Part 50: Paralogue 5: Bold Approach

I got the gold prize! And... it sucks? I think the Hunter's Knife is supposed to be one of the worst weapons in the entire game. It's a brave weapon but it has terrible might, and belongs to a weapon type that absolutely wants to be used on enemy phase as much as possible and really doesn't appreciate the self debuffs.

At least that's what I thought, anyway. The game doesn't list the debuffs it gives the people you actually hit with it, and those debuffs are insane. Str/mag/skill/speed/luck -2, def/res -5. That's every single stat! You could absolutely shred a boss with this.



Unfortunately I have only one dagger user and his rank is merely D, and probably won't rise much beyond that for the rest of the game. So I'll just sell it for a nice amount of gold.



And then buy a Lightning tome with the profits because it's on sale and forges are super good for Brave Weapons. That's an effective 4 extra might normally, and 8 extra might if the user's fast enough to double. Definitely enough to hit ORKO thresholds it couldn't normally...



Unfortunately my Arena combatants are not helping me win any ores. Your mother wouldn't have lost this fight Selena!



Yeah I'm not even trying to fit these in the character limit anymore. Coming up with weapon names is hard.



C supports for Shigure and his parents, B support for Ophelia and Seigbert. I've read Shigure's support with his dad so many times that Jakob initially being unsupportive of his son's artist talents is a breath of fresh air.




One more paralogue before I face Takumi's wall. I have no plans to use Sophie as a combat unit but her paralogue does have some item rewards...



It's Sophie! And she has Corrin's bright green hair. I guess she'd be easy to find in a crowd?

Are these portals to the deeprealms one way? Because if they're not then it must suck to walk into one accidentally.



This map isn't hugely difficult... but it is somewhat annoying. It's a defeat boss chapter full of Berserkers, Sorcerers, and mounted units. Dealing with them isn't too bad if you don't care about the rewards.



But if you do care about them then you have to keep these idiots alive. These Villagers will run straight for the boss with 0 regard to what's in their path. There is absolutely no benefit to them arriving at their destination, yet they will head there all the same. This game has no rescue mechanic so you can't even pick them up... If you're familiar with Awakening's Paralogue 3 then you know the pain of dealing with them.

Keeping them alive puts a soft timer on the mission, since they will head in the direction of many strong enemies that can kill them in one shot and then eventually the boss who will definitely kill them in one shot.



Sophie is also here, although her terrible AI is explained by the horse she's riding on being out of control. I don't actually know what her AI does since I always recruit her on turn 2, but as far as I'm aware she'll charge towards your group until Silas speaks to her and recruits her?



The boss of this chapter is a level 20 Malig Knight. He's one of the many paralogue bosses that can be captured, and apparently he's a fan favourite to grab. Malig Knight's a great class and his stats are certainly high, but looking at him I always thought he seemed a bit too slow to be useful as much more than a distraction. I have never actually used him though so my opinion is pretty much irrelevant.

As a boss he's not very threatening. He doesn't move so you can just shoot him down with any bow user. Otherwise I guess just hit him with a fast sword or tome user or harass him from range where he's weaker.



The enemy stats aren't quite as confusing as last paralogue's, but they're still a bit odd. The higher level Paladins have equal strength to and lower defense than their lower level counterparts but are otherwise better.



Unit slots are getting somewhat tight again. I need to get Shigure his Rally and marry Leo and Felicia... Camilla and Ophelia can stay home because they're slightly overleveled. I would prefer not to bring Xander but he still needs supports and his bulk will be useful for rushing ahead to keep the green units alive.



This initial enemy formation can be somewhat annoying. The Paladins are just close enough to attack you but at the same time far away enough to be hard to target from your starting position. Time is of the essence if you want to save the villagers, so you'll need to cut through them and head to the left fast.



Silas grabs Corrin and heads north to recruit Sophie. In Awakening Chrom could recruit every child unit and had special conversations with his own children... There's no such luck for Corrin unfortunately.



I have so many stat blessed units but Leo cannot count himself among them. Even his magic is screwed, it just seems high because I gave him a Spirit Dust.



The Merchant class has some funky animations and I wish I could show them off. Both Villager and Apothecary are kind of "joke" classes with lots of goofy attack animations that make them look completely incompetent, but Merchants refine them to make the silliness feel intentional on the attacker's part.



That's all but the Paladins gone. They're hard hitting and annoyingly bulky, which makes most of my army not want to be in range of all three of them.



Xander doesn't fear them but he can't exactly hurt them all that much either. When I reclass him to Hero he'll double more consistently in exchange for slightly less bulk.



Sophie charges towards the action and the perfectly safe Villagers charge right into harm's way for no real reason.



There's two rewards available in this chapter, one requires 5 Villagers to survive and the other only 3. I see one Villager has volunteered himself to be the one guy who doesn't survive yet still allows me to get every reward.



"I'll need to borrow your horse for that by the way, I left mine at home."



Sophie's got some quite high base stats thanks to her parents, although her bulk is a little on the low side. She inherited Sol from Silas and Draconic Hex from Corrin. Were I planning on training her up I'd have given her Nobility to increase her EXP gain, but instead I gave her DHex so I could use her for debuffs just in case I ever have spare deployment slots. All she has to do is chuck a Javelin at someone to debuff their stats by 4 each.



I was under the impression Corrin's high magic growth might translate to Sophie having high magic too. That... wasn't the case, unfortunately! At least her other stats are alright. She'd make a fine filler unit but my army's crowded enough already.



Oh and she gets B ranks in both weapons because she joined so late. If you wanted to make her a Hero you could promote her into a Great Knight and then instantly Heart Seal her to keep the axe rank, but I did not want to do that.



Shigure's fast on offense thanks to Darting Blow, but he's not so skilled in actually killing anything and needs help to get EXP. That Beast Killer I didn't end up buying would have been useful here!



This is the first and most deadly of dangers the Villagers must face on their entirely pointless quest to die for no reason. This chokepoint is filled with Berserkers and Sorcerers, a combination that's very hard to tank effectively. Xander's my best bet but even he doesn't like taking hits from magical attackers. Thankfully you can stick a unit right on the edge to only be targeted by one of them.



You know Xander you would get a lot more dual guard points if you didn't insist on critting absolutely every enemy you fought. I really wish there were weapons that couldn't crit but could activate skills like Sol.



This would not have killed him but it was another "easy chapter makes my brain not work" moment. I forgot that physical units could actually damage Xander and potentially leave him in kill range of this one guy.



Standing where the Villagers want to stand is a good way of slowing them down. Unfortunately there's no way to halt their advance entirely...



Also these guys do not move at all, which makes this area look a little more dangerous than it actually is. And yes the green units will willingly stand next to them even if there's no other enemies around.



Seems like the magic units are spaced out just enough that you can fight them individually while only being in danger of one other one at a time. How handy!



Doubling Generals is weird to me, I'm so used to every single one having Wary Fighter. Sometimes it's nice to meaningfully outspeed the slowest class in the game.



Some of these Strategists have weapons, some don't... I'm guessing the ones that do are always promoted no matter when you do this chapter. For some reason staff users don't always seem to get given weapons when promoted in optional paralogues.



Leo your levels are too bad to justify stealing kills like your older brother. Don't make me force you to start hitting things with your sword for 0 damage again!



HP! Would you believe that Gamble is not a good skill for an inaccurate unit who uses the Bolt Axe and Fire tomes as her main form of offense?



Nice! That's the exact sort of level I was hoping for from Wyvern Peri. Or well I was also hoping for speed but it's a but unreasonable to expect that from a unit that's already capped it.



Have I complained about these green units enough? Do I need to complain some more? They are stupid and I hate them.



Shigure makes a case for using him as more than just a rallybot, while Nina continues to get great levels and yet still feel too slow for my liking. I hope I haven't ruined her potential by dragging her through Merchant for so long.



...crit avoid is hard to calculate on the fly when it's no longer just equal to your luck and most of it comes from supports. I didn't need to bait this guy with Elise but I did want her to gain EXP.



Oh yeah and reinforcements will start popping up after a little while. Apparently some super strong wyverns will appear next to the boss on turn 12 who are quite nice to capture?



WHY

FOR WHAT PURPOSE



Well time to rush to finish the chapter before these idiots get themselves killed. I've never really liked skills like Aegis - % chances to take less damage tend to be very unreliable for keeping your units alive, especially when they only reduce some kinds in the first place. Xander is quite vulnerable to magic though, and tomes are one of the damage sources Aegis can potentially make less harmful...



I've heard people claim that some of these paralogue bosses were originally intended to be recruitable characters... At least in a real sense, not the Capture sense. I do wish we'd gotten them instead of the not really necessary second gen ones.



Well Elise didn't get Axefaire, but she did manage to get Rally Strength. I think I might just take her along for Takumi's chapter like this, it's not as if being a flying unit is super benefitial in a chapter full of bow users anyway. Alternative I could do another child paralogue...



Xander stole too many kills for my liking. Elise and Shigure still have skills they need to unlock!



Is it? What do horses want? If they want defense then no wonder Silas quit being one.



Oh yeah and we got an Energy Drop and a Partner Seal from keeping the lemmings alive. No story acknowledgement for doing so though. I like to think we killed them all and took their stuff.



Didn't manage to get the Leo / Felicia S support either... Do I just press on and actually progress the story, or do I do yet another child paralogue? It's not as if I'm running out of them, I think I've got 3 left and then a fourth as soon as Leo's married off.


Next time: something