Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume Part #47

Part 47: Chapter 5B (3)

The enemy has struck a crippling blow, my liege. In securing the northern pass, they sever all hopes of assistance from Villnore.

That scheming scoundrel!

You've more gall than I'd credited you for, Kristoff, but it will take more to fell Aidelrave. Assemble the men! We make our stand here!

Hear me! Seek not the ruin of our enemy, but its surrender. To he who captures my brother alive, one hundred coins of pure gold!

One hundred? Langrey only offered us ten, man.

The game actually starts to step up the battles now, and while this battle still isn't too bad as long as we space out correctly, there are several tough enemies congregated together. We also start to face Villnorean soldiers, which are resistant to Earth, but weak to Lightning. Still not worth using Lightning Bolt over Sacred Javelin. The battle ends once we take out the enemy leader, a Sorcerer in the back.

Liese immediately takes out the Skeletal Soldier. We don't need more blockblockblock, and we can then focus on the squishier enemies. The Mythril Golem behind it is the strongest golem, and other than being tougher it's more or less the same as other golems.

We spend a turn moving just foward enough that other units move close but enough to actually hit us, then we start taking them out.

Always nice to have options I guess.

There are a lot of Swordswomen, but they pose the smallest threat. Plus they're female, much to the delight of the Arondight.

We're approaching level 40 now, which is about where we were on path C endgame at this time.

The Golem moves forward, and surprisingly it doesn't petrify Valmur. Saves me a turn and a Cockatrice Egg at least.

A combination of them being resilient and Valmur being poor on damage on his own means he barely makes a dent in return.

The Sorcerers spend all their time Guard Reinforcing their allies. Annoying but we can push past it.

Since Suspend Motion costs 50 AP, Liese can Suspend the Golem immediately. She'll be running on empty after that but it's worth it to take those two out early on.

Doing good so far.

We could set up a siege but I'm gonna be a bit cautious and avoid luring in too many enemies right now.

Not so block happy now, are you?

The enemies all start coming down. The Greater Daemon is the toughest of its lot, and has the range of a Sorcerer rather than a Lancer. It managed to Curse Phiona, so Liese quickly shuts it out.

Man I love Suspend Motion.

Dear game: Stop giving me junk. Sincerely, me.

Phiona pulls a Duwain and somehow survives the Swordswoman's retaliation. I mean, she survived with 26 health.

(Also all the enemies are Silenced because I use Vidar's Hush. Sadly it appears the Sorcerers weren't affected.)

Phiona uses one of our two Sage's Arcanums. I mean, she survived with so little health, I'd feel bad about just letting her die and then revive her afterwards.

The Swordswoman runs away and the Sorcerer Heals her. Oh well.

Four characters and sixty-two hits and it's still not dead.

Well I should be able to kill it now at least.

Man those things are ridiculously sturdy.

The Sorcerer Suspend Motions Liese. Hey! It's only fun when I do it.

And done.

Excellent set of upgrades for the women - Cloak of Britannia reduces Holy damage by a whopping 90%, which Liese will enjoy. Phiona can equip the Empress Coronet, which has 70 RDM. Wylfred gets the Ether Greaves.

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Straight to the next one, and this one is quite a doozy. Do you have Suspend Motion? Gleipnir's Bonds? Lots of Union Plumes? If not, this will get really hairy very quickly. Lots of enemies, they hit fairly hard, and most of them will come straight charging in.

Swordswomen and Sorcerers return, and now we also have Archers in the mix, as well as more Warriors. No monsters this time round.

Close enough.

Could use more of these anyway.

Sorcerers are still immune, but at least I can shut out the barrage of Sap Guards the melee units love.

Diminish Missile saves Phiona here - she would have died from this trio of barrages otherwise. This map is one where it might be worth using Defiance, as it halves all damage. You block and evade less often, and become more susceptible to status effects, but if you're having trouble surviving, consider it.

Just look at all the enemies. Liese quickly takes out the Archer. They're the least threatening in terms of damage due to Diminish Missile, but they allow the other enemies to get off more attacks.

We then pay our attention to this Warrior.

Sadly he survives, kills Phiona, then beats up a little on Lieselotte for good measure.

We revive her and she gets her revenge in quick order, though.

I can't remember if I've ever used one of these.

Wylfred seems to be their new target.

The Sorcerers use Sacred Javelin here, and while the Mirror Plate saved his life, he got Stunned.

Well First Aid kinda helps, but he then dies from a second attack afterwards. Hey, at least they didn't kill him with this one and then proceeded to kill Phiona again.

Valmur also got Suspended in Motion. Just look at this mess of enemies. Liese shuts one up, Phiona revives Wylfred, and Wylfred heals Valmur. The red Sorcerer in the back is the leader that we need to kill for the map.

Get out of here.

It still looks messy, but things are a little more tolerable now, with two enemies Stunned.

There are eight enemies on the map and we want 700 Sin, but it's actually not that hard to get. The only risk is if you accidentally kill the leader too early.

Diminish Missile is amazing. If you also have Defiance enemy Archers only deal a quarter of their damage, too.

We start to take out the Stunned enemies. No sense in rushing after the Archer just yet, his damage is pretty bad and we don't want to run right into the Sorcerer.

The Sorcerer kills Phiona and stuns Valmur with a menu Sacred Javelin. Usually I'm happy with a menu spell, but...

The Archer then gets in a second assault.

Aw nuts.

So let's refresh. Phiona and Liese are dead, and Valmur is stunned. Good thing Wylfred has enough AP for a Union Plume chain.

I don't want the Swordswoman to wake up, and the Archer is too far away. We don't want to kill the leader early, either.

Two left.

The Mirror Plate gives the wearer a weakness to Darkness, not that it matters too much here.

Well I've had enough of you.

And that guy doesn't deserve anything but a cruel death.

100% health to 100% overkill without any Soul Crushes. That's pretty satisfying alright.

The only thing worthwhile here is the Starguards for Wylfred (Phiona gets the Holy Gauntlets.) The Basilisk's Gaze is the best main-game lance, with 120 ATK, three attacks and a chance of Petrifying its targets. Not as good as longswords or broadswords but ah well. Again there's a weapon for Auguste here. Was he originally designed for the B path? Maybe there'd be a parent-child duo for both the B and C paths instead of what we have now?

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Third battle in a row, and this one is long, and the largest map in the game. Let's see what we have.

The battlefield is split up into four areas, and we have time to heal up and such between each one, so it's not so hard, just very tedious. The first area has just a Noble Vampire, and the poisonous water from Evernight.

The second area has two Soul of Tears and a new enemy, the Red Dragon. It also has tiles that deal damage similar to the lava in the Liellahan Lowlands.

Area three has an upgraded Griffin, and three Sorcerers.

Finally, Langrey waits on his throne, with just a Spectral Soldier, the strongest Armor in the way.

So let's get started, shall we?

To start off, we've been putting it off for a while, but it's time Cheripha joined her father.

Feather o'er the battlefield... unto me thy power yield!

Gleipnir's Bonds isn't even going to last this whole map, so we're just doing this to make sure we can Overkill enemies quickly.

I had the toughest time getting a good screenshot of Beaming Barrage this battle, for some reason.

Paralyzed enemies at least means we don't have to worry about them messing us up right now.

Cheripha quickly takes out both Souls of Tears, but even Plumed characters don't necessarily get full Overkills now - enemies are actually durable and tough enough, so while they're still dying, they're not doing so as completely as we like.

The Red Dragon is probably the toughest non-boss enemy, with health higher than most Bosses and very high stats. It attacks with Fire so you can cut down on its damage with Flame Armor, and while it's resistant to Fire, it's vulnerable to Ice. Langrey also resists Holy, so Frigid Damsel might not be a bad idea in this map. It's also vulnerable to Suspend Motion, which makes it a touch easier to handle.

Plumed Cheripha only does so much. Crap.

Maybe her Soul Crush will fare better.

Much better. For those doing this fight fairly, your best bet really is to Suspend Motion, Sap its Guard and whittle it down very slowly. It's almost impossible to Overkill it fully without maybe multiple Reinforces, a bunch of gems, and a Magic Bangle Tidal Wave.

Area three, and enemies have recovered from their paralysis. While at first the Sin quota seems lax, with a quota of 350 and nine non-boss enemies, considering how resilient some of them like the Red Dragon are, expect to spend a lot of time on this fight if you want to make sure you get as much Sin as possible.

The Sorcerers love throwing Reflect Sorcery on each other. If you're using a Sorcerer here, take caution, and use menu spells instead to burn it up.

The Opinicus is the strongest Griffin. It's still resistant to Ice, but actually isn't that much different. It's quite tough and can Freeze its targets, but if you could handle the Red Dragon, this should be a breather.

Their whirlwind attack is still a projectile, so Diminish Missile helps.

At least we're finally getting max Sin again, and why can I not get a good ending screenshot of Beaming Barrage?

The Sorcerers all go down fairly easily, and it's just the Spectral Soldier left before Langrey.

While the Spectral Soldier is as tough as one might expect, one should be no stranger to handling them by now - Suspend Motion is really the best way to take one out of the fight, and there are no enemies to help it.

I'm just glad pluming a character gets you the bare minimum Sin for the fight at least.

Langrey has very high Magic, and lots of health. He's also resistant to both Holy and Darkness. He doesn't have as much health or RDM as Kristoff in path C though, and since he's a Sorcerer you can buffer his damage with Reduce Magic and Reflect Sorcery.

I briefly debated having Earnest be the one to finish Langrey off for some poetic justice, since Langrey was the one who made the alliance with Villnore. Then I decided Cheripha doing it would be slightly funnier.

Langrey knows a lot of spells, including Heal, which can be very irritating on a fair fight.

But you guys knew he had no chance.

My... will... is... final....

Not as much as Kristoff, but that experience is nothing to sneeze at.

We've seen all this stuff before, but they're all helpful. Liese gets the Caduceus and its massive MAG buff (which is even better when she gets Meditation off), Phiona puts the Arectaris to very good use, and without the Othinus' Bow, Valmur happily takes up the Blue Gale. I also only just realized him using the Earth-based Dawnsong was hurting him against Villnorean soldiers, but oh well.

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Are you pleased with yourself, Kristoff? Do you rejoice to see your brother reduced to the wretch that kneels before you now?

The weight of power will crush a weakling like you. Seal my fate, and you seal the fate of Artolia.

You will do no such thing. I demand audience with my brother alone. Leave us.

But Your Highness-

Surely you will not deny two brothers their final parting?

Far be it from me to begrudge such a thing, sire. I only ask that Your Highness does not let slip thy grip on the hilt.

Ruveldt (what is up with these names?) leaves. I imagine that last sentence was spoken through incredibly gritted teeth.