So I've been saving Legendary weapons for emergencies. I'm in Chapter 19 now, have yet to use one, and am almost at 99 Umbral Steel, the material you need to repair the gold Legendary weapons.
I don't want to waste any Umbral Steel either! I've just been okay with Iron+ weapons and Javelins/Hand Axes all game. Working as intended?
You're actually wasting resources by not using the relics. The Sword of the Creator gets fully repaired for free in Chapter 10, so that's 20 uses wasted if you left it sealed-in-box. In Chapter 13 everything in everyone's inventory gets fully repaired, including any other hero's relics you might have. Use your stuff!
But not the Byleth's legendary in ch 13?
No, including that, anything that any unit has in their inventory. Even half-used vulneraries get replenished.
Well, I'm dumping Raphael in my GD run. At level 16, he finally got his first stat boost that was more than two. He still has single digit Mag, Dex, Spd, Luck, and Res, and that's just a bridge too far. Oh, and his Str is still 12, despite his level 1 starting Str of 11.
Sorry pal. You're an Adjutant now. Fortunately I picked up Ferdie, so he and Hilda will fill that role.
That's basically what happened to my Raph on my GD run. I wanted ot use him as my punch bro for that run, and he just failed to get good stats, and whoops, you're benched.
League of Legends: Sorakanmyworld
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I think Raphael has the wrong stats for a Grapller, despite being pointed in that direction initially. You want a good Strength stat, obviously, because their gimmick is multiplying the gap between your attack (which is going to be Strength-driven given that the Silver Gauntlets have 4 Might), but because their gimmick is multiplication-driven you really want those double attacks. And Raphael... does not have a good Speed growth. It's somewhere around 15%. He's put in good work as a Fortress Knight in my Golden Deer run, but I don't think I've used Gauntlets on him in the entire back half of the game.
My favorite musical instrument is the air-raid siren.
Andy JoeWe claim the land for the highlord!The AdirondacksRegistered Userregular
Crimson Flower 18 END
Toughest thing about this map wasn't the boss or even the fiery floors, but the golems with 4-range weapons. Figuring out an approach to them was really tricky. In the end I needed to get the whole army reunited in the middle before I felt comfortable taking them on.
Cyril's lines said he would attack, but he never moved. I had Ingrid whittle him down with sword attacks and retreat out of Rhea's attack range.
Rhea wasn't actually that hard in the end. Her attacks weren't that strong or accurate, and I saved up all my gambits to break her armor. My units then had no trouble tearing through her health bars. Didn't even need to spam Raging Storm, although I used it once just to see what it looked like.
Got the Bernie/Linhardt and Petra/Dorothea endings I wanted. My Byleth married Edelgard; she just speaks to my inner edgy atheist.
Now I'm going back to my Chapter 11 save to do Silver Snow, then NG+ Verdant Winds before finishing up with ahahaha can you even imagine? My save file has nearly 58 hours on it as is! No, I'm going to go play Astral Chain now.
silence1186Character shields down!As a wingmanRegistered Userregular
Golden deer 19 until end:
Did 19. Got everything. Was pushed right into 20. Got everything.
I was a bit regretful I couldn't see everyone's combat quotes with Edelgard, but she simultaneously died too fast and dealt too much counterattack damage to mess around.
I finished her off with Lysithea, and the white hair makes sense now. I feel badly for Edelgard, but she really just needed to ask Claude and Dimitri for help, and the entire plot could have been avoided.
It's not over! But I'm tired of grinding, so I skip the month, go to the story battle. Warp Byleth into the middle, and they carved their way into the inner sanctum towards the boss with Sword of the Creator.
Still not done! Skip the month. Boss negates attacks! Byleth and three fliers carve their way across the battlefield, killing all the mini bosses. Boss has a ton of defense. Kill him with a bunch of lucky crits. Finally done.
Byleth is emperor of a united Fodlan, and Claude leaves to become king of Almyra! What! I mean I guess.
This was a good game, but maybe a smidge too long? I got too bogged down being OCD. 90 hour clear, skipping the last two months.
Maybe the other routes will shed more light, but from my perspective the conflict is forced and the lords should work together.
I will probably redo the end to tidy my save file for new game plus.
Going to do Blue Lions next. Then Black Eagles, saving before the two branches there and doing both. Hopefully faster clears than 90 hours.
Did 19. Got everything. Was pushed right into 20. Got everything.
I was a bit regretful I couldn't see everyone's combat quotes with Edelgard, but she simultaneously died too fast and dealt too much counterattack damage to mess around.
I finished her off with Lysithea, and the white hair makes sense now. I feel badly for Edelgard, but she really just needed to ask Claude and Dimitri for help, and the entire plot could have been avoided.
It's not over! But I'm tired of grinding, so I skip the month, go to the story battle. Warp Byleth into the middle, and they carved their way into the inner sanctum towards the boss with Sword of the Creator.
Still not done! Skip the month. Boss negates attacks! Byleth and three fliers carve their way across the battlefield, killing all the mini bosses. Boss has a ton of defense. Kill him with a bunch of lucky crits. Finally done.
Byleth is emperor of a united Fodlan, and Claude leaves to become king of Almyra! What! I mean I guess.
This was a good game, but maybe a smidge too long? I got too bogged down being OCD. 90 hour clear, skipping the last two months.
Maybe the other routes will shed more light, but from my perspective the conflict is forced and the lords should work together.
I will probably redo the end to tidy my save file for new game plus.
Going to do Blue Lions next. Then Black Eagles, saving before the two branches there and doing both. Hopefully faster clears than 90 hours.
Any tips for NG+?
Buy Enlightened One mastery day 1, never look back. It's immensely strong in the early game.
You’ll likely find your game time is faster, yes. I skip over a lot of supports since I’ve already seen them, I fast forward through monastery dialogue for the same reason, your characters will level up quicker and you can buy supports for characters you wish to take with you instead of having to worry about buying and giving gifts all the time!
You will hopefully enjoy Blue Lions for part of its late story given your opinions on the conflict, I won’t go into any more detail though for spoiler reasons!
My file ended up at 218 hours after all four routes, but I also lost my Black Eagles save so I had to do their Act 1 twice. I did Azure Moon and Silver Snow on hard and Crimson Flower and Verdant Winds on normal; kind of wish I had also done them on hard but I’m sure I’ll end up replaying them again. It’d be fun to experiment with some different builds.
In this play of Azure Moon I’m determined to use all the Blue Lions and not to bench any of them (last time I ended up benching Ashe, Annette and Ingrid).
There’s something important that I think a lot of people overlook when discussing Edelgard(full game spoilers)
It’s kind of implied that Edelgard is being essentially blackmailed by the Twisted. They have access to WMDs. Like, when she does make a move against them, an entire city is ravaged. The only time in her own route she is able to hurt them without consequence, is when she is able to point Byleth in the direction of Solon and Kronya and make it look like it’s not her fault.
This is probably the most likely reason why she doesn’t go to anyone for help. Why she won’t give Dimitri straight answers about Duscur. Why she goes along with a lot of the evil shit in part 1 even though she’s clearly unhappy about it.
She’s under their thumb. While she does want the war, I am left with the impression that a lot of her methods, especially in the pre-war phase, have more to do with her having to play along with how the Twisted want to do things than anything else. Because if she shows any sign of defiance, they can whip up another genocide no problem. Which of course makes her story even more tragic than it already was. She allows herself to be seen as the monster, the villain in everyone else’s narrative, not just because of what she wants to achieve, but because it will also hopefully keep the Twisted from doing something drastic until she can figure out a way to take them down.
At first I was very much in the “just talk you idiots” camp. But the more I think about it, and out the pieces together in my head, the more I’m pretty sure that Edelgard believes she can’t talk. She probably wishes more than anything that she could turn to her friends and colleagues for help, but the Twisted have left her in a state where she is paranoid about being found out.
There’s something important that I think a lot of people overlook when discussing Edelgard(full game spoilers)
It’s kind of implied that Edelgard is being essentially blackmailed by the Twisted. They have access to WMDs. Like, when she does make a move against them, an entire city is ravaged. The only time in her own route she is able to hurt them without consequence, is when she is able to point Byleth in the direction of Solon and Kronya and make it look like it’s not her fault.
This is probably the most likely reason why she doesn’t go to anyone for help. Why she won’t give Dimitri straight answers about Duscur. Why she goes along with a lot of the evil shit in part 1 even though she’s clearly unhappy about it.
She’s under their thumb. While she does want the war, I am left with the impression that a lot of her methods, especially in the pre-war phase, have more to do with her having to play along with how the Twisted want to do things than anything else. Because if she shows any sign of defiance, they can whip up another genocide no problem. Which of course makes her story even more tragic than it already was. She allows herself to be seen as the monster, the villain in everyone else’s narrative, not just because of what she wants to achieve, but because it will also hopefully keep the Twisted from doing something drastic until she can figure out a way to take them down.
At first I was very much in the “just talk you idiots” camp. But the more I think about it, and out the pieces together in my head, the more I’m pretty sure that Edelgard believes she can’t talk. She probably wishes more than anything that she could turn to her friends and colleagues for help, but the Twisted have left her in a state where she is paranoid about being found out.
Addendum to this
The Twisted also have a lot of pawns in the Kingdom and Alliance as well (Cornelia, the ones who ran the experiments with House Ordelia, etc) who are able to replace anyone and disguise themselves leaving none the wiser. So getting outside help is also further "who can I trust without it coming back to bite me"
Okay I decided I'll do holy knight manuela, bow knight felix, great knight sylvain, dark knight mercedes, wyvern lord annette, war master dedue, falcon knight ingrid, idfk what with ashe though.
There’s something important that I think a lot of people overlook when discussing Edelgard(full game spoilers)
It’s kind of implied that Edelgard is being essentially blackmailed by the Twisted. They have access to WMDs. Like, when she does make a move against them, an entire city is ravaged. The only time in her own route she is able to hurt them without consequence, is when she is able to point Byleth in the direction of Solon and Kronya and make it look like it’s not her fault.
This is probably the most likely reason why she doesn’t go to anyone for help. Why she won’t give Dimitri straight answers about Duscur. Why she goes along with a lot of the evil shit in part 1 even though she’s clearly unhappy about it.
She’s under their thumb. While she does want the war, I am left with the impression that a lot of her methods, especially in the pre-war phase, have more to do with her having to play along with how the Twisted want to do things than anything else. Because if she shows any sign of defiance, they can whip up another genocide no problem. Which of course makes her story even more tragic than it already was. She allows herself to be seen as the monster, the villain in everyone else’s narrative, not just because of what she wants to achieve, but because it will also hopefully keep the Twisted from doing something drastic until she can figure out a way to take them down.
At first I was very much in the “just talk you idiots” camp. But the more I think about it, and out the pieces together in my head, the more I’m pretty sure that Edelgard believes she can’t talk. She probably wishes more than anything that she could turn to her friends and colleagues for help, but the Twisted have left her in a state where she is paranoid about being found out.
Is that really overlooked? I thought that was what most of the fandom assumed?
Crimson Flower:
I think it does explain Act 1 nicely, and of course in Crimson Flower, since Byleth is supporting her, she’s not as reliant on TWSITD in Act 2 and doesn’t use them.
But she still makes hunting down the Church her priority and doesn’t make any attempt to reach out to Claude or Dimitri in Act 2.
I’ve also seen the explanation that PTSD can explain a lot of her reasoning and decisions, which of course ties in to what she suffers under TWSITD and would explain why she’s still reticent in Act 2.
Azure Moon late game spoilers, you seriously won’t want to read this if you’re planning to play it:
Dimitri does reach out to her and they do talk.
Also the Blue Lions cut off the heads of TWSITD (Thales and Cornelia) before talking to Edelgard. Which does back up what you’re saying, although it also shows that Edelgard is still set upon her path regardless.
There’s something important that I think a lot of people overlook when discussing Edelgard(full game spoilers)
It’s kind of implied that Edelgard is being essentially blackmailed by the Twisted. They have access to WMDs. Like, when she does make a move against them, an entire city is ravaged. The only time in her own route she is able to hurt them without consequence, is when she is able to point Byleth in the direction of Solon and Kronya and make it look like it’s not her fault.
This is probably the most likely reason why she doesn’t go to anyone for help. Why she won’t give Dimitri straight answers about Duscur. Why she goes along with a lot of the evil shit in part 1 even though she’s clearly unhappy about it.
She’s under their thumb. While she does want the war, I am left with the impression that a lot of her methods, especially in the pre-war phase, have more to do with her having to play along with how the Twisted want to do things than anything else. Because if she shows any sign of defiance, they can whip up another genocide no problem. Which of course makes her story even more tragic than it already was. She allows herself to be seen as the monster, the villain in everyone else’s narrative, not just because of what she wants to achieve, but because it will also hopefully keep the Twisted from doing something drastic until she can figure out a way to take them down.
At first I was very much in the “just talk you idiots” camp. But the more I think about it, and out the pieces together in my head, the more I’m pretty sure that Edelgard believes she can’t talk. She probably wishes more than anything that she could turn to her friends and colleagues for help, but the Twisted have left her in a state where she is paranoid about being found out.
Nah.
Main thing is that Edelgard doesn't really trust people, like, she trusts almost nobody. Pretty much just Hubert. and Byleth if they side with her. She also has no knowledge of their ability to destroy entire cities. She only learns so when they do it on several of the paths.
Honestly probably the weirdest and most damning thing about Edelgard is that she honestly considers the Church more of a threat than the slitherins. Although it's made clear that they've super misinformed her on how bad the Church and the Nabateans actions really were. Seiros' actions are bad but on Edie's path she just straight up gets a lot of the past wrong, presumably because Talos and the others lied to her.
There's also the fact that she wants to remake the world in her ideal image, as fast as possible, regardless of the consequences. The other powers would have cooperated to take out the slitherins, but even if they were told the truth they would not be as keen as Edie is at annihilating the Church, and there's not a snowball's chance in hell they'd just bend to her social order. Claude shares similar ideals, but their methods are too different. He'd spend time trying to find a diplomatic way to achieve their goal, while Edie would just bulldoze through.
Having almost finished Black Eagles, it hasn't really changed my mind that Edelgard's unilateral declaration of war is unjustifiable. The church is bad but a continent spanning war is worse, and she puts the more pressing threat on the backburner in favor of her more personal ambitions.
There’s something important that I think a lot of people overlook when discussing Edelgard(full game spoilers)
It’s kind of implied that Edelgard is being essentially blackmailed by the Twisted. They have access to WMDs. Like, when she does make a move against them, an entire city is ravaged. The only time in her own route she is able to hurt them without consequence, is when she is able to point Byleth in the direction of Solon and Kronya and make it look like it’s not her fault.
This is probably the most likely reason why she doesn’t go to anyone for help. Why she won’t give Dimitri straight answers about Duscur. Why she goes along with a lot of the evil shit in part 1 even though she’s clearly unhappy about it.
She’s under their thumb. While she does want the war, I am left with the impression that a lot of her methods, especially in the pre-war phase, have more to do with her having to play along with how the Twisted want to do things than anything else. Because if she shows any sign of defiance, they can whip up another genocide no problem. Which of course makes her story even more tragic than it already was. She allows herself to be seen as the monster, the villain in everyone else’s narrative, not just because of what she wants to achieve, but because it will also hopefully keep the Twisted from doing something drastic until she can figure out a way to take them down.
At first I was very much in the “just talk you idiots” camp. But the more I think about it, and out the pieces together in my head, the more I’m pretty sure that Edelgard believes she can’t talk. She probably wishes more than anything that she could turn to her friends and colleagues for help, but the Twisted have left her in a state where she is paranoid about being found out.
Nah.
Main thing is that Edelgard doesn't really trust people, like, she trusts almost nobody. Pretty much just Hubert. and Byleth if they side with her. She also has no knowledge of their ability to destroy entire cities. She only learns so when they do it on several of the paths.
Honestly probably the weirdest and most damning thing about Edelgard is that she honestly considers the Church more of a threat than the slitherins. Although it's made clear that they've super misinformed her on how bad the Church and the Nabateans actions really were. Seiros' actions are bad but on Edie's path she just straight up gets a lot of the past wrong, presumably because Talos and the others lied to her.
There's also the fact that she wants to remake the world in her ideal image, as fast as possible, regardless of the consequences. The other powers would have cooperated to take out the slitherins, but even if they were told the truth they would not be as keen as Edie is at annihilating the Church, and there's not a snowball's chance in hell they'd just bend to her social order. Claude shares similar ideals, but their methods are too different. He'd spend time trying to find a diplomatic way to achieve their goal, while Edie would just bulldoze through.
Having almost finished Black Eagles, it hasn't really changed my mind that Edelgard's unilateral declaration of war is unjustifiable. The church is bad but a continent spanning war is worse, and she puts the more pressing threat on the backburner in favor of her more personal ambitions.
Regarding this:
Full route for Azure Wind and Crimson Flower (safe for SilverWind)
Edelgard absolutely does know about the Twisted's ICBMs, and is specifically trying to protect people from them even when you're fighting her
It's why she directs the Death Knight to lead everyone out of Fort Merceus after it's captured, and why she's so confident about the specific ways that the attack can be deployed in Crimson Flower. She knows what they can do. She knows what the limitations are. Her ability to operate as the ultimate weapon of the Twisted is predicated on her being able to utilize their forces, and Crimson Flower involves a lot of posturing between House Vestra and the Twisted that is itself predicated on the Twisted being able to have a stand-off so that Edelgard doesn't try to immediately murder them all
That's another thing worth mentioning, about Merceus in particular—if Edelgard wanted everyone dead and was willign to go along with the Twisted, everyone would just be dead. The Death Knight wouldn't have lead everyone out of the fortress, which itself was the one act of defiance we see out of Edelgard in the Verdant Wind path
It's a very interesting development for Edelgard as an antagonist, because she's choosing to leave the strength of the unified Fodlan army intact—essentially because she's not confident she would be able to destroy the Twisted without a better support network. She's still tryign to win, she still believes in the cause, but in making sure you live she's also creating a bit of insurance: if she can't defeat you, then at least you can defeat the Twisted. She's entrusting one half of the essential part of her dream to you.
Also regarding something else that I think is particularly interesting that SilverWind brought up (I'm assuming this will be touched on in Azure Moon—nobody answer this if so)
Dimitri thinks that Edelgard's mother—his stepmother—was killed by her own daughter. Now I'm thinking this is because he assumes she did the Tragedy of Duscur, but
Edelgard tells Byleth at the Tower of the Goddess that her mother is still alive, I believe
Which means, naturally, that the Twisted have her, as one more piece of leverage over Edelgard
Also, every time someone calls Those Who Slither in the Dark (TWSITD) "The Twisted" I get +1 to my HP
Golden Deer general post timeskip
The strangest / most out of sync this game has made me feel from Byleth
Is how in this path Byleth is like... obsessed with Rhea. There are a lot of options where Byleth can say things like "All I care about is Rhea"... And a couple points where you have no other option but to think of or worry about her
And I'm like
No!
Creepy controlling pope is still a creepy controlling pope even if she doesn't go off the deep deep end on this path
I might loosely worry about her but honestly she's not high on my priority list. If I were actually in Byleth's shoes I'd assume she was dead
It also feels like, based on playing Verdant Wind and Crimson Flower, that the versions of Byleth who would choose those routes are fundamentally different people in key ways
Yeah. And it's weird because on the Golden Deer path (post skip general)
Byleth is playing pope to lend a religious front to Claude's war. If Byleth supported Claude wholly, which is conceivable because they chose Claude, you'd think they might actually feel like Claude does, that it'd actually be a bit inconvenient if Rhea showed back up because it'd mean a wrench in the plans and a return of the status quo
Yeah, I found that really odd about Byleth in Verdant Winds!
One thing kind of unique about Byleth in Azure Moon is quite fun - Byleth appears to have quite the appetite. In Chapter 3/4 (I wish I had taken a screenshot, because I can’t find it in the Extras - I think it was a post-battle conversation) Byleth has the option to say ‘I’m hungry’, which I am pretty certain is not on the other paths.
Then Dimitri comments on Byleth’s appetite a few times - there’s one scene where he says ‘as usual, I was astonished by how much you ate in the name of celebration’ and in their B-Support he invites Byleth out to dinner because ‘such magnificent guidance must work up quite an appetite’. Finally, in a later chapter Byleth can choose to say ‘let’s celebrate!’ - though Dimitri rejects this idea (booooo).
I suppose it’s all fair for the house that contains Dedue, Ashe and Mercedes... Annette is also always packing snacks for battle, that pops up at least twice in dialogue.
There’s something important that I think a lot of people overlook when discussing Edelgard(full game spoilers)
It’s kind of implied that Edelgard is being essentially blackmailed by the Twisted. They have access to WMDs. Like, when she does make a move against them, an entire city is ravaged. The only time in her own route she is able to hurt them without consequence, is when she is able to point Byleth in the direction of Solon and Kronya and make it look like it’s not her fault.
This is probably the most likely reason why she doesn’t go to anyone for help. Why she won’t give Dimitri straight answers about Duscur. Why she goes along with a lot of the evil shit in part 1 even though she’s clearly unhappy about it.
She’s under their thumb. While she does want the war, I am left with the impression that a lot of her methods, especially in the pre-war phase, have more to do with her having to play along with how the Twisted want to do things than anything else. Because if she shows any sign of defiance, they can whip up another genocide no problem. Which of course makes her story even more tragic than it already was. She allows herself to be seen as the monster, the villain in everyone else’s narrative, not just because of what she wants to achieve, but because it will also hopefully keep the Twisted from doing something drastic until she can figure out a way to take them down.
At first I was very much in the “just talk you idiots” camp. But the more I think about it, and out the pieces together in my head, the more I’m pretty sure that Edelgard believes she can’t talk. She probably wishes more than anything that she could turn to her friends and colleagues for help, but the Twisted have left her in a state where she is paranoid about being found out.
Nah.
Main thing is that Edelgard doesn't really trust people, like, she trusts almost nobody. Pretty much just Hubert. and Byleth if they side with her. She also has no knowledge of their ability to destroy entire cities. She only learns so when they do it on several of the paths.
Honestly probably the weirdest and most damning thing about Edelgard is that she honestly considers the Church more of a threat than the slitherins. Although it's made clear that they've super misinformed her on how bad the Church and the Nabateans actions really were. Seiros' actions are bad but on Edie's path she just straight up gets a lot of the past wrong, presumably because Talos and the others lied to her.
There's also the fact that she wants to remake the world in her ideal image, as fast as possible, regardless of the consequences. The other powers would have cooperated to take out the slitherins, but even if they were told the truth they would not be as keen as Edie is at annihilating the Church, and there's not a snowball's chance in hell they'd just bend to her social order. Claude shares similar ideals, but their methods are too different. He'd spend time trying to find a diplomatic way to achieve their goal, while Edie would just bulldoze through.
Having almost finished Black Eagles, it hasn't really changed my mind that Edelgard's unilateral declaration of war is unjustifiable. The church is bad but a continent spanning war is worse, and she puts the more pressing threat on the backburner in favor of her more personal ambitions.
The Twisted have her, and the Empire in general, by the balls, and they are going to get the war going wether Edelgard is on board or not. Now, she IS on board for the war, but regardless she’s not in a position where she can deal with the Twisted at this time. So it’s either work with them and work on her plan for reform via the war, while slowly figuring out how to handle them as it’s happening, using them while playing the puppet until she’s in a position to deal with them. Or she defies them, spills their secrets, betrays them, whatever...and something real bad probably happens. And they have agents everywhere, they could be watching her at any time and could be anyone.
As for wether or not the war is justifiable, that’s really the moral centre of her story, and IMO it’s more complicated than “war is bad”. Ultimately, Edelgard is a violent revolutionary. She is out to dismantle every single oppressive system that exists. She’s trying to smash the power structures that rule the land. And in her view, the only way to do this is through, well, smashing them. She’s not a bloodthirsty killer, she’s not a power hungry conqueror. She’s someone who sees those in power as evil people who won’t just give up power unless they are forcibly removed.
And honestly? It’s hard for me to disagree with that. Even if she, Dimitri, and Clause were all united in their ambitions, we are talking about asking every single person and organization that holds power and status to give that up. I think it’s pretty understandable to not even see diplomatically accomplishing that as a real option. People in power are generally corrupt. Generally will cling onto it with everything they have. And Edelgard specifically has been through horrific abuse thanks to these power structures, and has even less reason to trust those same people to do the right thing. I think it’s very natural to believe that violent revolution is the only true way to get it done. Now, even if you accept that, the question becomes: but is violent revolution okay? And that’s a hard question to answer definitively. For Edelgard, change HAS to happen. I don’t even think she really thinks it’s okay, but she does honestly believe with all her heart that it needs to be done.
I think it’s nice to see that at least in her route, she tries to minimize suffering where she can. She takes measures to keep civilians safe, tries to bargain for surrender when possible, and doesn’t lose her compassion, even for her enemies. Even Rhea, who is bugfuck insane by the end, is someone she doesn’t want to resort to killing unless her hand is forced. And boy, does Rhea force her hand. She does a worse job running the war in other routes, where she has sunk further into despair and desperation.
I think her character and story have a hell of a lot of nuance and depth, and you can’t really boil it down to her being wrong or right. Hero or villain or something in between...she’s a tragic character in a tragic situation.
How do you know Edelgard is the one who directed the Death Knight to do that? The Death Knight is a loose cannon. He might have just decided to help because you were the funnest fight he ever had. Likewise, I'm not sure that Edelgard, assuming she actually did know about it, didn't get that knowledge in the middle of the war.
The reason I say this is because in Crimson Flower it seems like Edelgard, and Hubert, are extremely surprised that the shadowy fools have the ability to just instantaneously nuke a city. Like Hubert had been investigating what they could do, but he's still surprised. Shaken even. It would make sense that considering in non Crimson Flower paths Edelgard relies way more heavily on the Arkadans that they might have tipped her off about it since they're cooperating more.
I would even go so far as to say as given how the Flame Emperor acts in part 1 it seems pretty clear that Edelgard doesn't really have a good grasp on what the Argathans plans or capabilities are. They seem to give her the absolute minimum amount of information for her to fulfill her intended role and cooperate with them. And I mean she's smart enough to know that but doesn't mean she's able to figure out everything about them.
How do you know Edelgard is the one who directed the Death Knight to do that? The Death Knight is a loose cannon. He might have just decided to help because you were the funnest fight he ever had. Likewise, I'm not sure that Edelgard, assuming she actually did know about it, didn't get that knowledge in the middle of the war.
The reason I say this is because in Crimson Flower it seems like Edelgard, and Hubert, are extremely surprised that the shadowy fools have the ability to just instantaneously nuke a city. Like Hubert had been investigating what they could do, but he's still surprised. Shaken even. It would make sense that considering in non Crimson Flower paths Edelgard relies way more heavily on the Arkadans that they might have tipped her off about it since they're cooperating more.
I would even go so far as to say as given how the Flame Emperor acts in part 1 it seems pretty clear that Edelgard doesn't really have a good grasp on what the Arkadans plans or capabilities are. They seem to give her the absolute minimum amount of information for her to fulfill her intended role and cooperate with them. And I mean she's smart enough to know that but doesn't mean she's able to figure out everything about them.
Crimson Flower and Verdant Wind (Not Safe for SilverWind, Do Not Read Yet)
As you see on every path, the Death Knight doesn't work for the Twisted, he works for Edelgard. Thales has to actively seek permission to deploy him from Edelgard, because Edelgard's ultimately the one that he answers to. What's going on there, I don't know! But there's a reason that, unlike anyone working for the Twisted, Edelgard trusts the Death Knight to be a general leading the entire western front in the holding of the Fraldarius border in Crimson Flower
Edelgard and Hubert are very surprised that the attack is launched on Arianrhod, because they didn't realize how angry and desperate they'd made Thales, but the capabilities of the weapon isn't what's got them surprised. In fact, Crimson Flower is the only route where it's laid out (by Hubert or Edelgard, I forget which) that the missiles require at least a month between uses (and they know there's no danger of Garreg Mach being blown to Hell). Verdant Wind also makes it clear that Hubert knew a very great deal about the weapon system being used, because it being used against Merceus allowed him to determine where the Twisted's base was. Edelgard and Hubert both seem very cognizant of what Agarthan technology is and what it's capable of—Aymr was designed according to Edelgard's own specifications, after all, so she's pretty involved in how this stuff works
It's true that they plainly keep her in the dark about projects that run the risk of making her openly rebel—and in every path I've played they fail to account for how strong her objection to their methods/hatred of them is—but she's still the person leading their army, and she fundamentally needs to know what they're capable of in order to be an effective military commander
The point, though, had more to do with the fact that the Death Knight is only shown to obey the Flame Emperor—she's the only one who can tell him to back off from a fight and expect him to actually do it, even when he's being lent out to someone else. He's working for the Twisted when he kidnaps Flayn, but the instant Edelgard shows up and goes "Hey cut that shit out" he sure does do that. Given how much Edelgard tries to get Claude and Byleth to not fight her to the death, and how the Death Knight gives up on actually fighting you for the second time—the first of which was, again, at Edelgard's order—it all seems to flow pretty cleanly to me
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silence1186Character shields down!As a wingmanRegistered Userregular
Oh question. I beat the golden deer campaign, but very few of my endings were paired. Any idea why?
Oh question. I beat the golden deer campaign, but very few of my endings were paired. Any idea why?
You might not have hit A supports between many of your characters? I think that's probably a prereq for it
This, and there’s also some kind of internal hierarchy system when it comes to endings so depending on the combination of A-supports that you have certain characters’ll be left by the wayside even if they do have A-supports.
Oh question. I beat the golden deer campaign, but very few of my endings were paired. Any idea why?
You might not have hit A supports between many of your characters? I think that's probably a prereq for it
This, and there’s also some kind of internal hierarchy system when it comes to endings so depending on the combination of A-supports that you have certain characters’ll be left by the wayside even if they do have A-supports.
I'm pretty sure how it works is that you can keep getting support points past A rank. You can check who a character has the most points with based on who's at the top of their "close allies" in their bio screen. Characters will get paired endings if they're both each other's top close ally. I know that choosing to S rank a character overwrites this, and I don't know how the game works if two characters are tied for points, or if it pairs off characters who both have A ranks but whose preferential A-ranked character has already been taken by someone else.
Oh question. I beat the golden deer campaign, but very few of my endings were paired. Any idea why?
You might not have hit A supports between many of your characters? I think that's probably a prereq for it
This, and there’s also some kind of internal hierarchy system when it comes to endings so depending on the combination of A-supports that you have certain characters’ll be left by the wayside even if they do have A-supports.
I'm pretty sure how it works is that you can keep getting support points past A rank. You can check who a character has the most points with based on who's at the top of their "close allies" in their bio screen. Characters will get paired endings if they're both each other's top close ally. I know that choosing to S rank a character overwrites this, and I don't know how the game works if two characters are tied for points, or if it pairs off characters who both have A ranks but whose preferential A-ranked character has already been taken by someone else.
My understanding is that support points continue to accrue past A-rank, to a limit of 1001 points (that's just the number I remember hearing). Whatever the actual limit is, the important thing is that it's easily achievable, which means you're likely to have multiple pairs sitting at the cap. The tiebreaker is the internal list of Support conversations, taking the first available pairing until the list runs out. That, along with the pairs being presented in order of characters with the most combat victories (always ending in Byleth, I think) produces the apparent randomness to paired endings.
My favorite musical instrument is the air-raid siren.
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No, including that, anything that any unit has in their inventory. Even half-used vulneraries get replenished.
That's basically what happened to my Raph on my GD run. I wanted ot use him as my punch bro for that run, and he just failed to get good stats, and whoops, you're benched.
FFXIV: Tchel Fay
Nintendo ID: Tortalius
Steam: Tortalius
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Whole thread
Where's the lie
Cyril's lines said he would attack, but he never moved. I had Ingrid whittle him down with sword attacks and retreat out of Rhea's attack range.
Rhea wasn't actually that hard in the end. Her attacks weren't that strong or accurate, and I saved up all my gambits to break her armor. My units then had no trouble tearing through her health bars. Didn't even need to spam Raging Storm, although I used it once just to see what it looked like.
Got the Bernie/Linhardt and Petra/Dorothea endings I wanted. My Byleth married Edelgard; she just speaks to my inner edgy atheist.
Now I'm going back to my Chapter 11 save to do Silver Snow, then NG+ Verdant Winds before finishing up with ahahaha can you even imagine? My save file has nearly 58 hours on it as is! No, I'm going to go play Astral Chain now.
I was a bit regretful I couldn't see everyone's combat quotes with Edelgard, but she simultaneously died too fast and dealt too much counterattack damage to mess around.
I finished her off with Lysithea, and the white hair makes sense now. I feel badly for Edelgard, but she really just needed to ask Claude and Dimitri for help, and the entire plot could have been avoided.
It's not over! But I'm tired of grinding, so I skip the month, go to the story battle. Warp Byleth into the middle, and they carved their way into the inner sanctum towards the boss with Sword of the Creator.
Still not done! Skip the month. Boss negates attacks! Byleth and three fliers carve their way across the battlefield, killing all the mini bosses. Boss has a ton of defense. Kill him with a bunch of lucky crits. Finally done.
Byleth is emperor of a united Fodlan, and Claude leaves to become king of Almyra! What! I mean I guess.
This was a good game, but maybe a smidge too long? I got too bogged down being OCD. 90 hour clear, skipping the last two months.
Maybe the other routes will shed more light, but from my perspective the conflict is forced and the lords should work together.
I will probably redo the end to tidy my save file for new game plus.
Going to do Blue Lions next. Then Black Eagles, saving before the two branches there and doing both. Hopefully faster clears than 90 hours.
Any tips for NG+?
Buy Enlightened One mastery day 1, never look back. It's immensely strong in the early game.
You will hopefully enjoy Blue Lions for part of its late story given your opinions on the conflict, I won’t go into any more detail though for spoiler reasons!
In this play of Azure Moon I’m determined to use all the Blue Lions and not to bench any of them (last time I ended up benching Ashe, Annette and Ingrid).
This is probably the most likely reason why she doesn’t go to anyone for help. Why she won’t give Dimitri straight answers about Duscur. Why she goes along with a lot of the evil shit in part 1 even though she’s clearly unhappy about it.
She’s under their thumb. While she does want the war, I am left with the impression that a lot of her methods, especially in the pre-war phase, have more to do with her having to play along with how the Twisted want to do things than anything else. Because if she shows any sign of defiance, they can whip up another genocide no problem. Which of course makes her story even more tragic than it already was. She allows herself to be seen as the monster, the villain in everyone else’s narrative, not just because of what she wants to achieve, but because it will also hopefully keep the Twisted from doing something drastic until she can figure out a way to take them down.
At first I was very much in the “just talk you idiots” camp. But the more I think about it, and out the pieces together in my head, the more I’m pretty sure that Edelgard believes she can’t talk. She probably wishes more than anything that she could turn to her friends and colleagues for help, but the Twisted have left her in a state where she is paranoid about being found out.
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Addendum to this
Only Falcon Knight.
Is that really overlooked? I thought that was what most of the fandom assumed?
Crimson Flower:
But she still makes hunting down the Church her priority and doesn’t make any attempt to reach out to Claude or Dimitri in Act 2.
I’ve also seen the explanation that PTSD can explain a lot of her reasoning and decisions, which of course ties in to what she suffers under TWSITD and would explain why she’s still reticent in Act 2.
Azure Moon late game spoilers, you seriously won’t want to read this if you’re planning to play it:
Also the Blue Lions cut off the heads of TWSITD (Thales and Cornelia) before talking to Edelgard. Which does back up what you’re saying, although it also shows that Edelgard is still set upon her path regardless.
Honestly probably the weirdest and most damning thing about Edelgard is that she honestly considers the Church more of a threat than the slitherins. Although it's made clear that they've super misinformed her on how bad the Church and the Nabateans actions really were. Seiros' actions are bad but on Edie's path she just straight up gets a lot of the past wrong, presumably because Talos and the others lied to her.
There's also the fact that she wants to remake the world in her ideal image, as fast as possible, regardless of the consequences. The other powers would have cooperated to take out the slitherins, but even if they were told the truth they would not be as keen as Edie is at annihilating the Church, and there's not a snowball's chance in hell they'd just bend to her social order. Claude shares similar ideals, but their methods are too different. He'd spend time trying to find a diplomatic way to achieve their goal, while Edie would just bulldoze through.
Having almost finished Black Eagles, it hasn't really changed my mind that Edelgard's unilateral declaration of war is unjustifiable. The church is bad but a continent spanning war is worse, and she puts the more pressing threat on the backburner in favor of her more personal ambitions.
Regarding this:
Full route for Azure Wind and Crimson Flower (safe for SilverWind)
It's why she directs the Death Knight to lead everyone out of Fort Merceus after it's captured, and why she's so confident about the specific ways that the attack can be deployed in Crimson Flower. She knows what they can do. She knows what the limitations are. Her ability to operate as the ultimate weapon of the Twisted is predicated on her being able to utilize their forces, and Crimson Flower involves a lot of posturing between House Vestra and the Twisted that is itself predicated on the Twisted being able to have a stand-off so that Edelgard doesn't try to immediately murder them all
That's another thing worth mentioning, about Merceus in particular—if Edelgard wanted everyone dead and was willign to go along with the Twisted, everyone would just be dead. The Death Knight wouldn't have lead everyone out of the fortress, which itself was the one act of defiance we see out of Edelgard in the Verdant Wind path
It's a very interesting development for Edelgard as an antagonist, because she's choosing to leave the strength of the unified Fodlan army intact—essentially because she's not confident she would be able to destroy the Twisted without a better support network. She's still tryign to win, she still believes in the cause, but in making sure you live she's also creating a bit of insurance: if she can't defeat you, then at least you can defeat the Twisted. She's entrusting one half of the essential part of her dream to you.
Also regarding something else that I think is particularly interesting that SilverWind brought up (I'm assuming this will be touched on in Azure Moon—nobody answer this if so)
Edelgard tells Byleth at the Tower of the Goddess that her mother is still alive, I believe
Which means, naturally, that the Twisted have her, as one more piece of leverage over Edelgard
Also, every time someone calls Those Who Slither in the Dark (TWSITD) "The Twisted" I get +1 to my HP
The strangest / most out of sync this game has made me feel from Byleth
And I'm like
No!
Creepy controlling pope is still a creepy controlling pope even if she doesn't go off the deep deep end on this path
I might loosely worry about her but honestly she's not high on my priority list. If I were actually in Byleth's shoes I'd assume she was dead
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It also feels like, based on playing Verdant Wind and Crimson Flower, that the versions of Byleth who would choose those routes are fundamentally different people in key ways
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One thing kind of unique about Byleth in Azure Moon is quite fun - Byleth appears to have quite the appetite. In Chapter 3/4 (I wish I had taken a screenshot, because I can’t find it in the Extras - I think it was a post-battle conversation) Byleth has the option to say ‘I’m hungry’, which I am pretty certain is not on the other paths.
Then Dimitri comments on Byleth’s appetite a few times - there’s one scene where he says ‘as usual, I was astonished by how much you ate in the name of celebration’ and in their B-Support he invites Byleth out to dinner because ‘such magnificent guidance must work up quite an appetite’. Finally, in a later chapter Byleth can choose to say ‘let’s celebrate!’ - though Dimitri rejects this idea (booooo).
I suppose it’s all fair for the house that contains Dedue, Ashe and Mercedes... Annette is also always packing snacks for battle, that pops up at least twice in dialogue.
As for wether or not the war is justifiable, that’s really the moral centre of her story, and IMO it’s more complicated than “war is bad”. Ultimately, Edelgard is a violent revolutionary. She is out to dismantle every single oppressive system that exists. She’s trying to smash the power structures that rule the land. And in her view, the only way to do this is through, well, smashing them. She’s not a bloodthirsty killer, she’s not a power hungry conqueror. She’s someone who sees those in power as evil people who won’t just give up power unless they are forcibly removed.
And honestly? It’s hard for me to disagree with that. Even if she, Dimitri, and Clause were all united in their ambitions, we are talking about asking every single person and organization that holds power and status to give that up. I think it’s pretty understandable to not even see diplomatically accomplishing that as a real option. People in power are generally corrupt. Generally will cling onto it with everything they have. And Edelgard specifically has been through horrific abuse thanks to these power structures, and has even less reason to trust those same people to do the right thing. I think it’s very natural to believe that violent revolution is the only true way to get it done. Now, even if you accept that, the question becomes: but is violent revolution okay? And that’s a hard question to answer definitively. For Edelgard, change HAS to happen. I don’t even think she really thinks it’s okay, but she does honestly believe with all her heart that it needs to be done.
I think it’s nice to see that at least in her route, she tries to minimize suffering where she can. She takes measures to keep civilians safe, tries to bargain for surrender when possible, and doesn’t lose her compassion, even for her enemies. Even Rhea, who is bugfuck insane by the end, is someone she doesn’t want to resort to killing unless her hand is forced. And boy, does Rhea force her hand. She does a worse job running the war in other routes, where she has sunk further into despair and desperation.
I think her character and story have a hell of a lot of nuance and depth, and you can’t really boil it down to her being wrong or right. Hero or villain or something in between...she’s a tragic character in a tragic situation.
(I really like this game)
My Let's Play Channel: https://youtube.com/channel/UC2go70QLfwGq-hW4nvUqmog
The reason I say this is because in Crimson Flower it seems like Edelgard, and Hubert, are extremely surprised that the shadowy fools have the ability to just instantaneously nuke a city. Like Hubert had been investigating what they could do, but he's still surprised. Shaken even. It would make sense that considering in non Crimson Flower paths Edelgard relies way more heavily on the Arkadans that they might have tipped her off about it since they're cooperating more.
I would even go so far as to say as given how the Flame Emperor acts in part 1 it seems pretty clear that Edelgard doesn't really have a good grasp on what the Argathans plans or capabilities are. They seem to give her the absolute minimum amount of information for her to fulfill her intended role and cooperate with them. And I mean she's smart enough to know that but doesn't mean she's able to figure out everything about them.
Crimson Flower and Verdant Wind (Not Safe for SilverWind, Do Not Read Yet)
Edelgard and Hubert are very surprised that the attack is launched on Arianrhod, because they didn't realize how angry and desperate they'd made Thales, but the capabilities of the weapon isn't what's got them surprised. In fact, Crimson Flower is the only route where it's laid out (by Hubert or Edelgard, I forget which) that the missiles require at least a month between uses (and they know there's no danger of Garreg Mach being blown to Hell). Verdant Wind also makes it clear that Hubert knew a very great deal about the weapon system being used, because it being used against Merceus allowed him to determine where the Twisted's base was. Edelgard and Hubert both seem very cognizant of what Agarthan technology is and what it's capable of—Aymr was designed according to Edelgard's own specifications, after all, so she's pretty involved in how this stuff works
It's true that they plainly keep her in the dark about projects that run the risk of making her openly rebel—and in every path I've played they fail to account for how strong her objection to their methods/hatred of them is—but she's still the person leading their army, and she fundamentally needs to know what they're capable of in order to be an effective military commander
The point, though, had more to do with the fact that the Death Knight is only shown to obey the Flame Emperor—she's the only one who can tell him to back off from a fight and expect him to actually do it, even when he's being lent out to someone else. He's working for the Twisted when he kidnaps Flayn, but the instant Edelgard shows up and goes "Hey cut that shit out" he sure does do that. Given how much Edelgard tries to get Claude and Byleth to not fight her to the death, and how the Death Knight gives up on actually fighting you for the second time—the first of which was, again, at Edelgard's order—it all seems to flow pretty cleanly to me
You might not have hit A supports between many of your characters? I think that's probably a prereq for it
This, and there’s also some kind of internal hierarchy system when it comes to endings so depending on the combination of A-supports that you have certain characters’ll be left by the wayside even if they do have A-supports.
Edit: It features in all of the teleportation squares!
I'm pretty sure how it works is that you can keep getting support points past A rank. You can check who a character has the most points with based on who's at the top of their "close allies" in their bio screen. Characters will get paired endings if they're both each other's top close ally. I know that choosing to S rank a character overwrites this, and I don't know how the game works if two characters are tied for points, or if it pairs off characters who both have A ranks but whose preferential A-ranked character has already been taken by someone else.
@Enc
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dancer dedue
armor knight annette
My understanding is that support points continue to accrue past A-rank, to a limit of 1001 points (that's just the number I remember hearing). Whatever the actual limit is, the important thing is that it's easily achievable, which means you're likely to have multiple pairs sitting at the cap. The tiebreaker is the internal list of Support conversations, taking the first available pairing until the list runs out. That, along with the pairs being presented in order of characters with the most combat victories (always ending in Byleth, I think) produces the apparent randomness to paired endings.