Ogre Battle: March of the Black Queen -> Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together -> Ogre Battle 64: Person of Lordly Caliber
Unicorn Overlord -> Tactics Unicorn -> Unicorn Overlord 128
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silence1186Character shields down!As a wingmanRegistered Userregular
edited April 10
First off this is going to be a long rambling post mostly to put my own thoughts to page, so I'll spoiler the worst sprawls, but tl;dr question(s):
Should I be spending honor upgrading my unit size from 4-5, or should I prioritize promoting all my basic units to advanced classes?
I have 10 x 4 unit formations available, but ~45 characters Do you rotate people in and out, or bench them for extended periods?
What front line tanks goes best with what back row dps/heal/support? Any dps/support tanky/evasive enough for the front row?
I beat the last battle in Drakehold/scratched the surface of Elfland. I've been trying the level 18 fights, and while my few excellent groups can clear them, they're not gaining EXP, and the characters that do need to gain XP are getting killed and losing. I'm seeing trouble having built my teams with units as they came to me in the course of the story. For example, my unit that's strong against fliers also has cavalry in it that die to fliers, or my unit that has archers is too slow to catch fliers, etc. I spent ~30 minutes trying to beat the Sigil battle in Elfland with my level 18-19 units, decided it wasn't working, and then emptied all my formations, stripped every piece of gear off my named units, and saved over all my files so I have no choice but to figure this out.
I spent almost 2 hours trying to reequip my units and remake my formations, and am nowhere near done. Whoops!
I'm thinking maybe
Something that flies as a leader, with archer(s) for DPS, and a fighter in the front to block arrows
Cavalry benefits greatly from stacking multiple in a row with at least one Knight, and something tanking to stop fliers from killing them (maybe a thief?).
I'd like dedicated Ranged/Magic/Healing assist groups.
Not sure where to use the hybrid Elf units I just got.
Basically when crafting a team, mix and matching by asking myself:
What do I want to stop? What unit is good at that? What's that unit's weakness, and who can cover for it? Do they need healing/support? Etc. There's a lot of moving pieces.
I just wanted to do a general commentary on the classes I've recruited thus far, and who I think they likely work with in formations. Spoilers for up to level 17 stages completed. (This is mostly for me to get my thoughts out so I've spoiled it).
Lord/Great Lord Good DPS/Tank/Cover that can self-heal to boot. As a cavalry, benefits with Knight's Cavalier Call. Great front liner, can do it solo
Priestess Fairly good healer/cure debuffs that can DPS/dispel buff as well. A bit equipment dependent. Useful anywhere heals are.
Paladin Can Tank/Cover/Heal/Block debuffs, and DPS in a pinch. Go to leader for wading into Mage Assists. Great front liner, can do it solo.
Fighter Can somewhat Tank, but fairly squishy for an Armored Unit. Main job is blocking Arrows for fliers. Could use a Sanguine Sword for self-sustain.
Soldier Does mid DPS/off healing. Can buff Crits, I guess? Haven't found a great use for them. Has a Full Column anti-cavalry attack, but are themselves weak to Cavalry.
Hoplite Is a brick wall of a Tank/Cover for physical damage, but dies super easily to magic and anti-armor (Warriors). Does not so great damage. Has a niche, and excels at it.
Knight Quick Guard lets them survive in the Front Row, but I wouldn't really call them a Tank/Cover. Mainly a DPS, and gets better in multiples to chain Cavalier Calls. Dies to fliers.
Thief Dodge Tank. Dodges most things, and what it can't, it Evades. Drains PP and Poisons to harry enemies. Very good Front liner, but absolutely crumples to Truestrikes.
Housecarl Does Decent, if inaccurate damage and debuffs DEF. Has lots of follow up attacks.
Hunter Stick them in the back row and they will kill Fliers and Scouts with their Truestrikes. Pretty simple.
Gladiator Front row Tank that instead of mitigating damage, just has a huge HP pool and heals it back up as long as its PP holds out. Has an aoe row attack. Pairs well with a Shaman debuffing enemy damage.
Cleric Does healing and removes debuffs. There are a bunch of Staves and Accessories to expand their usefulness. Good with anyone who needs healing, such as Gladiators.
Witch Can Freeze targets, add Magic to frontliner's physical attacks, or hit multiple targets. Some of the Conferral Tomes are great, such as Yahna's Freeze Conferral Tome. Back row.
Wizard Does magic damage/burns things. Very squishy, so put them in the back row.
Warrior Smashes Armor, and in general does great DPS. Has a tough time hitting fliers, and gets trampled under Cavalry.
Sellsword Does great DPS in general with Killing Chain restoring AP and unlimited Follow ups as long as they connect, but on the slow side and not super effective against anything either.
Shaman Does not attack, but can dampen offenses, or drain PP and slow down rows of enemies. Has a bunch of staves that give different curses e.g. Burn curse. I know it's real good, but not sure who to pair it with besides Gladiator.
Gryphon Knight Flies, so has terrain advantage, kills cavalry, and tanks magic damage. Dies horribly to arrows and truestrikes. Can self-heal a little or buff team's Initiative.
Radiant Knight Can tank/cover magic very well, and guard itself in the front line somewhat, but relatively squishy to physical. Great healing, and okay damage with a magic sword.
Swordfighter Very fast, murders anything that hates Truestrike, and can spend PP to cancel melee attacks, then spend AP to kill something and get more PP. Very frail otherwise.
Crusader Very slow, but absolutely incredible in every other respect. Can DPS/Tank/Self-sustain/Destroy Fliers and Armor. Even has a True Strike counterattack. Excellent Frontliner.
Dark Marquess It's actually kind of crazy how absurdly good this unit is? A Strong and Fast Greatshield user with high defenses, and all her abilities synergize with themselves to a perfect degree. Can go anywhere, do anything
Arbalist Can kill fliers, but not really Scouts. They can poison and do follow-up attacks. They can patch a row up at the end. I like Hunters a bit more for the True Strike.
Dark Knight If Vengeance triggers a few times they become Tanky, but they're better at low HP, which makes them kind of risky. Dies to fliers/magic, but probably wants to be in the front row regardless? If their whole kit triggers and synergizes they can be good, but not like Dark Marquess good.
Wyvern Rider Absolutely destroys ground units, dies horribly to arrows. Feels like they might as well be in the front row, since the stuff that kills them is ranged anyway.
Prince Buff master! Stick him in the back row and give him lots of initiative.
Elven Augur Weird physical/magic hybrid. Has the cleric's quick heal, plus it also dispels debuffs. Somewhere between full healer and off healer. Back row.
Elven Archer Weird physical/magic hybrid. Kills fliers and armor, but not scouts. Can dispel debuffs, and if they happen to get healed, they heal everyone. Back row.
Promoting everybody is 100% priority. Its doubled action economy and gives more equipment slots, that's far better than one more unpromoted unit. Similarly you should be emphasizing buying any red/blue pendants as priority generic accessorizing.
Rotating people in and out is pointless IMO. On Expert I had 10 squads that all contributed and cleared just fine, but there's an argument that maybe 6-8 total squads is the sweet spot for not having your gear and levels spread too thin, and arguably you can just make 4 turbo killsquads and steamroll everything (only my Alain and Auch + Berengia squad got there, since I intentionally didnt try to set up any huge cheese).
The thing about shamans is that they're broken strong paired with anybody. Being able to full party blind is stupid powerful, and all their other debuffs are bonkers good. Gladiators especially like them because gladiators are terrible and need them just for a lot of their skills to be baseline functional, but almost any other class is going to make much better use of them. There's a reason you only ever see enemy gladiators in really obnoxious over-stacked shaman/cleric spam units. Thieves can get also around truestrike units a lot better than most of the other evade tank archetypes because they have an AoE blind attack, and blind is one of the best debuffs. Don't underestimate Warriors either. Their ability to turn off and ignore enemy defense is stupid good for one-shotting things, and the stacking self-buffs makes them hit ridiculously hard from their first attack. Accuracy is pretty easily solved with equipment, or even some other party members when they don't need to borrow any skills from equipment themselves. Magic also starts becoming a much more common thing to worry about in the elf area, which most of the cover tank types have a real hard time with so it falls off hard. Just debuffs becoming more common in general really cripples them.
I'm currently knocking on the end of beast area, dipped my toes a bit into angel area, and with just about everybody at level 30, pretty tempted to do another grand reconfig myself for the final push, especially with some units based on rapport that have a few characters that have severely fallen behind in usefulness and far too many uniques at this point to fit everybody in anyway. I also look at things like the werefox not-thief, and her traits are... fucking both defensive. No wonder you're terrible. Why do this?
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silence1186Character shields down!As a wingmanRegistered Userregular
Promoting everybody is 100% priority. Its doubled action economy and gives more equipment slots, that's far better than one more unpromoted unit. Similarly you should be emphasizing buying any red/blue pendants as priority generic accessorizing.
Rotating people in and out is pointless IMO. On Expert I had 10 squads that all contributed and cleared just fine, but there's an argument that maybe 6-8 total squads is the sweet spot for not having your gear and levels spread too thin, and arguably you can just make 4 turbo killsquads and steamroll everything (only my Alain and Auch + Berengia squad got there, since I intentionally didnt try to set up any huge cheese).
I've been looking for the AP and PP pendants in all shops. Should I pick up the AP swords from the coliseum, or are the accessories there more important?
The really dumb thing about the traits in this game is that they are so much more powerful for offense than defense, because offensive itemization is far, far weaker than for other stats. Why go for crit or accuracy traits when you can itemize for +30 from a single item, when your marginal improvement from a weapon is going to be like, 4 points of damage? The attack from traits is way, way more valuable so anybody doing offense probably wants offensive/offensive, although it isn't like, critical to have good traits at all.
Promoting everybody is 100% priority. Its doubled action economy and gives more equipment slots, that's far better than one more unpromoted unit. Similarly you should be emphasizing buying any red/blue pendants as priority generic accessorizing.
Rotating people in and out is pointless IMO. On Expert I had 10 squads that all contributed and cleared just fine, but there's an argument that maybe 6-8 total squads is the sweet spot for not having your gear and levels spread too thin, and arguably you can just make 4 turbo killsquads and steamroll everything (only my Alain and Auch + Berengia squad got there, since I intentionally didnt try to set up any huge cheese).
I've been looking for the AP and PP pendants in all shops. Should I pick up the AP swords from the coliseum, or are the accessories there more important?
You shouldn't need to buy coliseum items at all, but yeah, the +1 AP weapons/shields with no downsides are very solid pickups and many of the accessories are mostly good with a very specific build or for cheese and less general.
Promoting everybody is 100% priority. Its doubled action economy and gives more equipment slots, that's far better than one more unpromoted unit. Similarly you should be emphasizing buying any red/blue pendants as priority generic accessorizing.
Rotating people in and out is pointless IMO. On Expert I had 10 squads that all contributed and cleared just fine, but there's an argument that maybe 6-8 total squads is the sweet spot for not having your gear and levels spread too thin, and arguably you can just make 4 turbo killsquads and steamroll everything (only my Alain and Auch + Berengia squad got there, since I intentionally didnt try to set up any huge cheese).
I've been looking for the AP and PP pendants in all shops. Should I pick up the AP swords from the coliseum, or are the accessories there more important?
You shouldn't need to buy coliseum items at all, but yeah, the +1 AP weapons/shields with no downsides are very solid pickups and many of the accessories are mostly good with a very specific build or for cheese and less general.
Agreed - there's some fun gimmicks you can do with the expensive accessories (Setting up 2v5 massacres with the Elite Standard for instance), but for the main game the +AP weapons are going to work very well for most units.
The really dumb thing about the traits in this game is that they are so much more powerful for offense than defense, because offensive itemization is far, far weaker than for other stats. Why go for crit or accuracy traits when you can itemize for +30 from a single item, when your marginal improvement from a weapon is going to be like, 4 points of damage? The attack from traits is way, way more valuable so anybody doing offense probably wants offensive/offensive, although it isn't like, critical to have good traits at all.
Those are the two descriptions that influence stat growth on level up?
Ogre Battle: March of the Black Queen -> Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together -> Ogre Battle 64: Person of Lordly Caliber
Unicorn Overlord -> Tactics Unicorn -> Unicorn Overlord 128
You gotta have a Queen song title in there somewhere.
Tactics Unicorn: Fat Bottomed Girls.
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
Honestly, the fact you can solo every mission with 1-2 units is probably the most disappointing part of Unicorn Overlord. While you can have 10, 2 upgraded units (one of whom is flying) pretty much can deal with every map.
They need to take a leaf out of Ogre Battle where you had rivers and other things that would have octopuses charging down them to attack your backlines.
That's why I'd really like them to make a sequel (or just a "spiritual sequel") that uses the same kind of battle system but they get a bit more creative with different types of strategies needed/types of levels, and a more fine tuning. I feel like now that they have a solid combat system, they could really apply that to another game and focus more on the narrative too.
The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it. ~ Terry Pratchett
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DragkoniasThat Guy Who Does StuffYou Know, There. Registered Userregular
I do wish there was a bit more mission variety.
Like all these defensive items are pretty useless cause you are usually the attacker.
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SpectrumArcher of InfernoChaldea Rec RoomRegistered Userregular
Should I be spending honor upgrading my unit size from 4-5, or should I prioritize promoting all my basic units to advanced classes?
This question is moot. You can Promote at Rank B and Expand only at Rank A. There's no point gimping yourself for a whole rank just to stock points. Promote ASAP.
Once you have access to Rank A, I would Expand one squad just to have it available for Coliseum and then for Alain Rapport building (because he has so much more to do), then go back to Promoting until you clear the roster (which you should do around the start of the Beast area).
You can spend 200 honors to Promote 6 people and gain 6 AP and 6 PP (or 4 AP and 4 PP for one squad) or Expand one Squad can gain 1-2 AP and 1-2 PP.
I have 10 x 4 unit formations available, but ~45 characters Do you rotate people in and out, or bench them for extended periods?
I bench people for a few battles at a time to let squads build rapport, but I build for rapport. If you build for power, feel free to just not use certain people ever if you can't find a use for them.
What front line tanks goes best with what back row dps/heal/support? Any dps/support tanky/evasive enough for the front row?
The vague rule of thumb is that stat tanks want some kind of healing and probably magick shield while evasion tanks would prefer blindness and/or arrow cover.
In general your frontline capable units in roughly descending order at this stage of the game:
Feathersword
Thief
Lord
Crusader
Dark Marquess
Gryphon Knight
Wyvern Knight
Hoplite
Fighter
Promoted Great Knight with DEF equipment
Dark Knight
Swordfighter (stack evasion and PP)
Gladiator (iffy)
Promoted Shield Shooter (do not rely on this)
Elven Fencer (with a lot of effort to get their combo to work right)
It should be noted that your DEF tanks are going to start falling off due to hybrid damage if you can't pair them with coverage against that.
I beat the last battle in Drakehold/scratched the surface of Elfland. I've been trying the level 18 fights, and while my few excellent groups can clear them, they're not gaining EXP, and the characters that do need to gain XP are getting killed and losing. I'm seeing trouble having built my teams with units as they came to me in the course of the story. For example, my unit that's strong against fliers also has cavalry in it that die to fliers, or my unit that has archers is too slow to catch fliers, etc. I spent ~30 minutes trying to beat the Sigil battle in Elfland with my level 18-19 units, decided it wasn't working, and then emptied all my formations, stripped every piece of gear off my named units, and saved over all my files so I have no choice but to figure this out.
I spent almost 2 hours trying to reequip my units and remake my formations, and am nowhere near done. Whoops!
Yeah it takes me around 1.5 hours to remake most of my army when I'm cycling rapport, but a lot of that is weighing who I can fit into a squad to maximize gains.
Something that flies as a leader, with archer(s) for DPS, and a fighter in the front to block arrows
Cavalry benefits greatly from stacking multiple in a row with at least one Knight, and something tanking to stop fliers from killing them (maybe a thief?).
I'd like dedicated Ranged/Magic/Healing assist groups.
Not sure where to use the hybrid Elf units I just got.
You want to be careful about overspecializing your units as while they can be powerful, they also get hardcountered more and more if their gimmick breaks down for any reason.
If you're cav stacking, you can instead give them the True strike lances and buff their initiative and they'll kill frontline flyers anyway. For backline flyers you need archer support to kill gryphons before they act or a fighter to block wyverns.
Dedicated support groups give stronger support but also mean that less people can support around the map (or provide the capability inside battle to separate squads).
I decided to pull the trigger on the Ring of the Maiden finally, so burned all the meal tickets I'd been ignoring spending like 20 minutes stuffing Alain, his marriage candidates, and anybody who seemed interesting full of oysters, and now my entire map is covered in rapport events.
First off this is going to be a long rambling post mostly to put my own thoughts to page, so I'll spoiler the worst sprawls, but tl;dr question(s):
Should I be spending honor upgrading my unit size from 4-5, or should I prioritize promoting all my basic units to advanced classes?
Another thing to consider: you can't put 4 on the back row, so when you add a 5th character you're going to have 2 tanks. That's not really useful, not as useful as adding a dps or support unit would be.
To protect my cavalry from fliers I put a big armoured shield guy in the front line (I forget the class name). He had a passive to protect the back row if the whole row was attacked, a passive to protect an individual if someone in the back row was attacked, and an active that restored his PP. With the amount of damage a cavalry team can put out, that was enough.
I never bothered with assist groups. I just made sure that each team had a cavalry or flier in them, and made them the leader. Mobility > everything.
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SpectrumArcher of InfernoChaldea Rec RoomRegistered Userregular
I decided to pull the trigger on the Ring of the Maiden finally, so burned all the meal tickets I'd been ignoring spending like 20 minutes stuffing Alain, his marriage candidates, and anybody who seemed interesting full of oysters, and now my entire map is covered in rapport events.
So far one of the Rapport 3 conversations has actually eliminated what was my leading Maiden candidate, so I'm tentatively back to my original choice (who isn't Rapport 3 yet).
Berengaria is out, she can stay in Drakenhold.
Incidentally, I did hear in passing (deeper spoilers for stuff I haven't seen personally)
that her Maiden scene is sweet but her Epilogue leaves much to be desired
Is there some way to get focus sight to only activate when a scout is attacked? I've tried all the combos I can think of but nothing seems to work. I want that magic conferral damage when I don't need true strike.
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SpectrumArcher of InfernoChaldea Rec RoomRegistered Userregular
Is there some way to get focus sight to only activate when a scout is attacked? I've tried all the combos I can think of but nothing seems to work. I want that magic conferral damage when I don't need true strike.
Not really. Best I do is Enemies Present: Scout/Flying on Focus Sight, then have Magick Conferral below that with no requirement.
Finished the game and the coda tonight. I have been playing this game obsessively for the past few days. It's gotten its hooks into me like few have of late. Strong candidate for best Fire Emblem of all time.
Thinking I'll spend tomorrow running a tournament between my ten units and seeing who comes up with the most wins.
My favorite musical instrument is the air-raid siren.
Is there some way to get focus sight to only activate when a scout is attacked? I've tried all the combos I can think of but nothing seems to work. I want that magic conferral damage when I don't need true strike.
Not really. Best I do is Enemies Present: Scout/Flying on Focus Sight, then have Magick Conferral below that with no requirement.
Yeah same. I was just hoping I was missing something. Oh well, I am doomed to inefficiency.
I decided to pull the trigger on the Ring of the Maiden finally, so burned all the meal tickets I'd been ignoring spending like 20 minutes stuffing Alain, his marriage candidates, and anybody who seemed interesting full of oysters, and now my entire map is covered in rapport events.
So far one of the Rapport 3 conversations has actually eliminated what was my leading Maiden candidate, so I'm tentatively back to my original choice (who isn't Rapport 3 yet).
Berengaria is out, she can stay in Drakenhold.
Incidentally, I did hear in passing (deeper spoilers for stuff I haven't seen personally)
that her Maiden scene is sweet but her Epilogue leaves much to be desired
I'm pretty sure I'm going with Rosalinde because she'd make a lot better use of the stat bonuses than almost any other character, especially the extra magic, though she definitely doesn't really need it, and I generally like her personality enough to cement her as a leader, but it was a little surprising how... uh... thirsty... she is in story events and then her rapport events being more subdued, while her sister went full horny elf. Not as bad as fucking Scarlett, where every single one of her rapport scenes with all characters is about how much she's pining for Alain, but extremely overtly romantic. At least she and Mel have scenes with other characters where they don't mention Alain at all.
Not exhaustive obviously, but after spending like 90 minutes clearing out all of the ones I could:
Best scenes overall: Tatiana.
Best scene: Aramis/Virginia's hair fighting.
Second best scene: Tatiana/Ridiel.
Horniest: Eltolinde.
Best comic relief: Adel.
Most Definitely Just Roomates: Sharon/Ochlys
Weirdest: Nina choking on a ratwich.
Most Boring and Banal: All the Rose Knights.
Gammel, Mandrin, and Auch's were all generally significantly better than expected and the baseline as well.
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SpectrumArcher of InfernoChaldea Rec RoomRegistered Userregular
Rosalinde with Ring of the Maiden and Kingslance is a terrifying thought. Give her both crowns for good measure if you really want to just run up the score - she'll probably just end fights immediately off her start of battle > Elemental Roar with that much bonus stats.
As far as how the rapport conversations with Alain go though - I'm still partial to Selvie's.
There's more stuff about them in other scenes as well. I think it's Ochlys/Alain's first one where Ochlys tells him that angels are all racists and her family disapproved of her bringing a filthy human home, so she said fuck 'em and went to live with Sharon instead.
I beat the last battle in Drakehold/scratched the surface of Elfland. I've been trying the level 18 fights, and while my few excellent groups can clear them, they're not gaining EXP, and the characters that do need to gain XP are getting killed and losing. I'm seeing trouble having built my teams with units as they came to me in the course of the story. For example, my unit that's strong against fliers also has cavalry in it that die to fliers, or my unit that has archers is too slow to catch fliers, etc. I spent ~30 minutes trying to beat the Sigil battle in Elfland with my level 18-19 units, decided it wasn't working, and then emptied all my formations, stripped every piece of gear off my named units, and saved over all my files so I have no choice but to figure this out.
Have you tried using your items? ;P
Never!
While clearing two versions of the level 18 Sigil battle, I had a eureka moment, and moved all the units that needed XP into groups with a Ranged/Magic/Healing assist as leader, and then had one point group mow everything down while different assists rained for days, leeching XP. This also let the weaker groups punch above their weight, and the next two level 18 Liberation Quests, the level 18 Side Quest, and the level 19 Liberation Quest gave me no trouble. The next quest I have sequentially is a level 19 Main quest, so I took a break to look at the coliseum again. The first 8-9 stages I just sort of ran over with my cavalry team, but that stopped being an option when the enemy units started to out level me and employ more sophisticated strategies.
Past that I started to look at them as puzzles, with certain combinations of units, row and column placement, equipment, and abilities leading to various levels of "victory" (because you don't need to kill anything, you just need to take out a higher % of the other teams total HP.
I will fully admit I am not a clever person, and don't have an encyclopedic knowledge of all the items and abilities, so the initial solution I used I could never have devised myself, and instead I took the pieces from gamefaqs or reddit I believe, but it still took some tweaking to get it to work consistently, and some battles were immune to it so I had to come up with original customized solutions, which was super engaging and rewarding.
Details, though probably old news to y'all:
It involved Dragoon Dive on my Wyvern Rider, which I acquired somewhere in my natural progression, either a quest, or bought from a town, not sure, the Ice Conferral Tome, which you can get from visiting Yahna's tower after recruiting her, and the White Cat-Eared Hood on a Cleric (though I don't think it matters who wears it), which you need to spend 20 Divine Shards at a Church. Fortunately I hadn't been in a while and had enough shards saved up. The Frost Tome took me the longest to find, since I thought it would be one of the towers Lex climbs for gear, but no, it's part of the townscape for Yahna's original town in the swamp in Cornia, but it wasn't apparent initially that you can interact with it separately from the rest of the town.
I had Hilda in the front row with the Dragoon Dive spear, a Carnelian signet for the 2nd AP she needs to cast it, and a +Initiative accessory. In the back is Yahna with the Ice Tome, Gilbert, to boost everyone's initiative further (Berengaria lowering it was also an option), and Tatiana with the Cat-Eared hood and two other items boosting her PP to 4.
Turn order is typically:
Gilbert's "at the beginning of combat" limited ability triggers, boosting everyone's speed (just need Hilda to go before the other team)
Hilda starts charging her lasers
Tatiana responds by casting Impetus on her, which makes it Hilda's turn immediately
Yahna Confers Ice on Hilda
Hilda leaps in the air and dive bombs everyone for chip damage, but more importantly, freezes the entire other team
Everyone's gambits are set to ignore frozen targets, so everyone stands by, and I win with my team at 100% hp and the other team at less than that.
If the enemy had high evade, sometimes it was a matter of just rerolling a few times until a ~60% chance to hit
If the enemy had someone with Cover or Arrow Guard, I had to hope Yahna could survive one hit, then hit with her Icebolt to freeze the last remaining enemy.
A few other things cropped up, but various tweaks got me past them (one map had a bunch of wyverns, and one was Covered and survived to breathe fire, so I needed Fire Medallions, for example.)
If there were lots of enemy Thieves, Fencers, or Gryphon Knights, this stopped working, and I had to use custom arrangements of Hoplite, Thief, or Dark Marquess in the front row, and my own Fencers and Archers in the back row (though for one stage putting 2 in the front and back broke the enemy ai and let me win) along with usually a Cleric or Gilbert as support.
My main takeaway is that Gilbert is awesome, and Berengaria is even more incredible than I thought initially (which was already very much).
Right now I'm rank 3, so I have rank 2 and the champion left. I gave rank 2 a shot and it looks like it will need a custom solution, and I imagine the champion will be much the same.
I stayed up 3 hours past my bedtime doing this, am absolutely paying for it today, but I'm having so much fun with this.
Using assists to leech XP seems big brained but its mostly useless. Kills are like, 10x or more xp compared to combat and assists, there is almost zero value to additional combat that isnt a unit finishing another unit off
Catapults can be useful for that though, as they'll score kills safely and give full xp for it.
Full gold too I think. Early on there is a grind map that starts you near a catapult and normally has a cluster of 4-5 units you can catch all at once (especially if you drop a gravity field), so you can put your xp and gold items on them and really catch up some new units you want to try.
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silence1186Character shields down!As a wingmanRegistered Userregular
Using assists to leech XP seems big brained but its mostly useless. Kills are like, 10x or more xp compared to combat and assists, there is almost zero value to additional combat that isnt a unit finishing another unit off
Those groups were also able to finish combat without dying with 3-4 assists.
silence1186 on
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DragkoniasThat Guy Who Does StuffYou Know, There. Registered Userregular
5th continent finished and my team has been ready to beat the game I just been optimizing the shit out of them. I love the game but only a few complaints.
- Map/Objective variety could have been better. Would have also given you a reason to use defensive items if you ever actually had to defend.
- While itemization was fun in a way that made the game engaging throughout I felt that the value added by anything that increased AP/PP was so superior to almost every other item outside of niches cases/specific builds that I kind of wish increasing AP/PP was its own system outside of accessorizing.
- Support conversations were kind of whatever but I felt it was more like old school fire emblems where it's just additional lore for personality and not really a focal point like the newer ones. So YMMV
- Menus needed a bit of work when it came to organizing. Having to swim through a bunch of accessories for one thing kind of sucked.
- Also I wish there were a few more teams slot I could understand limiting how many characters you deployed but fiddling around with party setups was one of the things I enjoyed.
- The tactics system had mostly everything I wanted but I kind of wish you had a bit more control over either situations. Like I have to check but if I set an ability to Scouts and Flyers will it only activate if both are present cause I want an "either" situation.
But yeah I don't think we get a sequel but if they ever do realize a super deluxe version 5-10 years later I would enjoy those things.
Is there some way to get focus sight to only activate when a scout is attacked? I've tried all the combos I can think of but nothing seems to work. I want that magic conferral damage when I don't need true strike.
Not really. Best I do is Enemies Present: Scout/Flying on Focus Sight, then have Magick Conferral below that with no requirement.
Yeah same. I was just hoping I was missing something. Oh well, I am doomed to inefficiency.
Using assists to leech XP seems big brained but its mostly useless. Kills are like, 10x or more xp compared to combat and assists, there is almost zero value to additional combat that isnt a unit finishing another unit off
The bosses give enough XP that you should juice and leech that XP as much as possible, that's how you keep your entire army mostly leveled without having to grind sigils. Stack Rookie Eggs and give Royal Order and even the assists will earn a few thousand xp.
It involved Dragoon Dive on my Wyvern Rider, which I acquired somewhere in my natural progression, either a quest, or bought from a town, not sure, the Ice Conferral Tome, which you can get from visiting Yahna's tower after recruiting her, and the White Cat-Eared Hood on a Cleric (though I don't think it matters who wears it), which you need to spend 20 Divine Shards at a Church. Fortunately I hadn't been in a while and had enough shards saved up. The Frost Tome took me the longest to find, since I thought it would be one of the towers Lex climbs for gear, but no, it's part of the townscape for Yahna's original town in the swamp in Cornia, but it wasn't apparent initially that you can interact with it separately from the rest of the town.
I had Hilda in the front row with the Dragoon Dive spear, a Carnelian signet for the 2nd AP she needs to cast it, and a +Initiative accessory. In the back is Yahna with the Ice Tome, Gilbert, to boost everyone's initiative further (Berengaria lowering it was also an option), and Tatiana with the Cat-Eared hood and two other items boosting her PP to 4.
Turn order is typically:
Gilbert's "at the beginning of combat" limited ability triggers, boosting everyone's speed (just need Hilda to go before the other team)
Hilda starts charging her lasers
Tatiana responds by casting Impetus on her, which makes it Hilda's turn immediately
Yahna Confers Ice on Hilda
Hilda leaps in the air and dive bombs everyone for chip damage, but more importantly, freezes the entire other team
Everyone's gambits are set to ignore frozen targets, so everyone stands by, and I win with my team at 100% hp and the other team at less than that.
If the enemy had high evade, sometimes it was a matter of just rerolling a few times until a ~60% chance to hit
If the enemy had someone with Cover or Arrow Guard, I had to hope Yahna could survive one hit, then hit with her Icebolt to freeze the last remaining enemy.
A few other things cropped up, but various tweaks got me past them (one map had a bunch of wyverns, and one was Covered and survived to breathe fire, so I needed Fire Medallions, for example.)
If there were lots of enemy Thieves, Fencers, or Gryphon Knights, this stopped working, and I had to use custom arrangements of Hoplite, Thief, or Dark Marquess in the front row, and my own Fencers and Archers in the back row (though for one stage putting 2 in the front and back broke the enemy ai and let me win) along with usually a Cleric or Gilbert as support.
My main takeaway is that Gilbert is awesome, and Berengaria is even more incredible than I thought initially (which was already very much).
Right now I'm rank 3, so I have rank 2 and the champion left. I gave rank 2 a shot and it looks like it will need a custom solution, and I imagine the champion will be much the same.
I stayed up 3 hours past my bedtime doing this, am absolutely paying for it today, but I'm having so much fun with this.
You should have Wyvern Reins or whatever they're called by now that give 20% Attack and Truesight if the flyer is at 100% HP. That gives that strategy a lot more legs. I use it in pvp still and it's viable-ish in the 2nd stage coliseum, though usually needs a fair bit of help the higher you go.
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I've heard good things about Symphony of War but have no experience with it.
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Ogre Battle: March of the Black Queen -> Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together -> Ogre Battle 64: Person of Lordly Caliber
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Should I be spending honor upgrading my unit size from 4-5, or should I prioritize promoting all my basic units to advanced classes?
I have 10 x 4 unit formations available, but ~45 characters Do you rotate people in and out, or bench them for extended periods?
What front line tanks goes best with what back row dps/heal/support? Any dps/support tanky/evasive enough for the front row?
I beat the last battle in Drakehold/scratched the surface of Elfland. I've been trying the level 18 fights, and while my few excellent groups can clear them, they're not gaining EXP, and the characters that do need to gain XP are getting killed and losing. I'm seeing trouble having built my teams with units as they came to me in the course of the story. For example, my unit that's strong against fliers also has cavalry in it that die to fliers, or my unit that has archers is too slow to catch fliers, etc. I spent ~30 minutes trying to beat the Sigil battle in Elfland with my level 18-19 units, decided it wasn't working, and then emptied all my formations, stripped every piece of gear off my named units, and saved over all my files so I have no choice but to figure this out.
I spent almost 2 hours trying to reequip my units and remake my formations, and am nowhere near done. Whoops!
I'm thinking maybe
Cavalry benefits greatly from stacking multiple in a row with at least one Knight, and something tanking to stop fliers from killing them (maybe a thief?).
I'd like dedicated Ranged/Magic/Healing assist groups.
Not sure where to use the hybrid Elf units I just got.
Basically when crafting a team, mix and matching by asking myself:
What do I want to stop? What unit is good at that? What's that unit's weakness, and who can cover for it? Do they need healing/support? Etc. There's a lot of moving pieces.
I just wanted to do a general commentary on the classes I've recruited thus far, and who I think they likely work with in formations. Spoilers for up to level 17 stages completed. (This is mostly for me to get my thoughts out so I've spoiled it).
Priestess Fairly good healer/cure debuffs that can DPS/dispel buff as well. A bit equipment dependent. Useful anywhere heals are.
Paladin Can Tank/Cover/Heal/Block debuffs, and DPS in a pinch. Go to leader for wading into Mage Assists. Great front liner, can do it solo.
Fighter Can somewhat Tank, but fairly squishy for an Armored Unit. Main job is blocking Arrows for fliers. Could use a Sanguine Sword for self-sustain.
Soldier Does mid DPS/off healing. Can buff Crits, I guess? Haven't found a great use for them. Has a Full Column anti-cavalry attack, but are themselves weak to Cavalry.
Hoplite Is a brick wall of a Tank/Cover for physical damage, but dies super easily to magic and anti-armor (Warriors). Does not so great damage. Has a niche, and excels at it.
Knight Quick Guard lets them survive in the Front Row, but I wouldn't really call them a Tank/Cover. Mainly a DPS, and gets better in multiples to chain Cavalier Calls. Dies to fliers.
Thief Dodge Tank. Dodges most things, and what it can't, it Evades. Drains PP and Poisons to harry enemies. Very good Front liner, but absolutely crumples to Truestrikes.
Housecarl Does Decent, if inaccurate damage and debuffs DEF. Has lots of follow up attacks.
Hunter Stick them in the back row and they will kill Fliers and Scouts with their Truestrikes. Pretty simple.
Gladiator Front row Tank that instead of mitigating damage, just has a huge HP pool and heals it back up as long as its PP holds out. Has an aoe row attack. Pairs well with a Shaman debuffing enemy damage.
Cleric Does healing and removes debuffs. There are a bunch of Staves and Accessories to expand their usefulness. Good with anyone who needs healing, such as Gladiators.
Witch Can Freeze targets, add Magic to frontliner's physical attacks, or hit multiple targets. Some of the Conferral Tomes are great, such as Yahna's Freeze Conferral Tome. Back row.
Wizard Does magic damage/burns things. Very squishy, so put them in the back row.
Warrior Smashes Armor, and in general does great DPS. Has a tough time hitting fliers, and gets trampled under Cavalry.
Sellsword Does great DPS in general with Killing Chain restoring AP and unlimited Follow ups as long as they connect, but on the slow side and not super effective against anything either.
Shaman Does not attack, but can dampen offenses, or drain PP and slow down rows of enemies. Has a bunch of staves that give different curses e.g. Burn curse. I know it's real good, but not sure who to pair it with besides Gladiator.
Gryphon Knight Flies, so has terrain advantage, kills cavalry, and tanks magic damage. Dies horribly to arrows and truestrikes. Can self-heal a little or buff team's Initiative.
Radiant Knight Can tank/cover magic very well, and guard itself in the front line somewhat, but relatively squishy to physical. Great healing, and okay damage with a magic sword.
Swordfighter Very fast, murders anything that hates Truestrike, and can spend PP to cancel melee attacks, then spend AP to kill something and get more PP. Very frail otherwise.
Crusader Very slow, but absolutely incredible in every other respect. Can DPS/Tank/Self-sustain/Destroy Fliers and Armor. Even has a True Strike counterattack. Excellent Frontliner.
Dark Marquess It's actually kind of crazy how absurdly good this unit is? A Strong and Fast Greatshield user with high defenses, and all her abilities synergize with themselves to a perfect degree. Can go anywhere, do anything
Arbalist Can kill fliers, but not really Scouts. They can poison and do follow-up attacks. They can patch a row up at the end. I like Hunters a bit more for the True Strike.
Dark Knight If Vengeance triggers a few times they become Tanky, but they're better at low HP, which makes them kind of risky. Dies to fliers/magic, but probably wants to be in the front row regardless? If their whole kit triggers and synergizes they can be good, but not like Dark Marquess good.
Wyvern Rider Absolutely destroys ground units, dies horribly to arrows. Feels like they might as well be in the front row, since the stuff that kills them is ranged anyway.
Prince Buff master! Stick him in the back row and give him lots of initiative.
Elven Augur Weird physical/magic hybrid. Has the cleric's quick heal, plus it also dispels debuffs. Somewhere between full healer and off healer. Back row.
Elven Archer Weird physical/magic hybrid. Kills fliers and armor, but not scouts. Can dispel debuffs, and if they happen to get healed, they heal everyone. Back row.
Gear for units:
Axe 111111111 = 9
Spear 111111 = 6
Magic Spear 1 = 1
Bow 111 = 3
Magic Bow 11 = 2
Staff 1111111 = 7
Shield 1111111111121111 = 17 (16 units)
Greatshield 11 = 2
Accessories 45 x 3 - (shields + 2s) = 135 - (19 + 3) = 113
Rotating people in and out is pointless IMO. On Expert I had 10 squads that all contributed and cleared just fine, but there's an argument that maybe 6-8 total squads is the sweet spot for not having your gear and levels spread too thin, and arguably you can just make 4 turbo killsquads and steamroll everything (only my Alain and Auch + Berengia squad got there, since I intentionally didnt try to set up any huge cheese).
I'm currently knocking on the end of beast area, dipped my toes a bit into angel area, and with just about everybody at level 30, pretty tempted to do another grand reconfig myself for the final push, especially with some units based on rapport that have a few characters that have severely fallen behind in usefulness and far too many uniques at this point to fit everybody in anyway. I also look at things like the werefox not-thief, and her traits are... fucking both defensive. No wonder you're terrible. Why do this?
I've been looking for the AP and PP pendants in all shops. Should I pick up the AP swords from the coliseum, or are the accessories there more important?
You shouldn't need to buy coliseum items at all, but yeah, the +1 AP weapons/shields with no downsides are very solid pickups and many of the accessories are mostly good with a very specific build or for cheese and less general.
Agreed - there's some fun gimmicks you can do with the expensive accessories (Setting up 2v5 massacres with the Elite Standard for instance), but for the main game the +AP weapons are going to work very well for most units.
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
Those are the two descriptions that influence stat growth on level up?
You gotta have a Queen song title in there somewhere.
Tactics Unicorn: Fat Bottomed Girls.
They need to take a leaf out of Ogre Battle where you had rivers and other things that would have octopuses charging down them to attack your backlines.
Like all these defensive items are pretty useless cause you are usually the attacker.
Once you have access to Rank A, I would Expand one squad just to have it available for Coliseum and then for Alain Rapport building (because he has so much more to do), then go back to Promoting until you clear the roster (which you should do around the start of the Beast area).
You can spend 200 honors to Promote 6 people and gain 6 AP and 6 PP (or 4 AP and 4 PP for one squad) or Expand one Squad can gain 1-2 AP and 1-2 PP.
I bench people for a few battles at a time to let squads build rapport, but I build for rapport. If you build for power, feel free to just not use certain people ever if you can't find a use for them.
The vague rule of thumb is that stat tanks want some kind of healing and probably magick shield while evasion tanks would prefer blindness and/or arrow cover.
In general your frontline capable units in roughly descending order at this stage of the game:
Feathersword
Thief
Lord
Crusader
Dark Marquess
Gryphon Knight
Wyvern Knight
Hoplite
Fighter
Promoted Great Knight with DEF equipment
Dark Knight
Swordfighter (stack evasion and PP)
Gladiator (iffy)
Promoted Shield Shooter (do not rely on this)
Elven Fencer (with a lot of effort to get their combo to work right)
It should be noted that your DEF tanks are going to start falling off due to hybrid damage if you can't pair them with coverage against that.
Have you tried using your items? ;P
Yeah it takes me around 1.5 hours to remake most of my army when I'm cycling rapport, but a lot of that is weighing who I can fit into a squad to maximize gains.
If you're cav stacking, you can instead give them the True strike lances and buff their initiative and they'll kill frontline flyers anyway. For backline flyers you need archer support to kill gryphons before they act or a fighter to block wyverns.
Dedicated support groups give stronger support but also mean that less people can support around the map (or provide the capability inside battle to separate squads).
Another thing to consider: you can't put 4 on the back row, so when you add a 5th character you're going to have 2 tanks. That's not really useful, not as useful as adding a dps or support unit would be.
To protect my cavalry from fliers I put a big armoured shield guy in the front line (I forget the class name). He had a passive to protect the back row if the whole row was attacked, a passive to protect an individual if someone in the back row was attacked, and an active that restored his PP. With the amount of damage a cavalry team can put out, that was enough.
I never bothered with assist groups. I just made sure that each team had a cavalry or flier in them, and made them the leader. Mobility > everything.
So far one of the Rapport 3 conversations has actually eliminated what was my leading Maiden candidate, so I'm tentatively back to my original choice (who isn't Rapport 3 yet).
Incidentally, I did hear in passing (deeper spoilers for stuff I haven't seen personally)
Thinking I'll spend tomorrow running a tournament between my ten units and seeing who comes up with the most wins.
Yeah same. I was just hoping I was missing something. Oh well, I am doomed to inefficiency.
I'm pretty sure I'm going with Rosalinde because she'd make a lot better use of the stat bonuses than almost any other character, especially the extra magic, though she definitely doesn't really need it, and I generally like her personality enough to cement her as a leader, but it was a little surprising how... uh... thirsty... she is in story events and then her rapport events being more subdued, while her sister went full horny elf. Not as bad as fucking Scarlett, where every single one of her rapport scenes with all characters is about how much she's pining for Alain, but extremely overtly romantic. At least she and Mel have scenes with other characters where they don't mention Alain at all.
Not exhaustive obviously, but after spending like 90 minutes clearing out all of the ones I could:
Best scenes overall: Tatiana.
Best scene: Aramis/Virginia's hair fighting.
Second best scene: Tatiana/Ridiel.
Horniest: Eltolinde.
Best comic relief: Adel.
Most Definitely Just Roomates: Sharon/Ochlys
Weirdest: Nina choking on a ratwich.
Most Boring and Banal: All the Rose Knights.
Gammel, Mandrin, and Auch's were all generally significantly better than expected and the baseline as well.
As far as how the rapport conversations with Alain go though - I'm still partial to Selvie's.
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
There's more stuff about them in other scenes as well. I think it's Ochlys/Alain's first one where Ochlys tells him that angels are all racists and her family disapproved of her bringing a filthy human home, so she said fuck 'em and went to live with Sharon instead.
While clearing two versions of the level 18 Sigil battle, I had a eureka moment, and moved all the units that needed XP into groups with a Ranged/Magic/Healing assist as leader, and then had one point group mow everything down while different assists rained for days, leeching XP. This also let the weaker groups punch above their weight, and the next two level 18 Liberation Quests, the level 18 Side Quest, and the level 19 Liberation Quest gave me no trouble. The next quest I have sequentially is a level 19 Main quest, so I took a break to look at the coliseum again. The first 8-9 stages I just sort of ran over with my cavalry team, but that stopped being an option when the enemy units started to out level me and employ more sophisticated strategies.
Past that I started to look at them as puzzles, with certain combinations of units, row and column placement, equipment, and abilities leading to various levels of "victory" (because you don't need to kill anything, you just need to take out a higher % of the other teams total HP.
I will fully admit I am not a clever person, and don't have an encyclopedic knowledge of all the items and abilities, so the initial solution I used I could never have devised myself, and instead I took the pieces from gamefaqs or reddit I believe, but it still took some tweaking to get it to work consistently, and some battles were immune to it so I had to come up with original customized solutions, which was super engaging and rewarding.
Details, though probably old news to y'all:
I had Hilda in the front row with the Dragoon Dive spear, a Carnelian signet for the 2nd AP she needs to cast it, and a +Initiative accessory. In the back is Yahna with the Ice Tome, Gilbert, to boost everyone's initiative further (Berengaria lowering it was also an option), and Tatiana with the Cat-Eared hood and two other items boosting her PP to 4.
Turn order is typically:
Gilbert's "at the beginning of combat" limited ability triggers, boosting everyone's speed (just need Hilda to go before the other team)
Hilda starts charging her lasers
Tatiana responds by casting Impetus on her, which makes it Hilda's turn immediately
Yahna Confers Ice on Hilda
Hilda leaps in the air and dive bombs everyone for chip damage, but more importantly, freezes the entire other team
Everyone's gambits are set to ignore frozen targets, so everyone stands by, and I win with my team at 100% hp and the other team at less than that.
If the enemy had high evade, sometimes it was a matter of just rerolling a few times until a ~60% chance to hit
If the enemy had someone with Cover or Arrow Guard, I had to hope Yahna could survive one hit, then hit with her Icebolt to freeze the last remaining enemy.
A few other things cropped up, but various tweaks got me past them (one map had a bunch of wyverns, and one was Covered and survived to breathe fire, so I needed Fire Medallions, for example.)
If there were lots of enemy Thieves, Fencers, or Gryphon Knights, this stopped working, and I had to use custom arrangements of Hoplite, Thief, or Dark Marquess in the front row, and my own Fencers and Archers in the back row (though for one stage putting 2 in the front and back broke the enemy ai and let me win) along with usually a Cleric or Gilbert as support.
My main takeaway is that Gilbert is awesome, and Berengaria is even more incredible than I thought initially (which was already very much).
Right now I'm rank 3, so I have rank 2 and the champion left. I gave rank 2 a shot and it looks like it will need a custom solution, and I imagine the champion will be much the same.
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
Full gold too I think. Early on there is a grind map that starts you near a catapult and normally has a cluster of 4-5 units you can catch all at once (especially if you drop a gravity field), so you can put your xp and gold items on them and really catch up some new units you want to try.
Those groups were also able to finish combat without dying with 3-4 assists.
- Map/Objective variety could have been better. Would have also given you a reason to use defensive items if you ever actually had to defend.
- While itemization was fun in a way that made the game engaging throughout I felt that the value added by anything that increased AP/PP was so superior to almost every other item outside of niches cases/specific builds that I kind of wish increasing AP/PP was its own system outside of accessorizing.
- Support conversations were kind of whatever but I felt it was more like old school fire emblems where it's just additional lore for personality and not really a focal point like the newer ones. So YMMV
- Menus needed a bit of work when it came to organizing. Having to swim through a bunch of accessories for one thing kind of sucked.
- Also I wish there were a few more teams slot I could understand limiting how many characters you deployed but fiddling around with party setups was one of the things I enjoyed.
- The tactics system had mostly everything I wanted but I kind of wish you had a bit more control over either situations. Like I have to check but if I set an ability to Scouts and Flyers will it only activate if both are present cause I want an "either" situation.
But yeah I don't think we get a sequel but if they ever do realize a super deluxe version 5-10 years later I would enjoy those things.
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
Yeah but the problem with that is I also have other tactics that I may also want to proc in specific cases.
So having an either option saves space.
Focus sight > scouts present
Focus sight > flyers present
Magic Conferral > no prereqs
Works pretty well.