Part 25: Update XXIII - The End Of The Beginning

Update XXIII - The End Of The Beginning



Alright, no chance to restock here except the overpriced preps armory.







Some stat boosters get handed out.



Oh, by the way, that preps armory? No javelins or hand axes. Fuck you. At least I can get some Thunder tomes for Ewan.





This map has some tricks up its sleeve that aren't apparent at first. And as with the last one, you need to do stuff on the map to open the way forward.



As this wasn't my first run, I'm bringing the guns out. Every legendary weapon will be carried by somebody, just in case.



And we start off with a level on the first attack.



And another one on the third. We're clearing out the left side with most units, then put a few of our elite bastards (mostly Ephraim, Ewan and the phantom to draw fire - and Knoll to summon new phantoms) on the right side to do some damage.



The eyes are our main concerns right now.



Natasha picks up a level killing one of them.



Amelia gets a level too.



And Garcia.



Left side's getting pretty cleared up, though both the cyclops and the gorgon are still threats. At least they don't move.



Still, this is the sort of thing I look at and go "eeeeeeeh".



This looks a bit better.



Franz picks up a level taking out the gorgon.



We're getting set up on the left side to move on to the door we need to unlock.



Lute gets a healing level.



And Knoll gets a summoning level.



Ephraim levels clearing out some enemies. I'm taking it slow because I know there's some annoying reinforcements coming in, and I want to be ready for them.



That thing lasted a while.



I'm now moving up with the small group since they're easier to manage.



And we moved up far enough to trigger the reinforcements - four spiders, a gorgon, and four eyes. I want those eyes gone yesterday.



Right group takes out their assigned monsters, but Natasha still needs to take out the main group.



And she does a decent job with an empty level.



Gerik and Cormag help out too, and I actually burn some sacred weapon uses just for the sake of getting a clean kill.



The druid-dracozombie combo is fairly potent since the druids have 1-3 range. Still, we can deal with them by just going for the druid first at range.



Well, in this case it was more "chip down the dracozombie with phantoms until Ephraim can oneshot with Siegmund, then rescue Ephraim".





And then Ewan can do the rest since he switched to Extinction to fight the phantom and we can get some sweet weapon triangle advantage for a round.



On the other side, Amelia does some javelin chipping...



...so Duessel can one-shot with Garm.



And he thankfully also crits the druid to save a use. I made sure to pick someone that can survive a crit from the druid. Learned that lesson.



And hey, he got speed!



Unlocking the door to the left opens up this central area, but no path to Lyon so far.



Next, I'm going to move only Duessel over to the right side. Let's see if we're triggering any reinforcements.





Boy fuckin' howdy do we trigger reinforcements.



Gerik and Natasha deal with their eyes. Duessel heads over to meet up with Ephraim.



Knoll gets a summoning level. Phantom's doing a good job taking heat right now.



Natasha and L'Arachel get to deal with the main reinforcement group. That eye has Shadowshot, which ain't pretty, and I'm hoping the phantom takes the hit.



Natasha picks up a level.



And Tana gets the Shadowshow. Yeah, that's some non-zero chance of death right there.



Oh well, we get out of it. Now, we move everybody to the chamber on the right. I want everybody in one group and chokepoints identified when I unlock that door, because I'm damn sure shit's gonna hit the wall.



I'm also setting up some Silence targets for Lyon. Only five uses and we got time, let's let him burn through those.



Alright, we unlocked the door, and that opens the way to Lyon. Should be a clear shot from here.



But... call me paranoid, but let me just send forward the phantom on its own.



Ah. One gorgon, two eyes, four skeletons. Here comes the horde. If you think I'm kidding, I'm not. This reinforcement wave triggers ten times. So that's 70 units. And I'll tell you, I'm not fucking with trying to kill Lyon, because I want those chests. And I am not sending anybody up there while that horde is still spawning. Gorgons and eyes can be deadly to anyone. Also, some of the gorgons that were already there? They have Physic staves. So that's even worse. Yeah, I think I'm gonna hunker the fuck down right about now.



Here's the strat. Ephraim and Duessel block the staircase while the phantom takes point and will take the brunt of the attacks.



Here's something I bet you never thought you'd see - healing a phantom. I absolutely want the phantom to be either dead by the end of enemy phase (so I can get a new one) or at full HP by the end of player phase (so it can take the maximum amount of hits on the next enemy phase).



Things get clogged.



There comes a point where I realize that I am legit running out of javelins and start trading javelins from other units to Ephraim. Including this one use javelin from Cormag.



Quick phantom update: Pretty beefy.















And here's a collection of levels. It could've been a lot more but I'm pretty sure the phantom got over half the kills.



But eventually, we manage to take out the whole 70 monsters. Now, let's move on.



The phantom gets to deal with these gorgons, since they have Stone and I do not want to fucking deal with that right now.

And while we're here, let's look at Lyon.





OK, so this is weird. +15 HP, -7 MAG, +2 SKL, +7 SPD, +15 LCK, +1 DEF, -2 RES. But once I check the actual calculated stats, I notice that he's got ridiculously more avoid (I only just now noticed that Lyon is standing on a pillar) and massive amounts of crit. And, y'know, Naglfar's new innate crit blocker. So yeah, this Lyon would fucking annihilate vanilla Lyon. Though it might take a while.



We start moving up, making sure to give a wide berth to Lyon. We'll take out the gorgons and get the treasure first before we deal with Lyon.



Gerik gets a level.





So Hammerne has been changed a bit. Only one use, but it fixes an entire inventory. So in the end, we'll probably have five one-use sacred weapons that we fix up.



And we get a fresh dragonstone! So now we went from 10 uses for Myrrh to 40, which is great.



Alas, she's not exactly the one for the job here, even with a barrier. But she can contribute. I think we're gonna have to whittle him down. Myrrh hits and eats a crit in return.



Gerik uses his 2-3 range and gets a free shot.







But in the end, it's Ephraim who deals the final blow. So that's the first phase done. Let's see what the second phase has in store for us:





Well, it's actually going to be a bit easier because we're not under time pressure from summons.



Also, Eirika is force deployed. Oh well, she can do some stuff with Sieglinde. Let's look at the Demon King right now.





OK, so this guy has 100 HP, so that's -20 HP, -5 STR, -2 SKL, +1 SPD, +19 LCK, +25 DEF, +19 RES. And he's lost most of his weapons, with the Ravager here basically being a reskinned Demon Light (-5 might, +40 hit). I think he's not as much a threat, but I guess the main problem is going to be dealing with the Boss Box while staying out of his 1-3 range - though rescuedropping does make that fairly easy. And, y'know, Gerik.



So at least Eirika can still annihilate monsters.



At this point I'm just throwing out legendary weapons.



A level for Ross.



And Knoll gets one from summoning.



The phantom gets to be taking over the left side, since it's fucking badass.



Myrrh gets to do some damage on the chaff.



Only the skeletons seem to move, and the gorgons have physic staves to heal.





Eirika does her thing. And hey, strength!



Myrrh takes out a dracozombie.



Lute takes out a skeleton.



Gerik gets to work wrecking the Boss Box.





Next turn, another big shot for Gerik.





Another one. Nice fucking empty level.



Lmao, Eirika. But yeah, now we've taken out everything but the skeleton at the top and the Demon King. I think we're about ready to take the shots now.



Ephraim does more than half already...



...Cormag gets a shot in...



...and Amelia gets to get the kill.



And that'll be it for the main campaign! But of course, in Sacred War, the main campaign is just the beginning. The postgame is where the real fun starts.






And there was already a lot of fun. A lot of turns, anyway. So, that'll be it for this update. Next one will be a sort of recap update where I make a tier list because that's what the kids like these days. See you then!

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RESETS:





Well, this one's pretty simple. I thought 7 crit wasn't bad. It was. Thankfully, this was the only reset.

Final resets for the regular campaign: 16