Toggle Background Color

Chapter 2: The Protected



So, Chapter 2. The objective is a rout, and if you're not careful, you can actually lose the bottom village by killing Bone before getting to it. Fortunately, we're still at the point where most of the villages aren't offering anything better than vendor trash or iron weapons, so it's not a huge loss if we miss it.





The real objective is to make sure we recruit Guy Ross and Karel Garcia before killing off Bone and friends. Guy is seriously hurt because of plot, but unlike Ross he's not guaranteed to fall over dead from a stiff breeze. A myrmidon sitting in a fortress is not in any danger from a brigand.



Still, it's a pain in the ass to recruit Guy without doing what the game very clearly wants you to do, so we'll do things FE8's way this time. While Priscilla is away, Eirika hits up the northwest village.


[Got Red Gem]



I don't think this is going to work out so well for you, buddy.



Priscilla drops off Guy so he can have a chat with Eirika. She recruits Guy, and he can recruit Karel.

No! I'm going to fight, too! My father is out there all alone, fighting those bandits.

Son, your father is a swordmaster with a Killing Edge fighting off brigands. I think he's going to be okay without your help.



If nothing else, one thing I do appreciate about the "bonuses for everyone!" fiasco is that my healers are actually capable of restoring a decent amount of health without busting out the Mend Staves right away.



Guy hits the armory to pick up some Iron Swords and an Iron Lance to pass around, as well as to bait a bandit to come closer to us instead of heading for the south village.


[Got Elixir]



Guy, you are not very good at this "myrmidon" thing.



The pair of brigands that spawned above the south village get headed off by Lyn and Pent, with Eirika coming down a little later.



Priscilla grabs Karel and starts heading south. We need Guy to recruit Karel, and he's more than a turn away.



Pent softens up the brigand and Guy takes the kill. Ordinarily I'd stick with an Iron Sword, especially to do this little damage, but the brigand by the fortress will be attacking him during the enemy phase. At least this one is nice enough to drop a Vulnerary for Guy.



Things go exactly as planned on the enemy phase.



Eirika and Lyn attend to these fine gentlemen coming down from the mountains.



Bone has been considerably beefed up, boasting the highest set of bonuses thus far: +5 HP, +5 Str, +5 Skill, +6 Speed, +1 Luck, +5 Def, +4 Res.



Guy blocks off Bone from getting to the south village. The south village doesn't have anything particularly good, but that's no reason to let it get destroyed.



Pent gets a lucky hit and picks off the brigand the girls weakened. He could really use some speed to keep pace with the enemies, seeing as he actually has 1-2 less AS than the brigands right now, but with Gilliam's growths I doubt that's happening anytime soon.





Guy is just fast enough to double Bone, so he gets his shit kicked in.



Offensively, this puts Guy on par with Lyn, though she still has a pretty significant HP/Def/Res lead.



Priscilla finally catches up with Guy, so he can have a chat with Karel, who I send down to the last village.


[Got Pure Water]

Pure Water boosts your Res by 7, decreasing by one for every turn it's active. There are almost no situations where you need it and don't have access to the Barrier Staff which does the same thing and gives experiences to one of your staffbots, so it's basically vendor trash.



One remaining bandit suicides into Eirika, and Guy deals with the other. Chapter complete.

-----



Level 4 Swordmaster
Swords - B, Affinity - Fire
Equipment - Killing Edge, Vulnerary

HP: 33 (80%)
Strength: 13 (65%)
Skill: 20 (40%)
Speed: 17 (20%)
Luck: 3 (40%)
Defense: 12 (25%)
Resistance: 7 (15%)
Con: 12

You know, Seth wasn't good enough. We need another prepromote who can completely break the early game in half. Everyone's favorite psychopath replaces Garcia, bringing our total unit count to Eirika (basically a myrmidon), two myrmidons, a promoted myrmidon, and a paladin/mage/priest/peg knight. Maybe it's just me, but I'm beginning to think we might have a problem with class diversity before this is all said and done. Unfortunately, unlike his FE6/7 incarnations, Karel really isn't a good swordmaster this time around, especially being saddled with Garcia's growths. His best times are going to be in the early game when you don't have the ability to promote, but Guy and/or Lyn have already capped speed. Anything past that, and his bases are just too low to hold up his long-term prospects. Still, you can do far worse in the early game and he comes with a Killing Edge, which is more useful than Garcia can ever say he was.

Also, I really like what they did with the replacement here. Karel/Guy is a pretty clever switch for Garcia/Ross. A shame they're both awful examples of the class.



Level 1 Myrmidon
Swords - C, Affinity - Fire
Equipment - Killing Edge, Vulnerary

HP: 21 (70%)
Strength: 10 (50%)
Skill: 15 (35%)
Speed: 15 (30%)
Luck: 8 (40%)
Defense: 6 (25%)
Resistance: 4 (20%)
Con: 8

You know what our army needed? More swordmasters. Definitely more swordmasters. Guy replaces Ross, and brings a huge change to the game balance. Combined with Garcia's replacement, we have absolutely no one with the ability to use axes until about halfway through the game (Duessel in Ephraim's route, Dolza in Eirika's). This shouldn't prove to be too problematic, but not having access to an entire third of the weapon triangle is disappointing from a diversity perspective. We also obviously lose out on a trainee character (to which I say good riddance).

As a myrmidon, Guy is in trouble. He loves the extra con over Lyn, but inheriting Ross's growths means he needs to get lucky as hell with that speed growth or he's just not going to be viable long-term. He'll hit pretty damn hard for a myrmidon, but considering the Swordmaster strength cap is 24 (and Hero's one isn't much better at 25), that advantage is going to level off very quickly. Still, we might as well put him to use as long as his luck in getting speed holds up.