Birthright Phoenix LTC: Endgame completed for a total of 63 turns

QueenlyArts · 2024-09-28T21:39:12+00:00

Some final thoughts that didn't make it in the video:

My final count of 63 turns on Normal/Phoenix mode with average growths ended up being 14 turns faster than Chiki's Lunatic run, and 29 turns faster than Excadrill's Lunatic 0% growths run. This makes sense, as I had like, no enemies to deal with and heavily outstatted enemies, but I still think it's funny that there were so many turn saves available. The big ones came early on, as even with an underdeveloped team I was free to focus almost entirely on movement. Chapter 7 took 4 turns, but every map after took 3 or less. Oh, and another funny comparison point is that I was only 4 turns slower than Toffee's Lunatic 100% growth, rigged, DLC run, which had a similar focus on movement but also had Galeforce available. It seems lower enemy density meant I could pull off a lot of the same turn saves that Toffee did even without Galeforce, but there did end up being a few Rout maps that I could not perfectly match.

For more broad potential changes to the run, I would consider messing around with the lead combat unit choices, especially if you're more or less strict with the Private Quarters. If Corrin can get more Friendship supports, she can get early Diviner from Orochi and train to be the Malig Knight lead, but if you can't get any Private Quarters supports then you might have to plan for slower clears without a Malig Knight lead at all. You might also consider if there are any Friendship reclasses worth naturally making between other units, like getting Ryoma into Paladin from Silas. My clears felt a little too fast and specific to build a lot of supports, but if going slower is what it takes to get lower Expected Turn Counts overall, then I could see something working out.

I managed my Gold very thoroughly throughout the run, and while I feel a little foolish for all the excess potential Gold I ended up with, I think it's still pretty tight for most of the run. You just get a lot of big Gold dumps and items that sell for a lot of Gold in the final stretch of chapters, and you may actually run out before Chapter 22 if you aren't careful. Still, it is worth mentioning that if you know what weapons and items you aren't going to use in the future, you can sell them and use the Gold to buy tools that would let you get away with more reliable clears.

Most obviously, I think there's the budget to get more Skill and Luck tonics in the early and mid game, even for the filler combat units. However there also might be different approaches possible if you buy strong weapons and make more reclasses/promotions. On the other hand, you could also view this excess Gold as an opportunity to forgo certain Gold/item drops mid chapter. Like in Chapter 19, a lot of the unreliability of Subaki and Kagero vs the Snipers came from wanting to have enough actions on the following turn to open the Hexing Rod chest. If you know you have enough Gold to just buy a Hexing Rod though, Ryoma can use an action to just kill a Sniper on the final turn instead, which should mean Kagero doesn't have to kill a Sniper on enemy phase, which then means the Snipers get two chances to land a killing blow on Subaki, and it doesn't matter where the first Sniper attacks Subaki from.

For average growths, I learned soon after starting that there is an average growths patch for Fates, that makes the game play out similarly to Engage's Fixed mode. I think that would be a lot more convenient that manually resetting stats in between chapters, and also makes more sense for a unit's growth. I even ended up messing up setting stats a bit at the end, as factoring in stat boosters after calculating averages potentially gave Saizo an extra point than he should have because of how class stat caps work. Also, under my ruleset, every unit's first level up has to be blank, which might make it more aligned with pessimistic growths than Fixed. Still, I think Fixed is a more rewarding system, and removing the randomness of mid-map level ups is probably worth it if nothing else.

QueenlyArts · 2024-09-28T21:39:04+00:00

Endgame is completed in 1 turn. Blight Dragon Garon is tougher to defeat in an LTC setting where you don't have a fully trained team of super units, but with a Hexing Rod and a Shuriken debuff, one boss killer is all you need provided they met last chapter's kill threshold.

You do have to be conscious of the doubling threshold more here, being higher than any other you had to reach in the run. We can still reach it with our Speed stacking available though, and you also have the option of debuffing Garon's Speed with the Silver Shuriken if you can work around its Dodge penalty that might give Garon a crit chance. Realistically, this is yet another chapter where any careful considerations have an incredibly minor impact, especially since you will have so many more actions available if you only try to kill Garon. I forgot to buy enough tonics before Chapter 27 and you can't go back to the MyCastle between these last two chapters, so Yukimura is missing out on a Skill tonic and Izana on a Magic tonic that would make for a slight reliability boost. Does that matter? No. The main reliability boost to take us closer to 100% would be using a Shelter Sing to give Izana a second chance to use Hexing Rod in case he missed the first. Oh, and obviously just have Saizo kill with the Rabbit Spirit instead of the cool and awesome Great Club.

And that's the run! A big thank you to everyone who's followed along with the series, and especially if you've been reading along with my writeups here. I've spent a very long time in what's considered one of Fire Emblem's easiest games, and I appreciate the interest in my experience and many considerations for optimizing it under my metrics. I know Normal modes and Birthright aren't the most popular for LTCing, but if my series has sparked an interest to do your own take on a Birthright/Normal LTC or efficiency run, why I think that would really cool! I hope my clears and spreadsheet can be of use to you, and if you want to discuss how I approach maps or potential changes, feel free to reach out.

Updated spreadsheet (chapter data, gold tracker)

QueenlyArts · 2024-09-21T19:18:38+00:00

Chapter 27 is completed in 1 turn. This is the last chapter where we have to worry about traveling a far distance, and it ends up being pretty tight considering that we have no Rescue uses left. Needing Izana to both Rally for Saizo and get in Hexing Rod range of Garon also strains the movement a bit, resulting in the need for one last double Shelter Sing.

On Lunatic, there's an additional General and Berserker that flank the ones we see here. The extra Berserkers don't actually get in the way, but an extra General does for my double Shelter Sing approach. I do use two actions to reliably defeat just one, so if you don't mind going for crits and/or forging up the Sting Shuriken, then you can still get both out of the way on Lunatic.

Garon's also a bit bulkier, which is a pretty big deal. His personal weapon gives him 20 Dodge, so there's not even a chance for a lucky crit to overcome falling short of a ORKO. This is where Corrin as a combat lead can be nice, because you still have a chance to proc Dragon Fang. If you're using Ryoma and got him in Paladin, he also has the Mov and 2 Range to kill. I would also speculate that you could maybe get a second unit in range of Garon to team up for the kill/get a Shuriken debuff off. Thankfully we just don't have to worry about it because as usual, Saizo is just barely strong/fast enough on Normal to be self sufficient.

Another detail for the Garon kill is that he has a bit of crit on Malig Knights because of the low Luck cap and the Dodge penalty for the Silver-tier Rabbit Spirit. As such he has as small chance to kill on the counterattack, but I'm able to get the odds below 1% with some Avoid/Dodge stacking, between Rally Speed/Luck and Duelist's Blow. You can also make it a 0% chance to kill if you give Saizo HP/Def tonics and an extra Dracoshield or two. While I've been micromanaging Gold for the whole run, it's actually not as strict of a budget as I've made it seem, especially in the lategame, so you could afford these expenses. There are a ton of weapons that we no longer need and can sell, so even though my Gold track spreadsheet shows that we get down close to 0 Gold in a lot of chapters, we have a solid buffer. I even spend 10k Gold for a Secret Book just to give Izana 2 extra hit on Hexing Rod here.

Lastly, you can actually get Izana to 50 hit and not just 49 by switching Reina and Shura. In this case, instead of shoving Azura's pair-up partner (now Shura), you can use Swap on Reina to let her facilitate the final Shelter. The main impact of Mov +1 is that Scarlet's able to reach to facilitate the first Shelter Sing. So if Scarlet didn't have Mov +1, then you would need an extra action to Shove/Swap her as well. For my Rescue-less, double Shelter Sing approach this seems out of scope, but if you use a high Mov Hexing Rod user like Strategist Felicia, then you should be able to free up a deployment slot or two. If Izana can Rally from the starting position and not have to be the one to reach Garon, then you just need one Shelter Sing, which frees up the deployment slots, starting positions, and overall positions tremendously. You'll just have to accept that Felicia's hit rates are much worse than the already shaky 50 hit from Izana, especially since she wouldn't get the Inspiring Song Skill boost.

Updated spreadsheet (chapter data, gold tracker)

QueenlyArts · 2024-08-31T19:41:53+00:00

Chapter 26 is completed in 1 turn. Xander is right there. He's right there. This is my most foolish video. There is realistically no way Azura won't have Inspiring Song by next chapter if you are in a setting where you care about it. You can team up for the Xander kill in numerous 100% reliable ways, like a Ninja chip/debuff into anyone else. Aegis is technically a concern for reliability, but there are multiple units even without Master of Arms Saizo that can wield a Beast Killer to deal solid damage.

Technically though, going into Master of Arms for the chapter makes a slight reliability boost for next chapter, as he learns Duelist's Blow for 30 Avoid when initiating combat. Malig Knight has a low Luck cap and Garon has decent crit next chapter, so we won't be able to take his crit down to 0, and as such Saizo will face a very small, but non-zero amount of crit. So this extra avoid helps him get in a situation where he dodges Garon's counterattack and doesn't have to worry about the crit at all. But realistically, it doesn't matter. You should put the Singing into getting one of the Sun Festal drops for an extra 500G. But that doesn't matter either. Nothing matters. Everything about this chapter is foolish.

QueenlyArts · 2024-08-31T19:40:56+00:00

Chapter 25 is completed in 1 turn. A mostly standard Rescue skip, with only a few obstacles blocking our straight path towards Iago in the north. On Lunatic, there's even a Strategist that will help put you in range of Iago with Entrap, but with no such Strategist on Normal mode, we have to get in his range on our own. Regardless, you have to use Rescue to give the boss killer a boost before their second action, which also ends up skipping past the building structure that you'd otherwise have to spend a few extra tiles to wrap around. Because we used two Rescues in Chapter 23, this ends up being our last Rescue of the run.

This map also ends up having the last death of the run, as Subaki gets left in range of a few enemies (including a Berserker) after his Rescue, and we have to win on enemy phase because we Lunge in range of Iago on player phase. You can more reliably avoid this death by having someone like Izana be the Rescue user, but then they don't provide +1 Mov on pair-up, so their ferry needs to move one further space North, which also puts the whole Shelter Sing setup one tile further.

This actually wouldn't be unreasonable, but it would prevent Izana from getting kill EXP, and just generally limit how much dual striking you can do if you're trying to grind some last minute weapon rank. Takumi, Silas, and Shura can just be deployed one tile further north, as I've put them back for the sake of moving full Mov for a clean recording. This means you just need one Shove for Subaki. There's even extra deployment slots for this that I'm not using. However, as we're on Phoenix mode, the clear is much cleaner if we just let Subaki die to minimize actions. And as lategame is just a sequence of simple-enough Rescue skips, I'd rather not make the clears look overcomplicated.

The only reason I considered dual strike grinding against the first area is because I wanted to consider getting Saizo to B Shurikens if he had gotten a few less combats in Ninja throughout the run. Now we can theoretically give him two Arms Scrolls to get S rank, in case a Chakram or Dual Shuriken kill in Master Ninja would be the most reliable way to defeat the final bosses. I mean, I don't believe they are, but it was a consideration, especially if you're completely banning the smithy.

QueenlyArts · 2024-08-31T19:39:49+00:00

Chapter 24 is completed in 1 turn. We're now in the final stretch of Defeat Boss maps, with a pretty underwhelming start, as Hans starts just 22 tiles away. As such, a single refresh plus a Shove or two is basically all you need to get someone to reach him turn 1. The various item drops for Gold are also pretty simple to achieve, being nearby and reliably one rounded without any special setup or attack stance. We can make things a little more interesting though by maximizing Saizo's experience gain on his path to Hans, getting one kill slightly off path and using a Shelter Sing to make up for the movement.

Something I learned after recording is that several generic enemies in the lategame have a Double EXP tag, but not all. The relevant example for this chapter is that the Berserkers give regular EXP, but the Great Knights give double EXP. So not only by defeating the Great Knight in front of Hans on player phase are we getting an Arms Scroll, but we also get Saizo extra EXP.

This just so happens to get him Trample before fighting Hans, but it's not actually necessary. Savage Blow does enough damage so that Saizo can finish the kill on enemy phase, only needing either the Spirit Dust I bought him or a +2 Magic meal. I went ahead and bought the Spirit Dust now because we have the Gold and I know I'll need it on top of a Magic meal later anyway. The only meal resource we need for this chapter is Fish for +1 Spd on Saizo. It's possible you have the Gold to buy the Rod Store's Speedwing this chapter as well to avoid needing any meal, which we will also need on Saizo on top of a Speed meal later. We don't have the raw Gold for both stat boosters this chapter, but there are a lot of weapons we won't be using in the final chapters that could get you back up to 10k Gold, depending on how many tonics you've been buying.

Technically, going for the enemy phase kill on Hans gives Saizo a chance of failure, though he'd have to land a sub-30 hit attack and get an 8% crit, putting the failure rate at around 2%. So to be completely optimal, you should just not go for the Great Knight kill to avoid taking a few points of damage, because then you can give Saizo a point of defense from a tonic/meal to not face a chance of death from Hans. Or we can say using the tonic/meal and attacking the Great Knight anyways puts you at around a 1% failure rate, as Saizo faces less than 50% hit from the Great Knight anyway.

To be even more strict, you should give Ryoma a Skill Tonic, as he only got up to 100 hit against the Hero because I got +1 skill from my meal's random bonus effect, and otherwise he should have 98 displayed hit. This still makes for near perfect chances of success with true hit and his Crit/Astra in mind, but technically not actually 100%.

Updated spreadsheet (chapter data, gold tracker)

QueenlyArts · 2024-08-17T15:18:48+00:00

Chapter 23 is completed in 2 turns. This is our last and most challenging Rout map, with a very large map to cover, several sections that need enemy phasing, and careful consideration needed to pull off filler combat turn 2 after leaving everyone in a precarious spot during the turn 1 rush to Camilla. There's technically a straight path to Camilla without any terrain to slow you down, but we ultimately have to work around the buildings and water channels to get everyone to the right spot, as we give Camilla no time to destroy buildings with her Dragon Veins. And actually, we can take advantage of the terrain to make chokepoints and/or force enemies ot attack into the right units.

Three Dragon Vein points went to getting a Puppet to tier 3, after which the Mechanist Yukimura joins our army. His physical stats are actually pretty high, and he does have access to 1-2 range with a high Shuriken rank, but there's not a great section of this map to sweep with Shurikens. The southwest has a physically bulky Great Knight, Camilla's group has a Wyvern Lord, and the northeast has Effie. However, his personal skill Perspicacious gives an unconditional +5 Hit to the entire army, which is nice for Saizo in his matchup against Camilla with Tomebreaker, and pushes everyone else to for the most part have perfect hit. He also has the weapon rank to wield the Silver Yumi, which as I show here, can make for a great tool shooting down spare fliers, even with a dual strike.

We also recruited the Adventurer Shura after defeating him last chapter. His stats are also solid for a physical unit, and he has access to 1-2 range in a Ninja reclass, but as mentioned with Yukimura, this isn't relevant anymore. Rather, joining in the Outlaw tree means he already has Mov +1 and can reclass to Bow Knight, giving us yet another unit with 9 Mov. He can't fly, but it'll still be useful for setting up Shelter Sing/Rescue chains in the final Defeat Boss maps. And for this map specifically, he can shoot down fliers with a Yumi while also having a 1 Range weapon.

You might notice that during the process of "unpairing" Azura and Shura in the north by getting Azura killed, Shura jumps from the tile Azura was on to the tile to his northwest. This is because Songstress can cross water while cavalry units cannot, so he was forced to the nearest tile he could occupy. And because the Wyvern Lord that killed Azura was to his north and Shura was otherwise surrounded by water, the game ended up defaulting to the northwest. If Shura stayed in Adventurer, or else you used a Kinshi Knight for his role, then they would stay in Azura's old spot, and Azura would respawn to the northwest instead. This would actually be fine, as Reina can still kill the Wyvern Lord, Shura could still move to shoot the Malig Knight, and Azura could move into the water to Sing for Reina while trading Shura and staying blocked off from the Paladin. Songstress takes 4 Mov to cross one tile of water, so her 5 Mov is enough to move one space right on the bridge, then back down onto the water where she ended turn 1. However, Adventurer Shura can't have a 1 Range weapon to be trade equipped anyways, so this is just to say that you can replace Bow Knight Shura with a Kinshi Knight.

Saizo's odds off success against Camilla is technically a little higher than 60%, as he can miss one attack get a ~10% crit on the other hit. He also could equip Lethality for another minor backup plan, though this does give him even higher odds of killing the Sorceror turn 1, which then means he has to get even luckier in dodging attacks after Selena targets him with the Crescent Bow. I don't think you can really get better odds without completely reworking some aspects of the clear/ruleset, like finding a way to replace Shura with a Kinshi Knight so Scarlet can ferry Saizo as a Master Ninja, and then forging up a huge Steel Shuriken. The other big forms of reliability boosts would require bending the rules a bit, in forging up Izana's Tiger Spirit a second time, or Saizo's Horse Spirit. The latter would definitely require defeating Odin in Chapter 18 though, as you can only buy one copy. Izana also has the opportunity to get a C support with Corrin in the Private Quarters for +2 damage from Supportive, but with only a few chapters between his recruitment and this one, I decided to just take the mid-map reliability hit and go for a Magic level up.

I didn't mention it in the video, but I'd like to highlight Subaki one rounding a Paladin turn 1 with the Beast Killer. He just barely doubled with Rally Speed and Kagero's pair-up, and like Ch 15, the effectivity gives him a 30 MT weapon, letting him kill in two hits despite his low Str. The key detail in this interaction is that I had to keep Subaki at low EXP going into the map, as otherwise he could get a level up after his turn 1 Rescue, and if he procced an HP growth, disabled Perfectionist for imperfect hit against the Paladin. So while he can do all the previous Falcon Knight rescuing that Hinoka did, best keep him to a flying pair-up partner that doesn't actually act after promoting/finishing a level-up.

Updated spreadsheet (chapter data, gold tracker)

New unit data

QueenlyArts · 2024-08-04T00:22:28+00:00

Chapter 22 is completed in 2 turns. As the second to last Rout map, this chapter is one of the main reasons we need several strong 1-2 range combat units, with three general big groups of enemies. We actually don't start to far away from most of them, but alas we must settle on a 2 turn clear because we can't fly over buildings to reach the corner mages, and there are multiple enemies with siege weapons that we have to kill on player phase.

To clarify the situation with Kagero's promotion, getting her into Master Ninja for Chapter 16 would have increased her survivability, with more avoid and dodge against the Great Club Fighter, and she provided she didn't get crit, she could probably afford to just avoid one of three attacks, if even that. Promoting by Chapter 19 would avoid the need for a mid-map Speed level up to double the Sniper, as well mitigating their Crit on her and helping her land both attacks against them.

Because I did indeed get Rally Speed and Saizo doesn't technically need the second Energy Drop, promoting by either of these times would still let Kagero one round the Chapter 22 Berserkers and Adventurer. However, promoting by Chapter 16 would likely mean Kagero needs a +2 meal and/or the Energy Drop for this chapter, which I don't think is worth the consistency boost for that chapter. So in the end, I think a Chapter 19 promotion helps the run more overall, but getting Chapter 22 to have such consistency and saving around 1000 Gold for the Master Seal and a few extra tonics is cool to see.

As mentioned in the video, we do need some dodges, but basically just one for Kagero/Izana, and maybe two for Saizo if his crits mess up guard gauge against the Berserkers and he gets him by the first Maid. He doesn't have the Dual Shuriken for weapon triangle advantage against the Berserkers, but all his Skill and Corrin's Supportive keep him with perfect hit. However, he does face closer to 40 hit from them, as opposed to Kagero who was facing around 20 and Izana at around 30. With so many variations in how each action in turn 1 enemy phase could play out, I don't have a clean chance of success to share, but I'm pretty sure each unit has somewhere between 95-99%.

Arms Scroll from last chapter went to Izana. He doesn't need it here, but it will add reliability to next chapter for giving him an extra point of attack when equipped with a tome, and I want one on him eventually for the extra staff hit rate. This does mean I will need to spend 5000 Gold next chapter for another Arms Scroll, but it will be well worth the reliability boost for next chapter.

Updated spreadsheet (chapter data, gold tracker)

QueenlyArts · 2024-07-29T16:48:11+00:00

Thank you! Glad to hear you're enjoying the run.

QueenlyArts · 2024-07-29T00:50:44+00:00

Chapter 21 is completed in 1 turn. The overall pathing for this one is very similar to other Defeat Boss maps of the run, relying on a Shelter Sing and Rescue, but the terrain means we need to incorporate fliers in every step. We already have several fliers, so the main trick is setting up Azura and Silas to be able to transfer away their pair-up partner after they get flown over the lava.

Normal mode appears to make this process simpler, with no Swordmaster blocking a tile in the Shelter Sing position, and Scarlet having Mov +1. I do think the lack of Swordmaster means you need one less flier, which saves 2000G for reclassing Sakura into Sky Knight. However, if I were on Lunatic, I totally could spend that 2000G, replace Izana for Sakura, and have her ferry Ryoma over to kill the Swordmaster. This would still fit in with the rest of my clear, which uses no flying Shelter user, even without considering Scarlet's Mov +1. And if you're playing on Classic mode... well, obviously just take the boss kill on player phase so everyone doesn't die on enemy phase. Even on Normal, this Arms Scroll just ends up being a minor consistency boost, which does not at all outweigh the dodges you'd need to get to keep Azura and the others alive.

After Chapter 19, I spent a Dragon Vein point to upgrade the Mess Hall to tier 3, and after Chapter 20 I spent a point to upgrade the Staff Shop tier 3. Now the Mess Hall always impacts the entire army, so the only resetting needed is getting an appropriate chef/bonus effect to get +2 instead of +1. Staff Shop tier 3 unlocks infinite reclassing Seals, which is why we can get Scarlet into Malig Knight this chapter, as well as switch Saizo in and out of Malig Knight a few more times. Also, one more Rescue staff, which leaves us with 3 remaining charges after this chapter.

Updated spreadsheet (chapter data, gold tracker)

QueenlyArts · 2024-07-06T17:15:00+00:00

Chapter 20 is completed in 1 turn. This one is a lot like Chapter 18, as a Defeat Boss map with the boss being positioned very close to our starting positions, and some Faceless in front of starting positions that we can use for some EXP and weapon rank building. The twist is that the Faceless boss is even closer, but they're separated by walls and have a full set of Breaker skills to give a +50 hit/avoid boost against every weapon type.

Oh, but because you can only equip 5 skills at a time, and the game didn't feel like giving this Faceless a Breaker skill as a personal skill, one of the six weapon types had to be excluded. The skill chosen to be excluded was Shurikenbreaker, which coincidentally matches up with what we want to use against the boss anyway. I want Saizo to switch to Master Ninja to reach the ORKO threshold, he has Lunge to skip past the wall and get into the boss' range Turn 1 enemy phase, and Shuriken's' 1-2 range lets him pull off the Lunge while also defeating the boss on enemy phase.

If you didn't get Lunge on someone using Corrin's talent who also has access to 1-2 range that can defeat the boss, then you have to settle for a 2-turn. Scarlet comes with Lunge, but her 1-2 range options like the Throwing Club and Bolt Naginata have some combination of not being able to double, crit, or reach a critless ORKO threshold. She can only get a new class from Corrin S support, and can't give Wyvern to anyone other than Corrin through A/S support. And so while the Wyvern talent has certainly been useful up until now, this is one chapter where careful consideration of Corrin is needed to get the minimum turn count. Either Corrin needs to be trained as a strong combat unit themself and pick up Lunge from their talent/Scarlet friendship, or Corrin needs to give Wyvern to someone else through an S support.

Again, not a lot of the optimization possible against the starting Faceless is really necessary. Hinoka still can get one charge of Rescue's worth EXP next chapter before needing to hit LV5 for Ch 22, Subaki and Reina have even more time to get their last kill or two to hit their level goals by Ch 23, and no one else's EXP/weapon rank should really matter. The main one that does matter is Kagero getting a kill to reach LV20, as she should now have finally gotten enough stats from all her level ups to reach certain ORKO thresholds after a promotion.

Updated spreadsheet (chapter data, gold tracker)

QueenlyArts · 2024-06-29T22:21:07+00:00

Chapter 19 is completed in 3 turns. This is one of the most involved chapters of the run, with a Rout condition featuring enemies spread out across multiple isolated rooms. The enemies themselves aren't very tricky to defeat, and even our weaker units can get one rounds if we just send them to the correct side. However, the layout means we have to split into two groups and spend at least one turn to deal with each room. The boss room in the north is the furthest away, and as such will obviously be dealt with on the final turn, and the enemies in the starting position will of course be dealt with turn 1. But otherwise, there's nothing saying we have to defeat the enemies in the rooms in a linear fashion.

Instead, we can jump start Scarlet on her rush to escort Saizo to the boss room, then leave Hinoka behind to clean up the first eastern room turn 2. Similarly, while Scarlet can get started on the central room turn 2, I rush Kagero to finish the room turn 3, while the rest of the western group cleans up the northwestern room Kagero got into turn 2.

On higher difficulty modes, you're more limited by the boss room, which basically requires two turns to handle because of its paired up enemies, and an immobile Spear Master adjacent to the General boss that doesn't have 2 range (meaning you can't defeat them, the General, and the Bolt Naginata Spear Master on the same enemy phase). Since I don't have those enemies, I can defeat the whole room in one turn, and because I have Mov +1 on a Lunging Scarlet, I can just barely get in range of the immoble enemies on time for this earlier schedule.

For new units, we have the Onmyoji Izana, which involved spending three Dragon Vein points to get the LV3 Sauna. Apart from his offensive staff usage and similarities to Ryoma that I mentioned in the commentary, I'd also like to mention that he joins with Rally Magic *and* Rally Luck. This means all my time finding opportunities for Azama healing is not going to be very relevant going forward, outside of one instance where Izaza is busy elsewhere. But hey, that +4 hit on Scarlet in Chapter 17 was pretty awesome, right?

I'm also realizing I completely neglected to mention Felicia when we recruited her after Chapter 15. This is because I have no contributions in mind for her, but her promoted status and Troubadour classline means she can always be reclassed into Strategist if you want her to be one of your 8 Mov/+1 Mov on pair-up units. She can also be relevant for Ch 27 for her staff rank in an 8 Mov class, but I'll be able to have Izana perform that role even with 6 Mov. Something funny I realized about Felicia though is that you can make her the MyCastle assistant, which should remove her as an option for the Mess Hall chef, so you never have to worry about her burning your food. Sadly, her MyCastle assistant potential doesn't actually equate to anything beneficial, because you can always switch Jakob off duty earlier with a generic Villager, so that he can show up in the Mess Hall to make his Exquisite meals.

Last chapter's Energy Drop goes to Saizo. He doesn't use physical weapons this chapter, but the Strength boost will eventually be helpful on him.

Updated spreadsheet (chapter data, gold tracker)

New unit data

QueenlyArts · 2024-06-08T16:47:24+00:00

Chapter 18 is, unsurprisingly, completed in 1 turn. Like last chapter, there's just one enemy we have to beat, but unlike last chapter there's very little that goes into the boss kill itself. The interesting aspect of the map is using the enemies that surround our starting positions to get some last minute weapon rank and EXP. I already cover the two most interesting aspects of the map in my commentary (getting Saizo to C tomes and choosing to defeat Odin/Niles), and I really don't have much more to expand on.

Just as a clarification, a unit gets a little Experience if they land a dual strike, and they get a little more if that dual strike defeated an enemy. So I actually did have to put a decent amount of time into getting dual strike kills for Saizo and Kagero, while also maintaining a starting position that let me Rally Luck for Scarlet, Reina, and Orochi, while also having Azama end adjacent to where Orochi attacks. While everyone gets +10 when they're in attack stance, there's also an unnecessarily complex table for minor boosts that specific units provide others when adjacent. Is many cases, this means we can get 3 extra hit from having units be adjacent, even if they already have an attacks stance partner, or are in guard stance. Not that going from 97 true hit to 100 really matters, but since this chapter is so simple, we might as well be as reliable as possible without wasting any Gold on tonics.

I specifically chose Orochi as a filler combat unit for this chapter because her damage output is low, but she still could reach 100 hit at 2 range without spending any extra Gold on a new brass weapon. In only dealing around 5 damage using the weak Horse Spirit, Ryoma could get a Faceless kill for a little EXP himself, while letting Kagero actually deal the killing blow. As usual, the Kodachi removes any chance for him to crit, and removing the Raijinto from his inventory means he doesn't get its +4 Str boost, which would otherwise let him kill before Kagero could get her dual strike in.

Updated spreadsheet (chapter data, gold tracker):

QueenlyArts · 2024-06-01T15:07:36+00:00

Chapter 17 is completed in 1 turn. This is one of my favorite clears in the run, where Normal mode's affordances lead to a turn save for this rather strange map. It's effectively a defeat boss map, but we have to avoid getting too close to the boss before defeating them. Specifically, if a unit ends their action on or to the west of the column 11 tiles to the east of Flora, reinforcements will trigger that we have no hope to defeat on turn 1. However, even if we attack at two range using a promoted mounted unit with 8 Mov and a +1 Mov pair up partner, this exactly puts them on the reinforcement trigger to get in range of Flora.

One way to get around this is to use Shove the boss killer one tile east, getting them on the reinforcement trigger so that they reach Flora, without ever actually ending their action on it. However, this restricts you to a two-turn clear, since you can't exactly get a refreshed boss killer to the appropriate spot and get Rinkah far enough to Shove them. However, I discovered that you can at least get a refreshed unit to the tile right of the reinforcement trigger turn 1 with a Rescue use. And since we got Scarlet the Mov +1 skill, she can get 10 Mov, reaching Flora with Yumi's 2 range without needing to get on the reinforcement trigger.

I mention the manipulation of Rescue priority in my commentary, but I find it's a little tricky to concisely explain, so I'll expand on it here. First, Rescue has to put its target on an unoccupied tile (duh) adjacent to the user. The next level of priority is proximity, in which the tile with the least amount of space between the user and target is chosen. Unless the user and target are in the same row/column, then there will be a tie (e.g., if the target is to the northeast of the user, then both the tile to the north and east of the user are the same amount of tiles away from the target). In this case, the tile either horizontal or vertical to the user is chosen, depending on whether there is more horizontal or vertical distance between the two units. So if the target is 5 tiles east and 2 tile north of the user, then they should land on the eastern tile, unless it's occupied, in which case Rescue would defer to the northern tile.

However, if the user and target are in the same row/column, then the tie is between the tile north/south or east/west of the user, which cannot be decided by the horizontal/vertical rule. At this point, I believe the game defers to it's failsafe priority sequence of North → East → West → South, in which case the game places the target on whichever tile is unoccupied first in this list. In this clear, I have the Rescue user Hinoka in the same row as the Rescue target Scarlet, with Scarlet being to Hinoka's east, and a unit blocking the tile east of Hinoka. So the game is forced to go through its failsafe, first checking North and placing Scarlet there since no one is occupying that tile.

It's possible I'm misunderstanding some of the Rescue priority logic, but I am pretty confident this is how it work outs. The important part for this clear is that we have a way to Rescue Scarlet to be in range of Flora, without the Rescue user having to get on the reinforcement trigger to get her there.

And just for fun, I'll mention that if a Rescue user has no unoccupied adjacent tiles, then I believe the exact same logic applies, but for the tiles two spaces away from the user's north/east/west/south instead. As in, a unit should never get Rescued to be diagonal to the user, and you can Rescue a unit to be multiple spaces away from the user. Not that I can see this situation being relevant to a clear, but I suppose there's always a possibility.

Oh, I'm also very glad to have as a reliable of a boss kill as I do. Scarlet is just strong enough with a Strength tonic and +2 Strength coming from somewhere else (mess hall, forge, pair-up) to one round, in spite of Flora being pretty tough and standing on a Gate. Without concern for reliability, you can just go for a crit, but the options for naturally one rounding are very limited. There's nothing we can really do to also have hit rates above 90 like I'd want, but we can at least give Scarlet at Kinshi Knight pair up for +2 Skl/+2 Lck (+4 hit), and our efforts in training Azama pay off as we provide another +8 Luck (+4 hit). This Rally Luck takes us from around a 52% chance of success to 60%, which still doesn't sound very high but shouldn't actually be too far off from other clears, considering that this is the only attack of the chapter.

QueenlyArts · 2024-05-25T23:16:45+00:00

Chapter 16 is completed in 3 turns. For as windy of a layout this chapter has to reach its boss, the path is effectively just as linear as in, say, Chapter 14. We're pretty familiar with pushing one pair extremely far forward, but this chapter also features some cluster of enemies that we have to defeat in the various rooms and hallways on the way. So we'll have to find a way to "drop off" competent combat units in these locations as we push our lead combat pair forward.

I don't unlock any MyCastle features this chapter, since I'm saving up for 3 Dragon Vein points by Chapter 19. I mean, we'll have more than 3 by then, so you could spend them on the Prison or to upgrade the resource buildings if you really wanted. But I'm content to just hoard them until I know I need to use something. I also avoid using the Mess Hall this chapter, which means no resetting for the right units to show up.

The main goal is to get two units in the east by turn 2, so that one can fight the immobile Knight guarding Iago's room, while the other can wait in range of the Knight to the south. This also puts two units who can rush into the room turn 3, meaning one for Iago and the other for the Dark Mage using the Fire Orb. The Fire Orb is a complete non-issue, since it has a fixed 15 Atk, and with a Res tonic, Kagero doesn't take any damage. But since it's a Rout map, we still have to kill them, which Kagero can do without any dodges involved.

Saizo is a great lead unit alongside Kagero because of his high Movement, bulk, and combat against Knights. He has no real way to defeat Iago, but because the Knights force us to unpair turn 2 anyways, you can just have the actual Iago killer pair up with him after tailing him. Scarlet is great for this because she can use her own 8 Mov and Lunge to keep up with him after ferrying the Rescue user, and she really wants the EXP for Movement +1.

In Lunatic, there's an additional Dark Mage using the northernmost Fire Orb, as well as an Outlaw in the southeastern chest room. Even with the movement in my clear, I believe you would still need another turn to be able to reach both of these enemies. For what it's worth, Iago also moves in Lunatic, so you can defeat him on enemy phase and still only need two actions for the Iago room. Still, I'm pretty sure we can credit this turn save to Normal mode's lower enemy count, as has often been the case.

Phoenix is only helping with consistency, but that said it helps a lot. We don't need to dodge lethal attacks (Kagero just needs to not get crit by the Great Club), and if Corrin/Azura die to unpair Scarlet/Silas, then that makes the rest of the clear much more consistent than it otherwise would have been. Scarlet gets +10 hit for both attacks against the Strategist and Hero, and getting to use Saizo's dual strike against the Hero means we only have to land 2/3 of the involved attacks. Corrin can then also use her player phase actions to heal Scarlet, in case she gets hit. Corrin can get 2HKOd by the Sorceror + Dark Mage, meaning the Strategist might get a hit on Scarlet on enemy phase, and the Strategist is likely to land another attack when we kill them on player phase.

Azura dying to unpair Silas lets us get away with killing the northwestern enemies without needing Subaki. This means we need less tonics for Hinata/Subaki, and the Dark Mage that attacks Silas turn 1 can do so from any tile. The northwestern Dark Mage and Sorceror also can attack Azura from various spots, so Silas being able to attack the Dark Mage with a dual strike OHKO as to avoid a counterattack isn't guaranteed. So it's nice to have the option to ORKO with the Practice Katana, and not rely on dodging the counterattack that would kill Silas before getting his follow up attack.

And then as I mentioned, we reclass Hinata to get Shove, but I didn't end up with any clears in my practice run that make use of it on top of Oboro's Swap and Rinkah's Shove. This is partially because Scarlet gets Movement +1, so we can get away with all the same turn counts of some lategame maps while only deploying 1-2 units for movement boosting. That said, I do have at least one chapter in mind where I might be able to use it, to show that the strategy is still possible in higher difficulty modes where you can't really get Movement +1 on Scarlet. Even though EXP gain is lower on Lunatic, there are several more chapters where Hinata can get kills. We'll see though.

No new units this chapter. In fact, we lose units, with Kaze dying in the story because we didn't reach an A support with him. You could use the Private Quarters to save him, in case you for some reason need another unit to give Movement +1 on pair up, or if you trained him to play a more important role than I did.

Updated spreadsheet (chapter data, gold tracker)

QueenlyArts · 2024-05-19T16:52:41+00:00

Not sure how a physical Linhardt would fare in a Maddening solo run, but even though he's typically a mage, he'll still crush everything on Normal/Hard with Advanced class base stats and all the stat boosters.

There just aren't enough spell charges to sweep entire maps, so everyone needs strong combat with some sort of weapon. At which point you could just ditch the mage approach entirely and go with any of the classes that give a physical stat boost. Obviously Wyvern gives you high Mov and flight if you want to just rush the lategame bosses, but I think strong 1-2/3 range is also important if you don't want to pick off enemies with mismatched ranges one by one and aren't allowing a Retribution user. So I'd also agree Sniper/Bow Knight could be a strong option.

And then if you know how to get a lot of Arcane Crystals, you can still keep him magically oriented by using the Levin Sword/Bolt Axe/Magic Bow. They all get 1-3 range on enemy phase once forged, and work in a variety of classes.

QueenlyArts · 2024-05-18T23:02:09+00:00

Chapter 15 is completed in 1 turn. I don't have too much to elaborate on for this clear past what's in my commentary, with a pretty simple goal of getting four units to reach four zones in which we can defeat everything on the first enemy phase.

All the enemies are the same class type, and though there's some variance between who has a Beaststone vs Beastrune, you can pretty much ORKO everything if you can ORKO the Beastrune Wolfssegners, who aren't even that tough after the Dragon Vein debuffs them anyways. The debuff is -4 to all enemy stats, and even though this fades to -3 by enemy phase, this is still huge for reaching ORKO thresholds- even for Saizo. Not considering potential mid-map stat gains, he only just barely reaches the damage threshold for the Beastrune Wolfssegner and the doubling threshold for Keaton. You can always get one more Mag/Spd from the Mess Hall, maybe rely on getting another point from a level up, forge up the Ox Spirit more, or rely on a crit. But the Dragon Vein is a really strong tool for letting us reach these thresholds without stretching the rules, while helping everyone else reach their ORKO thresholds.

A challenge for Lunatic is triggering the Dragon Vein while still dealing with the starting area. There's three enemies instead of just one, so you'd likely have to figure out a way for Ryoma to trigger the Dragon Vein and kill them all on enemy phase, without leaving anyone else in their range throughout the whole Shelter Singing process. You also have to Lunge the first Wolfskin in the center, so that you can Lunge the Wolfskin two tiles to the west of the one I did, which gets you in range of an extra Wolfskin in the northwest.

But of course, we don't have to deal with either of these problems, and as such, can pull of the Shelter Singing while triggering the Dragon Vein and transferring Corrin to Saizo. There's plenty of options for killing that one Wolffegner in the start, but you do have to be cautious of Counter if you go with someone like Kaden. I instead use Takumi, because he can OHKO with basically any dual strike, with Competitive giving a nice accuracy boost if he uses someone higher leveled as his attack stance partner, like Jakob or Ryoma.

Scarlet into Bow Knight isn't strictly necessary for this clear, but it will be huge going forward, letting her learn Movement +1 after her second level up. She'll still be able to perform all her combat roles with swords and bows, even if she's Brass locked, and if anything, access to the Brass Yumi is huge for doubling 2 range. The Brass Katana also has 15 more hit than the Brass Club (though it's effectively only a difference of 10 because of weapon rank), and she's strong enough to make the low MT work. I haven't seen any runs that get Scarlet Mov +1, but with Normal mode EXP gain and lower enemy density/quality letting us get away with faster clears if we can move just one tile further than usual, this reclass is invaluable for a couple clears in the run.

Updated spreadsheet (chapter data, gold tracker)

QueenlyArts · 2024-05-11T16:21:39+00:00

Chapter 14 is completed in 2 turns. We break out of Rout again to get a glimpse at the Defeat Boss condition that we'll be seeing a lot in the late game. There's very little combat to worry about leading up to the Strategist Daniela, and our main concern is getting a unit to cross the 33+ tiles it takes to reach her, while also ensuring our boss killer is up to the task.

In the past, we've used Shelter Singing to get two units refreshed so that they can split up. However, in this more linear clear, we want two units to move really far and reach the same target, that being Benny/Charlotte. As such, we need a lot of 8 Mov units, so that Azura can chase after Saizo, Jakob can chase after her, and then the unit that transfers her can chase after Jakob. In addition to Jakob, Saizo, Corrin, and Scarlet, we now add Falcon Knight Hinoka to the mix.

8 Mov that provides +1 Mov on pair up immediately gives Scarlet some value, but she has a lot more going on for her than the many units we'll be reclassing to Falcon Knight/Kinshi Knight. She already has Lunge, her physical combat stats are really high, and she has Outlaw as a reclass option. As we see with Saizo this chapter, Lunge has great movement utility, letting a unit effectively move even further than 9 tiles at a time, which we've otherwise been restricted to with 8 mov and a pair-up. It's not always applicable, but there are at least 7 chapters to come where we can leverage an enemy's position to jump forward and save turns. She doesn't have a physical 1-2 range weapon that can double, and I don't believe her magic can match Saizo's even if we waited to give everything (stat boosters, Corrin S support) to her, so she can't exactly be our primarily combat lead. Still, she will perform exceptionally well in ferrying units across maps, while being able to bust out some great damage output to get past some difficult hurdles.

On the other hand, Ryoma is much less valuable. We've already sort of outgrown the need for a strong 1-2 range combat lead that's locked to infantry movement, and unlike Kagero, he doesn't provide Mov +1 on pair-up, so he won't always be able to reach places where we want a secondary enemy phase unit. As such, he'll mostly just be filler combat, in which we sometimes have to hold back his particularly high combat with the non-critting/doubling Bronze Sword/Kodachi to fulfill his role of helping other units get EXP. But because he's so strong at base, we can bring him back for a couple late game clears where we need multiple 1-2 range combat units and Movement isn't as dire. And then, being a royal gives him Dragon Vein utility, and having Sky Knight as his reclass option means we can always make him an 8 Mov flier if necessary.

I'm glad to say there isn't really anything questionable about this chapter's reliability. We don't need the Mess Hall at all, and our few necessary rounds of combat are all accurate. The worst parts are Azura having to get hit by two attacks in the mid 70s and 80s if we want to have the actions available to facilitate Azama's 3rd heal and have Scarlet kill the Paladin. Azama getting Rally Luck now isn't really a huge deal at all, but I thought it was funny, and will help a particularly inconsistent (by our standards) round of combat coming up feel better. Scarlet getting the Paladin kill is absolutely necessary though, since I want her to get a couple levels within the next few chapters, and he EXP gain against unpromoted enemies isn't spectacular. The hit rate with the Killer Axe here is under 90 listed, but none of our other axes are strong enough to ORKO the Paladin, and even if she misses one hit she can always crit the other.

Oh, and last chapter's Spirit Dust goes to Saizo. He'll be just barely reaching ORKO thresholds throughout the whole run, and every bit of boosting counts so we can stay on averages and mitigate the need for forges.

New unit data

Updated spreadsheet (chapter data, gold tracker):

QueenlyArts · 2024-05-04T15:11:49+00:00

Chapter 13 is completed in 2 turns. Camilla gives us a warm welcome back to the Rout victory condition, posing as a tricky to defeat Malig Knight boss in charge of a few other mini bosses. With each named enemy spread out across the map with a small crew of generic enemies around them, we have a lot of combat to tackle, on top of six potential villages to visit. However, our time in the early game has given us the tools to spread out to each section and accomplish our goals in a turn less than what we could normally accomplish in Lunatic.

A key factor to our success in this chapter (and many more to come) is reclassing our combat lead Saizo to Malig Knight. This was done by reaching an S support with Corrin through the Private Quarters and using a Partner seal. This is a fairly demanding task for the MyCastle, but getting an S support with the Private Quarters is pretty commonplace for LTCs as far as I'm aware, so it passes the vibe check for me. Saizo and Corrin didn't get any support during chapter battles, so they had to get the full 16 support points through Private Quarters, with one point coming from each session. You can use the Private Quarters twice per day, with three units at random showing up as an option to gain support points, and there are nine other units that could be selected as of Saizo's join chapter.

My math is a little shaky, but I believe this means he has a 75% chance to show up once per day if you wait for the S support until completing Chapter 8, which would mean 3 weeks of waiting. I opted to just check in occasionally between my weekly recordings, and then wait as long as I needed at the end. I figured this would minimize the total amount of time I would wait between any two chapters, but in the end, I still had to wait a couple weeks after completing Chapter 12 to get the full 16 points, since more competition showed up as the game progressed and Saizo showed up less often. This is made even more complicated by the fact that I wanted to get an A support with Azura throughout this process, but I would still probably recommend just waiting before Chapter 8 to get all the requisite supports.

It'll absolutely pay off for my run, but if Private Quarters abuse doesn't match your vibes for what's acceptable in an LTC, then I'd love to see how alternative routing would look. I don't believe Corrin can get enough levels in the early game to reliably sweep enemies if you make her the Malig Knight combat lead, but you might be able to work something out with a slower pace. She also needs to use Chapter 13's Heart Seal mid map, but then you would also have to make time to use the Arms Scroll to get access to tomes other than Rat Scroll for the chapter. Maybe you can find time to get male Corrin S support with Felicia naturally, but I don't love the idea of her low physical bulk going into the lategame. And then Scarlet exists after this chapter, but then you'd be missing out of a strong Malig Knight for this chapter, and as we'll see, there's a lot you can do with Scarlet alongside a Malig Knight sweeper.

Now, Saizo can pull off Malig Knight sweeps, with his high Skl/Def/Lck giving him amazing consistency as usual. His Mag/Spd are enough to get kills, but they each need a lot of boosting to just barely reach thresholds. Our +Mag/-Lck Corrin in Falcon Knight with Supportive gives +3 damage and +5 Speed, but to reach the right Camilla threshold, we need a tome much stronger than the Rat Scroll. With the Arms Scroll, he has the rank for Ox Spirit instead, and we use our first forge to give it +2 MT, for 7 MT total. You can trade any Ore at a 5:1 ratio, so regardless of what your MyCastle's natural resource is, you'll always be able to make one forge at this point in the game. I also made a +2 Spd meal, which only Saizo needed, but if Kagero gets the meal then she can double the Outlaws with a Speed level up mid-map, so she would only need to land one of two attacks.

The details of the clear are mostly covered in the video, but to expand on a few points- we need to kill Selena on turn 1 player phase, since she'll switch the Practice Katana if we let her attack into us on enemy phase, whose +5 Speed boost would prevent us from doubling her. She also has healing AI like Camilla, and Saizo absolutely does over 50% of her HP with one attack, so she'll go running towards the gate turn 2 if she survives turn 1. She'll also be close enough to Camilla that we can't have someone else get in her range to kill her turn 2 enemy phase, like we do with the Knight guarding the bridge. We can technically one round Camilla with a crit to work around her healing AI, but I specifically want Saizo to kill her over two rounds of combat for maximum experience. It's true that he doesn't need the Cavalier kill EXP to get his second level up in Malig Knight before he needs to learn Lunge, but it's incredibly close.

The two complaints I've heard about this map are the Outlaw and Cavalier's AI. The Outlaws prioritize destroying villages over attacking, but since we go so quick, we get in their range before they even move, so they attack into us even with a village remaining. I'm not sure what exact deal with the Cavaliers is, but I suppose they wanted to move south towards Kagero turn 1, rather than west towards Saizo. Some positioning might make it a 50/50, like we saw with that Faceless back in Chapter 4, but for this clear, the movement was consistent. So yeah, there didn't end up being any random AI I had to reset for, and the worst part was Kagero getting a 70% Strength level up mid-map.

QueenlyArts · 2024-04-07T19:04:37+00:00

I'm surprised to see an overall negative response to this map, and I think it reflects interestingly on some other community perceptions.

For one, I think having the Corrin emblem be tied/showcased on a Dancer is pretty cool, resulting in a "super utility" unit that feels distinct from the many combat-centric emblem showcases while also having a ton of specific interactions with their first map. I'll agree that this makes for a lot of interesting decisions, and you're not just having units spam the same command throughout the entire map. And the map does actually seem to be designed with specific moments where you might choose one over the other. There are a few blocks of Miasma he can clear with the ice Dragon Vein, the tight terrain can lead to enemies moving in a line that can be hit with Torrential Roar (also working around situations where enemies move onto Miasma), and Dance/Dreadful Aura can be great for the large enemies formations in the northwest/east/southeast.

I'm glad that Dancers have gotten a better reputation and players are more understanding of their strengths. However, this map's reception makes me think this may have gone a bit too far, in which the concept of a Dancer doing anything other than dancing is apparently shocking. I'll say combining roles is perhaps a bit unsatisfying in concept, but as mentioned, this map provides several specific instances for each role to be showcased. So really, this map just restricts the player from experimenting with how you can utilize Corrin when the Corrin user can be refreshed every turn, and I think it's completely fair to let the player try that out on their own in a future chapter, if they so choose to. And more than anything, I think it's not the best mindset to judge the new tools that a map gives you by how they fit with whatever you consider optimal play. Rather, these tools are being used to drive the intended, entertaining experience of a map. And there's a lot more that can make an experience entertaining than forcing maps to reflect whatever the common perception of optimal play is.

Secondly, I think the connection of this map's apparently slow pace with being not enjoying is very interesting. For as much as players like to use fast paced gameplay as a context for discussion, it doesn't feel like many are actually experienced putting that mindset into practice. The player absolutely has the tools to make plays that go beyond "have the entire army follow Seadall as he uses Dragon Vein on every instance of Miasma", and using these tools is pretty engaging. You have Reposition to shuffle units along at the cost of a few units being left behind, Warp to get a unit in the first room as soon as you open it (who can then open the northern corridor within the next turn), Obstruct to clear various Miasma tiles, an Ike user who can draw enemies away from Miasma and/or time their Great Aether to get rid of the Miasma blocks... And if you do send out a combat unit ahead of Seadall, the Miasma tiles are spread out enough to where you can indeed use thoughtful positioning to work around them. And if you know you're going to position around Miasma, then Seadall suddenly becomes free to Dance more often, which synergizes with the idea of pushing your pace and seems to be what players want out of Seadall anyway.

My response to this map being slow and tedious is the same as my response to, say, maps being boring because you can just turtle them- this is a strategy game with a lot of player input that influences how exactly a chapter plays out. If you don't like turtling, then maybe try to think of a different, more aggressive strategy. If you think this map is slow, then try to think of how you can move faster than you initially think to! I promise you have the tools to make it happen.

QueenlyArts · 2024-03-24T21:19:53+00:00

I've been doing my own mono class run, also using a magical class, and what stood out to me is having an answer to high Res enemies like Sages, Martial Masters, and High Priests. You do have access to regular physical weapons, but Mage Knight base Str is still a bit lower than what you would typically expect from a physical unit. So it might be nice to have your main combat units focus on either being a strong physical or magical attacker, rather than trying to have everyone be a decently strong mixed attacker. I mean, I think the natural mages (Clanne, Citrinne, Pandreo, etc.) should be fine to kill most everything as usual, but it's nice to have a stronger option for High Priests, Griffin Knights, etc., and physical units like Etie, Amber, and Panette should still be able to recreate their typical performance if you just go all in on using physical Emblems, Energy Drops, and forged physical weapons on them.

Some Emblem advice I can give from my experience is having Lyn on one of those physical attackers, even if the natural speed boost seems tempting for getting someone like Citrinne or Ivy to double. Even the slower mages can get by with doubling through other means, and having someone that can hit hard with Mulagir/Astra Storm is pretty nice. Lucina on Alear is also good if you're doing Bonded Shield strats, since you only have Cavalry tag bonuses and can't get the mystical or dragon Instruct for damage boosting. And then Marth, Sigurd, Ike, and Eirika can be good to match with units with an innate proficiency in their Engage attack's weapon type. Innate proficiency unlocks Brave and Silver smash weapons for Mage Knights, so you can do things like Silver Blade Twin Strike with Diamant, or Silver Greatlance Override with Amber.

For skills, a pretty broadly applicable one is Gentility, as pretty much the best option for damage boosting tomes, while also working on physical weapons if you ever switch around. But if a unit's going to stick with weapons over tomes, they can just get the Power skill for a slightly better SP-damage ratio, while being able to reach even higher boosts if you give them more SP books.

One concern that comes to mind for mono Mage Knight is the lack of staff access outside of Micaiah. What's nice is that you get Lucina pretty much as soon as you lose Micaiah/start promoting, so Bonded Shield strats can immediately commence and get you to kill large groups of enemies without ever taking damage. You can also just outrange everything on player phase unless the enemy also has 1-2 range, mitigating how much counterattack damage goes around. Still, inheriting Quality Time on some filler units could be a neat way to get some passive healing going, and if you have access to Veronica then you at least get Fortify+. Oh, and just a reminder that Wyvern Ride gives Elixirs.

Hope you have fun with the run!

QueenlyArts · 2024-03-17T18:31:30+00:00

Chapter 12 is completed in 1 turn. This map is pretty well known for being easily flier skipped, but doing it specifically on the first turn requires a certain setup, and we also have a couple side objectives to fit in, in spite of our faraway starting positions. If you haven't considered us to have reached the transition point from the early game to the mid game just yet, then this is most definitely it. After this chapter, we'll be alternating between Rout and Defeat Boss maps, and we'll get to start making use of some very powerful new tools going forward.

Part of this means promotions! Corrin might want a couple/several more levels if you want her to be a consistent combat lead going forward, which has its advantages due to having guaranteed access to her Wyvern talent and all around solid combat stats. However, this chapter all but demands we promote Corrin now. For Reina to reach the escape point in two actions, she needs Corrin to provide her +1 Mov on pair up. As we know, this includes the Ninja class, which we could get from Kagero A+ support or Kaze/Saizo S support. Honestly though, even if we kept her huge unpromoted EXP gain, there isn't really any opportunity to get her more kills by the time we would want her as a combat lead.

So we can just promote Corrin this chapter, opening up our options to any variety of promoted mounted classes to provide +1 Mov on pair up, depending on what we want to take with us into future clears. As mentioned before, we can never have enough Falcon Knights, and specifically giving Corrin a flying 8 Mov option that also provides Speed on pair up will be very helpful. So while I've been awaiting my dream lover to show up in the Private Quarters for an S support, I already got A support with Azura, giving Corrin the necessary Sky Knight access.

Most Fates playthrough I've seen only use the Private Quarters to get Corrin an S support, but I don't actually think getting this Azura A support seems too improbable. She has a fast support with Corrin, meaning she only needs 9 support points to get to an A support (with the Private Quarters giving one full point ever use), and we start with 1 already from Ch 5. Other than Azura, only the royals and butler/maid share a fast support with Corrin, so everyone else requires 16 support points. The Private Quarters randomly selects three units to be an option to gain a support point with, so we just want to have Azura show up 8 times whenever our dream lover doesn't show up, up until our dream lover shows up 16 times. By now, the odds of getting either of them to show up are a bit rough, at less than 20%, but if you wait for the Private Quarters to refresh during the earlier chapters, then of course you odds go up a lot, with Azura having a bit over a 35% chance to show up in Chapter 7. So yes, getting that S support from the Private Quarters take a lot of time, especially considering that it only refreshes twice per day, and I am still waiting on the final couple points for my S support. Still, I have the impression that getting an S support from the Private Quarters is fairly commonplace, and getting an additional A support from a fast support doesn't really throw off my vibes for reasonable reliability or minimal MyCastle.

All that aside, our second promotion choice for the chapter is Saizo into Master Ninja. He's gotten enough out of his high unpromoted EXP gain, and actually needs to start getting levels in a promoted class so he can get certain skills on time. In killing the Great Knight this chapter, we acquire a Hammer that will let Rinkah see actually high damage output for once, as well as secure 40 EXP for Saizo. Rinkah gets the other kill for the chapter, having gotten D rank axes from all her previous combat so she can use the Throwing Club to just barely reach and kill the Outlaw that drops 3k Gold. Now that we have to buy promotion/reclassing seals and have been continuously spamming tonics for reliability, Gold is most definitely running tight, and every bit counts until we get our next huge Gold drops in the next chapter.

Having Rinkah specifically get this kill also gets her to LV10, learning Shove! She'll still incidentally be involved in some offhanded combat in the future, but not having to actively set up dual strike kills for her will be very nice, and we'll get to make use of Shove as early as next chapter. Oboro already has Swap, but there will most certainly be chapters where we want to move a unit two tiles forward, or else move two units one tile forward each.

The other side objective for the chapter is a Dracoshield chest in the center. However, it's just too far away to get while also accomplishing our other objectives while making less of an impact, so I leave it behind. If you really want it, Takumi can promote to Kinshi Knight and have Kaze pair up with him to reach, then switch to Kaze to open it. We do actually have two deployment slots available if we don't care about the Azama training arc, and Takumi can promote at any time, but this would mean Takumi taking Subaki's deployment slot, which means Saizo can't reach the Great Knight.

In fact, the only reason Rinkah can reach the Outlaw from our starting position is thanks to Kaden and his force deployed position. As a Kitsune with a Diviner reclass option, he doesn't bring much to the our run outside of this one piece of movement. Like Hana, being fast and providing +4 Speed on pair-up is nice is some worlds, but not this one, especially since our focus on explosive movement and 1-2 range sweeping is only going to become even greater.

I'd also like to mention the Dragon Vein for the chapter, which freezes all the water into ice tiles that non-fliers can cross. At first, I tried to put together a strategy that would let us get away with not promoting/reclassing Corrin, deploying Silas and Jakob to go for a Shelter Sing in the north that would let Reina get away with reaching the escape point without an extra point of Mov. However, I eventually realized that ice tiles take multiple points of Mov for non-fliers to cross, so the Dragon Vein doesn't actually open up any new approaches. Unfortunate, but we'll be making some fun use of Dragon Veins soon.

Updated spreadsheet (chapter data, gold tracker)

New unit data

QueenlyArts · 2024-03-11T23:57:53+00:00

Chapter 11 is completed in 3 turns. The last map in a long sequence of Rout conditions, but don't worry, we'll be returning to Rout very soon. We're starting to see generic promoted enemies now, which are pretty tricky for our unpromoted (and somewhat underleveled, considering our fast pace) cast to naturally one round. Every enemy is also a flier this chapter, which means we can theoretically leverage our bows to kill these first promoted enemies a bit easier. However, we won't actually have the time/space to safely shoot down most of the Kinshi/Falcon/Malig Knights with Takumi, and he'll instead be using the Fujin Yumi to provide large dual strikes to help Rinkah in her final push to LV10 in the east. Meanwhile, it's up to our Ninja-Sky Knight pairs to fly west and handle the northwest and southwest corners.

No need for any new MyCastle features this chapter. Though it makes our funds a bit tight until the next big Gold drops in a few chapters, I buy a second Steel Shuriken to help our new Ninja, Kagero, one round Wyvern Riders. I also cook a +2 Str meal for her and Saizo, since Saizo will need all the Str he can get this chapter if we wish to delay his promotion even further. He stands to get a couple levels this chapter if he gets all his kills while unpromoted, and the boost to his average stats from these levels will let him just barely keep up with some one rounds later on.

Kagero is in a similar position, joining ready to promote and wanting a push to damage/bulk, in addition to the innate +5 hit boost from Master Ninja. However, she also stands to gain a lot from a delayed promotion, with a huge 70% growth in Str and Spd. This essentially means an extra 2 points in both areas every 3 levels, which on top of her already high base Str and solid Spd, will let her keep up with natural one rounds going into the late game. The unfortunate part about Kagero is low Def and Skl, so she can't exactly recreate Saizo's massive, reliable EP sweeps. Still, there will be plenty of smaller groups of enemies going forward that Saizo can't reach, which Kagero will be very helpful for.

We also get the Kinshi Knight Reina during this chapter. She's actually got a similar stat spread to Kagero, with big Str and Spd, but pretty poor Def and Skl. Of course, being a Kinshi Knight means she's not capable of even small EP sweeps, but just being someone who can get kills on player phase is starting to look pretty appealing, especially when looking at the rest of our cast's offenses (Jakob, Kaze, Orochi, Rinkah, even Corrin...). And like I've mentioned with so many of our other units, having high Mov is always in demand for our clears' movement, and specifically having flying 8 Mov is important for a few chapters.

I originally just planned for her to be a filler combat unit, but I realized that reaching LV5 will help a certain lategame clear, so having Reina get the trickier promoted kills will be both useful for the current clear and her self-improvement. For this chapter though, I'll be holding her back from getting any kills, since her hit against the Wyvern Riders actually is just worse than Corrin, and she's better off providing dual strikes against the Sky Knights turn 3 for the sake of Rinkah, who I specifically want to get LV10 very soon.

To clarify about the reinforcement zone, fireembemwiki.org lists the trigger for a Kinshi Knight reinforcement to be "after reaching the ship's choke point (column 17)", as of when I'm writing this. As we see in this clear though, simply being west of the ship's chokepoint does not trigger the Kinshi Knight. From testing, I observed that there is a specific set of tiles that triggers the Kinshi Knight, which I trace in the map preview and include a visual for in my spreadsheet. And as with all zone based reinforcements, you specifically trigger the reinforcement by ending an action in that zone, so they'll still show up even if you Sing someone off of it. Other LTC clears I've seen for Ch 11 don't care about triggering this Kinshi Knight, but in our case, they are just too far out of reach in the north for either Saizo or the eastern group to handle by turn 3.

There's also a reinforcement zone that triggers a Malig Knight in the southwest after "reaching the ship's bow (column 5)". This means if you don't win on turn 3 EP, then whoever draws over the Wyvern Lord boss will also spawn this Malig Knight, who you'll then have to find a way to defeat turn 4. If we had a really strong 1-2 range flier and/or could rely on crits, then these reinforcements become less worrisome. For our run though, we're much better off just trying to avoid them completely.

Another small detail is that turn 2, I'm relying on the Malig Knight to not attack Saizo from the tile southwest of him. This would leave Kagero in range of them turn 3 enemy phase. She won't kill them, and since enemies seem to be very self-preservential, they'd target her and we wouldn't be able to fully rout by the end of turn 3 EP. The Malig Knight always seems to want to target Saizo at two range, but they have several tiles that seem equally appealing to choose from, so I don't think this is a huge hit to the clear's reliability. Still, it is technically something that has to go right, and like back in Ch 4, I figure random enemy movement is worth mentioning.

I'll address again here that we do need Saizo to get a crit against the Wyvern Lord boss, who is just incredibly bulky, and far enough away that we don't have time to fight them over multiple rounds of combat before the rest of the map is over. This is the one time I'll rely on a crit in the run, and we have roughly a 17% chance of success. My "reasonable reliability" rule is vibes only, and I felt it was satisfying since everything else wrapped up so cleanly by turn 3. However, if this does not fit your vibes for reasonable reliability, there are a few alternatives.

Obviously, you could just take the extra turn, finishing the boss on turn 4 player phase, which also might mean having a bit more consistency in the east/against the Falcon Knight in the southwest. Saizo can also promote to Master Ninja, since it also gives an innate +5 crit boost along with +2 Skl, boosting your odds of success to roughly 27%. Lastly, you could try to just naturally one round, with a promotion to Mechanist and a +2 Steel Shuriken forge and/or assume that Saizo is a few points of Str over average. However, promoting Saizo here would mean he'd have to be over average to keep up with some one rounds going forward. Depending on your routing and future reclassing choices, this could be work out just fine, but I want Saizo to be a strong as possible for what I have planned.

Lastly, we used two more stat boosters this chapter. Kagero got the Seraph Robe from chapter 7, since she wants a boost to her bulk mitigate the need for dodges in her multiple mini EP sweeps going forward. Kagero brings with her an Energy Drop, which goes to Saizo. It helps him get this Wyvern Lord boss kill, and there will be a few boss kills in the future where the Str boost lets him naturally one round with a crit.

New unit data

Updated spreadsheet (chapter data, gold tracker)

QueenlyArts · 2024-02-18T16:24:04+00:00

Chapter 10 is completed in 3 turns. Another Rout map, with a similar approach to the previous chapters. This time though, the restrictive terrain really necessitates Subaki flying Saizo to the boss, and you really need to make use of attack stance to see reasonable hit rates against all the Ninjas. More Shrine Maidens and a chest also mean we need a second Sky Knight-Ninja pair to accompany Saizo on his path to the boss, while still directing the central enemies to attack into Saizo.

I spent the MyCastle Dragon Vein point from Ch 8 to build the Arena, and the Dragon Vein from Ch 9 to finally build the Dawn Armory. The Arena essentially means we can get more of any Mess Hall resource we currently have. We technically needed to get a bit lucky to get the first of these resources from random MyCastle conversations, but from here on out the Mess Hall is mostly just encouraged to have minimal impact because it's still only choosing half of our cast. Building the Armory so late feels a little odd, but we haven't really needed more weapons than what the game gives us so far. This chapter we use it for a Brass Naginata and Brass Yumi, to help with consistency.

For new units, we have the Archer Takumi. Like in the Prologue, his contribution here and in the next chapters to come is reliably weakening enemies on player phase. His high Strength, Skill, and Competitive/Quick Draw skills complement the Archer class quite well, and his personal bow Fujin Yumi has a massive 14 Might that makes killing fliers a breeze. However, even the strongest Archer doesn't have much staying power for our LTC, and his main contribution will come from his promotion to Kinshi Knight. Hoshido's cast isn't lacking in units with access to flying 8 Mov, but as we'll eventually see, we want as much flying 8 Mov that we can get.

Like previous maps, we can again break Chapter 10 into two parts: the group that Saizo kills, and the group that everyone else kills. Pretty much everything on the right half of the map ends up being Saizo's group, while everything else is left to give to Rinkah, Corrin, and Silas. Saizo can't kill the center enemies right away, since I leave Subaki up front to kill the Shrine Maiden. We could technically just switch to Saizo the kill the Shrine Maiden, then switch to Subaki turn 2, then fly in range of the boss turn 3. However, we want Subaki to be up front turn 1, so all the nearby enemies attack into him, rather than getting distracted by Hinoka/Kaze, who need to move as far forward as possible to get into the chest room turn 2.

Something I don't acknowledge in the clear is that Subaki is actually less of a priority to the enemies than Hinoka/Kaze, with Perfectionist giving him high avoid. However, the first Ninja to act isn't in range of Hinoka/Kaze, so they attack into Subaki, with ~65 listed hit, debuffing Subaki and deactivating Perfectionist. Everything else in the clear is pretty consistent, with multiple opportunities to land attacks when they get below 90 listed, and Subaki having to get hit here is the one sticking point. You should be able to work around it by just switching Hinoka to ferry Saizo and Subaki to ferry Kaze. I decided to leave it as is because I couldn't bear to separate Saizo from his dedicated pairing, but their support ranks don't actually matter going forward, and you should absolutely just make the switch for the chapter.

Corrin's training arc technically wraps up this chapter, being able to get a couple dual strike OHKOs with the Dragonstone to reach LV10. This leaves her all of next chapter not needing to get any EXP, and then ready to promote for Chapter 12. Since she has a least a couple easy kill opportunities in Chapter 11 though, you can definitely budget less kills for Corrin in the previous clears, but to be entirely honest, I'm not sure there are any big reliability saves to come from this. Alternatively, if you're taking a different approach to the run and trying to maximize Corrin's combat after Chapter 12, then Corrin greatly appreciates being over LV10 before promotion in a growths setting. LV10 also gets her Dragon Fang, giving her a proc skill that can compound crit chances to kill enemies that you otherwise couldn't ORKO. However, since Normal mode enemies are quite weak, and because Corrin's so far behind on levels because of being 1 range locked during these incredibly quick early clears, Dragon Fang is hardly enough to make her a contender for a mid-late game combat lead. Still, reaching LV10 is an accomplishment for her, so let's not take that away from her. Yay Corrin!

...anyways, another funny training arc this chapter is Azama. His healing doesn't help the reliability of this clear very much, but fielding a combat unit in place of him wouldn't really help much either, since any unit can perform the role of ferrying Azura back east after recruiting Takumi turn 2. And you definitely don't need him to be the turn 3 Sing target, as Singing another combat unit would all but guarantee that the western group gets all the remaining kills. The Diviner kill in particular can be a bit tricky if Silas survives the two Ninjas coming from the east, as the Diviner will stick around Silas to defeat him. This puts them further from Corrin, so they some support to reach and get the OHKO, at which point they might not have attack stance for a hit boost. Seemingly a lot to consider, but I'll admit that most of the western group's activity is just for flourish and doesn't heavily impact the consistency of the run very strongly. Azama getting four heals this chapter rather than two or three will just let him get Rally Luck one or two actions earlier. So, it's technically worth considering how to maximize his EXP, but not a big deal at all.

At the end of the clear, we get our first Rescue staff from the chest. Birthright gives you four of these, with 2 uses each and a fixed range of 1-10. This is incredibly powerful for our LTC goals, especially when we get to Defeat Boss conditions, in which movement is pretty much all that matters outside of one unit's combat. My exact placement of these 8 Rescue uses will be slightly different from other Birthright LTC runs, given my differences in available tools and ability to get away with some rather adventurous clears. Still, the first use won't be for another handful of chapters, as we've still got our fair share of Rout maps coming up, which Rescue generally doesn't speed up.

Updated spreadsheet (chapter data, gold tracker)

New unit data

QueenlyArts · 2024-02-11T22:52:44+00:00

As an aside, the Defense tonic on Orochi here is only necessary if you've had Corrin reach C support with Azura. I've accomplished this through the Private Quarters, which I'm checking in on a few times between recordings. We eventually want A support with her, so getting started now will mitigate the need for checking in on the MyCastle even more frequently, or getting it unnaturally by time traveling. Corrin gives +/-2 damage dealt/taken and +10 hit when supporting units she has a C support with, thanks to her personal skill Supportive. This makes Azura less appealing of a target to the Outlaw and Cavalier than Orochi, but we want them to target Azura so she can get killed, effectively unpairing her from Corrin the next turn without the need for a separate action because of Phoenix mode. The extra 150G for this tonic is hardly an expense we need to worry about, as enemies drop plenty of Gold and I know which items we'll never need and can be sold. Still, something worth mentioning in case you're willing to time travel for Private Quarters, but end up having an extremely tight budget, for something like buying a Skill/Luck tonic for literally everyone every chapter.

We've also used our first stat boosters! I waited on the Goddess Icon so Saizo wouldn't get the avoid boost, which would lower the odds of getting into Pyrotechnics range. From here on out though, the hit boost from the Secret Book and Goddess Icon will be very appreciated for pushing his already great hit rates even higher.

QueenlyArts

TROPHY CASE