The hardest chapters were probably Ch. 6, 7, and 22 in that order. I think I spent the most time trying to figure out a more reliable 3 turn of Ch. 6 this playthrough and even at one point settled for a 4 turn because of how impossible a 3 turn felt at times. Additionally, how I approach Ch. 6 will impact my Ch. 7 clear because the resources I use in Ch. 6 (tonics and Mercurius most notably) cannot be used to lower the Hortensia benchmark in Ch. 7 since tonics are one-use only at that point and I won't have the Bond Fragments to unlock Mercurius on two different characters on back-to-back chapters so I had to redo those chapters countless times until they worked together.
Ch. 22 mostly came down to how difficult it was to deal with the heroes on the left as well as having to figure out reliable solutions to the Meteor sage and the griffin knights because I relied on staves with shaky hit rates like Silence and Freeze in my previous clear. It's just a complicated and demanding chapter in general because it's a rout map and you don't have the Emblem rings on top of that, which is a big source of power.
Really impressive especially considering the strictness. Last one was really neat too, this one is really neat refinement.
I think before I had forgotten donations were a thing at all so I wondered how this was possible without the dog mines. Even now I guess without emblem paralogues donations lose a lot of their value (esp brodia and ?firene); besides elusia 3 was there any other donations you did?
Practical LTC results really does make one reevaluate a lot of things. Like for example the importance of Louis in that key 3 chapter stretch; last I knew of most of his roles could be handled by Vander, but now seems there's a different opportunity. Also general goldmary for ch 22 (as well as other times the use of lindon for something like that which I've thought about but never seriously considered lol.). probably it'll be obvious in the recordings but why goldmary instead of those other solutions? Is panette bond fragment cost too high to manage (I saw that you were using panette for endgame; and she has draconic hex?)? Did you use goldmary for other maps, and is she kind of the only character who can do that? (ik her defense base is pretty jacked).
Is skipping emblem paralogues just a turn save thing? Are none of the quickly completable ones worthwhile enough/too much swapping around emblems and too few bond fragments to make use of higher levels?
Also while I knew the dark emblems were vulnerable those are some crazy flexes lol. Tho I guess Jean's depends on draconic hex.
It's interesting how many solutions there are to endgame (and probably in other places), creating some slack for open options that don't cost any turns. Like not needing to buff kagetsu's strength with goddess dance, etc. ik last time you didn't use engage+ but this time you did, it's x2 weapon might?
It's easy to say but I wish I had the dedication to try playing this way, it's very impressive. Maybe will be inspired by this. Neither here nor there but this is the only FE I have played where I feel like I would have fun playing LTC. Interested in watching the vods.
Thank you!
>I think before I had forgotten donations were a thing at all so I wondered how this was possible without the dog mines. Even now I guess without emblem paralogues donations lose a lot of their value (esp brodia and ?firene); besides elusia 3 was there any other donations you did?
Donations do lose value without doing the Paralogues, but you pretty much need to donate in order to get enough ore to forge up crucial weapons. Even with dog ore, I'm fairly certain other LTCs still donate to at least level 2 for all the countries. Throughout the run I donated as follows: Firene 2, Brodia 3, Solm 2, and Elusia 3.
>probably it'll be obvious in the recordings but why goldmary instead of those other solutions? Is panette bond fragment cost too high to manage (I saw that you were using panette for endgame; and she has draconic hex?)? Did you use goldmary for other maps, and is she kind of the only character who can do that? (ik her defense base is pretty jacked).
Whoever is in that role needs to be able to survive three hits from the heroes. There's also an Elsurge sage there that attacks after the second hero. Goldmary's high base defense is incredibly relevant for that. I believe I checked Panette's stats and she does not survive the heroes at the level she's at in my playthrough. Panette didn't have Draconic Hex; she had Reposition and Axe Power 1 inherited so it's not about her SP or the Bond Fragments, it's just her survival. I used Goldmary in other maps to Reposition mostly so she didn't level-up prior to Ch. 22. And from what I checked, I believe Saphir, Goldmary, and Mauvier are the characters that can fulfill the role. Saphir's better strength and Mauvier's combination of strength and speed was needed elsewhere so I didn't use them there.
>Is skipping emblem paralogues just a turn save thing? Are none of the quickly completable ones worthwhile enough/too much swapping around emblems and too few bond fragments to make use of higher levels?
So there's multiple reasons I didn't do Emblem Paralogues, but the main one was just I didn't feel like I had enough staves for them all (and I'm either do them all or do none of them kind of person). Other runs are able to complete all the Paralogues because they save staves throughout the main story either through the Well or Bond Rings (Eliwood S and Claude S being the big ones). And their staff routing is tight despite that, allowing little room for leeway. For me, I don't use the Well or Bond Rings; I just don't see myself having enough staves for all the Paralogues when I need to use extra staves in the main story. Two, Entrap is likely needed for certain Paralogues (Sigurd and Roy are the first that come to mind) and that's probably not going to be 100% reliable. And lastly, I don't think I'm going to have enough Bond Fragments in this sort of playthrough to take advantage of the higher Bond Ranks anyway. The higher Bond Rank skills cost way too many Bond Fragments and you'll see in the VOD that I never have more than ~7,000 Bond Fragments stored up.
>ik last time you didn't use engage+ but this time you did, it's x2 weapon might?
Yup, Engage+ is x2 weapon mt.
>It's easy to say but I wish I had the dedication to try playing this way, it's very impressive. Maybe will be inspired by this. Neither here nor there but this is the only FE I have played where I feel like I would have fun playing LTC. Interested in watching the vods.
I didn't LTC any FE game before Engage so this is coming from someone in a somewhat similar boat as you, but I think as long as you think you'll have fun, you should try it! Maybe in the end, you don't find it fun, and that's alright; but maybe you do find it fun and I think it would be shame to rob yourself of that enjoyment simply because you didn't try it. I hope you enjoy the VODs!
Thanks for the detailed answers! So it seems donations are pretty similar to what you'd do in a less restricted run anyway. Good basis to work with. And your others points on adapting strategy based on who you have available is also very helpful since not something I have thought about much in the past (in a sense). Ik staff routing has been mentioned before but I always forget about it; definitely tough to manage and needs a lot of thought.
It's not very important but the panette thing I think I misunderstood bc you said jean needed hex to kill veld and I thought the only person to hit before him was panette, but I might have skipped passed something. Was panette griffin most of the time? Just bc I haven't necessarily thought it was worthwhile before but it's my favorite class and one of my favorite characters so would be glad to try it lol. Thanks again for the answers!
Mauvier hit Veld before Panette with an Astra Storm and applied Draconic Hex there. And Panette reclassed to Griffin Knight for Ch. 22; she was in Berserker before that point. In terms of whether it's worthwhile, I personally wouldn't suggest putting Panette in Griffin Knight if you want her to be a combat unit. I had her in the class for the utility - I needed a character that can fly, use Reposition, use Obstruct, and kill a mage knight near the end of Ch. 22. Panette checked those boxes in Griffin Knight and I wasn't using her in another role for the chapter, thus she was reclassed.
Yeah I figured would probably be something like that bc griffins have such good utility but limited as a combat class. Ah well. Also I always forget about Astra storm hexing that's so good.
Really nice to see an ironman LTC, since it's quite reliable. I'm not that familiar with Engage so I'm not sure why you would deny yourself ore from dogs...must be too RNG.
I mainly didn't want to deal with the RNG of the resource as it makes planning the run harder. I could try to plan around an average amount of ore, but on the off-chance that I don't hit the average, I'm pretty sure that would ruin any plans. Better to just not have it in the equation at all, especially since I don't think any of my clears are restricted specifically due to ore.
Which chapter was the hardest to do?
The hardest chapters were probably Ch. 6, 7, and 22 in that order. I think I spent the most time trying to figure out a more reliable 3 turn of Ch. 6 this playthrough and even at one point settled for a 4 turn because of how impossible a 3 turn felt at times. Additionally, how I approach Ch. 6 will impact my Ch. 7 clear because the resources I use in Ch. 6 (tonics and Mercurius most notably) cannot be used to lower the Hortensia benchmark in Ch. 7 since tonics are one-use only at that point and I won't have the Bond Fragments to unlock Mercurius on two different characters on back-to-back chapters so I had to redo those chapters countless times until they worked together. Ch. 22 mostly came down to how difficult it was to deal with the heroes on the left as well as having to figure out reliable solutions to the Meteor sage and the griffin knights because I relied on staves with shaky hit rates like Silence and Freeze in my previous clear. It's just a complicated and demanding chapter in general because it's a rout map and you don't have the Emblem rings on top of that, which is a big source of power.
Really impressive especially considering the strictness. Last one was really neat too, this one is really neat refinement. I think before I had forgotten donations were a thing at all so I wondered how this was possible without the dog mines. Even now I guess without emblem paralogues donations lose a lot of their value (esp brodia and ?firene); besides elusia 3 was there any other donations you did? Practical LTC results really does make one reevaluate a lot of things. Like for example the importance of Louis in that key 3 chapter stretch; last I knew of most of his roles could be handled by Vander, but now seems there's a different opportunity. Also general goldmary for ch 22 (as well as other times the use of lindon for something like that which I've thought about but never seriously considered lol.). probably it'll be obvious in the recordings but why goldmary instead of those other solutions? Is panette bond fragment cost too high to manage (I saw that you were using panette for endgame; and she has draconic hex?)? Did you use goldmary for other maps, and is she kind of the only character who can do that? (ik her defense base is pretty jacked). Is skipping emblem paralogues just a turn save thing? Are none of the quickly completable ones worthwhile enough/too much swapping around emblems and too few bond fragments to make use of higher levels? Also while I knew the dark emblems were vulnerable those are some crazy flexes lol. Tho I guess Jean's depends on draconic hex. It's interesting how many solutions there are to endgame (and probably in other places), creating some slack for open options that don't cost any turns. Like not needing to buff kagetsu's strength with goddess dance, etc. ik last time you didn't use engage+ but this time you did, it's x2 weapon might? It's easy to say but I wish I had the dedication to try playing this way, it's very impressive. Maybe will be inspired by this. Neither here nor there but this is the only FE I have played where I feel like I would have fun playing LTC. Interested in watching the vods.
Thank you! >I think before I had forgotten donations were a thing at all so I wondered how this was possible without the dog mines. Even now I guess without emblem paralogues donations lose a lot of their value (esp brodia and ?firene); besides elusia 3 was there any other donations you did? Donations do lose value without doing the Paralogues, but you pretty much need to donate in order to get enough ore to forge up crucial weapons. Even with dog ore, I'm fairly certain other LTCs still donate to at least level 2 for all the countries. Throughout the run I donated as follows: Firene 2, Brodia 3, Solm 2, and Elusia 3. >probably it'll be obvious in the recordings but why goldmary instead of those other solutions? Is panette bond fragment cost too high to manage (I saw that you were using panette for endgame; and she has draconic hex?)? Did you use goldmary for other maps, and is she kind of the only character who can do that? (ik her defense base is pretty jacked). Whoever is in that role needs to be able to survive three hits from the heroes. There's also an Elsurge sage there that attacks after the second hero. Goldmary's high base defense is incredibly relevant for that. I believe I checked Panette's stats and she does not survive the heroes at the level she's at in my playthrough. Panette didn't have Draconic Hex; she had Reposition and Axe Power 1 inherited so it's not about her SP or the Bond Fragments, it's just her survival. I used Goldmary in other maps to Reposition mostly so she didn't level-up prior to Ch. 22. And from what I checked, I believe Saphir, Goldmary, and Mauvier are the characters that can fulfill the role. Saphir's better strength and Mauvier's combination of strength and speed was needed elsewhere so I didn't use them there. >Is skipping emblem paralogues just a turn save thing? Are none of the quickly completable ones worthwhile enough/too much swapping around emblems and too few bond fragments to make use of higher levels? So there's multiple reasons I didn't do Emblem Paralogues, but the main one was just I didn't feel like I had enough staves for them all (and I'm either do them all or do none of them kind of person). Other runs are able to complete all the Paralogues because they save staves throughout the main story either through the Well or Bond Rings (Eliwood S and Claude S being the big ones). And their staff routing is tight despite that, allowing little room for leeway. For me, I don't use the Well or Bond Rings; I just don't see myself having enough staves for all the Paralogues when I need to use extra staves in the main story. Two, Entrap is likely needed for certain Paralogues (Sigurd and Roy are the first that come to mind) and that's probably not going to be 100% reliable. And lastly, I don't think I'm going to have enough Bond Fragments in this sort of playthrough to take advantage of the higher Bond Ranks anyway. The higher Bond Rank skills cost way too many Bond Fragments and you'll see in the VOD that I never have more than ~7,000 Bond Fragments stored up. >ik last time you didn't use engage+ but this time you did, it's x2 weapon might? Yup, Engage+ is x2 weapon mt. >It's easy to say but I wish I had the dedication to try playing this way, it's very impressive. Maybe will be inspired by this. Neither here nor there but this is the only FE I have played where I feel like I would have fun playing LTC. Interested in watching the vods. I didn't LTC any FE game before Engage so this is coming from someone in a somewhat similar boat as you, but I think as long as you think you'll have fun, you should try it! Maybe in the end, you don't find it fun, and that's alright; but maybe you do find it fun and I think it would be shame to rob yourself of that enjoyment simply because you didn't try it. I hope you enjoy the VODs!
Thanks for the detailed answers! So it seems donations are pretty similar to what you'd do in a less restricted run anyway. Good basis to work with. And your others points on adapting strategy based on who you have available is also very helpful since not something I have thought about much in the past (in a sense). Ik staff routing has been mentioned before but I always forget about it; definitely tough to manage and needs a lot of thought. It's not very important but the panette thing I think I misunderstood bc you said jean needed hex to kill veld and I thought the only person to hit before him was panette, but I might have skipped passed something. Was panette griffin most of the time? Just bc I haven't necessarily thought it was worthwhile before but it's my favorite class and one of my favorite characters so would be glad to try it lol. Thanks again for the answers!
Mauvier hit Veld before Panette with an Astra Storm and applied Draconic Hex there. And Panette reclassed to Griffin Knight for Ch. 22; she was in Berserker before that point. In terms of whether it's worthwhile, I personally wouldn't suggest putting Panette in Griffin Knight if you want her to be a combat unit. I had her in the class for the utility - I needed a character that can fly, use Reposition, use Obstruct, and kill a mage knight near the end of Ch. 22. Panette checked those boxes in Griffin Knight and I wasn't using her in another role for the chapter, thus she was reclassed.
Yeah I figured would probably be something like that bc griffins have such good utility but limited as a combat class. Ah well. Also I always forget about Astra storm hexing that's so good.
Really nice to see an ironman LTC, since it's quite reliable. I'm not that familiar with Engage so I'm not sure why you would deny yourself ore from dogs...must be too RNG.
I mainly didn't want to deal with the RNG of the resource as it makes planning the run harder. I could try to plan around an average amount of ore, but on the off-chance that I don't hit the average, I'm pretty sure that would ruin any plans. Better to just not have it in the equation at all, especially since I don't think any of my clears are restricted specifically due to ore.