Board 8 > So i'm playing Fire Emblem Shadow Dragon *SPOILERS*

(+) Yeah! (+)

FE7 is still my favorite.

I actually like Sacred Stones. It feels like it would be more popular now by people who are used to Awakening.
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The Blazing Sword (GBA, released in the US just as Fire Emblem) remains a top 5 SRPG and is the best of the series IMO.
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Heroic Bigpun posted...

If you guys had to choose just one of the American GBA titles, which one would it be?

Depends what you want out of it.
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This entire sequence reminds me why I never do arenas (outside of FE7 runs where I'm trying to buff my exp ranking), like there's no way the extra exp you get from them will make up for the risk of a huge time loss. FE provides so many ways to grind up units more safely if that's your thing (boss abuse, kill feeding, etc.).
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Also:

Both Blazing Sword and Sacred Stones are really good, and you can't go wrong with either. Sacred Stones is the more polished game (doesn't have a weird issue with going several chapters without shops) and is the better-written one, but FE7 has much more varied map design (and the ranking system makes a good in-game challenge). Also FE8's normal mode difficulty is broken and promoted enemies are way too weak. When I was younger I disliked the fact that FE8 let you grind between fights but now I no longer care, since you can always choose whether to do it or not.

Binding Blade is generally worse than both unless you're seeking a challenge.
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NeoElfboy posted...

This entire sequence reminds me why I never do arenas (outside of FE7 runs where I'm trying to buff my exp ranking), like there's no way the extra exp you get from them will make up for the risk of a huge time loss. FE provides so many ways to grind up units more safely if that's your thing (boss abuse, kill feeding, etc.).

Just only take the 600-800 bets and it's fine.
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FE7 is a lot closer in style to the one you're currently playing where it just goes straight from chapter to chapter. And FE8 is more like Awakening with a map and you're free to grind out EXP on random battles. FE7 is definitely the tougher game.
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Huh, I thought Sacred stones was more popular
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so a few more questions

the weapon cycle

what does it actually do?

Does it make your attack weaker?
Less accuracy?
the dominant weapon can critical more?

I know yall said the skill stat is useless, but what was it supposed to do in theory?
they must've had an idea of what it does when they put it in

And lastly

Xane, did yall ever roll with him? or just brought a powerful unit instead of having to imitate
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Xane is one of the best units in the game. You know that one unit you have that destroys everyone? Well, now you have two of him.
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Punnyz posted...

so a few more questions

the weapon cycle

what does it actually do?

Does it make your attack weaker?
Less accuracy?
the dominant weapon can critical more?

If you mean the weapon triangle, then it's super important. You'll straight up lose to the opposing weapon type most of the time. When you have the advantage, you do more damage, and each of you have better and worse accuracy respectfully.
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Mewtwo59 posted...

Xane is one of the best units in the game. You know that one unit you have that destroys everyone? Well, now you have two of him.

Yeah this. Xane is stupidly good. You don't need to him to win or anything but he's never dead weight.
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The weapon triangle affects accuracy and damage. The magnitude is tied to weapon rank, so on low difficulties, it's a pretty marginal effect. It's more significant in high difficulties, where all of the enemies have A-ranks.

Skill increases accuracy and critical rate. It's not literally non-functional, just underpowered.

I love deploying both Ballisticians and making Xane copy one, so that I have triple ballistas.
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So I beat the level

and yes, I went back to the Coliseum because I didn't want this bitch of a game to beat me

yea, it goes beyond any reason why I went back knowing the yield can go dead

actually, it DID happen again, but I ended up winning it anyways. after 5 attacks

while not pitiful, Darros, Marth, and Draug have the lowest speeds in my army. I had a really hard time training these guys the first time and I didn't know why

The others were a piece of cake

but I think this is the reason. So I trained those 3 first this time and was super careful with them.

once they got leveled up, it was easy street. well, Caena was still hard but you know what I mean

Samson was way too hard, the enemies were promoted and he wasn't strong enough to take them out.

they also become promoted when Marth and Julian the thief is at lvl 16

I didn't train Xane though, since he imitates

now I need to decide who to use my 3 master seals on
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Oh, also, since I knew I'd be grinding this time, I took Maria instead of Wrys to heal, since it'd be wasting exp

shes now lvl 20 too lol
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BTW Frey is fucking amazing

Hes so fast and powerful

is it a fucking joke that hes good and hes supposed to be the sacrifice?
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I'd have to check the stats but I believe that on average, all three of the initial cavaliers (Cain, Abel, and Frey) have very good stats. So yeah he's supposed to be good. I agree that it's surprising that the canon sacrifice isn't worse. Sadly you can't get him on Hard Mode.

Malcolm covered how the weapon triangle works in SD well, but it's worth noting that the effects vary game to game. In FE6-10, for instance, having triangle advantage is +1 atk and +X hit, and -1 atk and -X hit for your enemy. X is either 10 or 15 depending on the game. In FE11-14, the exact effect is more complicated and based on the weapon ranks of both units involved.
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I had no idea weapon rank effected anything other than what you're able to equip
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also, I should just give all stat increasing stuff to Marth, huh?
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Alright, after thinking about it long and hard, I'm gonna upgrade Caena, Draug, and Frey

I wish I had a female swordmaster :(

though I suppose I could've just class changed any of the benched women I have at any time and I just never thought about it in time and its far too late to do that now
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MalcolmMasher posted...

I love deploying both Ballisticians and making Xane copy one, so that I have triple ballistas.

This summarizes, like, half the reason I like Shadow Dragon.
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Punnyz posted...

I had no idea weapon rank effected anything other than what you're able to equip

In earlier FEs, it didn't! In Shadow Dragon onwards, raising your weapon rank (except from E to D for some reason) also increases your Atk by 1 or Hit by 5 (which one depends on the weapon type and rank... generally lower-Atk weapons i.e. swords gain more Atk, and lower-Hit weapons i.e. axes gain more Hit). Having triangle disadvantage nullifies these stat boosts in addition to any other effects of the weapon triangle.

Punnyz posted...

I wish I had a female swordmaster :(

Good news, Swordmaster has a minimum weapon rank of C so you can change someone into it at any time and they'll be quite competent at it. I like doing that when I feel that a unit is going to have too much trouble doubling on an upcoming map, since it comes with a great speed push as well.

MalcolmMasher posted...

I love deploying both Ballisticians and making Xane copy one, so that I have triple ballistas.

I really wish the game wasn't so stingy with ballistas (the weapons) themselves. The common one (Stonehoist I believe?) has horrid Hit so I don't like using more than one for that reason, you only have one Arrowspate for the longest time. They're a neat class idea though and I was a bit sad that Mystery dropped them.
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The problem with changing any of my ladies into a sword master at this point is that either they're like, lvl 1 and too far behind

or that they're way too far in some other class and their strength stat is not good, like Caena, Lena, and Maria

Caena is at least an ambusher\assassin with her Pegasus' move range and wing spear so her strength doesn't matter too much there
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Swordmasters don't really get high STR anyway so don't let that stop you from class changing (though yes, Caeda, Lena, and Maria are probably better off in their current classes).

You could probably get away with reclassing Palla, Catria, or Minerva right now (assuming they have access to the class, I forget how SD works lol) but they wouldn't be immediate powerhouses or anything.
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also the fact that I already have like, 18 units already that are up to speed

I don't really need another one lol
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All the women should have access to all the female classes. IIRC it's just the men that are split between two class groups.
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...with that said, I was taking a look around my benched units and fucking Linde gets like, 16 speed if I changed her into one

and thanks to all of the money I have now, I can forge her something really good

oh mannnnnnnnnnns
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the last mission is gonna let me take like 20 units, right?
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i mean i made Linde a paladin and Wrys a swordmaster once but that's really something you gotta commit to from the beginning so they at least gain some strength

Palla would probably be your best choice for a female swordmaster at this point
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wait, Pegasus Knight turns into Dracoknight? I thought they were two different things lol

what about Caena's trusty steed :(
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there used to be an online shop where you could buy Elysian whips. those let you keep the pegasus when promoting. also they'd gain swords instead of axes as a secondary weapon and gain res instead of lose it, but they had lower atk and def. but now the shop is gone so you'd need a cheat device or memory editor in an emulator to do it.
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Punnyz posted...

also, I should just give all stat increasing stuff to Marth, huh?

I wouldn't.

Stat boosting items are ridiculously useful in FE games since stat increases don't happen that often. That means an increase of 2 can be worth around 3-5+ levels for a character depending on their growths. And when you consider how character's stat yields are designed to have highs and lows to balance them, throwing that balance off can make them much stronger.

For example, I love tossing a Dracoshield or Power Drop on weak speedy characters to make them fast powerhouses. Doubling enemies with higher attack helps them murder basically everything. Or you can have them be able to tank hits that rarely land on them anyway making them more defensive than they should be. Angelic Robes are a +7(!) increase in HP, which makes any fragile unit much more survivable. And then there's Boots. Throw it on a Knight to have a defender that can keep up with the front line easily, or go hog wild and give it to a Pegasus rider who already has such high movement so that they can travel literally anywhere ASAP. Those items can be gamechangers (except for the Skill boosting ones )

Also, there are stat caps that aren't that hard to reach, so piling multiple of the same item on one character is often going to go to waste.
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so what you're sayin

is that he'll be indestructible
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GK summarizes it pretty well, but the most important thing is the last line.

Just be careful not to pile them all onto a character that was going to hit the stat cap anyway.
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Giving Marth the stat boosters will make up for the fact that everyone else gets promotion bonuses and he doesn't, but you're better off giving them to the others to make them even better.
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I usually find that Marth is so busy recruiting enemies, saving villages, looting treasures, and seizing thrones that he doesn't end up fighting very often. But if you're willing to wait for him to run around doing his stuff after the field is cleared, then I suppose you might as well beef up his stats a bit.

I really wish the game wasn't so stingy with ballistas (the weapons) themselves. The common one (Stonehoist I believe?) has horrid Hit so I don't like using more than one for that reason, you only have one Arrowspate for the longest time. They're a neat class idea though and I was a bit sad that Mystery dropped them.

Keeping them together means they can all pass their best weapon around! Of course, you'll burn through it pretty quickly, without assistance. I believe I usually employ a forged Stonehoist (with 60-65 Hit) as a backup.

My best guess is that ballisticians got cut because New Mystery was intended to be balanced in a way that Shadow Dragon's really not, and IS found spammable 3-10 range damage to be such a deviation from conventional FE options that they gave up on balancing it. If New Mystery's gameplay wound up being substantially less bland than that of Shadow Dragon, then I suppose that may have been a good trade. But ballisticians are one of the best parts of Shadow Dragon, if only because they don't feel like "every other Fire Emblem, only blander", and I too was sorry to hear that the sequel made the class non-playable.
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so I decided to take a peek at the final level and you're only allowed to take 15 units in

and I currently juggle around 18 (If I don't include Wrys, Maria, and Xane, I can cut it down to 15)

as much as I would like a female sword user, its way too late to train one and my roster is already way too full.

maybe next time
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also yall mentioned an online shop

fuck man, apparently you were able to buy master seals from it!

I picked this game up way too late!

this, combined with DQIX, make me regret not having these games back then
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I downloaded the DQ IX DLC in an IHOP by using an adjacent, not yet open Burger Kings wifi like an hour before the servers shut down forever (which I had to do because at that point most wifi was WPA and the DS only worked with WEP).
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Punnyz posted...

so I decided to take a peek at the final level and you're only allowed to take 15 units in

and I currently juggle around 18 (If I don't include Wrys, Maria, and Xane, I can cut it down to 15)

as much as I would like a female sword user, its way too late to train one and my roster is already way too full.

maybe next time

and the thing about all of this is that I'm probably not even done recruiting people. theres probably a few more!

Yeah, there's someone coming up who you definitely want to bring to the final map.
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LordoftheMorons posted...

I downloaded the DQ IX DLC in an IHOP by using an adjacent, not yet open Burger Kings wifi like an hour before the servers shut down forever (which I had to do because at that point most wifi was WPA and the DS only worked with WEP).

I used to keep a second router in my apartment just for Pokmon trading and DQ9 event stuff.
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NeoElfboy posted...

Also:

Both Blazing Sword and Sacred Stones are really good, and you can't go wrong with either. Sacred Stones is the more polished game (doesn't have a weird issue with going several chapters without shops) and is the better-written one, but FE7 has much more varied map design (and the ranking system makes a good in-game challenge). Also FE8's normal mode difficulty is broken and promoted enemies are way too weak. When I was younger I disliked the fact that FE8 let you grind between fights but now I no longer care, since you can always choose whether to do it or not.

Binding Blade is generally worse than both unless you're seeking a challenge.

going several chapters without shops is a benefit to FE7.
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JonThePenguin posted...

I used to keep a second router in my apartment just for Pokmon trading and DQ9 event stuff.

I actually tried to convert my router to WEP specifically to download the DQ9 DLC, but I couldn't get it to work. Luckily I flew back in to see my parents literally the morning it was going to go down and got it during breakfast on my way back from the airport.
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actually now that I think about it, I DID own DQIX at the time

but yea, the whole WEP thing prevented me from actually getting in on it before it closed. And yea, I didn't try til an hour before

and I didn't own a 3ds at the time either

and being technologically inept didn't help either as I didn't know what was wrong, so it made it super frustrating
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pxlated posted...

going several chapters without shops is a benefit to FE7.

No it isn't. For experts it at best has a neutral effect on the game (they know what things they'll need and when the next shop is, so they buy in advance), for more casual players (or just experts who are forgetful) it's extremely annoying and leads to situations where "oh you can't actually give promoted Priscilla/Serra a weapon for several maps because you forgot to buy one in advance". In general it mostly just rewards players for looking things up in a guide to know what things re-appear in shops when.

Also, the fact that you can only shop in battle is both annoying gameplaywise and narratively ridiculous. Take, for instance, the shop in the chapter Pirate Ship. How silly is it that the player characters choose the exact moment they are under attack by the Black Fang to shop, and can't do so before or after? It takes time away from the fighting, and if you lose the fight you have to re-do the same shopping again. And then for some reason the shop doesn't sell iron lances or iron axes, which feels like a dev oversight rather than anything justified by the setting - why would Fire Emblem pirates not have axes available?

There's a reason this system has not been seen since FE7.
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Shopping during battle and not knowing when your next shop will show up or what it will carry are definitely pros to FE7, though I think FE8's "overpriced battle prep shop with just the basics" was a good addition and should have been in FE7 too.
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Kenri posted...

Shopping during battle and not knowing when your next shop will show up or what it will carry are definitely pros to FE7

Can you please explain how it's a pro? I'm not seeing it??
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seriously. having to shop during battle is the single worst thing about every FE game like that.
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Waluigi1 posted...

Kenri posted...

Shopping during battle and not knowing when your next shop will show up or what it will carry are definitely pros to FE7

Can you please explain how it's a pro? I'm not seeing it??

It makes it dynamic and something that has to be incorporated into your strategy instead of just a chore you deal with before every battle (which FE already has a bunch of).
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So now it's a chore that can get you killed... Yeah still don't see how it's a pro...?
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