mark_asphodel (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
mark_asphodel) wrote2013-02-26 06:32 am
mark_asphodel) wrote2013-02-26 06:32 am
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FE4: Back to the Drawing Board
Yeah. So I took a break from female!Robin to resume one of my FE4 playthroughs, which had been stuck on Ayra's recruitment because I prematurely triggered her attack and she kept chopping poor Alec up before Sigurd could conquer Marpha . No, I wasn't being mean to Alec-- he's the only one in the party who can't get Meteor'd to death because of Awareness. But four Ayra strikes on two consecutive turns tend to kill you just as dead as five Meteor strikes in one.
Anyway, now that I have stupid Ayra (and the politics re: Isaach don't strike me as any more intelligent in light of FE13, no sir), I'm gonna try a couple of those One-Night Stand pairings:
Ayra/Jamke, for multi-hit crazy swordtwin fun. Ayra's good SKL genes should counterbalance Jamke's lousy ones, and two early-joining footbound units should be easy to pair even without special events and such.
Raquesis/Alec, per Swanchika's recommendation. I figure Alec!Delmud can't possibly be any worse than the weak-ass spawn of an underleveled Dew. Nanna may disappoint me, though. But hey, I don't have to worry about allocating the Pursuit ring to these two!
Briggid/Holyn for a Patty that can actually hit stuff.
Sylvia/Death. I want that #$%& Berzerk staff.
As for the rest, I was planning to go with Tiltyu/Lex to see what Vantage/Wrath babies are like, but I'm on the verge of reconsidering it. The math just isn't particularly good on this one. Problem Numero Uno-- no native Pursuit. So Lex passes down the same terrible MAG growths to Arthur that, say, Finn does-- bad enough that one Wrath-fueled crit won't often kill an enemy. But Finn!Arthur is dishing out two crits per turn, and if we give the Pursuit Ring to Arthur to fix this, that still leaves Tinny high and dry... not to mention that other units (hi, Leif) also rather need that ring before promotion. (Also, I balk at using two of my rings to "fix" one unit that I bred. They'll already both be hogging my Magic Rings.) The other issue is that a low-HP Wrath-activated Lex!kidlet is left exposed to imminent harm if the Wrath-bomb fails, so Vantage isn't necessarily doing the kids any favors unless I'm using them as a cleanup crew, whereas Miracle/Wrath kidlets are likely to come out unscathed and can used for chokepoint duty on enemy phase. I like the idea of Mage Knight Arthur as a melee-weapon user with decent RES, as that's a hell of a lot more useful to me come endgame than a Thoron user with adequate DEF given the number of sick magical enemies in the last two chapters, but uhhhhh... I guess the deciding factor here is, does Arthur get Pursuit as a class-based skill upon promotion? If yes, we might be able to make this work, because Lex!babies promote fast. If not, Tiltyu's going with Azel and to hell with the Vantage hijinks.
Aideen/Finn, for Building a Better Lester (Defensive Version). Miracle and crazy-high LCK ought to solve one of Lester's problems, which is dying all over the place in late-game. Also gonna try selling Briggid's Steel Bow so Lester can buy it back from the shop in Chapter 7. Also, unlike Beo/Aideen this gives me 5+ Lana, so if Lester still sucks I didn't waste my time entirely building this one. Making it will be tedious but all the long boring pauses in the action, like when Aideen is warping everyone home in Chapter Two, should help me here. If the trick with the Steel Bow works and I ever want to start a new PT from scratch, then we'll do Building a Better Lester (Offensive Version), aka the Beowulf pairing.
Fury/Lewyn, because if I'm going to be messing around with reliable pairings then I want a surefire back-up plan in case some of these kidlets are lousy. What better backup plan than Forseti!Ced?
PS: Ethlyn and Azel remain the Queen and King of shitty one-stat level-ups. I've played through Gen 1 how many times now and gotten the same lousy results? And then I send Dew into the arena, have him wear down the round-one opponent one measly hit point at a time... only to get a total null level-up out of it. Little bastard.
Anyway, now that I have stupid Ayra (and the politics re: Isaach don't strike me as any more intelligent in light of FE13, no sir), I'm gonna try a couple of those One-Night Stand pairings:
Ayra/Jamke, for multi-hit crazy swordtwin fun. Ayra's good SKL genes should counterbalance Jamke's lousy ones, and two early-joining footbound units should be easy to pair even without special events and such.
Raquesis/Alec, per Swanchika's recommendation. I figure Alec!Delmud can't possibly be any worse than the weak-ass spawn of an underleveled Dew. Nanna may disappoint me, though. But hey, I don't have to worry about allocating the Pursuit ring to these two!
Briggid/Holyn for a Patty that can actually hit stuff.
Sylvia/Death. I want that #$%& Berzerk staff.
As for the rest, I was planning to go with Tiltyu/Lex to see what Vantage/Wrath babies are like, but I'm on the verge of reconsidering it. The math just isn't particularly good on this one. Problem Numero Uno-- no native Pursuit. So Lex passes down the same terrible MAG growths to Arthur that, say, Finn does-- bad enough that one Wrath-fueled crit won't often kill an enemy. But Finn!Arthur is dishing out two crits per turn, and if we give the Pursuit Ring to Arthur to fix this, that still leaves Tinny high and dry... not to mention that other units (hi, Leif) also rather need that ring before promotion. (Also, I balk at using two of my rings to "fix" one unit that I bred. They'll already both be hogging my Magic Rings.) The other issue is that a low-HP Wrath-activated Lex!kidlet is left exposed to imminent harm if the Wrath-bomb fails, so Vantage isn't necessarily doing the kids any favors unless I'm using them as a cleanup crew, whereas Miracle/Wrath kidlets are likely to come out unscathed and can used for chokepoint duty on enemy phase. I like the idea of Mage Knight Arthur as a melee-weapon user with decent RES, as that's a hell of a lot more useful to me come endgame than a Thoron user with adequate DEF given the number of sick magical enemies in the last two chapters, but uhhhhh... I guess the deciding factor here is, does Arthur get Pursuit as a class-based skill upon promotion? If yes, we might be able to make this work, because Lex!babies promote fast. If not, Tiltyu's going with Azel and to hell with the Vantage hijinks.
Aideen/Finn, for Building a Better Lester (Defensive Version). Miracle and crazy-high LCK ought to solve one of Lester's problems, which is dying all over the place in late-game. Also gonna try selling Briggid's Steel Bow so Lester can buy it back from the shop in Chapter 7. Also, unlike Beo/Aideen this gives me 5+ Lana, so if Lester still sucks I didn't waste my time entirely building this one. Making it will be tedious but all the long boring pauses in the action, like when Aideen is warping everyone home in Chapter Two, should help me here. If the trick with the Steel Bow works and I ever want to start a new PT from scratch, then we'll do Building a Better Lester (Offensive Version), aka the Beowulf pairing.
Fury/Lewyn, because if I'm going to be messing around with reliable pairings then I want a surefire back-up plan in case some of these kidlets are lousy. What better backup plan than Forseti!Ced?
PS: Ethlyn and Azel remain the Queen and King of shitty one-stat level-ups. I've played through Gen 1 how many times now and gotten the same lousy results? And then I send Dew into the arena, have him wear down the round-one opponent one measly hit point at a time... only to get a total null level-up out of it. Little bastard.
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http://serenesforest.net/fe4/class.htm
So your inquiry about Arthur getting pursuit is no. Really there are very few classes with native pursuit.
EDIT: btw, re: null level, there's an issue with the RNG where if you spend too long in the arena, it runs out of numbers and then spits you a null level. This can be fixed in part by exiting the arena and re-entering between each bout.
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In a playthrough of ages past, I had some brief trouble recruiting Hannibal because she kept killing his face to pieces and decorating her sword with his beard. (It's worth noting, though that I also let her keep the first Hero Sword in this run, which had become thoroughly crithanced by the time I'd reached that particular chapter. On top of four strikes per assault thanks to her class-based Pursuit, and the cranked-up SKL...yeah, she could tear shit up pretty handily, but she couldn't handle prolonged assault. A tank she definitely is not - unless her dad's Lex, and in that case you're back to the hard-to-train + low SKL problem.)
Ethlyn and Azel: yeah, I remember having pretty much the same luck with them. Ethy's for staffing and chipping, not much else.
I'm curious to see how the other pairs go, as I'd considered each of 'em at least once. Finntilt surprised me, maybe this will too. =]
(Oh yeah -- and if you ever write Hannipatty, maybe she can be Forseti!Pat for extra crack?)
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I don't know all the stats, but he passes pursuit down and the kiddos were pretty handy at caring for themselves.
I had great luck with Lex/Tiltyu, but it did suck up a magic ring (possibly also a pursuit ring? it's been a while and I don't remember) All I know was that Arthur throttled many things for me along with Noish and Aira's beast children.
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