AM All Swords Maddening NG+
Hey All,
I posted a writeup of my all magic CF run a bit ago, and now that I've wrapped up this run as well, I figured I'd do it again.
Basic Rules I always follow:
No Aux battles other than Quests and Paralogues
No Support Gambits except Stride (whenever I have an extra untrained unit slot)
Don't bother with Stat Boosters other than the ones from Missions/Chests.
Always rout the enemy
Some stretching of the rules I did for this run:
Allowed Dimitri to use Chalice of Beginnings
Allowed Marianne to use white magic (exclusively for healing, could still only attack with swords) on the maps where she came. She was mostly the 11th member, until a certain member went missing.
NG+ Features Used:
Bought Felix back to B Swords
Bought Yuri back to B Swords (early Windsweep was nice)
Bought Byleth to A+ Swords
Bought Byleth to A+ Professor Rank (always do on NG+ because I will never fish again in this game outside of quests)
Bought Catherine to A Support to recruit Chapter 4
Bought Marianne to A Support to recruit ASAP
Units:
Since this was NG+, I decided I had the batallions to make everyone a Wyvern Lord (or Falcoln Knight for the Girls) just for the meme, so why not? It did mean Swordfaire came later (Ingrid literally got it on the last map) or not at all on some units, but whatever, the game's easy enough without it.
Female Class Path:
Fighter > Brigand > Pegasus Knight > Wyvern Rider > Falcon Knight
I left Triangle Attack on every Female Unit (except Marianne, who followed a different path, noted below) on every Map. It only really mattered for Monsters.
Male Class Path:
Fighter > Brigand > Wyvern Rider > Wyvern Lord
Everyone's skill setup was essentially:
Death Blow
Darting Blow (females)
Sword Prowess
Swordfaire (for everyone but Balthus and Dedue by the end)
Axebreaker (for the entire game until the last chapter)
Alert Stance/Alert Stance + (for the last chapter exclusively, with one exception, noted below)
Exceptions will be noted under the specific character
Byleth:
Basic Byleth performed about as well as expected. She doubled a lot of stuff until later and Windsweep and Sublime Creator Sword offered options other units didn't have. Since I cheated her Sword Rank to A+ with NG+, she was the first to get Swordfaire and so was significantly stronger than my other units for a decent chunk of the game. Not much to say, pretty vanilla stuff for her.
Dimitri:
Our first exception to the skill setup. I just did Wo Dao+ Batallion Vantage Batallion Wrath shenanigans, and he was the only one I bothered with Sword Crit +10 on. He could Enemy Phase anything that wasn't a siege weapon, monster, or armored units (he couldn't even kill them with two crits). He was super weak, some would go so far as useless, on player phase, even when I had Death Blow on him, but he made up for that with Windsweep and just running off to the other side of the map to solo it on Enemy Phase, so he was still a strong unit. Timeskip undid literally everything by taking away flying and a damaged batallion, but I just left him in the choke and he dodged/tanked enough to still EP kill most stuff and Byleth hid in the bush in the corner. Most everyone else just died. We'll get to that later.
Dedue:
Early game, Dedue was awesome. He took 0 damage from a bunch of stuff, and I got speed blessed, so he doubled enemies, too. He was my most fun and reliable unit to use. The timeskip ruined him. It left him so far behind in training and levels, and he ended the game with 32 Strength, which tied my other weakest unit, Petra, but he couldn't double or get Swordfaire. He was still kind of tanky by the endgame, but doubles still killed or almost killed him and any brawling enemies would delete him. He basically spent most of the game after he came back killing things with one health (or more often, missing, even with an accuracy ring and Grounder, hitting like 75% with an Iron Sword+), and generally staying behind as a liability.
Ferdinand:
Certified as Dancer, never danced once. Just took Sword Dance and Sword Avoid +20 and continued on his merry way. He kept Sword Prowess, Sword Avoid, Alert Stance+, Death Blow, Str +2/Axebreaker. He couldn't be hit by anything ever, and he served as my secondary Enemy Phase Unit. Essentially, Dimitri cleared one side of the map himself, then Ferdinand pulled enemies on the other side to the rest of the team. He also functioned like a Windsweeper, since he could Sword Dance and never get Counterattacked, since he was never doubling anyway. Very good dodgetank, very mediocre Damage Dealer (but still much better than Dedue, or even Balthus by endgame).
Felix:
I'd just like to start by saying Felix failed his Wyvern Lord certification every week for 3 straight months at 74%, and was my last Wyvern Lord. In fact, Dedue certified 7 levels lower than Felix, and Seteth certified at around 5 levels lower, if I recall. So there's that. Other than that, he doubled everything, he crit some things, and he was fairly dodgy. He was among the strongest units, and one of the most accurate with no help, for what that was worth. We all know Felix is good with Swords (and any physical weapon, for that matter), go figure.
Ingrid:
Ingrid was a lot better than I expected, since everyone talks about how she's so fast but doesn't have any Strength. She ended up with more Strength than Dedue, at 34, following the same path all my Female Units did: Brigand > Pegasus Knight > Wyvern Rider > Falcon Knight. I gave her the Aegis Shield, since with her high Speed and Strength, she could more or less negate the weight and still double. She had the highest mixed bulk on the team (obviously for Res, but surprisingly good Def as well). She was a very solid unit throughout the entire game, with some growing pains toward the end of Part 1, but picking pack up for Part 2, to end up being probably my best all around unit (Offense/Defense) with no real weaknesses.
Petra:
She did what I expected Ingrid to do, doubled stuff for very little damage. She could double a lot of enemies in the endgame... for 6 damage x2. I think she ended the game with 32 Strength, but holy cow, when I have to equip Death Blow and Swordfaire, just to make you do any damage at all, it's a bit of a problem. She basically sucked all throughout part 2, failing to kill Armored Knights and Cavalry with a Rapier (which I had to take away from her so it wouldn't be wasted). She cleaned some stuff up, and Triangle Attacked Monsters with decent crit. Not much else to say, but meh, not as bad as Dedue, but not much better.
Balthus:
I didn't use Balthus as my tank in the beginning because I had Dedue, and eventually Ferdinand, and later, he just couldn't do the job. He basically followed Yuri around for support (which he needed to hit anything) and started off monsters with Bane of Monsters to get the shield break stun chain going. He was alright. I gave him a Brave Sword he never used because he couldn't get over 30 hit with it, but with an Accuracy Ring and Grounder and Yuri support, he could hit some stuff with normal swords. Since his perf was near useless later as everything killed him from half, I picked up Healing Focus and just used him to sponge up general damage. He was weaker than I thought he'd be, but still better than Dedue and probably on par with/better than Petra.
Yuri:
Yuri literally got every stat for his first like 10 level ups. He was a god throughout the entire game. Since I bought back his B Swords, he started with Windsweep, and his natural Speed, combined with his abnormally high Strength/Def/Res made him an excellent frontliner throughout. He also has high charm and buffs and gets buffed by Byleth due to his Lord status, so yeah, he was just amazing. No real complaints. Basically a second Felix.
Marianne:
So she was a bit different. I went Monk > Mage > Dark Flier. Her skill setup was Mag +2, Fiendish Blow, Mov +1, Sword Prowess, Axebreaker. I allowed her to heal until she got Soulblade. Once she got Soulblade, she oneshot literally everything in the game that wasn't a Warmaster/Falcon Knight or Monster. I'm not exaggerating. Literally everything. It helped with evasive enemies in bushes, and Lance users with Swordbreaker+ to use the magic hit formula, too. She was amazing, and when it was too risky to move her up for the kill, she could physic, which was nice because I spent the entire game low on Vulneraries, Concoctions as I never bought them and having no ranged options for the majority of the game meant a lot of trading damage. Her frailty meant she did spend the majority of the last map hiding in a corner, and with only 5 Physic, she didn't have much to do after said corner was cleared out.
Catherine:
Beast early, still pretty good late. She couldn't one round things anymore as the game went on, but if anyone like Dedue/Balthus/Petra could do their 4-6 damage they usually did, she could get the job done. I also picked up Healing Focus later, which was nice because she doubled so much and took so many hits in between. I hoarded Thunderbrand and it finished the game at 26/30 because she quadded the final boss for one health bar.
Seteth:
Kind of part of the team? I guess. I did promote him to Wyvern Lord. He was alright, honestly a bit stronger than Dedue (I can't get over how badly the timeskip screwed him over), and he sat in the opposite corner of Marianne for the final chapter, twiddling his thumbs.
Adjutants:
Shamir (sometimes) for Catherine
Flayn (sometimes) for Byleth/Seteth
Lorenz for Ferdinand
Sylvain for Ingrid
Overall Stuff:
Edelgard, while being complete BS mechanically (full map range and Vantage/Wrath with Counterattack is just bad design, objectively), ended up being the second easiest boss (right after Nemesis, who literally never bothers you and patiently waits until you show up to kill him and then just rolls over and dies, the downsides of not being a monster, even if that's still my favorite final stage). Basically, I gave everyone Alert Stance and she had 0 hit on my entire team, and Marianne and Seteth were excluded from the map because they couldn't dodge or take a hit from Edelgard. The rest of the map was a breeze, just a matter of determining who could attack and who had to wait because of Edelgard. Her always wasting one attack on Dimitri was convenient. Her attack being a siege thing was a bit annoying, but would have further trivialized her fight if not. I had Balthus and Dedue hit her to break the shield and take the counter attack. Dodgy weaker hitters like Petra and Ferdinand softened up each healthbar to above half (in Petra's case, with Triangle Attack 100% crit, she still left a healthbar above half). Catherine soloed the second to last healthbar with a Quad from Thunderbrand. Final Healthbar plan was to use Felix to get her to just above half, where Dimitri, Yuri and Byleth could finish her with Windsweep. I picked the weakest attack with the lowest crit, but Felix crit anyway. Then I realized that didn't matter, and Windsweep spammed her to death. I one rounded her with no difficulty, pretty easy to hit, couldn't oneshot my tankier people and was slow enough to get doubled by almost everyone. I was a bit disappointed when I got to her to be honest, because I was so scared of her on the way there.
I couldn't hit a Falcon Knight for the entire game, let alone kill one. I specifically used Ashes and Dust to kill 2 Falcon Knights on any chapter that had them. When that wasn't an option, it was just a bunch of spamming 40% Grounder/Windsweep hits at them. Luckily, everyone gets Grounder.
Early game was super rough, with melee range both requiring taking a lot of damage, and making it so I could almost never attack a unit with more than 2 of my own. With no one having a 2-range option, this usually meant attacking, taking damage on the counter, then getting attacked again during Enemy Phase, so it was basically Dedue city. Taking up 1 of only 4 available adjacent tiles was also obnoxious and a problem for any melee heavy/only run, but flying fixed that later, as did the Sublime Creator Sword. I imagine this will be a bigger issue with Axes/Brawling/Lances, though Axes have Bolt Axes and Hand Axes, and Lances get Javelins/Shortspears, all of which are just worse Bows, but still. But all brawl is going to be a nightmare, I think because you can't use mounts for Canto and they don't get any ranged options at all, except maybe Pneuma Gale? Swords not having a throwing weapon is a bit obnoxious, though. Levin Swords aren't exectly readily available for the majority of the game, and the only competent wielder of one I had was Marianne, who would have to trade one-shotting an enemy for chipping it from a distance, which didn't really seem like a worthwhile trade most of the time.
Siege Tomes on this route are a complete joke. I don't know if I'll ever do a Vantage/Wrath build again. With the weakest weapon in the game (sword), Dimitri literally just handled an entire side of the map (and probably could have done the majority of every map) by himself. It was really funny and cool at first, but by the end, it just became a "I don't want to deal with this, I'll just throw Dimitri over there" kind of thing, and I don't want to play this type of game to turn my brain off. Very strong build, very powerful, very boring to me.
In Conclusion:
This sword run definitely started off harder than the all mage run, but having units who could tank and dodge later, and Dimitri, made Enemy Phase an option later, and all Flying Canto opened up a lot more options for me as well. I'd probably say this one ended up being easier (and the final map was 100% easier, but still annoying to playthrough because of siege weapon (not tome) spam, including the boss).
This route infuriates me. Completely neutering Dimitri in Hunting by Daybreak, not allowing you to tutor him for a substantial portion as well, and taking away Dedue for so long, he's useless upon his return (without a batallion for that map, too, mind you), and the final boss's design (even if she did die in one round), just all serve to take away player agency. It basically tells you you are not allowed to play the game you want to and you are being punished for going this route by hindering any progress for two of your route-exclusive characters to such a degree it becomes a burden to continue to use one of them. Dimitri couldn't promote to Wyvern Lord until he was almost level 40 because of no skill ranks. It also threw Gilbert at us in a terrible state and shows him at his worst, where he can't even do the one job he's supposed to be good at, tank.
I literally had to watch Gilbert and Ashe, and Mercedes and Annette die because there was no safe spot to tuck them while Dimitri and Byleth hid in their own corner. That's just bad map design, and bad game design for all the other problems surrounding the Hunting by Daybreak chapter in general (no prep, staggered units, reclassing and reequipping a new batallion on your Lord). Honestly, Hunting by Daybreak/Reunion at Dawn is always the thing that hinders any cool challenge run ideas I have the most. It's such an annoying hurdle to any fun run that isn't worth it, as it doesn't add or do anything interesting.
Would I Recommend Trying?:
I probably wouldn't recommend an all-sword run to anyone else, though, as the "cool" swords are all rather boring, the Sublime Creator Sword, the Sword of Zoltan (just a silver sword basically), Sword of Moralta (silver sword with crit), Blutgang (a magical silver sword, that with soul-blade, did the exact same damage as a Silver Sword+ on Marianne, I never used it once). If you want to pick the strongest melee weapon, swords aren't it, but any physical unit will still trivialize the games with them.
Honestly, the problem with this mono-weapon run, as opposed to the mono-magic run, is though I got to use some of the cool items I got (swords, shields, rings, etc), it sucked to see all the cool diverse stuff I was passing up. With magic, you have your cool spells, and you still get to use some stuff like Magic Staff, Healing Staff, Thyrsus, Caduceus Staff, etc. and at least, you know you can't use ANY weapon, so it somehow stings less? It just kinda sucked to see a cool lance or axe and go "guess I'm just stuck with this sword." I think the diversity makes the game a bit more interesting with weapon variety. I also really enjoy, and want to try more, specializing in 2 weapons, so you can respond to enemy breaker skills with that unit, rather than having an enemy skill completely invalidate your units. I had to spam Grounder Rapier so many times throughout this playthrough for Cavaliers/Paladins/Pegasus Knights/Falcon Knights, etc.
I think part of it comes down to there being just a few really powerful mages, and having to figure out what to do with the rest of them, but almost everyone else in the game being a super strong heavy hitting physical unit, so doing any mono-weapon run, as opposed to a mono-magic run just doesn't feel like you're really doing anything special.
It was still a fun run, but the above flaws definitely place it below my Mono-Magic Run for me.
Side Note:
If you've made it this far, maybe you care enough to hear me complain about my current VW run, where Lysithea is level 12 with 11 magic. Yeah, that's right, literally her base. She promoted to Monk at 5 and Mage at 10. She's actually still fairly solid, but a lot weaker than I'm used to her being. That's all.
Questions/Comments/Concerns?:
Ask them in the comments. The whole point of this was just to generate discussion. As much as I enjoy playing this game, I also enjoy talking about it, so I'm open to any discussion of the game, this run, my mono-magic run, my current run, whatever.
TLDR:
A lot of complaining about the game, but I really enjoy the game anyway and keep replaying it doing different stuff because I ultimately have fun doing it, and started posting here, because I enjoy discussion about it. Discuss!