Released in November 2007, Radiant Dawn is the sequel to the 9th game of the Fire Emblem series, Path of Radiance. You play as Micaiah, the head of a Daien group of rebels called the Dawn Brigade who are seeking liberation from Begnion forces. Soon enough a war emerges, implicating every nation of the continent of Tellius and thus causing Lehran's medallion to awaken.
Best time, normal difficulty: 3:13:38 by 'Vykan12' on 2008-12-13, done in 91 segments.
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Author's comments:
This is my first speedrun submitted to SDA, though I hope to make many more in the near future. This run is the result of 10 months of work, which includes discussing strategies with forum members on various websites, recording a test run, completely re-planning my actual run almost entirely on my own and spending countless hours with recording attempts for each segment. As you'll see the reason the run is so heavily segmented is because of the sheer magnitude of luck manipulation used in the run, which can only feasibly be done with a lot of battle saves per chapter. Another advantage of battle saving is that it reduces the amount of move memorization I have to do which in turn helps optimizing the moves I am focusing on. On a random note, I use a gamecube controller to play the game since the wii remote isn't well suited to the game's play style.
One of the criticisms I have against the Fire Emblem runs currently on the site is that they seem to have more emphasis on getting the planning right than they do performing each movement as fast as possible. I do my best to counter-act this trend by putting a lot of time into control optimization, such as learning to move my characters when holding the B button, which makes the cursor move somewhat uncontrollably fast. This way I feel as though I'm making an authentic speedrun, not just playing through Fire Emblem with well thought out strategies and happening to go reasonably fast. Unfortunately for me, that means I have to reject a lot of segments due to control mistakes, which at times can make my re-try count increase by obscene amounts since I also have to worry about intensive luck manipulation and sure enough, I probably average well over 100 resets per segment, sometimes even when there is very little luck manipulation involved.
In terms of improvements, my main self-criticism is that my early segments didn't have the same rigorous control optimization as my later ones, which should seem pretty obvious when comparing a chapter such as 1-2 to one like 4-E(3). I blame this on the fact that I can't help but become more intense on major projects I work on as I go along, plus getting accustomed to the feel of speedrunning definitely led to improvements in how I'd mentally prepare and perform in a segment. Aside from that, there were a few instances where I found a control trick at a certain point in the run that could've been applied to some of the previous segments in the run I had already recorded, though I reckon that's also a pretty common occurrence when performing a run. Despite all this, I doubt that more than 5 seconds could be saved on average from each segment without major strategic improvements or glitches, so a time of sub 3 hours seems pretty out of reach.
The next few sections of my comments cover the terminology, skills and characters I use in the run. This is mostly meant for viewers who haven't played Fire Emblem to familiarize themselves with the game mechanics or at least to answer whatever question they may have when watching the run. However, if that doesn't suffice, I once again recommend visiting serenes forest as they have all the information about the Fire Emblem series one could ever ask for. If you've played the game before and consider yourself a Fire Emblem vet, feel free to hit ctrl+f and search for "segment by segment analysis".
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Terminology
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FE: Fire Emblem, the name of the series.
RNG: Stands for "random number generator". Basically anything involving combat such as critical hits, skill activation and hit rates have a percentage chance of activating. For instance, if the RNG produces a number lower than a character's hit rate against an enemy, then the character will land a hit, otherwise he/she will miss. There are a lot of intricacies involving the RNG, such as the fact that hit rates are based on the average of 2 random numbers instead of the actual display hit, but I won't get into that unless I need to. Just keep in mind if I say I'm getting RNG screwed, it means I might've seen an 80% chance miss 12 times in a row or something, whereas RNG blessage could mean I got three 1% critical hits in a row. Unlike FE 1-8, this game's RNG is not pre-set so any luck manipulation I do in the run involves constant resetting.
Stats: A character's statistics, each of which is explained in detail below.
Hp: Health power, pretty self-explanatory.
Str: Stength. Principally affects how much damage you inflict to the enemy.
Skl: Skill. This stat affects a character's hit and critical hit rate.
Spd: Speed. The single most important stat in fire emblem. Not only does it affect avoid, having speed 4 points or more higher than the enemy allows you to double attack, and double attacking is usually necessary in killing an enemy in a single round of combat.
Luck: This stat has a minor effect on hit rate, avoid and reduces the enemy's chance of landing a critical hit.
Def: Defence, reduces the amount of physical damage a unit takes from an enemy hit.
Res: Resistance, has the same function as defence but against magic based attacks.
Avo: Avoid. This basically affects your character's chance of completely dodging an enemy's attack, resulting in no damage inflicted.
Crit: Just a convenient shorthand for critical hit.
Atk or MT: Shorthand for attack or might. Stands for the total attack power a character has.
Stat-up: Refers to gaining a point in a certain stat after a level-up.
Stat booster: Exactly what it sounds like, an item a character uses for an immediate stat boost. I use 2 stat boosters in the run, which consists of Jill using a dracoshield for a +2 defence boost and Rafiel using a seraph robe for a +7 hp boost. I would've used more stat boosters if I could, but most of them are hidden in treasure chests that would cost too much time to acquire.
Bases: Base stats. The stats that a character has at the point when they first join your army.
Growths: Growth rates. There are 8 stats which are affected by growth rates, being hp, strength, skill, speed, luck, defence and res. Each of these stats has a %age chance of increasing upon a character's level-up, and each character has unique growth rates. Although you cannot find growth rates in the game without hacking it, sites such as serenes forest and feplanet contain this information.
Caps: Stat caps. In each tier, a unit has certain caps in each of their 8 stats. This is implemented into the game to prevent RNG blessed characters from becoming too powerful, which would make the game too easy.
Average stats: A mathematical measure which estimates how a character will progress each level if they stay true to their growth rates. For instance, if a character has a base level of 1, a base strength of 8 and a 60% strength growth, average stats will tell you that at level 5, said character will have 10.4 strength, so you'd expect that character to normally have around 10 strength at level 5. This information can also be found on sites such as serenes forest and feplanet.
Lvl-up: Shorthand for level-up. Similar to many other traditional RPGs, a character levels up after having gained 100 exp, whereupon he/she has a random chance of gaining +1 in any of 8 stats directly affected by growth rates.
CEXP: Combat experience. Stands for any experience gained from attacking or killing an enemy in a chapter.
BEXP: Bonus experience. Stands for any experience gained from the base. BEXP is usually awarded each chapter for raw completion, achieving a low turn count and in some cases accomplishing special tasks such as saving prisoners. What makes BEXP unique compared to CEXP is that you always gain 3 stats per level-up, which tends to skew in favor of a character's high growth rates. For instance, if you BEXP Haar, he'll gain strength, skill and defence on almost every level-up. Another advantage of BEXP is that when a character caps a few of his stats, then BEXP still forces you to gain 3 stats, which can be abused to make characters cap some of their weaker stats.
Tier: In the context of the game, a first tier beorc unit is level 1-20, a second tier one is level 20/1-20 and a third tier one is level 20/20/1-20. The process of hitting level 21 and thus changing tiers is called promotion, which gives a character set bonuses in most of their stats, along with other possible bonuses such as gaining an extra weapon type. As for laguz, they don't promote and cap their level at 40, though they gain extra skill capacity and the ability to use a satori sign at level 30.
Pre-promote: In that past FEs a pre-promote would be a unit who joins your army as a second tier unit. This terminology becomes awkward to apply to this game because of the three tier system.
Availability: Usually describes how many chapters a character's available in. Thus, a character with great availability is someone who is present in a lot of chapters.
Durability: A word used to describe a unit's ability to survive enemy attacks. Durability depends on a character's hp, defence, resistance and avoid stats. A term commonly used to describe a unit with good durability is "tanky", and sometimes a unit might be referred to as an "avoid tank" or similar expressions.
Mobility: How well a unit can move, specifically how large their movement radius is each turn. Units with high mobility tend to be fliers and paladins while lower mobility classes consist of mages and generals.
WT: Weapon triangle. One of the staple aspects of Fire Emblem gameplay is that certain weapons are superior to others. More specifically, swords > axes > lances > swords for physical weapons and fire > wind > thunder > fire (there's also dark magic but it's neutral). So, supposing a sword user attacks an axe user, the sword user will have a weapon triangle advantage (WTA), which boosts his damage output by 1 and his accuracy by 10. The axe user, on the other hand, faces a weapon triangle disadvantage (WTD), thus losing 1 point of damage output and 10 points of accuracy.
Bio: Biorhythm. Every character has a sinusoidal biorhythm wave with a unique period (ie how long it takes for the wave to repeat) and amplitude (max value of the wave - min value /2). A character's biorhythm varies every turn, and the values of the biorhythm vary as follows.
Best: +10 hit, +10 avoid, +10% skill activation, +20% chance of finding hidden items
Good: +5 hit, +5 avoid, +5% skill activation, +10% chance of finding hidden items
Normal: No effect
Bad: -5 hit, -5 avoid, -5% skill activation, -10% chance of finding hidden items
Worst: -10 hit, -10 avoid, -10% skill activation, -20% chance of finding hidden items
I mention being on "low bio" or "high bio" in the later stages of the run since in some cases it causes my character to have hit rate issues (ie when a unit has trouble landing all their hits against a series of opponents) and makes certain skill activation manipulations more difficult.
Supports: Two characters can support each other once they gain enough support points between each other. Support points are gained in various ways such as having 2 units adjacent to each other, rescuing and shoving a character, among other things. The bonuses from supports are equal to the sum of the bonuses offered by an individual unit's affinity, and a support can be compounded twice for a total of 3 support levels. Finally, supports are in effect when one supporter is within 3 spaces of another supporter. I cannot make use of supports in the run because they cost time to assign as well as wasting time with the support activation message that occurs whenever a supported character engages in combat. I even go out of my way to remove a Micaiah x Sothe auto-A support since I require the two characters to be within 3 spaces at certain points in the run.
Bonds: There are certain characters who, for storyline reasons, receive bond bonuses from certain other units when they are adjacent to them, giving a boost of 5-10 critical hit, depending on the bond. I make use of Rolf and Shinon's bond in chapter 3-1 to boosts Shinon's critical hit rate.
Ferrying: A term which represents the process of a flier or paladin rescuing a unit, carrying them as they move throughout the level, and eventually dropping them in a much father location than where they started.
Effective MT: Stands for the amount of attack power a unit will have against his enemy if the unit is using a weapon that's considered "effective" against the enemy, giving a large damage boost (see serenes forest for damage calculation formulas). Effective MT applies when a bow user attacks a pegasus knight, when the beastkiller knife or the beastfoe skill is used against beast laguz, when thunder magic is used against dragons and wyverns, among other examples. The most common mention use of effective MT in the run is in the use of the hammer against generals.
Ledges: A new addition to the Fire Emblem series that makes higher ground a strategic advantage, not just a graphical effect. All you need to know is that when I mention a character having ledge disadvantage, it means that said character loses 50 hit against the enemy he/she's targeting whereas said enemy gains 50 hit.
Rescue: A function that characters can perform to carry another person while having their skl and spd halved for the duration of the rescue. One of the main advantages of rescue is that the rescued person is invulnerable to enemy attacks until he/she is dropped again.
Strike level: Unlike beorc, laguz do not use "unnatural" weapons in combat, so they have to resort to using their claws/fangs/talons/etc to fight. All to say, the only way they can increase their attack power is by levelling their strike level. The lowest strike level possible is A while the highest is SS, while every strike level progression adds 5 MT to the laguz's attack. Strike level, just like beorc weapons, improves after a certain number of attacks have been performed, though it is worth noting that strike levels improve at a much slower rate than beorc weapon levels. Since my run contains a lot of pacifism, I don't have the opportunity to level up Volug or Janaff's strike level, which might've allowed me to use them more extensively in the run.
Beorc: The word associated with human beings in this game.
Laguz: Best described as a race of animorph beings. Each laguz species has a human form and an animal form. There are 7 total animal types, which includes lions, tigers, cats, hawks, ravens, wolves and dragons.
Beast laguz: Specifies any laguz belonging to the lion, tiger, cat and wolf species.
Branded: When a beorc and a laguz mate, the resulting child is branded. Usually the branded child is unable to transform and can thus pass as a beorc.
Flier: A unit with the ability to fly over chasms, rivers and mountains in the context of the game's maps. Classes who can fly are pegasus knights (sometimes called pegasi), wyverns, ravens and hawks.
DB: The Dawn Brigade, a group of Daien rebels attempting to fight against Begnion's oppression. Micaiah is their leader.
CRKs: The Crimean Royal Knights. They are the army responsible for defending Crimea, with Geoffrey being their leader.
GMs: The Greil Mercenaries, a group of Crimean soldiers who were originally led by Greil, Ike's father, with their work revolving around fighting brigands and protecting villages for money.
LA: The Laguz Alliance, a group fighting for laguz emancipation. It currently consists of Tormod, Vika and Muarim.
Royals: A convenient shorthand for royal laguz, which in turn stands for the laguz kings and queens of their respective nations. Consists of Tibarn, Naesala, Nailah, Caneighis and Deghinsea, though Kurthnaga and Skrimir also have royal blood, and Giffca can be considered a royal since his prowess in combat is so similar to Caneighis' and he serves as Caneghis' shadow.
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Skills
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One of the important strategic components of this game is its skill system. Skills can be either assigned or removed from a character in the base and provide unique functions such as being able to negate the damage of an enemy attack or reduce an enemy's luck stat to 0 for a turn. I won't get into the specific details of innate skills, irremovable skills and skill capacity, though I will cover the functions of the skills I apply in the run.
Shove: This is a skill that all non-flying (except for laguz), non-horseback units possess, and it allows you to push a unit 1 space beyond their current position. A very useful skill for giving a unit extra mobility.
Canto: A skill that all flying units and paladins innately possess, which allows them to re-move after performing an action. Obviously an invaluable skill.
Wrath: A skill that activates when a unit's hp falls below 30%, with the benefit being that the user will gain +50 crit. I mainly exploit this skill in improving a unit's offence when I have no other realistic means to do so.
Adept: A skill with spd% activation that gives you an extra attack every time it activates. I use this skill to compensate for a unit's offensive flaws.
Savior: Allows a unit to rescue another unit without any statistical penalty. I use this skill whenever I need a unit to ferry someone while still being able to partake in combat.
Pass: Allows a unit to move through enemies instead of around them. A very useful skill for accomplishing pacifist goals.
Celerity: Gives +2 move to whoever uses it. An absolutely vital skill for achieving low turn counts since I can get whoever using it to reach the enemy sooner.
Beastfoe: A skill that allows its user to triple the MT of their weapon when attacking beast laguz.
Formshift: Allows the laguz user to stay transformed the entirety of the chapter. Only laguz royals have this skill, which is part of what makes them superior to non-royals.
Blessing: Heals any adjacent unit hp equivalent to the mag stat of the unit possessing this skill. I'm only mentioning this since I have to take off blessing from Reyson to save time in the run.
Vigor: Grants an adjacent unit an extra turn to move. Vigoring is somewhat more complicated in this game than in past FEs since units can vigor 1-4 units depending on which heron they are and whether they're transformed or not.
Blood tide: Grants adjacent units +5 str and skl. I have my units make use of Ena and Gareth's blood tide in the final chapter.
White pool/tide: Grants adjacent units +5 spd and mag. I use this to get Ike to double the only aura he attacks in the final chapter.
Mastery skills- These are skills that a unit gets upon their third promotion. These skills are pretty much an alternate critical. If it activates, the enemy is pretty much doomed, bosses included. In the case of laguz, they get their masteries through the use of a satori sign. Mastery skills mentioned in the run are savage, ire, aether, luna, sol, flare, stun and tear.
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Characters Used
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Micaiah: Though she is the main character in part 1 and forced on every map she's available, I avoid using her as much as possible. Simply put, she's a mage with poor bases and terrible durability, so there's really no way to use her effectively in a speedrun.
Edward: A myrmidon I get in the prologue. I use him all the way up to 1-4 because his innate wrath skill allows him to be an offensive powerhouse when used properly. I don't use him past that because his durability issues are too crippling and the DB pre-promotes are easily superior to him.
Nolan: A dude who looks like a lumberjack. He's used in 1-1 and 1-2 because he's the only durable unit in my army at that point, but like Edward he's quickly dropped for units with superior bases.
Sothe: A pre-promote thief and the only overpowered unit I have until 1-5. I make use of him throughout most of part 1 because of his stats and his effective 1-2 range offence with forged knives. I even continue to use him in 3-6 because of the beastkiller, but beyond that, his poor stat caps ultimately withhold him from future use.
Volug: A wolf laguz. Despite his awesome mobility, I can't make much use of him because I don't have the means to level up his strike, which is necessary for him to be an effective fighter later on.
Tauroneo: A general who has a goofy mustache. This guy is just broken when I get him and plays a major role when he returns in part 3 because of how limited my DB options are.
Jill: A red haired chick who rides a wyvern. Despite her poor bases, I have to use her quite often because she's my only flier in the DB. Her part 1 use is limited to taking out a healer in 1-6(1) and ferrying Tauroneo in 1-6(2), but becomes a worthwhile fighter from part 3 onwards because I get an opportunity to pump BEXP into her.
Tormod: A bratty looking fire mage. He's good enough to contribute in the part 1 chapters he's in but like the rest of the LA, disappears until 4-4 and becomes utterly useless.
Muarim: A green tiger. This guy has dominant stats and is used as a bosskiller in 1-7, a shover in 1-8 and ferries Micaiah in 1-E.
Nailah: The first laguz Royal encountered in the run, basically a very beefed up version of Volug. Used in every chapter she's available in except for a couple of 4-E chapters that can be 1 turned without her services.
Rafiel: A male heron who lacks the ability to fly. I use him whenever I can since vigoring in general is vital for low turn counts.
The Black Knight: Self-explanatory description. This guy is basically Sparta in black armour and is abused as much as possible in the few chapters he's available.
Nealuchi: A really old raven. He lacks strength and has low availability, though comes in use in the part 2 chapters he's in.
Elincia: A green haired queen who rides a pegasus knight. Her amiti sword allows her to have twice as many attacks as normal weapons do, which makes her useful in combat in 4-2.
Haar: A cool looking guy with an eyepatch. He makes for a very crucial character because of his amazing stats, availability and mobility. In fact, his role in the run is so paramount he practically soloes almost every part 3 and part 4 map he's in, and is the MVP of the run.
Nephenee: A country girl clad in blue armor. Her wrath skill comes in great use in 2-1 but I don't use her after that because of her low base level.
Heather: A female thief who's recruited in 2-1. She plays a rather minor role in 2-2 and is only really recruited so that I can give Haar her pass skill.
Mordecai: A blue tiger. Despite his high atk power and durability, he has spd issues by the time he comes back in part 3, which is why I only use him in 2-2.
Leanne: A female heron. Like Rafiel, I use her as much as possible for vigoring other units.
Geoffrey: A green haired paladin. He is the best unit statistically in the CRKs, which is why I have him solo those chapters. He only returns by 4-5, at which point he's pretty awful.
Ike: A blue haired sword wielder who was the main character of FE9, and is also the main character for all of part 3. I actually don't use him very much in part 3 because of how much Haar steals the show, though he does play a pivotal role in his part 4 chapters.
Mia: A female swordsmaster. I use her in the early part 3 chapters to get some 1RKOes since she has a good critical hit rate with her starting weapon, the wo dao.
Gatrie: A general with blue armor. I use him in 3-1 since he has solid stats and I need quite a few units to rout that map quickly, but I don't use him afterwards since his mobility is too poor.
Shinon: A red haired sniper. His killer bow proves to be very useful in the early part 3 chapters, though I obviously don't use him more than I need to since snipers cannot counter at 1 range.
Titania: A red haired paladin. She's got good bases, mobility and availability, which makes her second to Haar in overall utility.
Ranulf: A green cat. I only use him in 3-4 since he is forced to play a role in the map's objective.
Janaff: A hawk that Ike recruits in 3-7. Like most high levelled laguz, he has amazing base stats and thus he comes in handy pretty often, though I do use Titania over him in a number of situations because of his lack of 1-2 range and transformation issues.
Reyson: An angry looking male heron. Used whenever possible for the same reasons as the other herons.
Sigrun: A blue haired pegasus knight. I mainly use her for ferrying purposes since her bases and growths are horrendous.
Tanith: A somewhat manly looking pegasus knight. Similar to Sigrun, I only user her once for a non-combat related task.
Skrimir: A red lion. I use him until 4-E since he has excellent stats but is outclassed by the royals in the final chapters. Sanaki: The empress of Begnion, she's a short girl with purple hair. Only used in 4-3 to kill a few enemies my main attackers couldn't reach.
Ena: A pink dragon. I use her for her blood tide skill in the final chapter.
Gareth: A red dragon who's used to perform the same role as Ena in the final chapter.
The following is just the physiological description of the royals since there's no need to explain why I use any of them for their entire playtime.
Naesala: A devious looking raven with blue hair when he's untransformed.
Nailah: Already mentioned her earlier. She's a wolf with greyish fur.
Tibarn: A hawk who has a bandana and a reasonably large scar across his face when untransformed.
Caneighis: A red lion, though his shade of red is darker than Skrimir's.
Giffca: A black lion, and is the "shadow" of Caneighis.
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Segment by Segment Analysis
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I focus my segment analysis on trying to explain decisions I make in the run that might be non-intuitive to the average viewer since otherwise my submission comments would go on forever. In addition, I mention most of the luck manipulation I performed in the run. Sometimes I can calculate the exact percentages of a manipulation, such as when I manipulate a str or spd growth for a character. Other times I have to approximate the percentage chance, hence why I use the ~ symbol fairly often. Finally, sometimes I simply cannot remember enough factors pertaining to a manipulation to do anything but make an educated guess, which is where some of the ish% comes into play. I am quite aware that I run the risk of having reasonably large calculation errors and that my constant mentioning of percentage manipulations probably makes for a laborious read, but I thought it necessary to truly appreciate the run as a whole. So, without further ado, here's my breakdown of each segment.
Chapter 1-P
Segment 1: Aside from making some obvious option adjustments, I manipulate Micaiah landing a 4% critical so that Edward can move farther on turn 1. The only alternative to this while still achieving a minimum turn count would be for Edward to land 4 consecutive criticals on turn 1, which is a paltry 0.13% chance, not to mention it would save a negligible amount of time at best.
Segment 2: Possibly the best segment in the entire run, at least as far as luck manipulation is concerned. First of all, Edward must land a 19% crit against one of the bandits along with a 6% critical in the boss. Then Edward must gain +2 hp, +2 str, +2 spd and have less than 7 defence in his 2 level-ups, which is a 9% chance. Even without accounting for Edward's chance of dying (which I'd guess to be around 30-40%) or the possibility of screwing up any player phase moves, this makes for approximately a 0.1% net chance of success. I originally planned for Edward to reach wrath hp so that his critical rate would shoot up 50% and thus make killing the boss significantly easier, so getting a successful attempt without a wrath activation was simply unexpected luck.
Chapter 1-1
Segment 3: Since the goal of the chapter is for Micaiah to escape, I have to have Micaiah move as much as possible without exposing her to more than 1 enemy. Unfortunately my offensive options are limited and Nolan is my only durable unit, so I have to settle for Nolan injuring a ton of enemies on turn 1 enemy phase, then clearing the remaining enemies with Micaiah, Edward and Nolan. Normally I do this chapter in one segment, but Eddie's 2 non-wrath crits (~1.44% chance) were too good to pass up.
Segment 4: Edward has to take a hit to reach wrath hp (50ish%), convert the critical on the same enemy (56%), Nolan has to dodge the soldier attack (30ish%) and Edward has to wrath crit the enemy adjacent to the boss on the first hit (56%), making for roughly a net 4.7% chance of success.
Chapter 1-2
Segment 5: Edward needs to land a wrath crit on 2 enemies, one of which has to be on the first hit (45%) and land 4 straight hits on enemy soldiers which he has WTD on (50ish%). On top of that, Nolan has to dodge 2 enemy attacks in the beginning so that he won't need to take a vulnerary (<10%) and has to gain spd on his level-up so that he can double a soldier w/ a steel lance (60%). Net chance of roughly 1.35%. I did make a fairly noticeable mistake at the end as I put the cursor on Laura before having Sothe shove her.
Chapter 1-3
Segment 6: And yet another escape map. Now that I have Sothe, I let him clear the path for Micaiah almost entirely on his own. However, I still manage to get every character besides Laura to contribute either through breaking the eastern door, clearing the archer Sothe didn't dispose of or shoving Micaiah on the final turn. For once I didn't need any intensive luck manipulations other than the decent chance of Sothe surviving the onlsaught of enemies he faces. I suppose Sothe could've criticaled the armor but I was more focused on getting my inputs right than anything else. It's probably worth mentioning that I order Aimee and Kurth into the corner on turn 1 so that they distract the western enemies from my main party while minimizing the attacks they face.
Chapter 1-4
Segments 7-8: Sothe basically soloes the level with his overpowered beastkiller weapon, acquiring a master seal and beastfoe which will later be put to great use on Jill. I also get Edward to chip in since he ORKOs tigers and OHKOs cats with a crit using his forged sword and can reach wrath hp from a single transformed laguz hit. Moreover, I use Ilyana to help Edward and Sothe against untransformed laguz since Edward cannot afford to take any damage that doesn't put him into wrath hp and Sothe gets blocked from moving further north at the end of the level, respectively. I don't feel like calculating the luck manipulation in both segments but be aware that Sothe has to make a fair number of dodges, Edward has to string together a lot of consecutive criticals, and there's always a slight risk that Sothe won't find a hidden treasure. Looking back on this, I regret Sothe not gaining speed on both of his level-ups as this ended up hurting his doubling ability vs cats in 3-6.
Chapter 1-5
Segment 9: I forge 4 iron knives for Sothe so he can put them to good use in later chapters. I'm not sure why I insisted on this chapter being 2 segments other than perhaps over-estimating the difficulty of the manipulations in the chapter, so I guess I just found prep segments very difficult at the time.
Segment 10: Since this is a "defend for x turns" map, I simply have Volug and Sothe clear any enemies that would be able to attack Micaiah or an NPC before the turn limit is reached. The only real difficulty here is Jill and Zihark not dying and Volug not getting hit by a fire mage. I have no idea where that turn 3 accidental Micaiah move mistake came from, and normally I'd reject a segment with a mistake like that unless there was heavy luck manipulation, so I suppose I was just really pleased at how much Zihark and Jill co-operated with me and felt the urge to accept this attempt despite the aforementioned blunder.
Chapter 1-6(1)
Segment 11: In the advancement, I un-deploy and re-deploy Jill on purpose as this causes her to be re-positioned where I want her to be. I also have her use the master seal since she needs the stat boost to perform adequately on offense as well as gain a point of mobility. I battle save soon after Sothe lands his 20ish% critical on the armor since turn 2 enemy phase has similar manipulations. If I were to re-do this chapter, I'd have manipulated the stats of the enemy soldier that Jill faces to have less hp or def so she could ORKO him, thus saving a few seconds.
Segment 12: Pure enemy phase manipulation, Sothe lands his 20ish% critical on the armor and I do my best to minimize the damage Sothe takes to make segment 13 easier.
Segment 13: Pretty much the same thing as last segment except Sothe faces more enemies, most of which he has to dodge, has to get a level-up where he gains spd (45%), and has to crit 2 armors in a row (<4%).
Chapter 1-6(2)
Segment 14: Jill ferries Tauroneo to the boss, trading the silver lance to the top of his inventory so that he'll have that equipped instead of the javelin and will thus kill less enemies before the boss attacks him. I'm not entirely sure why I used Volug instead of making him hide along with Sothe and Micaiah, though it was probably because at the time I thought killing enemies was faster than letting them live and move their full movement range an extra turn.
Chapter 1-7
Segment 15: Volug ferries Micaiah, Sothe clears some enemies and recruits the laguz alliance members, Zihark kills some enemies that would otherwise attack Sothe later, Tormod clears one of the mages protecting the upper ledge and Muarim is used as a bosskiller. Not a particularly difficult chapter luck-wise other than Sothe's armor critical in the beginning. It probably would've been a better idea to break this chapter into 2 segments, as this would've made it more feasible for Sothe to crit both armors while also having made my character moves more optimal.
Chapter 1-8
Segment 16: The two main manipulations here are for Sothe to crit the first enemy he faces and to minimize his damage for later on. Strategically, the only thing of note is Tormod being shoved on turn 1 so that an enemy wyvern will attack him on enemy phase rather than going after prisoners.
Segment 17: I prevent anyone from getting poisoned before turn 4 enemy phase since the animation of taking damage from poison is brutally long. I also force Zihark to one round the last 2 enemies he faces and have Sothe survive a barrage of enemies on the last turn.
Chapter 1-9
Segment 18: Took longer to plan this chapter than it did to record it, as all I had to do was memorize 13 turns of player phase moves, each of which involved moving at most 2 characters. I guess I could've minimized eclipse activations or something but I was too glad to have a chapter that was completely manipulation free to start imposing those kinds of restrictions on myself.
Chapter 1-E
Segment 19: I give Ilyana a ton of items because she runs off to the GMs in 3-2. Although I put celerity and pass to incredible use in the GMs, I didn't end up needing the brave sword or paragon at all, so giving those to Ilyana cost me a few seconds.
Segment 20: One of the more complex strategies in the run, and it took me roughly a week to formulate. Put simply, Nailah ferries the BK, Muarim ferries Micaiah and Sothe and Volug are used to clear enemies along the way. Some things worth noting: Sothe has to kill a mage from a ledge higher than him, which is why I forged Sothe a knife with +hit in 1-5. Furthermore, The BK has to kill an archer on player phase because that archer's holding a longbow, which endangers Micaiah at the spot where I drop her. Finally, Micaiah is dropped so far from the seize square because she gets ORKOed by the mage with a meteor tome. Thankfully, I manage to compensate for Micaiah's far position from the throne by shoving her repeatedly. A simple thing I overlooked is that the BK should've killed Jarod while Nailah would've shoved Micaiah instead since the BK's shoving animation is so excruciatingly slow. I also allowed a really painful seize command screw-up which I probably wouldn't have allowed had I re-done the run with the abilities I have now.
Chapter 2-P
Segment 21: Since Nealuchi is my best offensive unit before Haar shows up, I have him handle the initial flank of mobile enemies while Elincia and Marcia hide in the corner. I also have Nealuchi rescue Leanne since his base speed is so incredibly high that he can still double enemy wyverns despite the temporary loss of 50% of his speed stat caused by the rescue command. The reason I move Marcia on turn 3 player phase is because if she doesn't occupy that space, an enemy will occupy it and thus Marcia has to move much further to recruit Haar since he'd spawn in a different location. Once Haar is recruited, I have Nealuchi give Haar Leanne since he's the only character who can survive being double hit by the boss, and my units turtle in the corner seeing as it's faster to wait out the chapter than it is to rout the map.
Chapter 2-1
Segment 22: The strangest segment so far, I just battle save immediately. The purpose of this segment is to manipulate the stats of the enemies in this level in order for my strategies to work properly. Particularly, the enemy myrmidon near the northern house has to have low enough speed for Brom to double him, while the javelin general must have low enough speed and defense that Neph can 1HKO him with a wrath critical and can double attack in case her initial attack doesn't procure a crit.
Segment 23: Every hit Neph takes is intentional so I can get her into wrath hp and thus capable of killing enemies properly. I battle save after killing the javelin general since the rest of the chapter still contains intensive luck manipulation.
Segment 24: For some reason the enemy myrmidon right of Nephenee has a random chance of attacking her and from my experience it's roughly a 60% chance that he'll come at Neph. This is bad because the myrmidon has a venin edge with roughly 70% true hit, and I can't afford to have Neph take poison damage every turn since that consumes an inordinate amount of time and looks sloppy. So aside from that, Neph needs 3 consecutive wrath criticals (<12.5%) in order to avert poison and beat the chapter on the same turn that Heather is recruited. Yes, I'm quite aware the Neph got a 7 point level-up, though unfortunately she isn't used beyond this chapter because of her crappy base level.
Chapter 2-2
Segment 25: Similar to segment 22, I battle save immediately to manipulate the chapter's enemy stats such that Mordecai can double as many enemies as he possibly can.
Segment 26: Since Lucia is the only unit with 1-2 range, I have her solo the part of the map right of her starting position while everyone else either goes north to perform some later function or hides. The luck manipulation is pretty hefty here as Mordy has to dodge a venin lance while Lucia has to land criticals on at least 3 enemies she faces (~6.3%), in addition to minimizing the damage she takes.
Segment 27: Mostly doing what's required to advance east. Nealuchi rescues Heather so that he can be hit more easily by the crossbow guy, which is the only way to get him within wrath hp for the bosskill later in the chapter.
Segment 28: Mordy needs to dodge a venin lance (50ish%), Lucia needs to crit an armor (<28%) and Nealuchi needs to land a wrath critical (49%), which nets to roughly a 6.9% chance of success.
Chapter 2-3
Segment 29: I BEXP Geoffrey 1 level since he needs an extra point of strength to ORKO the boss with a brave lance. Geoffrey basically soloes his way to the seize throne, and whatever Marcia, Makalov and Kieran do either serves to limit the enemy's exposure to an NPC or increases their exposure to enemies who would eventually attack an NPC. Unfortunately, there is a very good chance of Geoffrey dying simply based on how many attacks he faces and how low his defense base is, which inevitably means his avoid will fail at some points. This becomes pretty apparent by the end of the level when Geoffrey has to avoid the boss's wo dao attack because he's clinging to his remaining 1 hp. I did make a couple menu errors at the end but this was my only successful attempt in roughly 8 hours of trying so I couldn't refuse it.
Chapter 2-E
Segment 30: I power level Haar while ensuring to cap his speed since he is basically my entire offence in part 3 and he needs the stats for boss killing. As for the actual chapter, Haar goes MC hammertime on Ludveck, thrashing him on turn 1 enemy phase. Note that although Ludveck has a 1-2 range weapon, he can only attack Haar at 1 range since a halberdier is blocking the only spot from where he could make a 2 range attack.
Chapter 3-P
Segment 31: After Titania trades with Boyd for all his cool axes, I then leave the base and immediately battle save. For some reason Skrimir's attack pattern seems to be based on the stats of either the enemies or his own NPCs or both (couldn't find the sole determining factor), so this battle save ensured that Skrimir would co-operate and follow an attack pattern such that he'd attack a faraway enemy on turn 1 rather than a closer one.
Another purpose of this battle save was to ensure that the tigers who took on enemy generals would have enough Atk to be in 2HKO range so that NPC congestion could be minimized throughout the chapter. All to say, it's pretty crucial to keep Skrimir on target since the goal of the map is for him to arrive.
Segment 32-33: For some reason no on aside from Mia, Shinon and Ike can double anything, but Mia has attack issues while Shinon can't counter, so it's really difficult to find ways to ORKO anything. As such, I do my best to work with what I have, which is Titania's crit with the killer axe (30ish%) and Mia's crit with the wo dao (~51%). These two segments basically consist of stringing together 2-4 consecutive criticals such as to minimize 2 rounding as much as possible.
Segment 34: This was a really aggravating segment because of how frequently an NPC would block the only 1 range space Titania can attack the boss from. Thus I combine the slim chance of the NPCs co-operating with me along with Titania's crit on the boss (30ish%) and force her to gain spd (50%) on her level-up.
Chapter 3-1
Segment 35: I power level Titania and Gatrie such that they both attain 23 spd, which is the amount required to consistently double non-SM enemies. I also assign adept to Gatrie since it's the only way he can kill enemy generals with a 1-2 range weapon.
Segment 36: Titania has to crit all 4 generals she faces (~5.7%), Gatrie cannot miss any hits (50ish%) and Shinon has to crit the sniper he faces (~64%), which makes for a net manipulation of roughly 1.8%.
Segment 37: Mia has to land a critical on the warrior she faces (~51%), Gatrie has to activate adept on 2 occasions (~37%), but most of all, Shinon has to crit 4 enemies, one of which must be a double crit (~10.5%). The net manipulation is roughly 1.9%
Chapter 3-2
Segment 38: Haar's trade with Brom nets him the iron axe, as he needs a 1 range weapon in his inventory to suit my strategy for the next chapter. I then promote Haar for the +2 spd bonus, as well as giving him the capacity to use both celerity and savior. The final prep step involves acquiring the silver card then buying as many hand axes as I can afford since Haar goes through hand axes like a kid on halloween goes through candy. As for the chapter, I un-deploy everyone, rescue Ike and send Haar into the mountains as this completely eliminates turn 1 enemy phase, with the exception of the wyvern on the northeastern part of the map deciding to move. After that, it's just a matter of sending Haar into the boss's range and killing him with a 15.36% critical.
Chapter 3-3
Segment 39: A pretty stealthy level, the idea is to come in, burn a bunch of supplies, and get out while facing as few enemies as possible. Seeing as Haar is my most mobile unit, especially since I gave him celerity, he burns 5 of the 6 total supplies, 4 of which he does unarmed to avoid counter-attacking enemies. For the fifth one, I have him use the iron axe he got from Brom such as to prevent him from killing ranged attackers and generals, while the 6th is taken out on the last turn by Oscar once Titania and Ike clear the path for him. Manipulations include the NPC horses in the left den not covering the square that Haar has to move on, Haar avoiding damaging mage attacks, Haar not landing stun on the general he faces and Titania's critical on the general she faces on the last turn.
Chapter 3-4
Segment 40: The goal of the map is for both Ike and Ranulf to arrive, so with the obvious choice of having Haar ferry Ike, I had to find a way for Ranulf to keep up with Haar, which is why I give Ranulf celerity and pass. This is the first time you get to see the game's rescue glitch put to use, which is a glitch that has enemies prioritize targets with rescue even if they have savior as a skill. This explains why the archer on turn 1 enemy phase attacks Haar and dies instead of attacking the NPC laguz and not getting countered, as well as why the warrior goes for Haar instead of the tiger and other similar occurences. The manipulations are surprisingly heavy as I have to do my best to ensure that the NPCs die as fast as possible while still landing all their hits, Haar has to gain a point of spd (30%) but most of all Haar has to land 4 consecutive mage hits while having a ledge disadvantage (~25%).
Segment 41: I have to ensure that the only surviving cat dies on turn 4 enemy phase to prevent any further ballista attacks, Ike has to dodge at least one out of 4 enemy attacks, most of which have ~50-60% display hit since Ike is on low biorhythm, then Ike has to gain a point of spd on his lvl-up (35%), topped off with Haar landing a stun activation on the boss (~50%).
Chapter 3-5
Segment 42: The shortest segment in the entire run, all that really needs to be done is Haar getting vigored by Reyson to get within range of the boss then having Haar land a 15.36% critical along with gaining spd on his lvl-up.
Chapter 3-6
Segment 43: I get Jill a good growth spread from BEXP usage, forcing her to max speed and have 17 strength as a minimum requirement. I also give her a dracoshield and a master crown as I really need to do everything possible to make Jill a competent unit, seeing how's she's a key unit here, in 3-12 and in three part 4 chapters.
Segment 44: Sothe needs spd on his lvl-up (45%) as well as a critical on an untransformed laguz he faces (43.75%) and I do my best to minimize the damage that Jill takes. Note that Jill is using the brave axe since her hit rate is so bad that she needs the extra attacks to offset any misses that might occur.
Segment 45: I start off with an error correction, as further experimentation made me decide that Micaiah and Sothe should move on turn 4 instead of staying put. Sothe needs to crit a transformed cat (~25%) and dodge 3 out of 4 attacks he faces while Jill has to dodge 2 out of 3 tiger attacks she faces. In retrospect, I probably should've manipulated Jill dodging all 3 tiger attacks since I end up healing her from having taken too much damage.
Segment 46: I play this segment safely, making use of 3 heals I would've much rather avoided but needed to make the manipulations of the segment realistic. The only actual manipulation was Sothe critting another cat and avoiding a fatal tiger hit, but that alone is still less than a 10% chance. Note that Jill switches to a steel axe on turn 6 to avoid breaking the brave axe, which only has 7 uses left.
Chapter 3-7
Segment 47: Using frame data I determined that any enemy who starts moving at turn 5 or earlier must be killed as soon as possible while any enemy who moves afterwards is better left spared since killing them would ultimately cost more time than letting them move the remainder of the chapter. There is one slight exception to this rule, which is wyvern reinforcements since they have enough mobility to reach my main party and thus attack people who can't 1RKO them, which is why I have Titania intercept them. The only manipulations are Titania getting a killer axe critical on the first wyvern she faces (~51%) and getting spd on her lvl-up (50%). Also, I make a mistake by moving Haar on turn 11 instead of 10, as he kills an enemy he wasn't supposed to, costing about 2 seconds. At the time, I didn't feel the need to re-do the chapter over such a mistake.
Chapter 3-8
Segment 48: I power level Haar for a final time since he needs to max out his strength to take on all the 3-8 generals, plus he needs the stats anyway to maintain his ability to solo part 3 chapters. I also BEXP Janaff 1 level so he can gain his tear mastery, which is needed for him to kill generals and part 4 enemies. As for the actual chapter, Haar has to avoid most of the mage attacks he faces and has to land stun on the boss (58%), which combined with Haar's power-levelling, the length of the chapter and the difficulty of the moves, was enough for me to settle for Janaff landing tear on 1 of the 2 generals he faces and live with the fact that he found a coin on one of his moves. Finally, I suppose it is worth mentioning that Haar is constantly switching weapons such as to avoid breaking hand axes, a maneuver I use frequently in the later parts of the run.
Chapter 3-9
Segment 49: I give Geoffrey a master crown since he needs the strength boost for the boss, plus he needs a sol activation at some point to survive all the enemy attacks he faces. I guess Geoffrey moving only one space on turn 4 is curious, but it's the only way for him to be close enough to attack the boss the next turn.
Segment 50: Geoffrey lands a 5% short spear critical on the boss as this is the only way to kill him in one round with a 1-2 range weapon.
Chapter 3-10
Segment 51: After Haar gives Titania a hand axe and re-stocks on his own weapons, I power-level Titania such that she has at least 32 strength and 29 speed by level 20/20/5 as she needs those stats to ORKO part 3 gens and double part 3 SMs. The chapter itself is a straightforward rout, with Haar having to go that far on turn 1 as part of how I minimize the amount of NPC intervention.
Segment 52: The only reason I couldn't do this chapter in a single segment is because Titania has serious durability and hit rate issues when on low biorhythm, which is the case from turn 2 onwards. As such, I have to manipulate her landing all her hits as well as not dying.
Chapter 3-11
Segment 53: There are a lot of intricacies to my strategy regarding this chapter, so bear with me. I'll start with the most obvious thing, which is Haar swapping celerity for pass since a pacifist route to the seize square is faster than killing everything in sight. On turn 1, Ike switches his sword to the ragnell since he can't 1RKO the enemy paladins with the ettard and Titania trades with Haar for one of his "fresh" hand axes in the chapter since it's faster this way than making the trade in the base. Moreover, Janaff is shoved by Mordecai since this is the only way to get him within range of both SMs he faces, which in turn is the only way for him to avoid being attacked after he rescues Leanne on turn 2. As for the rest of turn 2, Tanith must make the first move because the spot she lands on triggers the arrival of Tibarn and Leanne, and Haar and Ike de-equip their weapon for reasons stated earlier. Finally, on turn 3, Janaff moves left to get away from enemy exposure while Tanith rescues Tibarn and goes left for similar reasons, while the rest of the chapter is just Haar ferrying. The manipulations are pretty light for a change, consisting of Titania not missing (remember she's still on low bio), Haar avoiding mage hits and him gaining spd on his lvl-up (30%).
Chapter 3-12
Segment 54: I power level Tauroneo to have him gain +1 str and +2 spd in 3 level-ups, then crown him, as this gives him the stats required to 1RKO paladins with a hand axe and double non-SMs. I also give him pass along with the boots since this allows Tauroneo to descend the cliff in this chapter and shaves off an entire minute in my 3-13 strategy, which is a larger timesaver than what I'd get from giving any other character the boots. Moreover, now that Jill cannot use beastfoe in this chapter, I give her adept and killer axes instead to offset her poor offence, as well as the tomahawk for part 4 use.
Segments 55-56: Pure enemy phase manipulations, seeing as Jill needs either adept or a crit to kill just about every enemy she faces, and that's not even accounting for her accuracy and durability issues. I also have to limit Tauroneo's damage taken to avoid him from activating resolve. I did allow for some leeway, such as Jill not killing an enemy on turn 2 and Tauroneo not landing luna on Kieran, since otherwise the manipulation would've taken forever.
Chapter 3-13
Segment 57: Tauroneo 1HKOes Ike with a luna activation, thus allowing for a 2 turn completion of the chapter.
Chapter 3-E
Segment 58: I power level Ike to cap his spd since I need him to reach 33 spd as soon as possible in order for him to double 4-4 SMs, not to mention he wants the other stat boosts before his auto-promotion once the chapter finishes. Everything else I do in the base is in preparation for part 4.
Segments 59-60: Sigrun ferries Ike east so that Ike can intercept the eastern paladin reinforcements before the hawk NPCs do. Similarly, Haar goes north on turn 1 to divert the NPC cats and tigers to go east, where they basically do nothing but move around uselessly for a good chunk of the chapter. However, Haar has to break east the next turn to take on the bulk of the map's enemies, which is why I have Janaff continue north to intercept further reinforcements. Titania also chips in since she's the only person besides Haar who can 1RKO generals with a hand weapon and she's the only person who's left to attack the enemies north of Ike on turn 4. Manipulations include Haar not being put to sleep (even with the spirit water Haar stands a good chance of going into slumber) and Haar not breaking his hand axes pre-maturely (ie breaking a hand axe without the enemy being attacked dying). Although that doesn't sound like much, the sheer length of this chapter makes it tiring to re-try, so I settled for handling the chapter in 2 segments.
Chapter 4-P
Segment 61: Ike removes nihil since he still needs pass whereas nihil won't even be of use in 4-E based on the strategies I use there. The part 4 army arrangement might be confusing, just keep in mind that whoever I move must be as high in the deployment order as possible, and that I move Nealuchi to army 3 so that he can trade his laguz stone to Reyson. In terms of the chapter, I move some people out of the way so that Haar, Skrimir and Naesala can solo the level. The only difficult aspect of the map aside from getting all my moves right is manipulating Haar to stun the sword gen and the boss he faces on turn 2 (~38%). In retrospect, I probably should've also forced Haar to gain another point of spd on his lvl-up since that would've saved me some grief in 4-4 while keeping the net manipulation a reasonable ~11.4%.
Chapter 4-1
Segment 62: I move out Ike, Titania, Nailah and Jill and battle save on Janaff's second move because the enemy phase manipulation is exceptionally difficult.
Segment 63: Once Janaff rescues Rafiel and retreats, the real fun begins. Jill, who happens to be on low biorhythm, has to land adept on the first enemy she faces (34.39%) while also landing 3 hits in a row (~55%). She then has to dodge a thunder mage attack (~65%) and land another 2 hits (~61%), then Janaff has to land adept or tear on the gen he faces (81%), then Jill has to dodge the warrior (~60%) and land another 2 hits (60ish%), then gain str and spd on her lvl-up (29.25%), then kill the pegasus enemy (80ish%), finishing off this ridiculous string of luck with a kill on the SM (~28%). That makes for roughly a net 0.14% chance of success, which I guarantee you took a good dozen of hours to manipulate.
Segment 64: A relief compared to the previous stuff, but still quite a hefty manipulation. Ike cannot double the boss so he needs an aether activation in a single hit (26%) and to gain +2 str and +1 spd on his 3 lvl-ups (~18%), while Jill has to gain another point of str (45%) along with not missing any hits (at least she has WTA now), giving a net chance of roughly 2.1%. I made a small mistake on Nailah's turn 2 move and a relatively large one with Titania's last move, but I was so fed up with low% manipulations that I couldn't refuse this.
Chapter 4-2
Segment 65: I power level Elincia such that she gains a point of str and spd on all of her lvl-ups, giving her the minimum stats necessary for her to be able to kill 4-2 enemies without a stun activation. I also BEXP Tauroneo 1 level to gain him a point of spd he desperately needs. Furthermore, I remove Elincia's mercy for obvious reasons as well as renewal since she's pretty much guaranteed to get hit at least once throughout the chapter and recovering hp wastes time. Finally, I ensure that Tauroneo kills the sword gen with a hammer whilst not getting hit in return.
Segments 66-67: Both segments involve Tauroneo landing luna on a SM (varies between 23-35% depending on his level and his biorhythm) and him gaining spd (50%) so he can double the 2 pegasi he faces. Probably should've manipulated more dodges for Tauroneo as well since I end up having to heal him with a vulnerary to keep him out of resolve hp. Moreover, I make a mistake moving Elincia down instead of right after her gen kill on turn 4, though that only forces her to move 2 extra spaces to take out the healer northeast of her, so it's pretty negligible.
Segment 68: Tibarn has to dodge or activate pavise on 2 crossbow hits as well as Valtome's attack (~47%), and has to gain str on his lvl-up (40%), but most of all Lucia must crit the second warrior reinforcement she faces to save a turn (9.75%). The net odds roughly come out to 1.83%.
Chapter 4-3
Segment 69: I load Naesala's inventory with items so that when he acquires the laguz gem at the end of the chapter, he can send it to the convoy for Janaff to use in 4-4. Then on turn 1, I move Micaiah north and have Marcia rescue Ilyana as measures taken to prevent an enemy priest from using elsilence. Finally, Skrimir must gain spd on his lvl-up (25%). It's worth noting that I have to manipulate the spd stat of 2 enemies in the chapter so that Skrimir can double them once he gets the opportunity to attack them, hence why I battle save at the end of turn 1.
Segment 70: Haar needs to gain spd to double the storm sword SM he faces (30%) along with dodging a mage attack (40ish%). In case you're wondering why Haar took the spirit water earlier, it's the only way to divert the elsleep staff to being used on Nolan. In retrospect, I probably should've rejected this attempt seeing as the net manipulation was only roughly 12%, meaning my movement mistake with Haar on turn 2 could've easily been ironed out.
Segment 71: Haar has to dodge 1 out of 2 mage attacks he faces (~75%) and stun an SM (38%) while Naesala must gain str on his lvl-up (45%), making for a net manipulation of roughly 12.8%. Unfortunately, Naesala gets criticalled but his lack of remaining hp turns out to be a non-issue because of his reasonably good avo.
Segment 72: Sanaki has to flare or crit the halberdier she faces (~13%) and Skrimir has to gain another point of spd (25%) so that he can double the remaining halberdier near the boss that he faces on turn 4. Net manipulation of ~3.25%.
Segment 73: Sanaki needs a flare or crit vs the mage she attacks (~16%), the rest is pretty straightforward.
Segment 74: Naesala must gain a point of str (45%), acquire the laguz gem (40%) and must land tear on the first general he faces (~69%). Moreover, Skrimir has to dodge both wyvern attacks he faces to stay out of resolve hp (~25%). Net manipulation is about 3.1%.
Chapter 4-4
Segment 75: Jill moves one space up so that I don't have to move Soren out of the way, as he's in the attack range of a halberdier. Moreover, Janaff moves left 1 space after rescuing Rafiel so that he doesn't see any combat since he is currently on low biorhythm, which heavily hurts his chances of adept/tearing whatever enemy he encounters. As for luck manipulation, Titania lands sol on a swordsmaster she can't double (25%) as well as on a general she can't 1RKO (~44%) and gains a point of spd (50%) to increase the probability of doubling the SM reinforcement she faces later on. That amounts to about a 5.5% chance of success.
Segment 76: Ike dodges a sleep staff (<50%), gets 2 consecutive strength growths (30.25%), Titania lands sol on the sword general (~44%) and Jill kills every enemy she faces (~57%). The net manipulation is roughly 12.6%, so I kind of regret not manipulating a str or spd growth for Jill since that would've helped her performance in 4-E(1).
Segment 77: Ike dodges another sleep staff and gets 3 quality level-ups all of which include a strength growth. Not a particularly difficult segment but it cannot be combined into what I do in the next segment since then the manipulation would be outrageous.
Segment 78: This time Janaff dodges the final sleep staff use and he lands tear on the general he's adjacent to. Again, not really that hard to manipulate so this falls under the same logic as the previous segment (easy on its own, excruciatingly difficult to combine with extra turns performed).
Segment 79: I'm a little angry that the reinforcement SM had 30 speed, as he usually has 29, thus allowing Titania to double him. As Titania's on low biorhythm, I opt to just 2 round him as getting a 5% sol along with all the other luck manipulation in this segment is very unrealistic. Speaking of which, I have to ensure Titania's survival (~40%), manipulate 3 tears (~62%) and 2 savages (~36%). I made a mistake on the final move but it was due to nerves and I didn't feel the urge to reject this attempt since this ~8.9% net manipulation took me quite a while to get.
Chapter 4-5
Segment 80: The prep involves putting Tauroneo's pass skill onto Tibarn since he needs it for my 2 turn strategy, as well as removing Reyson's blessing since it takes less time to remove the skill than it does to watch Reyson's blessing animation on turn 2 player phase. The chapter itself consists of moving Tibarn, Elincia and Tauroneo forward as far as possible while still walling in Reyson on turn 1. Then on turn 2 once Elincia and Tibarn get vigored from a better vantage point, Elincia takes out an enemy adjacent to Izuka, giving Tibarn a clear path to the boss.
Chapter 4-E(1)
Segment 81: This is one of those chapters that is far more difficult than it looks. In the base, moving the cursor onto Tibarn and Titania are basically guess moves since you can't count out 5-7 cursor moves at fast speed, though I've gotten to about 80-95% consistency with this in my dozens of hours of practice. When selecting my endgame team, I have 3 batches of unit selections that are also educated guesses, which is why you see me settle for imperfect moves there. But most of all, I have to ensure that all 4 generals Ike faces have 48 hp or less (unless they have less than 30 defence) which is something that sometimes only occurs once every two hours. Also, if you're wondering, Tauroneo is only deployed on my endgame team so that he can trade the hammer to Jill. Finally, Naesala being un-deployed and re-deployed in the advancement isn't a mistake, it was done intentionally to re-position him. However, I did make a planning mistake in having Rafiel use the seraph robe as it turns out he needs to be rescued in 4-E(5) to survive Ashera's AOE attack.
Segment 82: Basically a turn of routine moves that more or less ends after Titania lands a 5.91% crit on Hetzel. Naesala also requires a tear activation (~69%), making the net chance roughly 4%.
Segment 83: Jill has to avoid getting hit (~40%), activate adept on the archer she faces (60%), Haar has to survive a mage onslaught (~50%), Naesala has to land tear on the gen he faces (~69%) and Titania needs to land sol/crit on the gen she faces (~38%) making for a net manipulation of roughly 3.15%.
Segment 84: Jill is only in 3HKO range against the gens on the defensive tiles even with the hammer equipped, plus she only has a hit rate in the 50s vs the sword gens. So, on top of Jill's laborious gen kill (~40%), Naesala needs a point of str (45%) to help him vs the auras in the final chapter and Haar must land a critical hit on Lekain (9% on first hit), making for a net manipulation of ~1.62%. I was actually supposed to battle save after Ike's move but anxiety got the best of me. Fortunately, the only consequences of that is making the next segment take longer to re-try.
Segment 85: Naesala must land another tear (~69%), Jill has to deal with 1 gen of whom she's within 3HKO range (~40%), then has to gain str (45%) to get within 2HKO range on the remaining 2 gens and Tibarn has to gain str to help him vs 4-E(5) auras (40%). Net manipulation of ~4.96%.
Chapter 4-E(2)
Segment 86: I un-deploy all my non-required units since otherwise they'd get attacked on enemy phase before the BK attacks Ike, thus costing a massive amount of time. Ike trades with Titania for the hammer for obvious reasons, and I also have Titania put the Urvan at the top of her inventory so she will get it blessed in 4-E(3). Although it is normally a trivial task to kill the BK with the hammer, I've become so accustomed to manipulations that I have Ike dodge both of the BK's ragnell hits (~3%), thus saving a grand amount of about 2 seconds relative to an optimized attempt where Ike gets hit both times.
Chapter 4-E(3)
Segment 87: I power level Caneighis and Giffca to have them cap their speed and strength as this is required for my strategy in beating Deghinsea, Lehran and the auras.
Segment 88: The only reason I did'nt do this entire chapter single segment is because Ike needs to land a critical on the red dragon he faces (26%) and I can't have Deghinsea land Ire (26.21%), making for a reasonably low 6.76% net chance of success.
Chapter 4-E(4)
Segment 89: Similar to segment 87, I power level Tibarn to gain +1 str and Nailah to gain +2 str and +1 spd as the final statistical preparation step for 4-E(5). I also have to give Tibarn celerity as part of my 1 turning strategy for this chapter.
Segment 90: In order to follow my strategy for this chapter, you simply have to understand how Lehran's guard skill works. Basically, if Lehran gets attacked by a unit who won't kill him in one round, or if he lands a crit or corona, then he lets you attack him directly. Otherwise, he'll divert your attack to an adjacent spirit without exception. I exploit this fact as much as possible by killing the first spirit with Tibarn, shoving the next 2 with Ike and Nailah, having Caneighis kill the farthest one despite targetting Lehran directly and having Giffca finish the job in one round.
Chapter 4-E(5)
Segment 91: The final chapter at last, and I spent more than half a week with recording attempts of this chapter before I got one I was happy with. Just to give you an idea of how difficult the planning alone was, I had to consider what stats my royals needed, what combination of attackers would allow me to 2RKO an aura with as minimal damage as possible, how to position my dragons, how to minimize the amount of re-positioning in the advancement I had to do, how to prevent the 3 spirits from killing any of my units, and what order to move my units in, among other things. I also decided to use only 3 X switches (ie when I press X on the gamecube controller to switch to the next character in my line-up automatically) as manual moves are faster, which increased the difficulty of performance tremendously. In fact, you'll see I still got a good number of minor mistakes, though overall I'm quite pleased with the result.