Fire Emblem 8 Sacred Stones: Low Level HM - Chapter 5: The Empire's Reach

My levels at the start of this chapter:
Eirika 10(1)
Franz 3(88)
Colm 3(33)
Neimi 2(96)
Vanessa 2(92)
Artur 2(70)
Lute 2(3)
Natasha 1(0)
Ross 6(48)-10

I just looked at my recent videos and saw that my latest 5 videos are each from a different game. Reminds me when Kainmaster said I should finish older challenges before moving on, lol. It's fun for me to play different things and switch between one another since it gets less repetitive, and I guess I just upload whatever I've recorded, which happens to be challenges from different titles. Right now I think I have more Path of Radiance videos ready to be uploaded, than anything else, though.

Anyway, in our low level run through Sacred Stones, we're in chapter 5, where we recruit Joshua. I don't normally use him because the team I like to build for this game gets a lot of experience from me early on so it doubles just as well as Joshua does, plus hits harder and switched between different weapon types and ranges. I'm not a fan of Myrmidons, well not in this game anyway, but Joshua is low-levelled enough to matter in this challenge, so we might as well give him supports so that he functions better. I went with Natasha and Artur as his support characters. My aim isn't some sort of perfect support choices that go for a specific increase (e.g. in attack or avoid), but rather characters who are most likely to find themselves together in a map and have similar movement stats, so chances are they're not too far away from one another. Franz/Natasha still sounded like a good idea (because Seth won't be available, like, ever).

In the last map, I started building some supports and then after I got them to C level, I built them some more. Now we have B supports (and A support between Neimi and Colm) on the very first turn of this map. This means, among other things, that Ross can 1RKO Soldiers. Sure, Soldier is just about the most pathetic class you get to face (until Path of Radiance anyway) and its attack speed is usually stuck at 0 in the early chapters, but the fact that trainee Ross can 2HKO them with a Hatchet is pretty impressive. That, and he's been procing speed, which is very welcome.

This map is the reason why I've been keeping Franz low-levelled - he can travel far on his pony, counter 3 enemies at once with a Javelin and still survive and get to the villages before the bandits do. Vanessa runs essentially the same utility just with better movement (flight) and noticeably worse combat. You get a Guilding Ring for saving all the villages, and we'll want every promotion item we can get, so saving the villages is important.

Joshua can be a bitch to recruit, but he won't hit Natasha so just put her in his range but away from the axe fighter reinforcements and you're good to go.

With A LOT of favouritism, Ross makes it to lv. 10, so he'll be promoting after Ephraim's map. To keep the interactive thing going, Fighter or Pirate? I prefer Pirate since that lets me access Berserker later and extra critical is better than bow access, I think, but Fighters get better defence boosts during promotion iirc. In this challenge, short-term planning is a bit more important than long-term planning, IMO.

Also interestingly, Franz is lower-levelled than Moulder at this point. Not anymore, though.

Also, thanks to Toothache42 (and others) for suggesting a better VBA version. I don't have to stop recording to prevent my recording from being corrupted anymore.

Category:

Gaming

Tags:

• fire
• emblem
• eight
• fe8
• the
• sacred
• stones
• tss
• ss
• eirika
• artur
• lute
• ross
• franz
• lowest
• level
• llg

[ultimateluigi9878]

14:39 Hey, an oddly book shaped gem that happens to be worth 4000G!

[MoogleBoss]

@ultimateluigi9878

I always sell Secret Books... 4% hit isn't worth all the weapons we could buy for it.

[ultimateluigi9878]

Definitely go Pirate, you get better promo bonuses and don't share a promotion item with Garcia/Joshua/Gerik/lolMarisa/­whoever else I forgot. Ocean Seals are rare too, but at least you get to choose between Ross and Colm, rather than Ross and, say Joshua or Gerik.

[MoogleBoss]

@ultimateluigi9878

Yeah, I was thinking of those factors too. Probably won't be promoting Colm at all, but it's too early to tell. As for promo bonuses, it's kinda 50/50.

[fordexyzable]

Promoting Fighter gets +1 Skill and Resistance while promoting Pirate gets +1 Speed and Defense. I would recommend the Pirate partly. I would recommend the Pirate if for no other reason than you can't get a Pirate any other way in SS.

[MoogleBoss]

@fordexyzable

Oh yeah, for some reason I thought Fighters get both Defence and Resistance. But it's also important that Fighters get +1 con, so a Fighter Ross wielding a Hand Axe has the same attack speed as a Pirate Ross wielding the same weapon. Pirate has sufficient con not to be weighed down with an Iron Axe though, which is the primary weapon Ross should be using.

My Ross is also terribly Res-blessed at this point, to the point it's actually not a bad idea to face mages.

[MoogleBoss]

Well, then you should know how often your myrmidon will unexpectedly die to 10-20% hit rate bandits/fighters who 2-3HKO and whose low hit rates create the illusion of you being invincible. Having more defence provides reliability when taking hits, so classes like Social Knight and Mercenary take on bigger groups of enemies with a little less evade but considerably more durability not reliant on luck.

Myrms also get in the way of "enemies disappearing", by lacking 2-range.

[Kainmaster]

@MoogleBoss "Anybody who's trained one knows"... Really? I can run through the game using pretty much only those, never getting hit, never dying.

No joke. They're my all time favorite class and I can't stop seeing enemies disappear off the map once I deploy 1 or 2 of them.

[MoogleBoss]

@Kainmaster

Warriors start with E rank in bows though... Kinda hard to raise it in a timely manner to use the better bows out there.

Myrmidons depend on evade for survival a bit too much (anybody who's trained one knows - if you're 2HKO'd by two Fighters on one turn, you'll eventually die some time, even with 20% displayed hit, and the like), can only counter at 2-range with a magic sword and don't ride anything. Not a terrible problem if playing at a very slow pace, though.

[Kainmaster]

Warrior: Can easier kill fliers due to having access to bows

Pirate: Can travel across waters (and a little through mountains, but very slow if memory serves)

It's a matter of preference, in the end, to be honest. I personally prefer Berserker. *Shrugs*

Colm & Neimi A support. Me gusta.

Nice job, however.

If you don't mind, other than rather low defenses, how come you dislike the Myrmidion class?

[LightningLord2]

I'd say Pirate because pirates are awesome. I think they can also maneuver through water.