and his merry band start moving on turn 10 enemy phase, and a thief escapes with the armourslayer somewhere on... um... turn 14 i think), but it’s not a huge factor even with this ragtag team, let alone when you’re using normal units.

let’s meet the team:

my avatar. we will probably not be seeing a whole lot of her.

althaea. she is now level 2 because i played 2 challenge maps beforehand. she’s also one of the lucky dudes with Aptitude. it didn’t come from my avatar, so i ain’t getting rid of it. i don’t give a shit get ready for me calling her rose occasionally, because she looks exactly like my favourite avatar build. (people who have visited me might have run into rose there, she was up for a while before getting replaced with my children only br file)

ayu. another lvl 2 unit. Quick Draw! also seems like an awesome general in the making if only for Draconic Hex making it easy for others to pick up her scraps. Vantage doesn’t hurt either.

george. more Vantage. he also ended up getting the very same class that gives his personal skill, so he only has 2 regular slots filled now. 1 luck :(

those three were all “born” in my game.

basile. since he’s a healer, expect him to be deployed pretty much always. i don’t have any other healers lol (poor guy getting skills that are completely incompatible with what he’s going to be doing)

kiku. 7 attack..... oh wait, she has Quick Draw, never mind. ahem. she’s here because Locktouch. and it’s easier to train a ninja here than another unit with Locktouch that i have lying around.

basile and kiku are both gifts from reddit user eclogia, who was incredibly kind and extracted TWELVE units for me! you’ll be seeing more of them later.

kamui will be glued to kiku for this entire map. even if i could use her with no limitations she’d be a supportbot, actually, because you know, she’s actually at a decent level and these shmucks are all lvl 1...

pulling over the outlaw because we like to live on the edge, yeehaw (seraph robe get)

hana, since she’s here, will be helping althaea with doubling... not that this changed much, she still couldn’t double anything but knights. everybody who isn’t kiku shuffles over to that convenient choke point at the entrance to the corridor, because we’ve got incoming

yay for missing during your very first combat experience, kiku :/

well, whatever. i move her closer to the rest of the team. she’s still going to be wrestling with this outlaw until he dies, dammit

okay now they’re incoming. brace yourselves everybody

well. it wasn’t that bad. granted, althaea still sucks - this is all she can do after seal res (but then again i doubt this guy had much res to begin with, he is a fighter)

:/ these matchups are too even for my liking but i guess i just have to get used to it. george risks the 72% hit and it connects, netting him the following:

yay for skill and luck (..i can’t believe i’m saying this)

don’t you just hate it when you’re THIS close? i guess i should be grateful she managed to hit him at all... these odds aren’t so bad but is it just me or do enemy outlaws/ninja/samurai conveniently manage to dodge >70% hits waaaay too often in this game?

i’m beginning to think we’re not going to have much trouble after all. the lancers do 1 damage to george, and the outlaw doesn’t do any (not that i could tell this turn, because he decided to go after althaea for some reason. i thought enemy ai prioritises targets who can’t counterattack? or does being able to deal any damage at all come before that? althaea is fine, she Dodged you guys)

but they’re still doing very badly in the damage dealing department. (went for weakening the outlaw instead of ko’ing the lancer bc the latter would suicide on enemy phase anyway and ooo 1 damage, so scary)

and here we witness the beginning of a long and fruitful relationship...

taking risks again with george’s hit rates. he connected. i’m okay with althaea being exposed bc dual guard and whatnot and she wouldn’t die anyway. these guys are a joke.

i approve.

...take your time...

i’ll take this.

ah the happy earlygame days of not being able to orko a knight. but that’s enough exp for a level up anyway:

i’m still not comfortable being so close in stats with the enemy units .-.

hoo fucking ray.

silly me expecting str/spd over here! (or res. why is her res so low. she’s a ninja.)

everybody else is stuck unwinding this giant traffic jam. i was worried that rose althaea wouldn’t finish this guy off on enemy phase because outlaws tend to have good res, but:

hehe, seal res coming in useful for once.

i’m conflicted because on the one hand, skill and speed, on the other hand, we need more than that now, george! do you want to live through this or not?

still dealing with the traffic jam, very slowly because everybody’s damage output is still super crappy.

what do you need str for, rose althaea? but thanks for everything else.

ayu crawls out of george’s pocket to join in on the growths party:

but then next turn i took a look at, well, what turn exactly it was,

and oops time’s up here come the horses. i’m already saying my goodbyes to the armourslayer.

while the cavalry is on its way, the team frantically engages in an attempt to get rid of this roadblock. (damn, ayu hits like a truck. god bless Quick Draw)

more healing levels.

now the way is clear.

hooray for str.

i forgot about this thing, lol. getting it out now because i was a bit afraid that ayu might be in some danger... she may be a knight but i don’t trust silas’ horsy friends.

...but silas decides to attack kiku instead. i know she’s the most vulnerable, you were right there but,

getting your javelin out when you couldn’t even ohko was not your brightest moment. now ayu can double you and she has 5 spd. who let you be a commander, silas?

you’re the one who decided to be a dumbass, don’t look at me.

:/

ayu is shoved downwards to pull over an outlaw.

(rip in peace, armourslayer. i have another one from the battle rewards so i’m not exactly mourning here, but i hate missing out on free items :/)

well, life goes on anyway.

this guy will pay for the sins of his thieving clone instead.

...this is sad.

anyway, i left kiku kind of completely in the open for that, so i had to flank her:

and then everybody did cleanup.

fin!

overall? aside from the loss of the armourslayer/1k i’m pretty satisfied; training these jerkoffs doesn’t seem as bad now that i’ve seen them in action. yeah, they’re uncomfortably similar to the enemy in terms of stats, but they have some good skills on their side, and pair-up and all that junk. so i’m no longer worried for birthright at least.

next time i’ll be bringing an entirely different squad of scrubs for a fun romp in mozu’s destroyed village. i don’t know if it’s possible to complete her paralogue while letting her die as an npc, bc if it is then you bet your sweet bippy i will be sacrificing her for the good of the community. see ya

[blahblahemblem]

BR kids only lunatic endgame stats & final thoughts

before i get to the stats, let me complain about chapter 25. it was THE WORST. those endless reinforcements? who thought that was a good idea? i had to stuff shigure and asugi full of tonics and send them to deal with the endless cavalry waves around the starting area just to get everybody else going elsewhere... but then again this did also make them level so much they pretty much carried the rest of the team through endgame, as you’ll see later.

but first, the stats! i’ll go from worst units to best units. note that most of them have chugged loads of tonics and a skl/def/res +2 meal, this was the endgame battle prep menu i was screenshotting

here’s my ‘absolute fucking crap’ tier:

:) he has 16 spd. he was just so completely fucking useless in the last chapters - see how low in level he is? - i couldn’t get him to do anything with his ballista, which was kind of the whole point of the class! but really, he got one-shot or two-shot and doubled by everything towards the end. this was pretty much my first experience with long-term usage of the ballistician class, and you can guess this didn’t endear it to me at all :/ why do people put takumi in it? do you hate having good units on your team or something? thanks for being a nice enough supportbot for dwyer towards the end though i guess, aether

nobody else was this bad, lol. so, uh, d tier? this is ‘units i probably shouldn’t have stuck in this class’ tier kind of. or ‘situationally useful but overall least likely to contribute’

im sorry :( i genuinely love hisame (probably because i’m biased since he was my kid when i first played fates back in march, lol), so this is hurtful to see, but he was just. so. mediocre. he did contribute things here and there like increasing kiragi’s movement range and worked well enough in the early game (killed xander for me in ch 12!) but he got way too many crappy levels later and just. fell off. it doesn’t help that kinshi knight is kind of a shitty class outside of the whole highly mobile archer thing, which didn’t work out too well for him either because as i said in the previous recap, he’s gotta actually kill things for this to work, and he couldn’t.

lol. of course. idk what i expected trying to make her a physical unit... or expecting anything out of her really when her hit rates are always complete and utter garbage. but hey, that bolt naginata made her very useful when the situation called for it. and she gave nice enough support bonuses to her gf caeldori. so there’s that.

so... c tier! or disappointment islands as i like to call it

i feel so bad because kana is so cute but. she was my biggest disappointment by far :( so many things she failed to orko.... so many. maybe i shouldn’t have tried to make her, with her parentage and all, a physical-only unit when she was pretty much born to be in a mixed class (literally! nohr princess) with sakura and saizo as her grandparents. maybe i should have promoted her to basara instead of spear master. i only had one other magic user anyway (not counting the bolt naginata rhajat). too late now. but those triple seals did come in handy sometimes.

so caeldori was marginally better than her brother, because of a class with better weapons (well not better, but weapons i needed more, she was my primary axe user for a good while), good offence and okay defence (...not counting resistance. oh god how many times did she get ko’d by some asshole sorcerer). darting blow also made her double a lot of things despite having pretty low speed. but overall she was kind of outclassed as an axe user by shiro (losing in mobility, and speed, and strength... you get the picture), and her sword rank didn’t really go anywhere.

sigh... i had high hopes for her but in the end she was just kind of. there... to be a supportbot for her sister or cousins... armoured blow really helped me out here and there, but overall she was waaaaay too easy to kill for a cavalier. so she didn’t really get any enemy phase action, which is what i /wanted/ her to have really. and nowhere near the good weapon ranks :(

b tier! or ‘people who have surprised me’

41 RES MOTHAFUCKAS anyway, selkie kind of looked like she’d be awful when i first put her in shrine maiden... and she proved me totally wrong! as a healer she was way outclassed by asugi (and in some situations even kiragi despite his shitty mag, because he can fly and selkie can’t), but that didn’t mean she wasn’t super fucking useful as one, and she got to have some fun with bows slaying annoying maids and so on. or sorcerers/strategists, with the dual yumi. so hooray for selkie for turning out a lot better than anticipated

so really she’d be in a tier if i could forge beaststones. because she wouldn’t /always/ orko even with beastbane taken into account.... but never mind, she proc’d luna or rend heaven very often anyway. so... low might and no ranged combat, that’s what prevented her from being better... but that’s not really any fault of mitama’s, of course, that’s just how this class works. whatever

sophie hasn’t surprised me, but she’s here for being so immensely fucking useful in early game. she fell off pretty hard after being promoted though, and hadn’t really recovered. her offence is good, but she’s just so tissue paper against anything with a str stat that she never quite made any major contributions after somewhere around midgame.

a tier!

so uh, if not for quick draw/death blow his offence would be laughable, but he did have both of those so. for flier utility (in particular for being a drop-in healer) and consequently huge mov (gave him the boots at some point too), he’s here. verrrry bad durability though... but not as bad as sophie’s.

oh boy, both of my fliers made it to a tier what a surprise. but seriously look at this guy’s str/def too bad i couldn’t really get him to see lots of enemy phase action because there was usually either an archer or a sorcerer just waiting to ruin my day :/

dwyer was kind of. meh for most of the game, but he shoots all the way up to a tier thanks to how fucking useful he ended up being in the endgame. he got shurikenfaire like two seconds in, and then went to town pretty much. dodged FOUR hits from three generals (entrap strategist got lucky) and killed two of them despite not even having the sting shuriken equipped. murdered the hell out of all of the fucking dark knights in that area. and took part in some 3-range shenanigans (more on that later). so there! unexpected comeback out of the left field.

s tier!

he’s my only magic user and he was GOOD at it really he deserves the tier just for that. and for making ch 25 possible, and wrecking a lot of face on endgame as well. and enabling my endgame strategy (you’ll see)

wait, but he’s alone in this tier! what happened there, aren’t we missing someone? yeah, that’s because there IS one more tier, and it’s reserved for the GOD OF HYPERDEATH

ladies and gentlemen, if you’re ever over there going hmmmm i want to use shigure, but who should be his dad? the answer is takumi. don’t even think about it. just lock him and azura up in a deeprealm and bam instant killer baby. (kiragi is a nice bonus.) i don’t even know what to say about shigure. he was my crutch starting from somewhere around midgame onwards. if i was ever in trouble, i threw shigure at that shit and it all resolved itself in a matter of seconds. best application of point blank EVER. i didn’t even have to worry for him. he has never failed me.

but enough of this shit, here’s some of what happened in ch 27/endgame

firstly, the aforementioned 3-range shenanigans. garon has these three annoyances around him, but spy’s yumi/shuriken easily take care of them without anybody having to step in garon’s range. i forgot to take a picture, but obviously dwyer also got in on that action, since he was the one with the a rank in shuriken.

secondly... you know how penultimate/final bosses usually have something that prevents you from inflicting status effects on them? well, garon done goofed and forgot to bring his Immune Status skill...

STRATEGERY

(asugi actually missed this one but i had 5 more uses of these babies overall and he hit on the next one anyway)

oh boy so we’re not actually quite there to ohko’ing huh. well that’s okay, shigure, you can take it easy, your mother is close by for a dance so-

OH WHO AM I KIDDING HIS FATHER IS TAKUMI. EAT THE 10% CRIT BITCH

ENDGAME TIME

garon, did you not learn anything from last time?

aw fuck. why didn’t i give him an energy drop before this, i had like two more. well, worry not, kiragi is nearby with a rescue staff to get azura up in here-

Shigure: Oh, so I wasn’t supposed to trigger Dragon Fang? My bad.

and so he gets that last level... bad, yes, but who cares. the only one of my units to hit 20/20! woo!

so that is the end of garon and the birthright route, and everybody lived happily ever after and we will pretend shigure did not just become a war hero just to watch his mother die immediately. see ya

[blahblahemblem]

RV royals only lunatic ch 11

we’re here meeting up with kotaro again and to be honest there’s only one thing i want to say to him and his asshole squad

DIE ALREADY

(previous post)

so um, let’s go have a snack.

oh god that sounds disgusting. and it doesn’t even give any extra bonuses bc lala standard flair. thanks silas. i thought we were best friends

welcome to the jungle! so i forgot to take a picture of the title card like i normally do. and just when i actually wanted to talk about the title! what the hell does ‘mutual enemies’ mean? of course we’re enemies with kotaro and the feeling is mutual, he’s a fucking dick! or is this supposed to be like a ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’ thing because we’re recruiting saizo here? then i must be really misunderstanding what ‘mutual’ means. whatever

so yeah. this is where we are. reusing the BR ch 10 map. fighting kotaro again because RV is absolutely determined to go through all of the repeatable enemy fights until we get to valla.

here are the stats on my merry little band:

i ruined takumi guys. well too fucking bad, i’m doing some adventurous reclassings here, y’all haven’t even seen the worst of it.

speaking of takumi, i was originally going to do something else before this chapter, but he managed to land a str/def talk bonus (which give +4 to the stats affected!) so we’re here now.

the three non-royals are here to be our trusty supportbots as usual.

first things first, takumi shows off the flier utility that he sacrificed his fujin yumi and good stats for to maneuvre his way to this archer and lock his samurai buddy in.

re the weapon name: i will never, ever get tired of making ace attorney jokes with takumi. don’t have the same va as phoenix wright next time bro

azura places herself in range of two more ninja for a fun enemy phase decimation, and takes this one out.

re the weapon again: so i was playing bravely default the day i forged her shuriken, and yeah. rusalka is the monster you have to defeat before you can awaken the water crystal, and it’s all made of water. also happens to be the russian word for mermaid, so i can’t actually take this name very seriously at all

of course that 27% hit connected, this isn’t awakening or anything, we’ve come a long way from that disgustingly easy game i could have avoided this terrible amount of damage if i’d used the dual katana here, but i didn’t want to expose aether to the onichan at wtd.

sakura replicates herself. i was going to have her heal azura if things got hairy (don’t want to expose her to anything after a debuff unless at full hp) but azura dodges like a champ so we’re good.

clone sakuras get to work. see, that onichan hurts like a motherfucker even at wta. of course, if aether dodged we wouldn’t be having this, but what is dodging anyway. whatever, free exp.

aether recruits saizo before reina gets herself killed. while we’re here, a question: why can’t kaze recruit him? that would actually be more logical yanno? who do you think saizo would be more likely to listen to, his twin brother or some dickbag who just fell out of nohr?

....takumi’s making his way to the other samurai.

azura parks herself in the forest tile, which also happens to be the only place nearby where both ninja can get to her but neither the onichan nor the archer can. TACTICS

clone sakura siphons some exp out of azura after her run-in with the spikes before (note that she hasn’t actually been hit by anything else yet)

the archer helpfully ran over to attempt a useless dual strike, so azura can easily destroy him while also standing in range of the onichan to draw him over on enemy phase.

takumi doubles samurai y’all. Darting Blow is probably the best lvl 1 skill in the game.

real sakura doesn’t really have anything else to do, so might as well do this. even though they’ll just come back up again. aether’s about to make contact with out first master ninja! got his wee levin sword ready and everything.

making friends with the onichan made azura level up:

oh boy is that defence i see! double digits! azura’s a big girl now now if only her husband would do me the same favour :/

oh no, the levin sword couldn’t do shit because aether has 2 point of mag, whatever shall i do. eat the Draconic Hex debuffs motherfucker

this friend has run over to play with us because of course he did, but takumi doesn’t give a shit, he’s got Darting Blow. got debuffed on the counter but eh, such is life...

engaging in some risky business here by switching weapon types (no, really, i’m not even being sarcastic, unless i see a 100% hit i’m not going to trust it, i’ve learned this the painful way), but i’d really like to befriend another master ninja and i don’t want azura to just stand there and eat a hit without retaliating.

mmmm there’s that debuff showing. but he’s not in range of anything anyway so who cares.

:’) i love dual weapons. get dunked on

yay, azura connected both hits on retaliation as well as this one! he got her to lose some hp from Poison Strike, but he didn’t actually hit her (dual guard!) so she’s still not debuffed.

the sakuras get to work and this is their reward:

now that’s what i call a level up

when you’re debuffed and have 8 base def everything really hurts doesn’t it :/

yay for speed but um. i’d love to see some strength here. i know i made your growth in it drop to 45% but come on, that’s still decent enough :(

i haven’t mentioned saizo at all since i recruited him but here he is, contributing to society. i don’t need a master seal right now but takumi and sakura will want those soon enough i’m sure.

azura has long since killed the lone mage remaining on that side and is now trecking back. there’s no real reason to do it, she’s not going to reunite with the group on time to do anything, but eh.

i could have entered the master ninja’s range this turn, but i decided instead to heal up a bit and wait it out for a setup.

namely, getting rid of the possibility of anybody getting healed by this annoying little pest. takumi, master of exact damage

time to debuff some fools.

he he he.

i would have loved to give this one to takumi as well, but i don’t really want him dawdling around here, so whatever, have at him, aether. i want that sweet Charm skill anyway

and my wish was granted! here comes Charm and, uh, a level up. well i suppose if you’re only going to improve two stats it might as well be str and spd ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

another quiet turn while i set things up for what comes next...

this guy goes down in history as one of takumi’s wonderful low percentage crits and as this chapter’s cover picture, yay for him and his modelling career

aether eviscerates a defenceless young woman...

so that he can have free access to kotaro for some debuffing shenanigans! he doesn’t double him and doesn’t do a super great amount of damage at wtd, which is kind of what i want here. i just need kotaro to lose some health, not to die immediately. he does not deserve a quick death for making us all suffer through conquest ch 17

sakura squeezes in some last turn healing.

kotaro is still not quite at the low point i want him to be, so aether chips at him a bit more.

a bye bye.

i see how it is, it’s either spd OR str with you. but this is a good level otherwise so i won’t be mad at you this time.

ta da, a turn count below 20. don’t get used to it

now for my favourite subsection which has been missing from this playthrough so far, supports what matter:

S Azura/Takumi B Aether/Azura, Azura/Sakura C Aether/Sakura, Sakura/Takumi

next chapter will be a surprise!

[blahblahemblem]

RV royals only lunatic ch 10

let us begin! ..even though i really don’t want to.

first things first. the meal:

too bad none of my whopping three team members are in a nohrian class so they could get saucy off of niles’ food. thanks for nothing

i also fed a def tonic to azura and mag/def/res tonics to aether (his res is very shitty but there are some mages that he’ll have to face. mag for levin swording around.)

we have dealt with the obligatory fort jinya chapter, the obligatory fuga chapter, now it’s time for the obligatory let’s-visit-izana-o-shit-it’s-actually-zola chapter. except it doesn’t reuse the BR ch 9/CQ ch 18 map, oh no! we have a NEW map! exciting! not. it’s the second of the three failed attempts at fog of war that RV offers. this time, we have to break ice in order to get anywhere! this would slow the team down even if we were just trying to quickly get to the seize spot... but we’re also trying to get the treasure this map has to offer, because all of the hidden enemies in the ice drop something. i could actually live without a lot of that shit (iron weapons, e-d rank healing staves etc), but i do want the stat boosters and Unfortunately it’s rather impossible to get to those without wading through tons of useless crap. they’re also all over the place. and i only have two combat-eligible units. Fun in this run, i made an attempt to be as swift as possible while still getting all the stat boosters, the mjolnir tome, the javelin, hand axe, heart seal, and 5k gold. it. doesnt go too well.

here we are in the drive thru line. gunter and rinkah are still with us for their helpful pair-up bonuses. i considered replacing gunter with hayato, for better levin swording, but hayato’s +3 mag are essentially the same as gunter’s +3 damage (from his personal skill), and hayato offers fuck all in other stats, so gunter prevailed. experience trumps youth or whatever it is he says

rinkah is also carrying some of azura’s items for her, like an angry mini-convoy.

i think the reason these two images dont line up in my brain is because theyre from two different attempts, but the point is the same. azura and aether break some ice but not any patches that would uncover enemies. or. aether breaks the ice to uncover a cavalier carrying a mend staff and azura kills him and i forgot to take a picture of that for some reason. these are the two theories. sakura replicates herself because from now on they will be going in different directions and a healer is needed in both places. also please note: i seriously don’t know how to even approach writing this chapter thanks to how repetitive and slow and boring it is, so this will pretty much be an account of which items i picked up.

this cavalier drops an elixir.

pretty obvious what this guy drops, lol.

in the meantime, aether uncovers those two. they have mmmm i think it’s a bloom festal on the fighter and a concoction on the merc. possibly an energy drop on the merc. i can’t tell.

we ignore this patch of ice because all that’s in there is a waste of a turn merc with a vulnerary :/ so azura soldiers on right past it.

so if the previous merc had a concoction, this is the one with the energy drop. or vice versa. im sorry my memory is bad and my notes on this are unclear :(

more things in this corner: a talisman, a goddess icon (at least i think it is), and a dracoshield, in that order.

that knight had an iron lance. the second picture has to depict azura breaking the ice rather than what’s under the ice, because she was the last to move that turn and there’s a knight that she would have annihilated (sting shuriken, everybody) by the time i could take a picture safely again. that knight is important enough to deviate from our path, because he has a speedwing. he also has a level up for azura:

you’ll level mag which is completely unnecessary but not luck which you need to help you not die. i see how it is

this guy had a spirit dust.

here’s sakura running away to the very edge of the map to escape this fighter’s hand axe. i imagine that’s what he dropped as well, but that’s not necessarily the case. but let’s put him down for hand axe anyway.

and this mercenary dropped an iron sword, which i then delivered unto azura(’s personal mini-convoy) via the magical inventory connection that replicas have for. no reason really. i don’t think she actually ended up using it, but just in case?

i’d really like to know what the hell happened here!! my guess is, judging by the fact that aether’s hp bar seems to have lost a couple of points, that there was an enemy unit in there that i didn’t get a chance to screenshot properly since the enemy phase started and i couldn’t yanno make them pause, and so ntr didn’t make it in time. hence we get to see the attack range of that unit but. not the unit themselves. because they already died. and i don’t know what the hell they had. i suppose that could have been the iron shuriken fighter. maybe. god i dont know why didn’t i make better notes

hey look, it’s fucking nothing! yay

that’s a seraph robe for me, thank you, nameless mercenary...

now this! is not nothing. these people have. actually i can’t tell. i think the mercenary has a concoction, and the knight has another iron lance, and one of the cavaliers has an arms scroll. the other one might just have a vulnerary?

yeah i’m inclined to say this guy had a vulnerary because there was a reason i went for him first. i didn’t want him to heal himself and waste more of my time than necessary.

azura engages in a two-turn discovery mission and then a two-turn fight to get her hands on a heart seal.

....don’t even ask me what he has. maybe that’s the iron shuriken dude and the mystery guy before was a merc with an iron bow. MAYBE

this looks dangerous, and it is, because aether’s res is completely awful and he’s taken to below half hp from a single thunder hit (no, really). and one of those two mages has a mjolnir! it’s droppable. the other mage carries a sun festal, and the cavalier has 5k in cash.

luckily, the mjolnir dude doesn’t crit, the cav does very little damage, and the thunder mage is dual guarded, so aether is safe. he gets rid of mjolnir’s dangerous crit rate first, and then is once again saved from a ko by thunder to the face because of a second dual guard. how lovely and convenient that the ai would always go for what they perceive as a guaranteed ko first! thank fuck they can’t see the player units’ shield gauges.

azura has to backtrack a bit and break this patch of ice which contains nothing, because sakura needs someplace to run...

because we’re entering the Cavalier Zone, featuring mr Heal and mr Elixir.

sakura’s replica heals aether for a level up:

now that’s what i’m talking about!

azura excavates two more cavaliers, one with a secret book and another with a javelin. unfortunately the second cav has to hit sakura, but what can you do. she’s a big girl, she can eat one hit no problem.

meanwhile aether once again puts himself in mortal danger by unleashing two thunder mages on himself. he lives because gunter is good at dual guarding. anyway, the squad surrounding zola doesn’t drop anything.

speaking of zola, this would have been genuinely intimidating (i do not trust fates’ rng at all, a 38% hit rate on an enemy is something i would put down as ‘very likely’), buuuut lol dual guard. if you’re wondering “but how come he kept the dual guard gauge, it should have been wasted on that other thunder mage” remember that aether learned Vantage last chapter and he was below half hp!

yay for defence!

we can’t seize yet this turn, so azura gets to kill one last cavalier:

now we can seize.

yeah i was aiming for 20 turns actually, so i’m a little disappointed, but whatever. there were moments where i could have gone faster with azura i suppose if i didn’t choose to put sakura in stupid places, but seeing as i genuinely don’t know how i could have made aether go faster without giving up on some items, that’s kind of irrelevant... whatever, i’m just happy it’s under 25.

completing this chapter also nets us another team member! yay for takumi, i’m so glad he’s finally fucking here! azura is as well:

(anybody who has known me for more than a couple days would see this coming lol)

yup im doing some weird reclassing shenanigans in this run, because what’s life without some adventure in it, am i right ladies so yeah, as a wedding gift for my favourite character, i’m taking away his ability to use his most prized possession. aren’t you so happy you’re married now, eh takumi?

but this chapter is not over yet! remember when i said i was going to use mozu’s paralogue as training grounds for a specific unit later?

i was talking about takumi and building his lance rank.

you can’t really see her in the bushes very well, but that’s oboro i brought along.

the reason is, with her str/spd pair-up bonuses, takumi can orko these bastards. otherwise he’s a little bit short on both str and spd :/

azura is attending as well to help aether carve the path to mozu, and to work on her axe/sword ranks.

anyway, takumi’s lvl 11 is way too high to get much exp off of the regular faceless, but the boss took so fucking long (because takumi couldn’t double... tragic...) that i actually managed to scrap together two whole (good!) levels for sakura:

and a fucking awful one for takumi:

he didn’t even get to d lances :/ i accidentally gave azura a couple more kills than intended, so i had to say screw it and have takumi poke some unequipped people in my castle battles.

at the rate you’re going currently sweetiepie? no they’re not

[blahblahemblem]

Bond Units Needed (EU)

hi! i’m trying to collect bond units for a thing (i want to try doing bond unit-only runs on all 3 routes) and i need rather a lot of them - 42 for 3 teams of 14 - but it’s going very slowly and i only have 11 right now. i’d really appreciate some help.

all i’m asking for is to visit my castle once and gift me an accessory. you don’t need to do this more than once. the rest will be in my hands.

my castle code is 14939-31182-09642-05870.

thank you very much in advance!!

ps if any of you happen to be able to use FEFTwiddler, and have some bond units lying around that you can extract for me, i would be eternally grateful

eta FORGOT to add i’m playing on the EU servers! stupid regionlock :(

[blahblahemblem]

RV royals only lunatic ch 9

spoiler alert: fuga gets screwed...... see, it’s funny because this is screenshot number 69, no really:

....anyway.

before starting, i do my usual pre-chapter prep which is to visit a castle with a level 3 mess hall. im lucky enough to run into flora, who cooks me this meal:

delicious is the second-best flair in the game, preceded only by exquisite! so i really did luck out here. even the random mag+1 is helpful, because as you can see in the header image, aether will be using the levin sword a lot, and his own raw mag isn’t so hot.

here’s another chapter i hate! you ask me, haven’t you been saying this about all the chapters so far? yeah, i really don’t like most of the chapters in revelation. they’re BORING and unnecessarily long! and if you try to rush it, you’ll get killed, because the enemy stats are padded out in stupid ways, especially on this difficulty. bleh

this chapter uses the same map as that of conquest chapter 20, and the same gimmick - the winds that move your units up and down the map at the start of every turn. but it’s a lot more fun to play on conquest, because the enemies are positioned in ways that are more. strategic. and they have skills. and you have a bigger, more diverse team of units at your disposal, so you can do many different things. here, though, there’s not that much i can do with my gigantic team of three!

well, okay, it’s actually seven with all the helpers, but they don’t count, they’re not combat units.

sakura is the third permanent team member. for now, of course, she’s only a healer. she has Replicate, because i like to have that on my healers, but she never uses it on this map: it’s not necessary since the party never splits up for long, and i didn’t want to have to hide not one but two defenseless healers from the wind currents.

rinkah crashes the party uninvited, but she’s not unwelcome here (mmmm +4 str). her appearance means gunter is now free to be paired up with aether instead - both he and azura are at c support with gunter (thanks to the expanded support hack, which unlocks gunter’s supports on revelation and of course gives him several new support lines, including a c-a one with azura), but obviously aether benefits more from this partnership thanks to gunter’s personal skill which only works for the avatar. (it gives them +3 to damage dealt and +15 hit.)

kaze is attending this ride because i need someone to open the chests, and subaki is playing ninja delivery service.

first things first. we are completely ignoring the right-hand side and going left instead. azura provokes the ninja while everybody else stays back until next turn.

azura is not quite there to ohko’ing with shuriken yet, so aether has to step in.

azura injures the onichan on player phase and ko’s him on enemy phase.

another ninja rushes us, and aether has to step in again, because azura can’t ohko and we can’t advance because of him blocking our way.

azura needs some help before she can get rid of the spear fighter as well.

however, i messed up with positioning here. azura occupied the only spot that sakura could have moved onto to avoid getting blown away... so she had to heal from here and brace herself for impact.

fortunately, the situation is easily resolved and sakura is safe.

azura is still not ready for orko’ing anything... she is only up for 3hkos. this one is performed with a sword instead of her brass club because a samurai is coming on enemy phase - you can’t see him, but he’s there - and they’re already evasive enough without wta. azura can’t double him, but the one hit gives enough exp for her to level up:

finally some defense in this barren wasteland...

and then she deals with the samurai once and for all, her hair magnificently clipping in every direction.

meanwhile, aether had to step back a bit to deal with an onichan that was chasing us from the right side. as is this chapter’s theme, no one can orko, so he misses that window by 1 point of damage. sigh

next turn, wind shenanigans occur again and the team gets scattered.

aether and azura make valiant attempts at dishing out some damage, falling short of orko’ing as always. oh and aether actually missed both of those 89% hits; i Love fates’ rng it’s such an rng

i was worried a bit for azura’s safety here, so i had subaki distract people for the enemy phase. he survives the nameless diviner, samurai, and hayato with no effort but at very low hp. (he even managed to pull off a crit on the samurai, not that it made much of a difference). azura’s safety was in absolutely no danger, however; the ninja preferred to attack aether instead, probably because aether didn’t orko while azura did, and the archer just gave up and started heading... somewhere, i assume upwards to the two shrine maidens on fuga’s platform.

aether has been blown away, so it’s up to azura to finish what he started. aether himself gets out the dual katana again and starts the journey back up through this spear fighter’s territory.

and subaki gets the hell out of there to where he can be healed. 

on enemy phase, the archer suddenly decided he doesn’t want to go right after all, he would much rather go left. i assume he wanted to grab a vulnerary; there were a couple droppable ones on that side of the map. anyway, azura puts him out of his misery.

aether stands in a spot convenient for hitching a free ride upwards, and also convenient for some healing. sakura levels up:

back in the fray, aether finally gets to that one samurai subaki accidentally critted. he’s back at full health thanks to eating two of the droppable vulnerary’s uses, but... not for long.

azura was blown upwards into the onichan hell. but she’s a big girl now, she’ll be okay. i leave subaki adjacent to her for the extra hit bonuses and sakura directly underneath him for her personal skill.

aether runs away because im fucking tired of the orange currents. levin sword for countering the archer.

azura finishes off the onichans, one on player phase and another on enemy phase. subaki progresses towards the right-side chest, finally. azura levels up:

you know, on so many other people i would pray for str/spd, that’s the best stats to have (if you’re a physical unit obviously) but for azura i’d prefer something more mundane even, like some luck! please! i’m not even trying to ask for hp/def here, i’ve given up on that long ago.

so close and yet so far :(

azura’s been blown back, so now she has some more people to deal with, with the help of aether (who cannot for the life of him orko anything with the levin sword, evidently that’s just not happening, ever).

last turn’s fun carnival ride was an ‘entire map in yellow wind’ one, so azura is back on this ledge summoning a spear fighter. aether joins her while sakura runs the hell away from the stupid fucking orange wind. kaze gets me a physic staff.

some fighting happens and aether reaches one of the two remaining chests to free the 10k gold there with a chest key. (i Think it’s 10k. it might have been 20.) subaki starts the long trek towards the last chest.

azura fights a samurai. we’re very close to the last stretch and yet also very far because the winds are going to intercept my team’s advancing for about ten more turns.

dual katana get! finally. now i can ignore kaze and subaki’s further misadventures. they don’t do anything else anyway. from this point on, i have nothing to say about the rest of the desperate climb to fuga’s throne anymore. it’s just the same thing over and over again: you kill something, you get blown downwards and you have to walk up again and by then some stupid reinforcements would show up and you’ll end up being delayed by them as well, blah blah... you get it. just look at the pictures and leave me alone, please:

and Finally, we are at fuga’s place. you can get acquianted with his stats now, since i happen to have a screenshot:

not too frightening at all, actually. the silliest thing is probably that he doesn’t have any ranged weapons at all, so killing him is just a matter of chucking levin hits/shuriken at him.... except he’s an asshole so the hit rates look a little something like this:

that’s after Draconic Hex somehow! in fact im wondering why he doesn’t have the red arrow indicating stat deductions, because aether has definitely interacted with him before and it hasn’t been four turns since then? oh dear. anyway, as the header indicates, aether does eventually get rid of him, gaining a very good level and learning Vantage:

before we go, azura works on her axe rank just for a little bit longer and sakura heals her for another level:

which is the exact same one as before except with str now too :/ how bout some skill, baby girl?

anyway, after that i can finally seize.

see? still incredibly fucking long and so boring i couldn’t even bring myself to describe everything that happened towards the end. and yet i don’t think i dawdled around at any point; i had to pause in many places thanks to the stupid motherfucking winds which would have only lost me turns rather than gained them. so thanks for that excellent chapter design, intsys. most fun i’ve had in years.

well, whatever. now that aether has learned both samurai skills, and hit b swords, i decide that i’d rather see him continue working on that sword rank and just pop back into swordmaster for astra and swordfaire later on. so he busts out the hero’s brand:

and that’s all for now folks. next chapter... yet another fucking 20+ turns slugfest, hoo boy! i’m just. so excited to write it. so excited it will definitely take me another week to write even though i’ve had the screenshots since. a long time ago

[blahblahemblem]

RV royals only lunatic ch 8

i make my own fate.

first things first, the promised reclassing to samurai:

and then we’re off.

this chapter is... still very tedious. it’s a little bit less so if you’re training a unit like mozu - well, it’s still not exciting but theres some kind of feeling of constant payoff. but mozu is not attending this thrilling ride. in fact i won’t be playing her paralogue until much later, and only for WEXP gaining purposes for one particular unit... poor mozu.

this took 23 turns. so much for what i said last time about not taking so long. i could have shaved a Huge amount of time if i’d just not bothered with the chests, but i’m a completionist and even though i don’t really need the items my hands twitch and prevent me from abandoning them.

im deploying gunter, and actually thats something you might as well get used to. gunter will be riding around in people’s pockets for that juicy +4 or more def for... well, quite a few more chapters. the party is going to be very empty for a long time, so i might as well fill it out with supportbots.

first order of business: azura equips her club and stand in range of both of the sky knights. she won’t be ko-ing either of them, but that’s not what’s important.

aether provokes the onichan.

azura steps back and uses her shuriken to finish off one of the sky knights. i realise now i could have continued working on her axe rank here instead by simply stepping back and selecting wait - the whole reason why she needed to step back was to protect felicia, if that wasn’t on the table i’d just have her attack with the club again. but what’s done is done.

lunatic RV enemies have rather absurd stats (nothing on lunatic awakening though), so of course aether hasn’t managed to orko the onichan either, and took a big chunk of damage in the process (he’s quite frail, actually, and yato being a katana takes away an extra point of def/res). i kind of messed up here again in that i could have had him ko the onichan first, then have felicia tradechange his weapon to the dual katana before healing. 

azura counterkills a sky knight and levels up, learning Even Keel (-4 magical damage on even turns).

then finishes off a spear fighter. if he seems weak it’s because of aether’s Draconic Hex skill - i mentioned buying it at the end of the last post.

he takes advantage of that again to weaken the second spear fighter.

however as you can see here, instead of trying to attack anyone, he retreats to safety. this is because there’s a shrine maiden on the map, and she would have healed him through the wall... if an archer hadn’t been standing there. lucky for us. felicia gains her last level here:

i say last because felicia is not going to be deployed again in this playthrough. i gain sakura after this chapter and she’ll provide all the healing i need from then on.

azura puts the unfortunate spear fighter out of his misery.

on enemy phase, two samurai attack from different directions. azura can’t double, and aether can’t orko... so they both remain alive and one gets healed by the aforementioned shrine maiden.

azura chips at one, and aether finishes off the other, Hexed one, with her help.

then they team up on the first samurai, with azura putting herself in range of a ninja.

our dear friend the shrine maiden crawls out into the light to heal the ninja back up and is promptly squashed. i take immense satisfaction in killing off enemy staffbots because theyre all meddling assholes. at least the generic shrine maidens have a cute design; the priestesses drive me mad with their stupid smug faces, i mean:

god i just want to punch her so much. stop looking down on me

ANYWAY

azura then easily orkos the ninja and levels up:

still no sign of def :(

it’s around this time that another ninja shows up. he’s this map’s only ‘reinforcement’ and he’s come to loot the chest. a rather silly map design decision in my opinion; when an outlaw spawns on the same turn in the same place on the same map but in birthright, it makes sense and inconviniences the player, who by that point may still be quite a long way away deeper in the fortress, forcing them to hurry up. but here... the players’ team starts out in the same place, and due to its small size may still be lingering around when the ninja spawns, making it easy to wipe him out before he can get anywhere close to the chest. and its also entirely within the realm of possibility that the player has already opened the chest, since you know, its pretty close to the starting position. so it’s kind of beyond me why they didn’t instead have a thief spawn from one of the stair tiles within the fortress and have him go for the wyrmslayer chest instead. this would at the very least be some insightment to hurry up.

well, regardless, he’s here and we have to deal with him.

felicia takes one for the team so azura can cleanly orko.

elsewhere, aether activates the healtile with the levin sword equipped and aggros the chest key archer at the same time, finishing him off next turn.

azura advances further into the fortress.

killer lance get. we don’t need it but we have it now anyway.

aether heals up a bit before heading back...

psyche, he’s actually going to levin sword the hell out of these two archers. they can’t 2HKO even without Draconic Hex taken into account, so he’ll be fine on enemy phase.

azura is about to take on an onichan.

look at that. do you think this is acceptable, intsys? azura has 13 base str, 15 with the meal she’s eaten taken into account, and at least 2 more with gunter’s pairup. and yet all she can do is 6 damage per round. i know this is worse because of weapon triangle shenanigans (afaik the bonuses for an advantage get better the higher your weapon rank, and everybody on lunatic has those maxed), but still, this dude’s def is way too high! that’s just really poor balancing.

azura also can neither double nor ohko the samurai she’s pulled, and since felicia is kind of stuck with nowhere to run, i have her weaken him instead so that azura can get rid of him and save felicia. on enemy phase, the onichan finally dies as well, prompting a level up:

for anybody else i’d be excited about str & spd, but azura really doesn’t lack in this department; it’s her luck/def that are getting all kinds of screwed right now. you’re not kaze, girl! anyway, she also learns Iron Will (-4 magical damage on enemy phase).

aether moves on to archer number two.

after some healing, azura is ready to tackle the next ninja. i have her use the dragon vein since she can’t reach him anyway and eh, might as well.

now to aggro saizo and orochi... who are by far the weakest enemies on the map anyway and are easily slaughtered. if i remember correctly these are the same stats they show up with in chapter 11, when we recruit them... which again just goes to show how stupidly unbalanced revelation is. this is not as bad a case as with team elise (those poor poor souls), but it’s still annoying!

anyway, after a long trek through the fort the chest key gets traded to azura who goes to retrieve our new wyrmslayer.

and aether tackles on yukimura. or rather, parks himself in front of yukimura and waits.

note that he’s done quite a bit of damage there, a lot more than he should have (8x2 according to the combat forecast). it’s because of Dragon Fang activating.

after a dose of healing + the -4 damage from felicia’s personal skill & demoiselle, aether can safely attack again and finish the chapter. celebratory azura-style level-up:

and he learns Duelist’s Blow (+30 avoid on player phase).

next up, mr fuga’s wild ride (lite)!

[blahblahemblem]

BR kids only recap up to ch 22

i feel awkward calling these recaps when really i don’t talk so much about the gameplay as i do about unit performance, but oh well.

first of all, the avatar:

gained a total of 2 whopping points of def since last we saw him. maintains his role as a weakener (and part of that is of course due to Draconic Hex), but gets 2RKO’d by pretty much everything (and it doesn’t help that his spd is so low). also lags behind the party pretty much always thanks to the abysmal 4+1 mov ballistician imposes on people. i really don’t like this class y’all

azura is not featured here because she was retired shortly after the previous recap and didn’t get to level up much between then and now. her valuable contribution to the army now is being takumi’s support in the arena, finishing off whatever he doesn’t manage to OHKO. (yay life and death)

speaking of takumi and azura, the actual joint contribution of theirs that impacted the army the most is:

look at him. look at these stats. he was incredibly important to the army even before point blank, and after i caved and got point blank he became the absolute unquestionable mvp. i have no words to describe how good he is. when in a tough spot, throw shigure at it

since we’re already here, his brother

is not on the same level obviously... but a drop-in flying damage dealer is always good (take quick draw into account, and the death blow i purchased for him), not to mention that now that he’s finally at d staves, i have a semi-competent flying healer at the ready at all times. and of course theres Rally Speed... which he never gets around to using but if im ever in a pickle its always there for me to equip.

on the subject of pickles

i love hisame, but he’s a massive disappointment :( his stats are so mediocre all-around theres not so much he can contribute. having an easy drop-in bow user isn’t bad, but it doesn’t help much when that bow user can’t secure kills! sigh

hisame’s sister is doing better largely thanks to filling a niche. she’s a tough-to-kill wielder of two weapon types, one of which is scarce in this army. but she’s still not as good as i was hoping she would be :( not all that tanky and not all that strong, is she even hinata’s daughter at all

asugi is my best friend because he’s my only tome user and he’s pretty decent at it. the 80% mag growth seems legit; he’s only let me down once on this front out of the 8 levels he gained. but i wish he were more durable :(

more on the subject of mediocrity, kana who’s just sort of. there. but hey, double seals and Draconic Hex, so she worked very well as a live bait for the ch 21 stoneborn.

oh, rhajat. she has very disappointing stats in everything that isn’t spd... and yet still manages to contribute quite a lot thanks to her bolt naginata forge + lancefaire.... when she connects the hits anyway.

selkie seemed like a recipe for disappointment when i wrote the first recap but promotion has really sorted her problems out. now she’s a competent healer (not so much if i tried having her use status staves, but i suppose we’ll leave that to asugi) and can dish out damage in a pinch. also, look at that res stat! this will definitely ease the pain of future chapters (god, camilla and her ragnarok-infested army of assholes...), i just hope i can manage to get her to c bows for dual yumi/shining bow access by then. her accuracy is also kind of iffy.

well. she’s. a nine-tails. i don’t know, i wish she’d have more str because i can’t forge weapons for her like with everybody else, but theres not that much that can be done :( also she’s not as fast as she should be imo (30 spd with a beaststone equipped when for example kiragi has 31 with no extra help. get ya shit together girl)

sophie remains a competent damage dealer but her defences are sad, and because of that i can’t quite rely on her as much as i used to because by this point the enemies are dealing out so much damage its frankly unfair

and here’s out first newcomer. i was originally going to promote her to GK, but decided that im more interested in potential A rank sword access on someone than another axe user. she’s not spectacular (and kind of on the slow side) but armoured blow is helping out quite a bit with player phase attacking. elbow room keeps her damage-dealing contributions relevant for the time being.

dwyer is actually the last kid i recruited and he’s. not what i was hoping for so far. you’re kagero’s son, where’s the str?? and there’s being inaccurate, and made of tissue paper. and very slow for a master ninja!

finally... shiro the hero! look at his str, look at his def. having a flying tank is lovely! but his spd is so sad, i mean his mother has 19 and she’s lvl 1. you’d think his father wasn’t ryoma :/ in general i am kind of concerned that, well, if i’d just used scarlet she’d be better than him at this point. but oh well...

no supports segment this time, i am Tired

[blahblahemblem]

RV royals only lunatic ch 7

here’s an accidental cool screenshot for the soul. or something.

this is one of my least favourite chapters in the game solely because of how BORING it is. there’s just about no way to do this efficiently while still getting the treasure (i suppose i could have let go of the killing edge, saving some time, but too late). its a slugfest that takes an inordinate amount of time thanks to the almost-fog-of-war-but-not-quite mechanic (where you have to waste a turn “discovering” a room before you can do anything in it. it doesn’t help that there’s quite a few ranged attackers around and i can’t rely on anyone but aether, not just because im trying to limit the amount of exp that goes to someone who will ultimately not be part of the team (felicia), but also because felicia can’t do jack shit. where is jakob when i need him?

this took 34 turns. *sigh* im planning on not letting turn counts like this happen again, not even in chapter 10. not that i care particularly for turn counts but this is just so. long.

felicia “opens” up the first room. (in case you havent played the chapter/havent figured it out, the dead ends are easy to spot and avoid because they have dead tree branches growing around them, while the functioning paths have. living branches? moss? vines? whatever the hell that is. just take a look at the first screenshot and see for yourselves) anyway, with a song from azura aether can reach the first enemy and then fail to OHKO or double. felicia is no help whatsoever. azura levels up:

(one advantage of playing on lunatic is that i can screencap all level-ups only once and not worry about having to replay and seeing the stats change since the stat gains are fixed.)

on enemy phase, aether kills the fighter and injures the cavalier. afterwards felicia heals and aether & azura do clean-up.

this is a mistake by the way. from now on there’ll be some screenshots of 2 failed attempts, and this - keeping aether and felicia separated - is part of why they failed. on the successful one i just kept aether and felicia always paired up to prevent enemy dual strikes, for dual guard, and for felicia’s personal skill, only separating them after a room was empty so felicia could heal. here, though, i have azura dance to send aether into the next room alone with his dragonstone equipped.

aftermaths. felicia heals and aether kills the unfinished cavalier. then azura dances and aether tries to inflict /some/ damage on the ninja.

here’s where the attempt really went pear-shaped. felicia healed, aether chipped at the spear fighter, azura danced and felicia healed again... and died on enemy phase because she’s doubled by the ninja. so i had to adopt a new strategy.

being paired-up worked out a lot better. aether levels up:

and learns Dragon Fang.

by the way, after this i had to restart again because apparently the archer deals 17 damage to azura’s 16 hp. i gave her the ch 5 hp tonic as a preventative measure and when we got back to this point, we engaged in simple clean-up:

he missed on the ninja here and azura had to dance, prompting a level-up:

after separating and healing the group reconvenes in the next corridor.

i slacked off on taking screenshots here so its not immediately apparent what happened, even to mine own self, but the jist of it is aether cleaned house albeit slowly due to the sheer number of long-range attackers (and still not being able to double ninja or samurai), and azura had to bravely take an arrow to the face (which she survived because of the hp tonic i gave to her! hooray for not wasting things.) she also had to run the hell away from this one lone archer. also im pretty sure i missed taking a screenshot of aether’s lvl 11 stat gains around here somewhere.

after opening the chest and healing up a bit, the three amigos make their way back to the first chamber and towards the second route.

after failing to kill him on enemy phase (due to a miss, i assume), aether has to deal with the samurai now. azura dances for him and gains a level:

(typical)

refreshed, aether takes out the outlaw and the fighter suicides into him on enemy phase. we advance into the Hell Chamber:

the dance was so aether could make an attempt to get rid of the spear fighter in two rounds. it didnt work out and had to take three rounds instead because aether can’t aim.

two level-ups occured somewhere around here:

felicia’s is awful, of course, but we don’t really care for the quality of her levels, she’s only really with us until sakura joins, that is to say until after ch 8.

aether kills the onichan, is danced for, and manages to kill the archer currently occupying the fort.

(me accidentally screencapping immediately at the start of the turn forgetting about azura’s aura healing and that ntr is slow on the uptake)

the last archer is summoned and killed, and we take our sweet time opening the chests (although i could have lived without the one that contains a mend staff, of course, but then again it costs 1k, i need a lot of them, and i aint a billionaire)

aether uses the armourslayer from the last chest to annihilate the knight at the entrance to the next room, and we face the cavaliers:

whom aether can’t quite ORKO when faced with WTD. azura has to dance here:

(yay, finally some hp)

aether kills the second cavalier, the chest is opened and we head outside to finally meet with gunter. felicia does what she does best:

and aether once again equips the armourslayer before facing the last room, because theres another knight there.

more healing takes place, and aether finally takes out the dual katana i have extracted from my visit points rewards specifically for this purpose... but he still can’t double the stupid ninja.

after the ninja is finally dead, felicia retrieves the chest key and gets out hard-earned 5000g. aether goes outside to engage the onichan.

and then these dingdongs. without felicia he can no longer double samurai :( so azura needs to dance, for a (bad) level-up:

this section is called “i regret not taking out the battle points levin sword as well”, because i had to face the rather scary 12% crit (at 30% hit, yes, but THAT managed to connect as you can see so i wasn’t entirely wrong to be worried). regardless, aether managed not to die of an axe to the face and earned this for killing the boss:

after the chapter, i reclassed azura to dread fighter. she will be staying in this class.

i also bought Draconic Hex for aether while visiting some castles for dragon vein points. this was kind of an impulse decision, but hopefully it will make a difference. next time i’ll also be reclassing aether to samurai (his talent) and then, after learning Duelist’s Blow and Vantage, lodestar. hopefully samurai’s bad defences don’t get him killed on me.

[blahblahemblem]

RV royals only lunatic ch 6

im feeling awful because of current events and i played at night when i couldnt fall asleep due to anxiety. this time i took a lot of screenshots.

im planning this to be a royals-only run, temporarily relying on non-royal units here and there as well because RV’s recruitment times are Bad.

for those of you who havent played revelation, the objective of this map is to defeat two enemy bosses in 5 turns. very easy on normal/hard, because both enemy teams just come to you, but on lunatic nohr’s wyvern rider boss is replaced by a cavalier who does not move until you’re in his range, making it necessary to cross the river (since nohr princes can walk on water) and use the dragon vein to get back.

i save a turn by having felicia dump aether directly into the river (otherwise we’d really waste a lot of time waiting for him to be able to do it himself, since walking on water takes up all his mov). azura then dances for felicia so she can pair up with him again (not necessary, but might as well give azura a bit of exp).

next turn, aether uses the dragon vein, allowing azura to cross the river easily and letting himself have a clear path back to the island where he will be meeting the hoshidan troops. but he’s still not in range of the nohrian boss, which is why azura dances for him so he can move a step to the left RIGHT (or down, wherever; i should have highlighted the boss’ range for clarity but i forgot). on enemy phase, a fighter and then the cavalier boss suicide into him, prompting a little speech from xander signifying that the nohrian units will no longer attack you even if you’re in their range (handy for keeping azura alive on lower difficulties).

next turn, aether equips his dragonstone and plunges into hoshidan territory. he’s beaten up pretty badly, and i could have traded azura’s vulnerary to him here, but with the def he gains from the dragonstone & with felicia’s personal skill (+/- 2 damage dealt/taken by the avatar when theyre paired up) he’s not in danger of being ko’d. instead, he OHKOs an oni savage (not pictured due to already being dead) but doesn’t quite manage to OHKO the boss, so until next turn he has to wait. killing the second boss nets us a level up:

decent enough. i should mention that i have completely forgotten his assets, i think its +spd/-mag but i might be wrong.

i have played through ch 7 as well and i have the screenshots ready, so that post is coming soon as well.