Update 97

Update 97: Flayn Day

♪ A Guide for the Future ♪

The more times I write a short intro for a paralogue update, the more I realize I may just be getting tired of doing some of these over and over again, and having to write them up because I'm playing on a higher difficulty this go around.

♪ No music ♪

Oh well, every paralogue update I do puts us closer to the parts of the game people actually care about.

♪ As Swift as Wind ♪

'Least I was having fun playing the game!

We don't have to contend with reinforcements on this map, so in exchange, we've got a whopping eight more enemies to deal with, including multiple new assassins. Three of them are really close to our deployment positions, even!

It's a map with tons of sand tiles, so I'm carting along a ton of mages, plus Yuri. Thankfully, war monk/war cleric count as mages, for the purposes of sand tile movement reduction, so Adan's not going to have his Mv reduced.

Since Yuri's gonna want to hit enemies with weapons, but is stuck with 4 Mv, he gets to take the march ring.

♪ No music ♪

It's go time.

♪ Tempest of Seasons ♪

Another instance of too many threats too close to our deployment positions. This calls for Stride.

Well, that's two assassins already down! Sure, both of them had very high Avo, and required Hades Ω to take out, but whatever.

The enemies to Adan's north can't reach him next turn, so he's safe to lock that one assassin down. Just have to think about the other assassin.

Siege tomes help with that.

You can't be set up in that formation and not expect me to hit you with Battleground Clean Up.

Cannot stress how dangerous assassins are on Maddening, and how much of a relief every assassin death is.

Shrug.

Hey, don't be sad, you got Mag, that makes this a good level.

Weakening that assassin is completely free.

Ouch.

Very, very mediocre. The fact that Felix currently has a Dex deficit is the only thing that's keeping me from calling it bad.

Lysithea uses Warp to move Hapi back to the beach area.

Low stats? Don't worry, a wo dao+ can probably help compensate for that.

Did you forget about Silence? I hope you didn't, it's very useful here.

With that Warp, Hapi's able to move in and take out the assassin that Seteth weakened.

Let's dance!

Incredibly strange that Yuri's Spd (65% base growth) and Res (35% base growth) are within three points of each other. (His actual base Res is 16.)

Flayn rescues Annette, to move her up slightly.

Offensively weak, but comically good at taking magic attacks.

No-one feels like getting some good levels, huh?

Man, Blizzard sucks.

Kneel!

Better accept it!

Wo dao+s are good.

Seteth can hold his own against enemy assassins, which is nice. Sadly, he lacks Swordbreaker.

Lysithea continues trying to catch up with everyone else.

Might as well make sure this warlock can't attack, if he survives this turn.

Whiff.

Let's dance!

Adan pulls the Chalice of Beginnings out of the convoy, so he can counterattack the warlock that's aggroing on him.

Wow, nice crit.

Not much damage, but hey, it gets Hapi EXP, skill points, and class mastery.

That miss sucks, but it's not worth rewinding over.

I could've had Yuri finish this guy off, but...

...One damage short of finishing him off, ugh.

A lot of effort, very little reward.

Unfortunately, this boss down here can heal damage faster than Hapi can deal it to her.

I'm still not convinced that the AI is able to account for the Chalice of Beginnings.

Using Thoron might've seemed arbitrary, but it means that Adan gets support bonuses from Dorothea when attacking this boss.

That was easy.

Well, that's new. Killing the northwest boss early causes the other bosses to run for the pink tiles. If they reach them, they'll leave the map, depriving you of boss EXP, and their drops.

That Nosferatu healing ain't gonna save you, lady.

Dammit.

That's better.

Seteth gets danced for, so he can weaken this warlock.

...Wha...?

Well, that was dumb, though in fairness, I wasn't expecting that silver sword.

On Hard, the assassin has an iron sword, while the thief has a steel sword. On Maddening, they both have silver swords, making them much more dangerous.