This section details unofficial strategies that may help with completion of the chapter. This may not work for everybody.
|
Castle Chronos
The chapter begins with Hilda ordering Riddell to ride out and deprive you of 6 level-ups via civilians to distribute at your leisure. Riddell and his squad, however, do not move at full speed and give you some time to race them there. After the customary trip to the Arena and Blacksmith, the first objective is to break through the Chronos vanguard, comprised of 4 Jormungands, 2 Hels, 2 Silver Sword Heroes, 2 Silver Bow Snipers, 2 Fenrirs, 2 Sleep staves and a commander who can't do anything except spam Fortify. While most of the stuff should be fairly familiar, the Hel mages are new. Hel is a very inaccurate tome that cripples the user's AS only marginally less than a broken weapon does, but drops the target's HP down to 1 on a successful hit (and does absolutely nothing except waste the caster's time if the target is already at 1 HP). This means that on the off chance your units do get hit and don't have Miracle, the remaining enemies will gang up on and kill said unit. That being said, any half-decently dodgy unit on a forest that isn't being hit by WT disadvantage should have no issue dodging Hel. The Chronos army is close enough that some of your cavalry can engage immediately on turn 1, but if you try to do this, you will find that you are unable to kill the rest of the army in the forest, and will get slaughtered by the remnants. Instead, only attack the nearest enemies and canto back to safety while your infantry takes up positions in the nearby forest with the intention to push forward next turn and wipe the remainder out all in one sweep. Also, don't leave your Restore user in range of the Sleep staves - you will waste valuable time waiting around for them to wake up.
You can actually ignore Hilda for now - she poses no immediate threat, unlike Riddell who does. Riddell's squad will not begin moving at full speed until one or more of them have something to attack. This means one of two things. You can either put a strong unit in their collective attack ranges and try to wipe out most of them before the rest of your units move in to clean up, or you put a unit in the range of only the most forward enemy and try to clear them all out on player phase. Either way, don't let Riddell get the first hit. Riddell is incredibly strong for a boss without a Holy Weapon, being incredibly accurate due to high Authority and using a Brave Sword, hard hitting due to his Power Ring and Brave Sword, and is capable of both critting and quadding your units. Forseti still melts him, assuming it wasn't given to unpromoted Coirpre. Otherwise, Larcei can fight him safely due to having more speed and Nihil for negating enemy crits.
Hilda is a souped up version of Indra, the local arena champion; her high stats may cause some trouble. Her 17 AS is actually quite fast, faster than everyone so far except Riddell, Musar and Ishtar, and is more than capable of doubling slow units, notably including Altena, who may otherwise seem like a decent unit to face her with. She also has 50 ATK, targeting RES; enough to kill anything that gets doubled. Fortunately, she is on her own, and 50 ATK won't OHKO most units that are faster than her, allowing them to take her on over the course of several turns.
Castle Rados
If Seliph has already moved a turn's worth of riding or further past Chronos by the time Hilda is dead, he should continue advancing to Rados and seize Chronos on the way back, but otherwise its fine to seize it now to give your units somewhere to fix up their gear, especially that Restore staff. Anyone not involved in capturing Rados can hang around the rampart, or save the civilians for some well-deserved levels. Rados is guarded by your standard-issue Dark Bishop boss, something you've already dealt with earlier twice, and will deal with in the future. His Dark Mage guards may be a bit of an issue as they have Hel; units they hit are liable to die to Morrigan's Fenrir. Make sure to move in as a group with a healer in case someone gets hit by Hel.
Once both Chronos and Rados are captured, the rampart will lower and the Miletos army will sortie.
Castle Miletos, Julius, and Ishtar
The Miletos army consists of more unimpressive Heroes, Snipers and Dark Mages, with a few surprisingly non-threatening Warriors thrown into the mix. Routing these is fairly simple, especially as the mountain passage can be used as a chokepoint to deal with the aggressive enemies to separate them from their immobile Physic/Sleep/Fenrir support. Likewise, fliers can easily reach and kill the pirates trying to go after the villages.
After this is done, you are safe for the time being - there are no time sensitive objectives until after you seize Miletos. Pick off enemies at your lesiure, but don't approach the castle just yet.
Ishtar and Julius have decided that the best way to spend their time is to see which of them can kill one of your units first. What they don't say is they will also leave if you defeat one of them, or if you manage to run past them and seize Miletos Castle. Both are very dangerous, but Ishtar is significantly squishier than Julius. They will also leave if they manage to get a kill. Pick your solution from one of the following: Defeat Ishtar, Defeat Julius, Run past and seize the castle or let them get a kill (and revive the sacrificial decoy later if the Valkyrie staff can be used).
Trying to bring Ishtar down is reliant on having someone that can defeat her before she gets a counterattack. With 58 Magical Attack and ludicrously overkill accuracy, she will kill just about any unit. Don't celebrate too early if you have someone that can survive a Mjolnir either - if Ishtar is lucky, they die from Adept anyways. However, her durability is poor, with only 50 HP and 10 DEF, which is low enough that Shannan, Ares and Altena can defeat her by themselves if they're lucky (Astra, Critical, Critical respectively). So can a unit with 21 STR and a Killer Bow crit. Furthermore, if Febail/Altena has 20 or more strength, Yewfelle/Gae Bolg OHKO's by raw power. If none of these are options, your next best bets are Larcei with Astra and the Forseti user with a crit. Regardless, whoever you send to fight Ishtar probably won't survive retaliation, so they'd better do it in one go, and have as much accuracy-boosting support as possible (Charm, Leadership, Sibling/Lover bonuses) to make that happen.
Trying to bring Julius down is unarguably the hardest of the four options, and has you fight the final boss early for questionable gain (unless you didn't pass down the Leg Ring, in which case, defeating him is the only way to get the Leg Ring in the second generation). The Loptous tome's innate effect halves the target's attack power, meaning that critical hits do as much damage as a normal attack towards everyone else, and normal attacks will only scratch Julius for mostly single digit damages, and your own powerful Holy Weapons are subject to this. While this makes Julius insanely tanky, breaking through isn't impossible, albeit incredibly difficult: to break through his insane defenses, short of extensive use of Luna, crits are mandatory, the best units to use will need weapons with Kill bonuses or have the Critical skill themselves. Usually, such a unit would need to have been undergoing training and acquiring funds to properly gear themselves several chapters in advance, and in the case of child units, inheritance prep on part of their parents. You will need to bait him out first, and due to his leg ring, you also need to bait him out to bait out Ishtar; even if you intend to defeat Ishtar, you still need to bait Julius. Baiting Julius is risky business - He hits marginally harder than Ishtar, and also has Accost, which can give him an extra attack to kill you if you're unlucky, though since your bait unit needs to be faster than him (or else Julius doubles), the chances are better than Ishtar's.
Trying to run past and seize the castle is arguably easier, but only if you have the necessary resources to do so. The idea is to have Seliph go from outside of Julius' range to Miletos Castle in a single turn, where he, or other units ahead of him, kill Zagam on the same turn. The Zagam-killer should be either mounted, or have the Leg & Knight Rings if they are infantry. Seliph, the Zagam-killer and up to 2 more backup Zagam-killers should then move forwards and wait in a + formation to be danced in range of the dancer's movement. Then, Lene/Laylea dances them up. The Zagam-killers should then attempt to kill him, and in the event that they fail to kill, canto out of the way of the gate to ensure Seliph can seize. If the Zagam-killer can't be moved out of the way from the gate, Warp/Return/Rescue becomes necessary to dislodge them. Seliph seizes and Julius and Ishtar decide that playtime is over and go home.
Sacrificing a unit is the solution most players will have access to, seeing as it's an option as long as Seliph isn't the last unit standing. If the player has the Valkyrie and someone to use it, this merely has the sacrifice sit out for the remainder of the chapter and a potential cost of 30k gold to repair the staff. If the player doesn't have Valkyire, choosing a good sacrifice becomes a bigger issue. For one, it's better to sacrifice a less valuable unit than a more valuable one, and hence units like Johan/Johalvier, Tinny, Cairpre (if he didn't inherit anything valuable) etc. are all prime targets in terms of their expendability. Make sure to have them dump all their gold to a lover if one exists, and also sell off any equipment that may be useful to the pawnbroker. However, it's possible to make Julius and Ishtar leave by feeding them a kill, without getting any player units killed. Julius and Ishtar, for some reason, will still leave if you get them to kill an enemy unit by berserking one of them into attacking an enemy, or berserking an enemy into them. While berserking Julius is impossible and berserking Ishtar is tremendously difficult, requiring the Berserk Staff (which in turn requires Silvia be dead/unmarried in the first generation) and a caster with 26+ MAG and the Magic Ring, one can use the Berserk Sword and fish for berserk activations on the nearby enemies, using enemy Physic casters and Zagam's Fortify to heal them up to allow additional attempts. While it will likely require surgically killing enemies between the berserked enemy and Ishtar/Julius, if done well it can remove them without any actual sacrifice being made.
Tyrfing
After Castle Miletos is seized, a cutscene will play where the Grannvale Emperor Arvis orders Bishop Palmarch to escort five children to safety, additionally entrusting him with Sigurd's sword, the Tyrfing, to implicitly have him deliver it to Seliph. Manfroy, however, will send Dark Mages to kill them and keep the sword and level-ups out of your hands. As is it takes far too long for ground units to break through the Rotenritter then catch up to the Dark Mages, it is completely up to Altena and Fee/Femina to protect them for the time being - as such, even before Miletos was seized, they should have already starting flying northwards up to the border. If Altena has 23 or more Strength (incl. Ring), Gae Bolg OKHO's the Dark Mages. If not, she should still use it over all other weapons not Brave Lance or Brave Sword, as it has the highest chances to either get a crit or proc Adept, both of which kill on activation. Fee, on the other hand, is more dependent on being able to crit the Dark Mages, or short of that, quadding them with Brave Weapons to ORKO them. Femina has significant problems with ORKO-ing. Fee/Femina can also heal Altena, but if they themselves are injured, they can fly to Palmarch, who will move to heal them if in range. Once the 5 Dark Mages are dead, the green units are completely safe as no more enemies will actively seek to kill them.
The Rotenritter
While your fliers depart on their rescue mission, the rest of the army must confront the Rotenritter head-on over the recently-repaired bridge. The Rotenritter consists of a wave of Armor, a wave of Mages and a wave of Cavalry in that order, all of which are carrying powerful weapons that can deal large amounts of damage. Do not try to fight past the bridge and try to establish a bridgehead - the many enemies with high damage output will quickly kill any single unit exposed to their combined firepower. Instead, use the bridge as a chokepoint to vastly limit enemy damage output. Set a durable and evasive unit on the bottom side of the bridge, and have mounted units kill-and-run until a Bow Armor is the frontmost enemy. Then, place a bulky unit next to the Bow Armor, and another unit with less defense and no 2-range behind that first unit, such that the Bow Armor sees that they can shoot the second unit for more damage and as a result blocking up all other melee enemies. This can effectively regulate the enemy flow, and the unit in the first slot can have strong 2-range to kill the remaining ranged units, after which the melee units will file up behind the Bow Armor where they can easily be 2-ranged to death.
Aside from the Sleep Bishop, only a squad of Meteor mages guard Arvis. Do note that a few of the Meteor mages are inside of Arvis' Leadership and Charm ranges, and as such, their Meteors are extremely accurate. They can easily be overwhelmed with a rush of Cavalry units, however. Once they are dead, you're free to send people over to grab the kids for levels, send Seliph over for the Tyrfing and move everyone else up to the castle in preparation for the Arvis fight.
Arvis
Arvis proves to be a very statistically imposing boss. He's a level 30 unit in a Pavise-class, so that's already a 30% chance to not take damage on any given hit. Coupled with 80 HP, 40 in both defenses and 15 HP recovery per turn, and he will take a while to go down even if you wail on him with Holy Weapons. He also hits back with 70 Magical ATK, enough to OHKO all but the heartiest unit who has stacked up on HP and RES. Despite this, he still has 15 AS to hinder slow classes from doubling, and failing that, a surprising 104 Avo to lower your effective hit chance even more. He also has Nihil to stop crits, sword skills and effective damage from getting through. You can ignore the Silver Blade - he will never, under any condition, use it.
With the Tyrfing, Seliph still has trouble fighting Arvis by himself; he will still have a ~25-30% chance to miss his attacks, and even if he caps STR and picks up the Power Ring, he only does 20 damage per hit. Ares is also a solid option as Mystletainn is quite accurate; he can consistently reach 100% hit with leadership and Charm stacking and can get extra hits off of Adept. Faval can somewhat reliably survive due to his high HP growth, but Yewfelle is on the inaccurate side despite its firepower, so he requires substantial buffstacking to perform well. Altena can also reliably survive due to her high HP and access to a +5 RES event this chapter; Gáe Bolg is accurate and she can deal out a 3HKO with Power Ring, but she is too slow to double, though Adept may activate.
Try to ensure Seliph gets the last hit. If he does, instead of seizing immediately, he can ride down to the beach and wait there for a free Renewal Band.
No Holy Weapons
Arvis becomes a significantly larger issue if the player has suffered heavy casualties, particularly among Holy Weapon users. Arvis' high defenses are extremely hard to crack with conventional weaponry, but as only Ares and his Mystletainn are guaranteed to be acquired (Tyrfing is lost without fliers to save Palmark, Gáe Bolg is lost if either Leif or Finn is dead at the start of Chapter 9, Shannan can die with Balmung in the early parts of Chapter 7 from low% hits before the player can even reach him while Forseti and Yewfelle must be passed down), the possibility is quite realistic, especially as Ares can face chance of death against deadlier bosses such as Ridale or Ishtar. Without strong units to deal with Arvis, the player can be outright softlocked.
To get through Arvis' 40/40 defenses without a 30 might weapon, Power Ring/Magic Ring is all but required to get workable damage output. Even then, powerful A-rank weapons are required. For additional hit rate, Skill Ring is used, and on units with Adept, Speed Ring is used to improve its activation rate. These are assumed for all below builds.
Leif is the strongest option, as he can be expected to cap STR/SKL/SPD at 27 each at Lv30. With those stats, Power Ring, Skill Ring for accuracy and Speed Ring to break the speed tie, he can deal 12 damage with a Silver Lance while also having a 40% Adept chance. This is his best possible loadout out of all the strong weapons he can use, reaching 60 hit with only Seliph leadership; 70 with lover and +10 more for each Charm stack.
Hawk is the next best option due to his high statline. While he is restricted to 14 MT tomes, he can use Lightning, which has 90 Hit and WTA, as well as Pursuit and Adept to patch up his low damage per hit. With events, he averages 7 damage with Lightning, while also doubling and having 50% Adept. While his offenses are good, he does have trouble surviving Arvis' counterattack. He averages 47.6 HP and 21.6 RES, not enough to survive one hit, making him dependent on the Barrier Ring. This gives him very little leeway in regards to being stat-screwed; if he is too badly HP/RES screwed, he simply cannot survive a single hit. With Seliph leadership, Hawk averages 7 damage, 78 hit, 50% Adept.
Amid/Linda are also solid options due to their high offensive growths and access to Thoron, a 20 MT weapon. Both do quite well due to WTA and having Adept, but neither has Pursuit so the fight will be slower unless the Pursuit Ring was passed down and handed to them. Amid's performance is slightly better, with a difference of +1 SKL from class gender differences, and +2 SPD due to Linda's lower SPD growth; however, Linda is significantly easier to train up to Lv30 as Amid is stuck with a significantly worse selection of weaponry before promotion while Linda has Paragon, Wrath and Thoron access before promotion. Both also survive Valflame quite comfortably without a Barrier Ring; as long as they get all of their HP/RES boosting events, they can survive being statscrewed by grabbing the Barrier Ring to patch their bulk up, and even then, both Amid and Linda are servicable, so only one of the two needs to become good enough to do the job. With only Seliph's leadership, Linda averages 12 damage, 64 hit, 41% Adept; Amid fares better at 12 damage, 66 hit, 43% Adept.
Seliph himself more or less becomes a last resort option without the Tyrfing, as his bad class caps rear their ugly heads and he lacks Adept to get extra damage in. He speed ties Arvis with 12-WT lances, eliminating the powerful Steel Lance. Silver Blade can deal 10 damage per hit, but with a pitiful 30 hit before external support. Brave Sword has excellent accuracy, but deals a pathetic 2 damage per hit; too little to kill Arvis before Seliph runs out of equipment, even with both Brave Swords. Silver Sword deals 4 damage with 50 hit, not much of an improvement. Brave Lance is also another option; unable to double due to the speed tie, it trades an active Pursuit for guaranteed Adept; even then, it only deals 5 damage with 50 hit as Seliph's best option. Regardless, Seliph's bad SKL cap will lower his damage output to the point where he is simply incapable of defeating Arvis as the sole bosskiller without substantial accuracy support and some good luck.