What's the harm in a little reckless besieging? Let's Play FE: The Sacred Stones

Fix'd

I really wish my FE7 cartridge didn't have a defect where it erased my file after I turned off the game. That wasn't very fun. I still have Sacred Stones, and I've yet to beat it on hard (which is sad, because I was storming through Eliwood Hard Mode for FE7 before it erased my file). Maybe I'll pick FE8 up again.

Great Knight does bog her down, but she's no better as a Pally or a General. I stand by my choice, but I completely agree that Amelia is great no matter how you use her. I just didn't like her that much as a General, as that's the path I took my first time through the game.

Not really! Amelia's not really bulky enough to afford going General or Great Knight, especially since the low speed caps would be letting her speed growth go to waste and her defense is too low to really tank out enemy hit after the other. The Paladin's caps better fit her decent growths across the board and the 8 move makes her great at the hit-and-run tactics I usually use her for anyway.

Pffft, that's Brom. A stiff breeze could beat Brom.

Ah, but can a breeze beat him so gracefully? I <3 Nephenee

Absolutely not, Generals have an exceptional stat spread in this game. The only advantage of the Paladin is its extra move points. Otherwise, General caps speed at the same level as Paladin, but has a higher strength cap not to mention significantly better bonuses on promotion. The Paladin's lower constitution actually makes it worse for capitalizing on speed. Meanwhile the promotion bonuses will help to supplement Amelia's defenses, making hit and run tactics unnecessary. Plus you get the full weapon triangle, which means you can choose optimally to further capitalize on the better strength.

Papillonreel is absolutely right. Despite is kinda bad caps Paladin is a better statistical fit for Amelia. But that doesn't really matter because just about any character will be a steamroller by the endgame.

Also, Nephenee is the bast.

What Umby said is true. Sacred Stones is super easy /especially/ if you grind.

And yeah, Paladin makes a lot more sense for Amelia's growths. I do turn her into a General frequently but it just feels right to put her on a horse and a cute ponytail.

And flirt up Franz. Cute ponytail power go!

Female General Caps:

HP: 60 Str: 27 Skl: 28 Spd: 25 Def: 29 Res: 26 Luck: 30

Female Paladin Caps:

HP: 60 Str: 23 Skl: 27 Spd: 25 Def: 24 Res: 26 Luck: 30

There, see? General!Amelia matches or exceeds Paladin!Amelia in every way but Move (and that's nothing a Swiftsoles won't help with).

And note the stat I bolded.

Incidentally...

Male Great Knight Caps:

HP: 60 Str: 28 Skl: 24 Spd: 24 Def: 29 Res: 25 Luck: 30

Male Paladin Caps:

HP: 60 Str: 25 Skl: 26 Spd: 24: Def: 25 Res: 25 Luck: 30

Yeah, Paladins get an extra 2 skill points, but I think you'll agree that Great Knights are better.

Especially since Paladins can't use all three weapons in this game.

Paladins honestly just suck this game.

They do. But the Great Knight doesn't have a cute ponytail. Or a good-looking sprite.

That said, I find I usually end up with a Paladin and a Great Knight. I've found that despite the hardcore crazy awesome generals are, I just use Warriors and Heroes. Because those dudes are awesome.

Fixed for you.

BARTRE THE BRAVE is the only unit who deserves to be a Warrior in my opinion.

Okay, fine, but in terms of cuteness Ponytail!Amelia kicks Armor!Amelia's butt any day of the week. This is a FACT that you can't DISPUTE.

END OF ARGUMENT.

(Also Gilliam's already a kickbutt Knight, while three out of three Cavaliers either have sucky personalities or meh stats. Might as well redeem the class somehow and Amelia's the fastest way to do so.)

Warriors have the axe tornado.

I'm pretty sure Gilliam is the ONLY natural Knight.

Outside of the secret characters anyways.

Also, as far as the game is concerned everyone looks like their portrait when they fight.

Which makes it kind of odd that Amelia's Paladin sprite has a ponytail when she doesn't.

Actually, Cavalier!Amelia has the ponytail. Female paladins just have really long hair or something. That ponytail is totally worth turning Amelia into a Cavalier. And Neimi to a snipe- okay, maybe not that. Maybe.

The only reason Neimi should be a Sniper is if you're trying to support her with Colm or something.

Speaking of Colm, he has to become a Rogue. They're better than Assasins in every way, including reason (so Thieves become Assasins... why, again?).

...don't most people support them? The other nice ones are her supports with Amelia and Gilliam, I think.

Man, Colm and Neimi's support is almost, like, painfully adorable. Almost. (Though I've only ever gone Ranger with Neimi, personally)

I agree on both accounts. I think the extra move and speed for Neimi is probably why Ranger is the best choice. Oh, and swords doesn't hurt.

I'd actually put in my vote for Ewan going SUPER PUPIL. That'd just be awesome.

Yeah, but if Neimi's a Ranger her move will be much higher than Colm's (obviously), so she'll never really be standing close enough to Colm to get Support bonuses.

And honestly, Ewan is just a "why bother" character. He's like Nino, just not as likable and completely outclassed by the "Erk" of this game (Lute).

Speaking of Lute, I will forever be annoyed she doesn't get a double ending with Ross.

Fixed. They just play off each other so well!

...Pap, your memory okay?

Oops, I thought you were saying we should support Lute with Ross. Sorry.

I'm just pointing out that FE8 really dropped the ball on double endings.

I mean, at least with FE6 it was understandable (first game with supports after all), but why in FE8?

Meh, I'm still more annoyed FE9 didn't have an Ike-Mia support so whatever.

So how worth it is the Super Trainee thing? I just got Ross to 10 in a file I started recently, and I've never tried it before. It would have to be pretty awesome for me to choose it over Berserker, though, in his case.

I would love to keep all three with their original sprites, since they're all generic-looking and lacking in personality by comparison once they promote.

Let's see...

Super Journeyman caps:
HP: 60 Str: 26 Skl: 29 Spd: 28 Def: 23 Res: 23 Luck: 30
Skill: +15% critical.

Super Journeyman is essentially a nerfed Berserker. So skip that.

Super Recruit caps:
HP: 60 Str: 23 Skl: 30 Spd: 29 Def: 22 Res: 26 Luck: 30
Skill: +15% critical.

Super Recruit is pretty meh. More Speed, but less attack.

Super Pupil caps:
HP: 60 Mag: 29 Skl: 28 Spd: 27 Def: 21 Res: 26 Luck: 30
"Skill": All three magic elements.

Super Pupil is decent, but Sages are better. Dark Magic sucks in this game anyways.

EDIT: Actually, as it turns out, yeah, Ewan is probably best as Super Pupil. You know, aside from that whole 5 Con thing.

HOWEVER:

I'm pretty sure that the Super *insert classes* get absolutely no Constitution increase, making them all pretty fail.

They all have 6 Move though.

Aw, those are kind of mediocre.

Then again, this is Sacred Stones, where mediocre is more than sufficient.

Why bother? Because he has great growths, the ability to use all types of magic and even if he doesn't, he's great as a Mage Knight. Lute isn't exactly the most sturdy mage this game. Let's take a look at her growths compared to Ewan's.

Essentially, Ewan has less of a magic growth and speed growth, for the gain of a better HP growth, skill growth, and luck growth. Admittedly, this isn't that tempting. But if you consider that Ewan has thirty (count them, three-oh) levels to grow, this is completely negated, and when you're playing FE8 you can just grind for experience. No point not to use Ewan. Besides, he comes much, much earlier than Nino in FE7 (who came in the last third of FE7) at a little before the halfway point.

Ewan's growths favor a Mage Knight build, who has more con and movement, but comes at the cost of no light magic and a lower magic cap. Lute could utilize the higher con, but she fits a Sage build more.

I've always used the three recruits, mostly because it's not a hassle to train Ross, less of one to train Amelia, and Ewan uses magic so it's worth it.

Say, let's take a look at Ewan's average 10/20/20 stats as a Sage and compare to them to Lute's at 20/20.

Bolded skills are capped.

Ewan - Sage
HP 44 Str 21 Skl 22 Spd 23 Lck 29 Def 11 Res 25

Lute - Sage
HP 37 Str 30 Skl 18 Spd 24 Lck Def 12 Res 23

Would you look at that. Even with an extra 10 levels (technically only 9 but whatever) the only thing Ewan's got going for him is his Skill since seriously if your long range characters are even getting hit by the enemy something is seriously wrong with your strategy.

Okay, let's try them as Mage Knights.

Ewan - Mage Knight
HP 44 Str 24 Skl 22 Spd 23 Lck 29 Def 10 Res 25

Lute - Mage Knight
HP 37 Str 25 Skl 18 Spd 24 Lck 25 Def 11 Res 22

So even as a Mage Knight, a class that's REALLY bad for Lute, she still beats Ewan in all that's really important for a mage except Skill. Boy sure is showing those 10 extra levels huh?

Well, let's go see what he is as his other classes. Maybe he'll do better there.

HP 44 Str 26 Skl 21 Spd 25 Lck 29 Def 10 Res 26

Oh, wow, look at this! Man, what class is this? This is probably the best possible one for Ewan!

It's him as a Druid. You know, those guys? Use Dark magic? Are really slow? No longer have the game breaking Luna?

Okay, how about as a Summoner?

HP 43 Str 26 Skl 22 Spd 25 Lck 29 Def 9 Res 27

That's also pretty good. Too bad, again, Summoners use Dark magic.

But what about as a Super Pupil? After all, in that class he can use ALL TYPES OF MAGIC!

HP 45 Str 27 Skl 22 Spd 22 Lck 29 Def 12 Res 26

Wow... that's actually really good as we- oh, wait, his Con is 5 he's not doing anything spectacular.

Moving on, the ability to use ALL TYPES OF MAGIC is actually accessible to any Sage through the use of the mine trick.

Oh, and, by the way? Dark magic is kind of fail in this game so the Sage's access to Light and Anima is more than enough.

tl;dr
Is Ewan usable? Yes. Should you really bother to use him if you've already got Lute and Artur? Not... really.

You forget that Druids can use Anima, and you also don't compare Lute as a Sage to Ewan as a Mage Knight. I'm not saying that Ewan is a super god, but I really found him useful every time I've used him. No need to get all angry about it. He's been worth the trouble to me, and besides, this is FE8. No need for crazy awesome parties.

Seriously? Wow, I didn't actually remember that.

The stats are right there, you can do it yourself. But, if you insist:

Lute - Sage:
HP 37 Str 30 Skl 18 Spd 24 Lck Def 12 Res 23

Ewan - Mage Knight
HP 44 Str 24 Skl 22 Spd 23 Lck 29 Def 10 Res 25

All Ewan's got going for him, as usual, is his Skill. Well, Move this time too.

It's been stated repeatedly in this thread that everyone is usable in this game. This doesn't mean that they're all equal though.

If I "sound" angry, that's entirely your imagination. Seriously, why would I care about something like this?

And I'm pretty sure there's a saying in the Fire Emblem fanbase about this...

Oh, right.