Toggle Background Color
15: The Sacred Bownes
All right so we're in the black temple, the very final level - well, or rather it is technically two levels, but we've been doing two maps per update for the past several anyway and there's no reason to stop now, so strap in and get hype!
The squad's much smaller this time. I'm not sure what the point is of having two maps with a huge deployment limit and then forcing you to bench everyone you brought out. But, well, this feels appropriate. Ephrika are of course plot forced, we absolutely need everyone who can hold a bow, Tethys is a given, i want the standard staff crew around, and then Duessel is here because he brings me luck.
Yaa?
Yaa.
Come on, you should know by now that it's because we have not defeated the ancient evil yet. But that's coming soonish so at least it's not going to have to continue for much longer.
The skeletons are easy pickings; the gorgon, of course, has stone. But again, longbows. Longbows for everybody.
This helps.
This not so much, but, you know, capped strength.
Got all the skeletons, now just to get Ross out of the way of Stone.
Which uh... she doesn't even use? Gerik takes a big hit, but it's better than petrification. Maybe she just had 0 hit with it or something?
There's another dragon on each side.
I think they may actually be even stronger than Morva, but i don't care enough to compare stats. That's a big, painful hit, and Garcia doesn't even crit in response.
Huh, i thought this was in the other chest. Oh well.
How about this, then!
That was easy enough.
I have physics. Physics for days. Every single caster has one, and there's more in case some of them break! ...which they won't. I have so many spares of so many different things that i won't actually need, it's kind of sad.
This though, this is good.
The snipers take the right.
Just gotta be wary of this, again.
Of course, there's like six gorgons up by Lyon at the end and the two in the back have Shadowshot. They don't move, though - so the real threat range is much smaller than this.
Those aren't all, though, because we're not done with the reinforcements yet!
As long as we don't get into shadowshot range, we can handle this. Ross is finally getting ahead of Garcia in speed, though he's still behind in strength and defence.
Still slower than Tethys!
There's a couple rooms in the upper corners that have three enemies each in them, and they're... really pointless? I'm going to draw exactly one enemy from each one.
They keep using horseslayers on my healers and swordeavers on my archers... I don't think they're too bright, to be honest!
This might get a little dicey but if i leave one of these i'm pretty sure Neimi will dodge something and survive. She's good at that.
Up top, i'm going to see if i can bait something with Gerik. This is in range of the lower gorgons, who don't have shadowshot, but not the actual shadowshot. It's very safe.
And now it's even safer!
I figured i had more tempting targets than Neimi, and so now
(after Eirika dodges even though she didn't have to)
she can tangle with the dragon without danger. It didn't even hit her, what a scrub.
All that attacks Gerik is a single skeletarcher.
Which gets crit for its trouble.
Oh! Well, that was a little scarier than expected...
Seriously, nothing? I am in stone range, guys!
We'll just have to go to them instead, once we're done with the other stuff.
It's actually a good thing nothing charged us, because these things are pretty strong!
Crimson Eye has 14 might and a pretty rad animation.
...when it lands.
This side's clear so
let's kill this thing
and with some rescuedropdance shenanigans, Ephraim can loot the last chest. This is what i was after!
This isn't bad either, though.
Okay, let's try that again! Maybe this time it'll work?
Innes, meanwhile, is drawing this dog.
It doesn't even double him.
It's dodgy, though! Not dodgy enough, but dodgy.
Neimi finishes, and we're done with the corner rooms.
This is within shadowshot range, even for a stationary caster.
And we have a bite!
...the rest of the enemies just don't aggro.
Here, have a thing.
Hell yeah!
And okay, fine, if that's how you want to play it i have no shame and will happily wait out all your shadowshots before taking on the other gorgons.
Of course, a couple of them land, so we heal.
Moulder still sucks.
Right, we're done! No more siege tomes. Only arrows now.
Innes isn't in range for arrows, but he will be!
Still got a couple stones, but, again, lots of healers to deal with it if it lands. Including the Latona staff which just... heals everybody. Fully.
Speaking of which!
I was not expecting this, but i will take it! ...not use it, because Saleh actually has a magic stat and can do things, but it looks cool.
L'Arachel could... silence this skeleton, i guess? Single digits on the actual casters (and 0 on Lyon), though.
Could have been better.
But also worse.
Ah, of course there's reinforcements here, too. Well, i don't plan on letting them become an issue.
Lyon is so fucking tanky.
Neimi threerounds with Nidhogg, which is a little too slow.
Good thing she has friends! Garcia gets a boost from her, and of course also has more str naturally, so he can do this with a killer bow.
Well you are beefy, i'll give you that.
But you're also getting doubled.
Right here.
It's too late to matter much.
"Archers are overpowered."
well i mean you're not exactly ugly or anything
That is creepy, please stop.
I've skipped the pre-battle lines. No talk! Only kill!!
Got this support just before the final boss. Hey, it might give us +1 damage!
Formaldehyde spends his first turn summoning a bunch of monsters.
I'm pretty sure they're randomly selected. The dragons could be a problem, but we've killed dragons before.
Of course, the boss also moves, but he doesn't move much.
That's one of the dragons, and that's also capped str for Garcia!
I put him in range to see if he could do anything with a longbow (which lets him counter even the demon king! Longbows are good!) and he could
(for 4 damage)
but it turns out he gets doubled OOPS. (Maybe i should have made the effort to grab that speedwing anyway.)
So let's rewind time a little and instead rescue Garcia (the only way he can be rescued).
With him out of range, the rest is just grunt work.
This is with Garcia support. I should have brought Colm for real big numbers, but alas, he is not Duessel and so was not worthy.
She even dodged, so we can get another double-hit off!
This time she doesn't dodge.
(For comparison, Ross. Yeah, no.)
So let's use that S-rank staff!
And rescuedrop.
And rescuestaff, because Garcia's there for support again.
Alas! It served me well.
One more for the road, still not as strong as his dad.
Fomortiis pulls out ravager! Don't see that too often. It hits hard. But Neimi is wearing her robe (though not her wizard hat) so she's fine!
I mean this could theoretically have been an issue but let's not insult her.
Ravager has 1 range. Maybe Garcia can finish this!
He could not, but he killed this guy on my last run so
i'm perfectly happy to let Neimi take us home (and honestly, it's more fitting for this run).
Suck it, demon king! Behold your doom, it is tiny and pink.
And so it is!
"Still not as good as me, but no one is."
Nah, just kidding. Ross is a true warrior, this time! Don't trust people who make him a berserker, they're probably cops
(unlike Ross, who is a warrior, not a cop)
Hell yes he is!!
You did most of it, let's not fool ourselves. How many times have you killed the demon king for me now? It's at least a couple maybe i've played this game too many times
Hell yea!
See this? Neither of you did anything useful!
And here are the turn counts.
Some of these take a long time when you only have three units who can actually do things, ok!
That was a lot of time spent sitting on a fort surrounded by idiots.
Those last three could all have been faster but you know what? I don't give a fuuuuuuuuuuuuu
Seth! He was very useful. He got to kill a few things, before the real units showed up! He's even gained a couple of levels. Seth is real good even when he's not killing things.
I'm only posting this because lol this scrub actually died despite never really seeing proper combat.
Moulder suuuucked!
Here's something less awful, for contrast. I'm a little surprised Ross got more fights, and kills, than Garcia, but i suppose i was trying to get him to catch up.
Neimi, despite never having access to 1-2 range, is a mere handful of kills behind Ross, and ahead of even Garcia for battles. Despite all that, she only hit level 20/19. (She might have got to 20 if i brought her on the ghost ship.)
So yeah, promote early because the only way you're hitting 20/20 is if you grind like an asshole.
Probably still better than Moulder, should have used you instead, but you didn't hit promotion level in time.
They got some action in 5x, benched forever after that, as per usual.
Innes joins late on Ephraim's route, but he's still not done too poorly for himself; it's a pretty good B/W ratio.
Duessel basically took over walling duties from Seth after joining, because he's even tankier than Seth. Of course, not a single kill on him.
Gerik is a good unit! I never seem to use him outside challenge runs, but... that's really only my own fault.
Tethys got attacked five times too many.
Saleh is hella good, honestly, basically Seth tier, just comes in much later. Sacred Stones has some excellent prepromotes.
Lol single digits.
At least Ephraim had a chapter where he had to fight.
And that is the end! I skipped a lot of cards but most of them were just like 0/0/0 or 1/0/0 for people i couldn't bench fast enough.
And now, just for fun, let's see the final party. Twins... they're the twins; nothing much to say here.
Garcia is so much better than people give him credit for and Ross is not very good, have i said this before or something? I haven't kept up with the statboosters i've given them but Garcia is +3 hp, +2 str, +1 skill, +2 spd, +5(!) def, 0 luck, -1 res. I'm pretty sure he got at least a speedwing and dracoshield though, so it's not quite as overwhelming as it looks.
Ross is +5 hp, 0 str, +2 skill, +2 spd, -4 luck, +4 def, +2 res. Also really solid, although i believe he has a robe and dracoshield at least. Or was it two dracoshields?
Neimi, Neimi, Neimi. She is supposed to cap strength by 20/20. She's +10 hp, +1 str, -3 skill, -6 speed (it should be capped by now!), +1 luck, +2 def, +1 res, but that's with like 3 talismans? Plus an angelic robe (or even two?), an energy ring, and maybe some other stuff. All in all, str in exchange for spd is a great trade for Neimi, she's still fast enough to double most everything and hitting harder is never a bad thing. Very, very nice Neimi. Please take a moment to appreciate her with all her stat booster bling drawn by marshmallow creep's wife (click it for full resolution)!
Done appreciating? If you're not sure, it's ok to go back.
...well then, let's move on. Innes is +7 hp, +4 str, +2 skill, +3 speed, +1 luck, +2 def, -1 res. That's with a robe/ring/book, but still quite blessed!
Gerik promoted "early", or in sane person terms, still later than anyone should reasonably promote, at 17. He's -1 hp, -1 str, +4 skill, 0 speed, -1 luck, +1 def, -2 res - pretty average, but also pretty good.
I'm not going to bother listing their averages; i just know Moulder was bad, L'Arachel was okay (yet also The Best), and Saleh was my saviour (and also Garcia's). Seth gets all the praise but this guy owns.
I'm not sure i've ever had a level 14 Tethys before.
Duessel also Owns. Consider: He has not gained a single level. Our most defensive unit is three points ahead of him in def... after eating a dracoshield.
And now, let me just paste in this endscreen one more time, because that's it, we are done, so long and thanks for all the fish, and if you enjoyed this and want to buy me a fish there's a link to my ko-fi below ok thanks bye.
