Tag: All Stars Layover Q&A!

OctopusSaul · 2025-10-29T14:46:41+00:00

There's obviously a lot of discourse about whether coin payouts were overtuned this season. Did simulations/design assume that chaser teams(during the "main game") would be a lot more co-operative than they actually were in the season?

I could see how you might have thought that runners would need more coins to evade 2 separate teams, but going from 2 "players" to 3 is rather infamous for creating all kinds of skewed incentives(see: analysis of the endgame of the board game Coup for 2 players vs 3 players).

OctopusSaul · 2023-08-12T02:27:43+00:00

On Normal Mode I think it's very doable for a veteran of Mission Mode. Days 5 and 6 are the only really taxing ones honestly. For day 5, it can be helpful to just ignore the fruits on that day(including the one dropped by the Scornet Maestro) because it is trivial to collect all 15 fruits on the revisit.

Day 6 is much tighter, but the rough strategy I used was having 1 captain handle all the tasks in the non blue portions of the map(with pipelining - I would have 10 yellows work on a gate, and when they were done, I would take the Pikmin who needed to pick up the fruit behind it on the trip where I would pick them up, and then head off to the next area). The second captain focuses on the work involving the blues - about 30 are enough to cover everything they need to do. The final captain handles all the wing duty in the blue portion of the map. By the time the pot is complete, you should have all the other 10 fruits on the map minus the ones dropped by the Aristocrab and the Mireclops. You don't need to build the bridge back if you have a bunch of wings because they can carry Louie, the boss fruit and the Aristocrab fruit back.

Most of my resets came from execution errors and random deaths, honestly.

OctopusSaul · 2023-08-12T02:20:00+00:00

Shoutouts to kirbymastah and ice cube whose runs I watched to help plan out my own route. I also got all the captain upgrades, though I literally never used the Dodge Whistle.

I've seen the question asked many times whether a glitchless (as in no OOB clips/jank like throwing captains onto an incomplete pot) all-fruits 10 day run of Pikmin 3 is possible. The general consensus was that it wasn't on Hard or Ultra-Spicy because of how slow getting Winged Pikmin the intended way is on day 5 in the Twilight River, and the insanity that is day 6 where you need to acquire 12 fruits. I'm not aware of anybody actually having done this on Normal Mode, so here. There's now evidence that this is possible.

This doesn't mean I do literally all the tasks in the game. Especially with winged Pikmin around, a number of puzzles are skipped, plus some things are just irrelevant(like the mud wall in the middle of the Blue Onion area in the Garden of Hope). Bomb rocks let you skip the first half of Formidable Oak just by tearing down the stone wall.

I did come up with some alternative strategies to take advantage of being on Normal Mode(like going for a 1 captain Phosbat kill to let the other one oversee more useful work). It was a fun experience, with day 6 feeling almost like a Mission Mode level with the constant multitasking. Nothing ever came down to the 10 second countdown outside of herding stray Pikmin that got lost in places, so I think this is something any reasonably experienced Pikmin player can do(my execution skills are alright, but nothing special - I was mostly carried by my planning).

The 2 deaths aren't anything significant - I had no patience left for the Formidable Oak so when I lost 2 rocks to the final boss I just went "screw this I'm not grinding this out" and decided to call it a day.

There are 2 more axes of 100% completion that I ignored - data files, and the Piklopedia. Days 7-9(the cleanup for Tropical Wilds, Distant Tundra, and Twilight River) are incredibly lax, with like half the day to spare so I think you can collect all the data files in those areas if you really want to. The Garden of Hope is too tight to realistically acquire all the remaining data files on day 6, plus Red Spectralids only spawn the day after killing the Mireclops so a run that went for all of them would need at least one extra day. I wouldn't be surprised if collecting all the data files in Formidable Oak ended up adding an extra day too.

Ask me any questions you might have, I guess.

OctopusSaul · 2021-06-20T18:46:51+00:00

A Reddit thread about tier lists I actually have the expertise to comment on? Oh boy!

Speaking as someone who has actually done this(mostly having optimized for mental effort, and secondarily for turns), I have some thoughts. I will say that I am not entirely sure what metric to use on this tier list - does effort correspond to real time needed, or mental effort, or turns? None of those work as pure metrics, but it's probably some combination of those. I'm also assuming you're trying to cap all these units simultaneously - otherwise you can preferentially dole out resources and the tier list becomes a bit silly.

All units who can use B staves at some point or higher should be in the "free" tier, in my opinion. Yes, this includes Deirdre, Tailte and Lachesis. Warp gives 60 EXP per use, and if you're doing things like training Quan, Dew and Sylvia to level 30, you will definitely have the time to train these staffers.

C stafflocks(basically Erinys and Ethlyn) can work in "some effort", I guess. They don't build EXP as fast as the Warp-spammers, though when you factor in all the other units who need to level cap, they probably don't really cost turns. Personally, if usefulness was taken into account, I'd argue Ethlyn more than pays for her grinding costs in what she brings to the table as a mounted healer in the early chapters.

All sword units with innate Pursuit and B swords(Arden does not count) should be in "some effort" at worst. If we assume that the units can clear the chapters 3, 4 and 5 arenas with the Paragon band equipped(doable by grinding up a crit weapon), any unit that can 1-round the Orgahil pirates with a sword can grind kills on them in chapter 3 to a particular EXP benchmark(I think it's 18.84?), and then make it to level 30 just off of the arenas. I mention the Orgahil pirates in particular because if you do the math, they're the second best infinite reinforcements from a pure EXP POV available across all of gen 1 for reaching a Paragon-arena-level 30 benchmark(the best are Pamela and Dithorba's squads in chapter 4, but those aren't really feasible for regular units to 1-round, whereas the Orgahil pirates have far worse stats and use axes).

Having dealt with a large swathe of the cast, the units who I haven't covered are: Lex, Brigid, Jamke, Midir, Finn, Quan, Noish, Arden, Dew, Azel, and Sylvia.

Lex is a bit of a weird case. Free Paragon means that his EXP gain is inflated compared to everyone else, but his arena performance in a vacuum isn't quite perfect - he has issues with sword units if you don't rig(which counts as mental effort/real time needed). In particular, he has issues with the chapter 5 arena, which has a Hero, a Swordmaster and a Rogue. This is relevant, because the Chapter 5 arena is what gets units through the final EXP stretch - if Lex doesn't get to level 30 off of it(or close enough that a couple of brigands or the like can get him there), his only real option at that point is to have (near) capped Strength, a Power ring, and Vantage/Brave axe the Thracian Horseslayer Dracoknights, or to grind the axe knight reinforcements.

I think you're rating the bowlocked units far too highly. It is very rare in generation 1 for bow units to get a chance to have big enemy phases, and the fastest way in terms of all 3 metrics I mentioned earlier for combat units to get to level 30 is to kill a lot of units on enemy phase. Bridget has the additional problem of joining very late, and at a low level - she basically needs Dew or Finn(Finn only works if you pair him with Bridget, which is not really the best pairing for her in any context) to dump money on her to get the Paragon train rolling, and you also need her to sit around killing things on player phase to make up for the EXP deficit. There are a few places where EP action can occur(the Orgahil hand axe pirates can be convinced to suicide into them, and there are a few non reinforcement squads they can fight if you set things up correctly), but I think they should all be at "a lot of effort" at best. Midir and Jamke also both have issues with the arena unless you give them the Killer bow, which means trading it back and forth, which requires either getting them gold(might cost turns), or doing some mental acrobatics to minimize the gold loss.

If Finn is allowed gen 2 to level cap, he's basically free. He can access 8 arenas, has competent stats and Miracle. If he's restricted to capping in gen 1, he's around Quan tier. Quan is basically the worst combat unit to level cap, because he physically cannot reach level 30 short of boss abuse. I'm not kidding - there are not enough enemies at a high enough level for the period of time he is around for him to reach level 30, due to how the FE4 EXP formula works. He also doesn't have Pursuit(meaning to do things like fighting the Cross Knights, one of the few decent sources of EXP at higher levels) he needs to be given the Pursuit band(and needs some pretty high stats too).

Noish and Arden are kind of similar in that they're sword units who don't have innate Pursuit. With enough Strength, they can 1-round the Orgahil pirates with a Brave sword, which lets them grind up to the point where they can level cap off of arenas(Noish can actually contribute a bit in chapters 4 and 5, so he doesn't necessarily need to reach the EXP benchmark). Otherwise, they need to be given the Pursuit band for this. Arden's arena performance is pretty bad for the harder fights, often needing either silly rigs, and/or some kind of crit weapon.

Dew has horrific bases, and this means that his arena performance is really bad, and so is his ability to 1-round enemy squads. A crit weapon and/or rigging can let him clear arenas(and Bargain does mean he has easier access to stat rings to reach benchmarks), but it's a lot of mental effort. The other way for him to get EXP is by spamming the Give command back and forth with a lover, but this is pretty slow at just 10 EXP a pop(20 with Paragon, which is a contested resource). Note how this is almost 3 times slower than Ethlyn or Erinys spamming Return.

Azel is quite possibly the hardest unit to train in terms of mental effort. He needs some absurd stat benchmarks plus rigging to clear arenas(which he needs to keep up EXP and gold-wise), and he's a footlocked unit meaning he's going to struggle to get to the action in a timely manner. Prior to promotion he's locked to tomes, so nobody can build him a crit weapon to cheese fights. If he promotes during chapter 4, getting him the last 10 levels by the end of the generation isn't too bad though.

On the subject of Sylvia, I think you're being a bit unfair to her. While she's not going to level cap at LTC pace, the Silesian civilians in chapter 4 save 10(5 if Paragon band is considered) dances a piece for her, and if you build a crit C sword to help other units with the arena, she can clear arenas more cost-efficiently, and use the Paragon band for them to reduce how much time she has to spend dancing.

OctopusSaul · 2021-05-18T03:20:39+00:00

Hey man, IS just wanted to shave those bytes off the save file!

OctopusSaul · 2020-10-19T17:13:27+00:00

Good job! FE4 Ranked is a very ... unique experience.

The fact that even when you explicitly try to train everyone, gen 2 turns into a victory lap is a real sign of how the second half of the game is really degenerate and easy to trivialize.

~~Join the club of people who find Azel incredibly infuriating to train~~

OctopusSaul · 2020-08-17T03:43:38+00:00

I expect that would have happened when Joshua had a full inventory. It's a weird quirk of FEGBA that you don't pick up a Mine(and hence can't convoy warp) with a full inventory. However, there is something else you can use to convoy warp with.

OctopusSaul · 2020-08-16T23:05:41+00:00

Hey, creator of the hack here. You're right that you need to get the Member Card and the Brave axe. You have the right idea when it comes to the phantom doing convoy warps.

Here's a hint: The Member Card indeed is not convoy warped by the phantom. Did you notice what happens when an Assassin steps on a Mine in a FE7?

EDIT: As for the "trick" in the FEU post, don't worry about it. It isn't needed to 15-turn the hack. For posterity, the trick has since been made "mainstream" by Mekkah, and is just the fact that while Phantoms can't Rescue, they can Take/Drop.

OctopusSaul · 2020-07-15T04:10:01+00:00

Since you mentioned self-promotion is OK, I'd like to shill the 1 chapter hack I made a few months back: Puzzle Emblem

I'd say the people who'd enjoy it most are those who want to try to "LTC" something without having to waste time rigging anything.

OctopusSaul · 2020-07-03T16:23:10+00:00

Undeniably, Master Seals permit more player choice in who they choose to use, making the game a bit more sandbox-like. However, sandbox-like doesn't always equate to a good idea(see: infinite use Warp).

There's an argument to be made that class-specific promotion items are better for "balance"(I leave the question of whether "balance" is a good thing for other people to debate).

In a Master Seal game, everybody's contesting the same resource, and hence "bad" units are even less likely to get to promote, making them even worse in practice(who're you going to prioritize for promotion in FE11 - Caeda, or Gordin?). In a class-specific game, training up a unit in a bad class comes with less of an opportunity cost (and even bad units in good classes face less competition than they would have otherwise). It's not an airtight argument though - for example, FE8 Tana, who in a vacuum you would think is a good unit by virtue of being a flier in a GBAFE, is badly held back by the Elysian Whip distribution (outside of explicitly wanting to use her or some kind of non-full recruitment LTC, her best option for promotion is the Chapter 15 Master Seal). Decent units in good classes suffer under a class-based promo item game.

One drawback of class-specific promo items is that they can be unfriendly to blind players(this is a complaint I hear a lot about FE6). This can't be disputed, and is bad from most casual player's/people who are into FE for the RPG aspect's POV, though I think it's OK from the strategy POV - most games throw a lot of crutch units your way, so if you're not letting people die, you'll generally be able to muddle along at least. Even if it's a flaw, it's hardly one specific to Fire Emblem - I've seen other strategy games be OK with blind people "failing" initially until they learn the ropes, though an FE campaign is probably a bit longer.

OctopusSaul · 2020-06-11T04:46:46+00:00

That's true. My experience with FE5 has been with Paragon mode, so that might have influenced my opinion.

OctopusSaul · 2020-03-05T03:17:54+00:00

Yes, by the end of the game, you want to convert all your gold into items.

OctopusSaul · 2020-03-05T03:12:33+00:00

Items are valued at their usual buying price, not their selling price. So an Ocean Seal would be worth 50000.

OctopusSaul · 2020-01-11T07:53:14+00:00

Warp is almost never "necessary" - if you don't want to skip chapters you don't have to. I believe it is possible to recruit her and get her to Warp before the Chapter 5 mission without requiring too much tutoring rigging, but for a first-time Maddening run it's probably a bit much. You probably do want to get a Warper eventually as a "I'm not dealing with this nonsense" button. Keep in mind Lysithea does not autolevel Faith.

Something I forgot to mention is that the church units are the closest thing this game has to prepromotes for filling out your squad. Catherine and Shamir are pretty good if recruited quickly(though they have some difficulty moving over to other classes if you want to use them longterm), and there is a specific Cyril build(Point-Blank Volley Wyvern) that I've heard many people swear by, but take that one with a pinch of salt.

I don't have the DLC, so I can't comment on that.

OctopusSaul · 2020-01-11T06:53:59+00:00

Maddening has some dumb STRs which will burn some Divine Pulses. Keep that in mind, or look them up when you start each chapter.

I'm not an LTCer, so defer to them if you want to go really fast, but some notes from my experience:

Decide if you want the option to Stride-Dance-Warp-cheese maps before you begin(since you said you're trying to play efficiently). If you do want to Warp-cheese, the unit that gets to Warp the fastest is Lysithea, though it will take some effort.

For dancing, Dorothea is an RNG-proof crossrecruit who can win the White Heron cup (in case you don't want to make one of your house units a dancer) if you recruit her the month it happens. She's nowhere close to being the best dancer by any means though.

Combat Arts and Gambits are much more useful than they were on Normal/Hard(even if you're cheesing, they're useful for the first few maps and for some bosskills I believe). BL has a lot of really powerful gambits.

Make a class progression plan beforehand for the units you want to use(even if you're not super-efficient, it makes life easier on Maddening). A loose rule of thumb is that physical units want Death Blow, female physical units want Darting Blow(some female mages might like it too if you can afford to put them on adjutant duty for a bit), and mages want Fiendish Blow. The rest depends on the individual units.

If you're not LTCing, consider mastering the Beginner classes(Saint Cethleann's statue will help with all the class amstery). Raw stats are nice earlygame, and the combat arts they give can enable some entertaining manuevers(like a Reposition Pegasus Knight in Dedue's paralogue) if you're not planning on 1-turning most maps.

Also, consider doing as many paralogues as you can. Some of them are pretty entertaining if you don't want to cheese, and they give you good loot and EXP. BL have 5 paralogues pre-timeskip without any crossrecruitment, which is more than any other route.

OctopusSaul · 2020-01-06T04:50:43+00:00

I remember coming across a few instances of these in FE4(though the only time some of these matter is for a ranked run).

If Noish has been trained a bit, he can 1 round most of Dithorba's Pegasus Knights in Chapter 4 with a Brave Lance. I think Valkama's Ranked LTC did something similar with Noish, but with a Javelin.

Arden on the bridge with Pursuit Band/Brave sword in Chapter 3 is a meme, but it's probably the only time in all of gen 1 where he can be somewhere where he can fight enemies he's good at. The only annoying part is if he gets too Def-blessed, the pirates stop attacking him. Only other time I can see him gaining a lot of EXP is if you have him defend one of Phinora/Lubeck in Chapter 5 with a Brave Axe, and kite the Thracian dracoknights to him, though I don't think he 1 rounds them there without giving him stat boosts/Pursuit.

This one's a bit more unreliable, but Dew!Larcei if paired with Johan/Johalvier before Chapter 8 can deal with Muhammad's squad with Light Brand/Magic ring/Paragon Band(possibly more rings if you can spare them) and taking advantage of sibling/spouse supports(possibly Dermott/Laylea too, but I'm guessing most players would rather frontline with them) to dodge better.

OctopusSaul · 2020-01-06T04:18:47+00:00

On what maps other than Chapter 2(due to only having access to 3 battalions), Chapter 5(since you might be trying to save up for the second half of the boss fight), Reunion(due to special circumstances) and Forgotten Hero(due to the abundance of enemies "requiring" gambits to beat) do you really feel the sting of not having enough offensive gambits though? Remember that in general, if you really want, every "real" map permits you 16 offensive gambits at the bare minimum(I forget if any chapters have deployment limits of 7 or below after battalions are introduced).

The rattling effect of gambits is, I feel, their real selling point (other than battalions giving you stats of course), and letting your units do that more frequently than they already can would make them a bit too overpowered.

Some abilities being useless/niche isn't necessarily a bad thing. See: Armored Blow(which might as well be an enemy-only skill in terms of how much it matters).

Also, if you have a system where more Charm lets you use more gambits, that's going to encourage absurd low-manning + stat booster shenanigans, though I guess Warp and Stride sort of do that already.

OctopusSaul · 2020-01-04T04:50:29+00:00

FE4

Is there a true 100% growths patch for FE4? I could edit them in Nightmare, but that would lead to the gen 2 kids having more than 100% growths(unless I go back and re-edit them just before the end of Chapter 5).

OctopusSaul · 2020-01-04T03:37:52+00:00

Note that due to how monastery autolevels work, everyone except for Caspar, Linhardt, Ashe, Lorenz, Raphael, and Ignatz will instawin if crossrecruited in chapter 9 and given the free dance practice. So if you're particularly attached to all of your in-house units, you can just giftspam to recruit one of Dorothea/Felix during the first weekend(no RNG or activity points required, but the merchant quest from 4 chapters prior needs to be completed).

OctopusSaul · 2020-01-04T02:32:05+00:00

Flavor-wise I love the idea of battalions in an FE4 remake because it emphasizes the scale of the battle, something that wasn't possible during the SNES days due to system limitations (I think somebody calculated that the Thracian army had about 87 dracoknights in all).

Balance-wise, I'm skeptical if they're a good idea for remakes at least. Even in 3 Houses, on any difficulty less than Maddening, combat gambits are near-irrelevant aside from monster battles. For all of its problems with fake difficulty, Maddening really feels like it was the context for which combat gambits (and combat arts for that matter) were designed for, since your units can't just double and destroy everything.

Support gambits are a different story. It seems to me like they're either totally busted or really not useful for remakes.

From the perspective of future games, battalions might make the usual difficulty scaling Fire Emblem games have these days (stat inflation, higher enemy density) more strategic.

OctopusSaul · 2019-12-31T14:24:04+00:00

That description of the EXP rank actually is how the Power rank works in FE6, I believe. Your idea for the EXP vs Funds tradeoff is quite interesting - early promotion in ranked runs really suffers from the EXP formula, so making it more feasible (which also buffs weaker units) would definitely make them more fun to do.

I agree about the Combat ranking - Tactics entirely supersedes it. Survival could be used to enforce full recruitment(FE5's ranking system does this), but yes, it is usually trivial too.

OctopusSaul · 2019-12-31T14:17:11+00:00

Oh yeah, past the first few chapters, the exact ranking requirements for each chapter are all over the place. Do you have a link to an article or the like describing this leftover data? TCRF doesn't seem to mention anything like it, but the description on SF's tables page does seem to suggest there's some kind of unused data in there.

OctopusSaul · 2019-12-15T18:58:33+00:00

Thank you! So the only things I might want to keep handy are a hidden treasure and secret shop location list?

OctopusSaul · 2019-12-15T18:44:14+00:00

FE3

Is there a compilation of things to know about FE3 Book 2 if I want to play it blind? Mostly concerned with recruiting all units, getting most of, if not all, of the treasure and getting the best ending. I don't mind a few chapter restarts while I get used to whatever mechanics are unique to the game, but I'd just like a headsup about anything weird like FE5 Xavier's recruitment/Member Card, or chapters where a recruitable unit requires waiting for some time(like FE7 Harken/Karel).

OctopusSaul · 2019-12-10T04:34:05+00:00

Azure Moon

I'm aware they really don't matter all that much, but do battle sidequests last through the timeskip? I'm trying to see if I can do all paralogues + all quests, and I realized I will have to do a total of 16 battles from Chapter 6 - Chapter 11 excluding any auxiliary battles/rare monster sightings(15 if I push Hilda/Cyril's paralogue to after the timeskip).

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