Fire Emblem

Well, so I finished the Sacred Stones draft

My end turn count was 368 because I'm slow and dumb

As I said earlier I really don't think my end result will be difficult to beat and I'll probably be last, but the point of me joining this was to have some fun with everyone else and also just have a different sort of experience.

Overall, the run was very challenging, but also it was really fun. In the end I couldn't shake some habits, like for example I hoarded craploads of gold (I ended up with over 60000...) and recruited every single character and made sure they lived. Of course, I wasn't able to get any of the support endings I usually want but oh well. And hey I wasn't (as) afraid use all my stat-up items and high-end weapons this time go me

Spoiler: SS Draft Chapter Log 14-F 

Chapter 14: This one took quite a few tries, mostly to figure out how to get Rennac, but it was simple really. I went slowly and he didn't move as long as I didn't open that room. In fact I probably didn't even need to but experience and items and stuff man. Anyways, the cavaliers rushing in were a pain, but I managed to sweep through the whole map and get everything and kill everyone.

Chapter 15: At the very beginning, Neimi, Natasha, and Marisa all promoted. The sand was a massive annoyance for me since a lot of my units were mounted, and only Natasha could really move freely. The massive group of reinforcements from the southwest turned out to be more intimidating than anything, and Ephraim's Reginleif was sure helpful. I had to reset this one a few times though, and I spent way too much time shuffling about for items and I ended up with everything except the Killer Bow. Guess that's not so good. Anyways, Marisa killed Caellach since Joshua couldn't do it, and Lute accidentally blew up Valter since I didn't intend for her to get a critical, and was planning to let Ephraim or Eirika kill him. Oh well.

Chapter 16: Not very difficult, although the sages with long range magic were annoying. I didn't bother with any of the chests (maybe the west one, I forget) and Lute blew up Orson as I laughed.

Chapter 17: Saving the villagers wasn't as difficult as I'd expected. Lute, Neimi, and Forde handled the west, while everyone went to deal with the mages before they crawled up the little hill and then the druids. Marisa also went to kill the heroes in the south too because why not. Anyways, the druids were a huge pain until I remembered that they almost literally couldn't hurt Natasha, so then the rest was easy.

Chapter 18: The free experience chapter! Although, the first few runs were reset since i couldn't find an efficient way to stop all the eggs/Ephraim's resistance SUCKS/Natasha should stop being hit by 10~% petrification. Anyways, after I found a good way to split up it was easy and everybody leveled up tons, yay!

Chapter 19: This was pretty difficult. I gathered everyone in the center around Mansel in the beginning, and for the most part, Forde and Lute held off the north while Eirika and Ephraim kinda sat in front of the massive horde of enemies pouring in from the south. Everyone else of course did their part with support and ranged attacks too, and I had to send Marisa to get the speedwing and runesword (... that I ended up not using...) from the chests after it became too busy to heal her over everyone else. Whenever I thought I could easily push through to kill Riev, a ton more people came, so I ended up holding out to the end. And Neimi and Marisa had to run like hell to save Mansel's ass since I didn't know the warriors were there until they killed the useless ally soldiers oh noooo

Chapter 20: Pretty easy actually, just went at a relatively relaxed pace in a counterclockwise circle, killing everything and getting way too many item drops. I didn't expect Riev to move, but that wasn't a problem. Marisa killed Morva and well that was it really

Chapter Final: This wasn't so hard too, I divided people up and killed my way up to the top, and by the time the groups moved to the center and rejoined all the enemies were dead, except for the Gorgons in the treasure rooms since who cares about treasure now. Oh and Lyon, it was convenient and I thought it'd be cool for Ephraim and then Eirika to kill him so that happened yes

Chapter Final (Part 2): Welp I finished this in one turn. I had Tethys help Marisa run up to smack mr. demon king, then Ephraim and then Eirika stabbed his face and THE END

also Natasha used Latona since I just wanted to use it

Spoiler: Final Team Overview 

Eirika was extremely helpful. In the beginning she was almost kind of a tank and a reliable unit all around, her midgame use dropped since she reached level 20, but after promoting I gave her Metis's Tome, which increased her breast size apparently really showed because her level ups became ridiculous. And then she was back to destroying everything with fancy swords and stuff, good show

Lute kicked ass the whole game. She was a bit squishy in the beginning and there were some things she couldn't kill in one hit, but after she got going, she turned into a Mage Knight and blew up everything. I still prefer Sages but I think the extra move and con really did help. She was easily the MVP since there was almost nothing that couldn't die in one round to her, it was great. basically she BLEW UP EVERYTHING &&&& YEAH AAAKJVDLAKDJVAFLKSJFVALNKWEJRVW

Neimi was very helpful and turned out way stronger than I'd expected. She never escaped her fragility, although her resistance was good enough to handle druids when Natasha or Lute couldn't. She did dodge a whole lot though. When I promoted her to Ranger, sure her sprite became a little ugly and I still prefer Snipers, but once again movement and the addition of swords was pretty good.

Natasha was of course absolutely vital and everybody would've died many times over if not for her. Her levels were slow as most healers, but after I got Tethys it essentially doubled, and the Barrier staff was great for experience too. When she finally promoted, she actually promoted the same time as Neimi and Marisa, who both managed to catch up with everyone else. But as I've found, promoted healers level insanely fast and that's kinda what happened. Slayer was a great help in dealing with cyclopes and all the general monsters, plus she essentially tanked all the dark magic users. My only regret was that she couldn't use Ivaldi, due to S ranking in staves... I will never find out what that looks like dammit

Marisa was a little frail still, even when I made her into a swordmaster, but she dodged a whole lot and killed pretty much everything in return, which... kinda led to her death at least a few times, but other than that, great. I gave her the swiftsoles and a whole load of fancy swords and basically everything died, it was fantastic, there were critical hits flying goddamn everywhere

Forde, as I mentioned, was great. He was essentially the central pillar for the team, and if I needed some place held off he was easily the person for it. I'll admit, his stats in the end were dangerously comparable to Ephraim's despite a big level lead, but he never was really "outclassed" and his large arsenal helped that. Once again though I wish he could've had an S in axes too, since while I sent him into the final chapters with both Garm and Vidofnir like a badass he could only use the latter. Ah, well.

Tethys was at first mostly helpful for training Natasha and moving people around better... and well yeah, all that really was helpful. Giving people an extra turn in combat was great too, and I used her safely enough that she had a surprisingly small amount of enemy confrontations and survived all of them. Hell, I never even had to reset for her, which was surprising. I'm pretty glad I picked her now wheeeee!

Ephraim who the hell is that. I mean, yeah his growths were awesome and his stats were too, and he was definitely a great unit and a very welcome addition. He came a little late, but still turned out nicely, although he made me reset a whole lot and it was sad

If I had to rank everyone... well damn it's impossible, everybody was extremely helpful.

but Lute was at the top obviously

and ephraim was at the bottom whoops sorry

[Nicholas1024]

Can't wait to see how the rest of the competition turns out, these reports are a fun read.

The goal is to pretty much finish the game with the lowest turn count with the characters that we had drafted on the previous page. There are penalties and other rules that are mentioned on the previous page, but that's pretty much the gist of it. I know that some people are just in it for fun though, so turn count kind of takes a second priority to just having fun with friends.

Drafting characters is fun since there's strategy involved. You want to pick characters who work well together, and I think that Dyna saw this pretty well by picking Natasha, a healer, and Tethys, a dancer who could help funnel exp into Natasha. Moulder is leveling up pretty slowly for me, but apparently Dyna isn't having troubles leveling his healer (i am totally giving dyna much more credit than he deserved on this one since for some reason, no one wanted to pick tethys until the end which is actually really silly now that I think about it :b).

WELL I understand the idea behind a draft, I'm just wondering if there were other things that you're going by since some of you are making a big fuss about turn count and all that

I was directed here by a lovely lady of the arena. Anyone here a fan of FE4/5? A couple of my favorite games in the series. Man, I wish they were released in english, or at least a remake in GBA style.

Fan, but haven't played all the way through either of them. Partly due to poor translation patches.

I definitely need to finish FE4. The lack of proper fan translations makes me sad... Well, there's some out there, but not 100% English.

Maybe after I'm done with this draft, I will play it?

Part of the reason for a proper fan translation I think was because of the intro sequences, since that the japanese characters in those parts of the game aren't so easy to replace with romanized letters.

It's been a while since I tried playing a translated version of the game(about 5 years?), the one I used stopped about halfway through the game, so boss dialogue and some names started getting screwy. I'd think there's a patch that did things all the way through.

And with Nintendo having no revealed plans to bring the Jugdral Chronicles overseas...

[Zant]

Restarted Sacred Stones, this time in hard mode and trying to use characters I hadn't used before and taking Ephraims path. It really does get harder, enemies with axes now actually hit Pegasi, and where it took 'till chapter 12 before enemies did any damage against Seth, they've now started to do damage since chapter 2. A pleasant surprise.

Seeing how I started over, perhaps I could join this draft thing ye lads are talking about? Just wondering how to enter and what it is in the first place.

[Doofenshmirtz]

Part of the reason for a proper fan translation I think was because of the intro sequences, since that the japanese characters in those parts of the game aren't so easy to replace with romanized letters.

It's been a while since I tried playing a translated version of the game(about 5 years?), the one I used stopped about halfway through the game, so boss dialogue and some names started getting screwy. I'd think there's a patch that did things all the way through.

And with Nintendo having no revealed plans to bring the Jugdral Chronicles overseas...

Ayup, the translation I got still had the intro in raw format. It is hard to translate those intros because the letters are graphics/sprites, not something you find on the text dumps of the game. The translators would have to sprite new letters and insert them into the intro, which I hear is quite a pain.

However, the patch I downloaded claimed that it translated everything else... but since I haven't gotten past chapter 3, I can't say :b

Seeing how I started over, perhaps I could join this draft thing ye lads are talking about? Just wondering how to enter and what it is in the first place.

While it would be nice for you to join us, the characters have been already evenly distributed between us, so...
But nothing stops you from playing by the draft rules~
Just choose the same number of characters as us for your team. It would be like a solo run!

I...guess?

[Zant]

Ok then. So I go in Hard Mode with 8 characters, 6 of whom I haven't used before to stick with my own rule. So that'll be the 2 lords, Colm, Neimi, Moulder, Vanessa, Joshua and Ewan.

Piece of cake! On it now.

[Doofenshmirtz]

Ok then. So I go in Hard Mode with 8 characters, 6 of whom I haven't used before to stick with my own rule. So that'll be the 2 lords, Colm, Neimi, Moulder, Vanessa, Joshua and Ewan.

Piece of cake! On it now.

You also have to follow the rules on Ark's post of the draft, but yeah, that's pretty much it.
Remember, no Skirmishes and no Tower of Valni (with exceptions)

[Solux]

So guys, have you noticed there are cavaliers with either red and green armor, or red and green hair? After a while of juggling back between many FE games, I've decided that Kent and Sain, from Fire Emblem 7, are my favorite duo of them all. Sain is funny and a ladies man, and Kent despises (almost) everything that Sain does. They really bounce off each other and are a pretty good combination for the game as well: Sain is more focused on power, while Kent is more on speed.

So guys, have you noticed there are cavaliers with either red and green armor, or red and green hair? After a while of juggling back between many FE games, I've decided that Kent and Sain, from Fire Emblem 7, are my favorite duo of them all. Sain is funny and a ladies man, and Kent despises (almost) everything that Sain does. They really bounce off each other and are a pretty good combination for the game as well: Sain is more focused on power, while Kent is more on speed.

The cavaliers are an archetype of Fire Emblem, a mainstay that's been with the series for a long time. Typically the red one is more oriented in power while the other is more oriented in speed/skill, though this was reversed for some odd reason in FE7.

I'm tempted to say Sacred Stones just because of how much Forde and Kyle suspiciously look like other anime characters(from two completely different series).

[Ark]

Yup, that's the Cain and Abel archetype right there (although, in this case, the armor colors wound up getting switched).

Personally, I like Kent a lot more than Sain since Sain's tendency to act as a ladies man was just off-putting to me. That being said, both are still great units with Sain probably edging out Kent in usability since he'll generally be able to kill things even without Kent's speed. Sain will essentially be another Marcus if you choose to use him throughout the game, but Marcus has the bonus of coming in with great weapon ranks, earlier availability (Lyn mode really doesn't count), and he doesn't cost you a Knight Crest since he's already promoted.

I like them a lot more than the rest of the cavalier duos since I think their personalities blend pretty well though.

[Doofenshmirtz]

I'm actually a fan of Forde and Franz, even though I don't think that Franz forms part of that archetype... but he's still a great unit!
Meanwhile, I like Forde because of his support conversations, and he gives off the vibe of the kind of guy with whom you would hang around with.
Also, he likes drawing, so that's a plus for me!

I'm actually a fan of Forde and Franz, even though I don't think that Franz forms part of that archetype... but he's still a great unit!
Meanwhile, I like Forde because of his support conversations, and he gives off the vibe of the kind of guy with whom you would hang around with.
Also, he likes drawing, so that's a plus for me!

It's more Forde and Kyle, mainly because they're already paired together(with Ephraim mind you) rather than own his own like Franz. Plus, they also form the red/green team that Intelligent Systems is so fond of with the pairs. I think Gaiden and Thracia 776 are the only two games that don't have the archetype, just going by memory...

So I haven't posted here in a while, log time!

Spoiler: Team Eirika's Man-Harem: Chapter 5-14 Breakdown 

Chapter 5 was a &&&&&. I didn't manage to pick up Joshua and Natasha died, but everyone continued to level, which was really what I'm after. 8 turns/42 total

Chapter 5x was one of those rare chapters I managed to beat on the first run. My strategy consisted of basically rushing everything with Orson and having Ephraim follow behind. Not the greatest or most original plan, no, but it damn well worked. 11 turns/53 total

I was stuck on Chapter 6 for quite a while. Once Ark told me I worked out that going around the mountains was a better option, though, it didn't take me too long. Plus I picked up some extra cash from selling the Orion's Bolt I nabbed. Forests are basically my new best friends. 6 turns/59 total

I actually can't remember too much about Chapter 7, so it can't have been anything exceptional. The Knight's Crest was nice. 11 turns/70 total

Bad planning turned Chapter 8 into a nightmare; I hadn't thought to stock up on weapons, which was an issue since since chapters 7 and 8 are a double-header with no map visits allowed between the two. This meant that Franz started with severely depleted weapons, so my strategy suffered: get Franz to double back, trade with Ephraim, have the two of them meet up, and then rush everything with all four of my units. It worked, yes, but my turncount suffered. And RIP Kyle and Forde. ;-; 15 turns/85 total

So the last chapter was a nightmare? Hello, Chapter 9, bane of my existence. I didn't have enough strong and mobile units to take the chapter by storm, especially considering the lack of cover I had for my squishy units (i.e. not Franz). It took me a ridiculously long time and I'm really unhappy with it, but there's nothing to do about it now. 24 turns/109 total

Chapter 10 was one I'd really been looking forward to. I promoted Franz to a paladin right off the bat, which gave him greater mobility, so I sent him towards the boss. Meanwhile, Eirika and Artur headed south to hook up with Gerik and Innes. After they'd been enlisted, I set them to hold off the mercenaries from the south, and sent my original units to seize the throne. I killed Marisa, but in hindsight I should've enlisted her if only for her snazzy sword. Oh well. 14 turns/123 total

Chapter 11 was nothing exciting, but some bad luck made my turncount higher than it should've been. Also, L'Arachel died, but I did get to keep Dozla and two out of three of his elixirs. Her sprite still shows up at plot-relevant points, though. Oops. 16 turns/139 total

Chapter 12... well, nobody died. Nothing much else to add. 15 turns/154 total

Chapter 13 was the point at which my party started showing flashes of its brilliance. I sent Franz in first; he beat up a couple of knights and enlisted Amelia. The recruit didn't last long, dying on the next turn, but at least she gave her speedwing to Franz before doing so. Eirika and Artur paired up to take down enemies, as did Gerik and Innes; they make good teams. An incredibly lucky crit by Franz took out the boss on the fourth turn, meaning I was in and out before Cormag even showed up. Needless to say, I was incredibly pleased. 4 turns/158 total

Chapter 14 wasn't great. In terms of actual plot, it's one of the worst for me; I always feel terrible for killing Carlyle (although not as bad as Orson). And it's a very winding level, which doesn't help. Add that to a dumb mage making Eirika go berserk, and I ended up wasting many of my healing items as she chased Artur around. There were some good things, though; Gerik and Innes held off about nine cavs between them and got their first support conversation. Still, I'm glad it's over. 21 turns/179 total

Chapter 15 is a good place for me to be, as it means my party reaches completion. Duessel will make a good addition, as will Ephraim, but I don't know what to do with Knoll in the slightest. :b

[Ruane]

Is anyone familiar with how Myrrh works? I've tried playing with her a couple times, but she appears to be a glass cannon, fantastic on offense but crumbles when attacked. She is still at a low level on my file so perhaps I just haven't increased her stats enough. Then again, maybe it has to do with those dragonstone stats. I'm just not sure how to use her.

[Ark]

I rarely use Myyrh in my runs. She's useful for taking down stronger enemies such as Draco Zombies since her Dragonstone buffs her stats quite a bit and does 3x damage to monsters, but if you have someone who can reliably take down those stronger foes (in this case, Bishops with light magic, a unit with a bow, or a unit wielding a dragon killing axe/lance can take out Draco Zombies pretty well), then you should probably just ditch Myyrh.

The big downside with her is that her personal weapon, the Dragonstone, has 50 uses, and it can't be repaired, even with the Hammerne staff. That really limits her effectiveness, and it makes it pretty hard to use her for more than just the occasional strong monster.

[Zant]

She just requires a bit of training. Her defense gets better as she levels up. As does her strenght, speed, skill, luck and resistance. And man, does she level up fast. By level 10 she should be one of your strongest units and she still level up like mad.

[Solux]

The big downside with her is that her personal weapon, the Dragonstone, has 50 uses, and it can't be repaired, even with the Hammerne staff. That really limits her effectiveness, and it makes it pretty hard to use her for more than just the occasional strong monster.

You could just use the item repair glitch with the gorgon eggs and action tiles like lava. It is quite helpful for repairing items that are really useful without wasting Hammerne on it, or in this case, the Dragonstone. It is similar to the Mine Glitch in Fire Emblem 7, which was really fun to use as well.

[Ark]

That's true, but the big thing there is that it's a glitch and pretty much cheating. I can't say what's right or wrong since it's not like I'm the one playing, but I was under the assumption that Ruane was going to go for a more "normal" run instead of abusing cheats. :P

There's a good reason as to why Myrrh's weapon is limited in use, and that's because if the character with the best growths in the game could use the best weapon in the game as much as the player wants her to, she'd essentially dominate everything without breaking a sweat. I mean, even without leveling up to 20, she can make short work of the final boss (not like the final boss was hard to begin with, but still).

[Nicholas1024]

Yeah. Even at level 1 Myrrh was stronger than pretty much any unit except Seth, she gains almost a full level per monster, and she's even more amazing as she levels up. Seriously, Myrrh's basically a 50-use cheat device for getting past particularly troublesome monsters.

[PokeMarioGuy]

I managed to get a hold of Fire Emblem (the first worldwide GBA one, Rekka no Ken right?) and I've been having a good time with it. Naturally my tactics rank is poor, only two stars, when I've been doing such a fine job maintaining my highest of three stars.

I wanted to ask, what's all of your opinions on Marcus? I'm not sure if I want to continue using him or not when I've got Kent as a paladin. Overall, Marcus is currently better, but this is comparing lvl.9 Marcus vs. lvl.1 Kent.

[Ark]

A lot of people hold a prejudice against Marcus since Marcus is the Jeigan of the game and people believe that you shouldn't be using prepromotes at all. These preconceptions are pretty much false all the way through since Marcus is pretty much the best unit in the game.

First off, we should look at what Marcus has going for him. Marcus has amazing base stats that shouldn't be overlooked at all since he's the guy who's gonna be pulling along your weaker units from start to finish, even acting as a magic sponge with his respectable 8 RES. His weapon ranks are also amazing since he starts off with an A in swords, an A in lances, and a B in axes (which is all he'll need since that gives him access to Killer and Brave Axes). The complete dominance he has over the weapon triangle allows him to run through the enemy with everything from Silver weapons, to Braves, and even Javelins and Hand Axes when he needs to fight at a distance. He'll be even tougher for the enemy to kill when the enemy has to suffer through -1 Attack and -15 Hit when attacking him with a weapon that's on the losing end of the weapon triangle.

Now what are his weaknesses? Well, his growths aren't especially amazing, but when you add them to his amazing bases, they come out as pretty alright. His speed is where he's going to falter midway through the game as he won't be able to double, but by that time, enemy units will be making the switch to heavy Steel weapons which should give Marcus an edge. Pop some Speedwings on him to ensure that he continues doubling in the endgame, and if you toss in Brave weapons, then you won't notice his speed problem at all. Kent doesn't need to worry about speed all that much, but he has a lot of growing to do when it comes to being as useful as Marcus.

Anyway, if you want to get your tactics rank up, use both Marcus and Kent. Paladins are amazing since their movement lets them ride all over the map without a care in the world while they demolish enemy units with all three weapons of the weapon triangle. Marcus is the best unit in the game, but Kent is still an amazing unit in his own right, so there's absolutely nothing wrong with using both of them.

[PokeMarioGuy]

Aight thanks man. It'd be easier to decide on who I'm using if I knew how many people I'd need in the end. What would that be? 12 not including Eliwood?
Oh and am I ever going to use Lyn again? I really haven't used her in a little while...

[Ark]

I'm pretty sure that you're allowed 12 units, and 5 of them are units that you're forced into taking. Eliwood, Hector, and Lyn are three of the 5, and the other 2 are characters you get later:

Athos and Nils

What do you mean by not having used Lyn in a while? She returns in Chapter 15 if you're not up to that point yet.

[PokeMarioGuy]

I finished Ch. 20, and Lyn is only level 7, as compared to Eliwood and Hector both being around 14. So I guess I should use her more... Kind of hate being so limited, but after looking up the fourth character you mentioned, I'm at least cool with that one.

I rarely use Myyrh in my runs. She's useful for taking down stronger enemies such as Draco Zombies since her Dragonstone buffs her stats quite a bit and does 3x damage to monsters, but if you have someone who can reliably take down those stronger foes (in this case, Bishops with light magic, a unit with a bow, or a unit wielding a dragon killing axe/lance can take out Draco Zombies pretty well), then you should probably just ditch Myyrh.

The big downside with her is that her personal weapon, the Dragonstone, has 50 uses, and it can't be repaired, even with the Hammerne staff. That really limits her effectiveness, and it makes it pretty hard to use her for more than just the occasional strong monster.

There's always the possibility of using the glitch to get her Wretched Air as a replacement for the Dragonstone!

Not the most practical thing but its still a possibility to keep Myyrh usable if you lose the Dragonstone.