I like the vanilla Paladin animations more, so I'm kinda glad they're limited to Seth.
This hack sure does have quite a few stationary enemies, though. I didn't expect that going in.
The Sacred-er Stones? Let's Play Fire Emblem: Sacred War [abandoned]
I honestly don't like it much either, and I think I like it less the more I watch it (though I do think his sprites look very good). The lack of momentum is a very good way of explaining what the problem is. I do think it's very smooth compared to a lot of fan-made animations I've seen, though, which is what was impressing me earlier.
I dunno, I'd take it over the paladin's charge-in-place crit animation but that's some of the faintest praise I can think of there, GBA FE crit animations without ridiculous over-the-top flourishes are just kind of sad to me.
Yeah, the lack of momentum is really hurting an otherwise well-done animation. Seth coming to a dead stop to attack makes it lack a lot of punch compared to Paladin or Great Knight (which does a similar stop before the attack, but keeps up momentum by having the horse rear up and come down with the blade).
Welcome back! Time for some magic.
We're given one more deployment slot than normal, so Seth is the only one sitting this out. Also, notably, you don't actually need to deploy Eirika on non-Seize maps.
I...somehow missed taking screenshots of Artur's stats and growths, so here they are as presented in the hack's documentation:
Code: Select all
Base stats:
Name Lv Class HP S/M Skl Spd Lck Def Res Mov Con Affin
Artur 3+ Monk 21(+2) 6 7(+1) 8 5(+3) 3(+1) 7(+1) 5 6 Ice
Growths:
Name HP S/M Skl Spd Lck Def Res
Artur 60(+5) 40(-10) 50 50(+10) 25 20(+5) 50(-5)
Lightning: 95->100 Hit, 5->15 Crit, 35->50 uses
If you look closely here, you'll notice that Tethys' sprite seems to have changed to Lyn's Blade Lord sprite from FE7. Interesting...
The map for this chapter has been stretched vertically with Lute's village all the way at the bottom, and the layout is such that you're pretty much going through every enemy on the map. Granted, given that the objective is to rout, that isn't a problem.
Anyway, let's get to it. Neimi and Colm get started on the combat with this Revenant. With 31 enemies, we've got our work cut out for us. (The village Ross visited has an Iron Axe, just like in vanilla FE8)
Thank you, Colm.
The crit buff to Lightning makes enemies like the Revenants easier to take down (not that they were difficult in the first place), but even with it Artur still needs to land both crits to kill in one round (he lands neither here).
Most of the Bonewalkers have swords, so Franz is borrowing Seth's Silver Lance and going off to the east...
...for better results than Colm.
Vanessa is helping him too.
Meanwhile, Gilliam continues to kick ass by doubling this revenant.
Garcia takes on this Revenant on the bridge, causing a few more to be magnetically drawn to him on the enemy phase.
Thank you, Garcia.
I get kind of a close call when this
Artur continues to not crit while fighting the Stalker...
...while Neimi takes out this Revenant that tried to come at her.
Moulder brings Colm back from his brush with death, and he goes to finish the Revenant next to him.
His best level yet, folks!
Franz, Eirika and Vanessa make it to this island, which is basically just a meat grinder of Bonewalkers running headlong into Franz.
Close call number 2... This one actually manages to hit.
The Rausten Comedy Troupe makes their cameo, a few more enemies spawn, and we're back in control.
Eirika cuts through this Bonewalker to give Franz a path to the forest so he can heal and tank better.
Vanessa, for her part, works on distracting this Stalker.
Meanwhile, Garcia and Ross start their support chain while everyone else crosses this bridge...
...particularly Gilliam, who charges forward into the fray.
In doing so, he shows off his axe crit animation!
He takes out another mook on the enemy phase and continues to impress.
I'm three for three on Stalker close calls...
Get the fuck out of here.
Thank god for these things taking effective damage against bows.
Colm is also here to fight these guys, because there's a neverending stream of them as reinforcements.
Franz continues to deal with the boney boys, and continues to get stronger.
Eirika, meanwhile, is in a pretty precarious situation, so she just chills and heals.
She takes out one of the Bonewalkers on the enemy phase, and...
Neimi starts off the next turn with a pretty good level!
Ross has come over to Bonewalker Island for some experience, with Vanessa's help.
Franz breaks down the snag, and Eirika deals with the last Bonewalker here.
Elsewhere, Gilliam continues to carry his weight and then some.
At the start of the next turn, Colm finishes off one of the last revenant reinforcements for an actually good level!
Artur gets the last of them to finally level up, but the wait is worth it. Even with Lightning's buffed crit rate, he hasn't landed a single crit.
Ross takes point on the bridge after Franz created it, and ends up taking out a bonewalker to VERY good effect.
Oh, now you crit after I gripe about it!
Vanessa is on her way to recruit Lute at some point before the end of the chapter - it's kind of hard to get her much experience in this chapter given the map layout.
On the enemy phase, Eirika gets the elusive Double Crit (tm) against a Bonewalker.
That's all that happens on that enemy turn, so Artur and Vanessa work on letting everyone else move up. Another nice little touch added by this hack is that you can actually see the icon of the weapons being used if you turn off battle animations.
She then gets accosted by three revenants, and gets... the best level of anyone thus far. Damn.
Ross can reliably double now... They grow up so fast ;_;
The same exact level?!
Turn 9 with 8 enemies left, and Lute's in the party.
Stat changes: +4 levels, +3 HP, +3 Mag, +2 Skl, +1 Spd, +3 Res
Growth changes: +5% HP, -10% Mag, +15% Def, -5% Res
Here's a good example of this hack making sure people are usable and able to keep pace with your party right out of the gate - Lute's seen a big boost to all of her stats, but her level's also been raised to match. Again, the loss of Magic growth isn't great, but I'll take it if it means Lute doesn't die to a melee unit looking in her general vicinity.
Fire: 40->50 uses
Thunder: 8->7 Might, 30->50 uses
I appreciate the variety in Lute's inventory, but...If she could get two different tomes to start with, why couldn't Artur?
Anyway, Lute starts off by finishing one of these dudes that Vanessa fought.
Artur finishes the other and puts his extra 10% in speed to good use.
Here's the chapter boss, but you wouldn't be able to tell given it got demoted from an Entombed. It's mostly an EXP pinata, like in the original game, albeit a stronger one than normal.
Neimi still needs to get some experience, so she comes in and takes a crack at the "boss".
Can Eirika turn her bad luck around?
...Sort of!
Now that we're at the bottom of the map, some extra reinforcements just kind of... appear, with zero animation.
I again find myself wishing I had bought a steel bow for Neimi so she can one-shot this thing, but I'll have another chance to get one soon.
Vanessa, Lute and Artur all work on dealing with the rest of the enemies. Lute having Thunder is handy, but she still can't one-round these guys unless she crits (she doesn't).
I switched Franz to the Iron Lance to give the Silver one a break, but even without it he's doing just fine.
Juuuust fine.
Just... fine? Whatever, we're almost done here.
Neimi can't find the crit to finish this thing, but she gets a good level for her trouble.
Moulder patches up Franz for an also good result. And then the last non-boss enemies fall to
Garcia,
Ross,
Franz (who continues to be unstoppable),
and Lute.
Artur and Gilliam also soften up the boss to let Colm get the glory(?) of finishing it off.
How did three different people get the same exact almost-perfect level?! Oh well, this is a good note to end on.
NEXT TIME:
Oh, Joshua, don't string me along like that...
I am mildly concerned about Tethys possibly being reclassed out of Dancer. On the other hand, all speed and little strength sums up my Eirika experiences as well.
Mass reinforcement spam is never a good sign, and revenant flood in particular is just a bore in every way imaginable.
This Eirika is starting to look a little concerning but still probably better than some bad lord starts I've had to work with (hi let me tell you about my first PoR playthrough where Ike was adamantly against the idea of gaining strength or speed for like 10 levels).
This Eirika is starting to look a little concerning but still probably better than some bad lord starts I've had to work with (hi let me tell you about my first PoR playthrough where Ike was adamantly against the idea of gaining strength or speed for like 10 levels).
Hmm. I just realized at least a few characters had portrait edits done, though most are pretty subtle so far outside of Neimi's new green leather top. I wonder why that change was made?
Reinforcement spam isn't promising; hopefully it's just an unfortunate one-off choice rather than indicative of overall game design philosophy as the hack goes on.
Reinforcement spam isn't promising; hopefully it's just an unfortunate one-off choice rather than indicative of overall game design philosophy as the hack goes on.
Well, last chapter was kind of annoying. Time for one that's... only partially a slog.
Already, we can see that the map of Serafew has changed up considerably, with us going from west to east as opposed to south to north.
We're again up a deployment slot, but given that, like last chapter, the map has become bigger, it's a good change. Speaking of good changes, let's look at Natasha.
Stat changes: +2 levels, +3 HP, +1 Mag, +1 Skl, +1 Lck, +1 Def, +1 Res
Growth changes: +5% Spd, +5% Def, -5% Res
Natasha's changes are more to help her get up to speed opposed to helping her in the long run - she didn't really need much help in the growth department compared to Moulder.
Her inventory is the same as in the base game - Mend staff and a Vulnerary. There's no real setup to be done, but before we start...
Here's the chapter map as exported from FEBuilder. As I said earlier, we start in the west and have to move east and defeat Saar. While the town having distinct streets is a nice touch, there's no reason to not go straight through the center. The most glaring change here is that the arena is gone - actually, all of the arenas are gone. There's still skirmishes if you really need to grind for EXP, but there's an inherent problem with that which we'll see eventually.
Without an arena to scurry out from, Joshua just runs in from off-screen and takes up position in this forest.
Camera, what are you doing? This isn't even close to Natasha's actual position.
Gilliam visits the first house for... another Dragon Tear. So people just have these things laying around? The house's dialogue does change to reflect it not giving an Armorslayer, instead calling the Dragon Tear a potion that "makes your potential grow faster".
Garcia is going over here to bait out this archer in order to let Vanessa grab the house he's guarding later, and everyone else shuffles forward.
Ross gets the fighting started with a bang as he takes out the first soldier.
The Cavaliers on this map are new, and they're going to be pouring in from the top and bottom of this side street for the first few turns.
And they have the color palette of generic allied cavaliers, for some reason.
Artur finishes off the Archer that Garcia fought for... this. The Defense is nice, at least.
Vanessa then dips into the house for a Dragonshield. Something I forgot to mention earlier is that while most of the stat boosters have remained the same, the Angelic Robe has been nerfed to boost HP by 5 instead of 7, similar to Awakening and Fates.
I'm not fond of using the Rapier like this against normal enemies, but thanks to how strength-screwed Eirika is so far, she needs it to be able to one-round these cavs.
I have Neimi take the Star Seal from Ross in the hopes that it would let her get the kill on this guy, but no dice. She could use the boost more, though, so she's keeping the seal.
Gilliam finishes him instead, and I wish he didn't.
The Silver Lance is proving to be a godsend.
I lost a few early runs to these Fighters, because they always seemed to get absurdly lucky at hitting Lute despite her being parked in a forest.
This time, though, she endures, with this godawful level as her participation trophy.
Oh yeah, these guys. Fortunately they're not likely to get to the houses, but there's a second set of them from the top too.
Ross helps clean up the Cavaliers, and-- oh god, not you too... At least it's a more important stat than Skill.
Also, I have Gilliam actually use a lance for what feels like the first time ever.
Eirika gets accosted by a cavalier and proves that she's been listening to me complain about her lack of strength.
At this point I turned off the backgrounds for battle animations, because as nice as the new backgrounds are I figure with new maps it's a little easier to tell what's going on if you can see the map in the background.
Franz picks a fight with this merc in the interest of actually getting to check out what's in these shops,
and the last of the enemy cavs goes down to Lute and Artur.
Archery contest! No one wins, and then it's on pause forever. You may have noticed the Wyvern Riders near the edge of the frame here; I'll come back to them in a sec.
Mostly because these Brigands have finally caught up... Eirika and Gilliam will be staying back to serve as distractions for them.
Vanessa finishes the archer for a very Vanessa level.
Meanwhile, Franz hits up the Vendor, which has had everything in its inventory switched out for its D-rank counterparts.
Shine: 8->7 Weight, 8->20 Crit, 30->50 uses
Franz picks up a Shine and a Mend - Lute doesn't need the extra Thunder.
Now, normally Franz would be in range of these fliers, but by some act of mercy they can't actually fly over the walls? So we're safe until we actually cross into the east half of the map.
Hi, Joshua! That's a fancy-looking sword you've got there.
Stat changes: +2 levels, +1 HP, +1 Skl, +1 Def, +2 Res, -1 Con
Growth changes: -15% HP, +10% Str, -5% Skl, +5% Def, +5% Res
Joshua's stat boosts aren't all that impressive when you also consider that he's up two levels, but he makes up for that in growth department. I do have to question why he was given more skill when that's a cap he rams pretty hard anyway, but whatever.
Killing Edge: 8->7 Might, 30->50 uses
Looks aside, the Killing Edge sadly isn't all that impressive, especially with the crit nerf taken into consideration.
(ignore my gold count here - I somehow missed taking a screenshot of the armory the first time and had to go back and do it later in the chapter)
Joshua heads off to the armory, and I'm suddenly regretting spending money at the vendor because I forgot you get Silver this early and I'm pretty sure the world map version of this armory doesn't offer any of the silver weapons. This armory has steel and silver versions of all the melee weapons, plus hand axes and javelins.
Silver Sword: Rank reduced from A to C, 13->11 Might, 80->75 Hit, 20->50 uses
Silver Axe: Rank reduced from A to C, 15->13 Might, 70->65 Hit, 25->50 uses
Silver Bow: Rank reduced from A to C, 6->8 Weight, 13->11 Might, 20->50 uses
I splurge here and get a silver bow for Neimi, entirely skipping over steel for her because the silver bow is better in every way; even with its weight increasing it's still lighter than the steel bow. The other silvers will have to wait for now.
That said, Neimi won't be using it right away as she's helping with the brigand cleanup.
Garcia is too!
Artur continues to not get lucky with crits, sadly.
And now, the bottlenecking begins. Vanessa and Franz are now in range of the Wyverns, and Vanessa... doesn't fare great against hers, double hit notwithstanding.
Franz does better, but isn't fast enough to double.
Fortunately for Vanessa, Lute and Neimi help pick up the slack.
Franz switches to the silver lance here...
...to let Vanessa finish this guy off.
Well, might as well break in the killing edge.
It turns out that the fliers can fly over.... exactly one tile of the wall, which is marked as a Fence instead? No idea if that's intentional on Seal's part or not. Anyway, Neimi takes out the pegasus in front of her.
Also, there's more new reinforcements, in the form of Even More Peg Knights and some cavaliers.
Natasha gets her first level, and it doesn't exactly inspire confidence.
Well, this is getting chaotic...
Neimi actually breaks in the silver bow now because without it, she can't kill from full health. It's worth it!
Vanessa sits on the fence so that the remaining pegs can't get through it.
Franz continues to hold the line. It's entirely possible that he'll cap strength before promoting, which is kind of wild to think about in comparison with vanilla Franz.
Ross is also holding the line for Gains, even if he took a hit here.
Oh no, a Slim Lance crit, whatever will I do?
Here's what I'll do.
Shine also gets a moment to, uh, shine.
A very minimal but good level!
:flame:
Eirika ends up being inadvertent pegasus bait, but she's still hanging in there, and we're almost done with this bottleneck as the reinforcements have stopped coming.
Lute starts the breakthrough off by taking out a cavalier. 999: Nine Magic, Nine Skill, Nine Speed
Joshua finishes one of the last peg knights,
and Neimi takes the other.
Vanessa finishes one of the last cavs, and... the other two don't move, so it's finally time to press on.
Vanessa takes a Secret Book from this house (again unchanged from vanilla), and Garcia makes his way to the final house.
Gilliam works on dismantling Saar's wall of soldiers. Saar still has a javelin, but he's not very accurate with it.
He's otherwise pretty unremarkable, as he's just The Same But Slightly More compared to vanilla.
Natasha's second level is a much better showing.
Artur gets a lucky crit (finally!) to finish another of Saar's groupies.
Neimi isn't so lucky, but Joshua is able to get a kill off of this.
Oh, by the way, that priest in the back?
Physic: Rank reduced from B to D, 15->20 uses, 22->25 EXP on use, healing formula changed from Mag+10 to (Mag/2)+20
I've been skipping over enemy inventories, but in cases like this where the enemy is getting shit before we can use it I'll make exceptions. Physic is extremely good in this hack, healing as much as Mend without being locked to promoted units. It feels almost cruel that the hack teases you like this with it this early on.
That aside, Lute roasts another one of the stationary soldiers.
What are you gonna do with that big javelin? Gonna hit me? Better make it count. Better make it hurt. Better kill me in one shot.
Ross takes out the last cavalier to top off on a high note. He'll be promoting at the start of chapter 6, where we'll see something special this hack does with the trainees.
Meanwhile, Gilliam gets a very Gilliam level from finishing the final soldier.
I don't want you healing Saar, so get out.
Garcia finally gets to the last house, where he gets an elixir instead of a torch. I think I'd have preferred the torch, honestly, given chapter 6 is still a fog map.
Franz tries to get a swing at the boss, but no luck.
...Really?
Lute is a bit luckier.
I try to squeeze a bit more experience out for Vanessa, but she also gets unlucky and misses.
I had wanted Eirika to be able to one-round Saar to conserve some durability on the rapier, but oh well.
You were doing so well...
We still get the Guiding Ring for saving all the houses. Interestingly, promotion items (except Master Seals) in Sacred War give whoever holds them a slight stat boost, so as not to just take up space in the convoy - the Guiding Ring provides a passive +1 to Resistance.
NEXT TIME:
Ephraim and friends are in for the long haul.
Well at least upping Silver Bow weight makes some sense if you care about CON doing things. Of course having them be available for purchase this early even despite whatever cash issues one might have from just not selling those dragon tears if you wanted just makes steel weapons look like even more like the awkward middle child who no one likes.
Also buffing physic to mend-level healing what the actual hell, no upping its g/use to 200 or so (since I'm pretty certain that even if it's possible to change that part of the staff EXP formula this hack doesn't) doesn't make that change any less absurd.
Also buffing physic to mend-level healing what the actual hell, no upping its g/use to 200 or so (since I'm pretty certain that even if it's possible to change that part of the staff EXP formula this hack doesn't) doesn't make that change any less absurd.
Crits only deal 2x damage instead of 3x in this hack.
Oh, right. Thought that meant the Killing Edge was nerfed from 30 crit to 25 but it wasn’t show.
The changes made to Physic feel like they were made primarily to go "haha, look at this cool think that you can't get for lord knows how many chapters!" And we're going to be seeing a few more examples of that in... two updates.RandomKesaranPasaran wrote: ↑Sat Jul 18, 2020 3:11 amAlso buffing physic to mend-level healing what the actual hell, no upping its g/use to 200 or so (since I'm pretty certain that even if it's possible to change that part of the staff EXP formula this hack doesn't) doesn't make that change any less absurd.
Yeah this hack just seemed to give out a whole lot of mixed signals in general, which is why I stopped after chapter 7 or so. There are changes I could understand if it were a certain kind of hack but the other changes just make it look like they were there for the sake of making changes. Like I could understand the Physic taunting if this were the sort of hack where you could capture enemies or steal staves and put that priest in a position where doing so would be risky but rewarding but that AND buffing the base heal amount is just literally what is trying to be accomplished here.
I got bad vibes as soon as I saw Seth having skills without the skill system, but these changes all seem so...bizarre and aimless. It feels like they're trying to make FE8 into another FE game altogether, but I'm not sure which one.
Vilkacis weighs in:
Vilkacis wrote:I saw the thread for that on FEU but it didn't really wow me. I didn't dig too deep but a lot of it just felt like changes made for the sake of making changes? I think it occupies a weird niche where it's not really Sacred Stones enough to properly scratch an FE8 itch but it's also not original enough to be a satisfying not-FE8 option.
Also, I'm now wondering if there's a patch out there that lets you play the Japanese version of FE8 without having to read Japanese dialogue.
What's so different about Japanese FE8?Greener223224 wrote: ↑Tue Jul 21, 2020 9:13 pmAlso, I'm now wondering if there's a patch out there that lets you play the Japanese version of FE8 without having to read Japanese dialogue.
https://fireemblemwiki.org/wiki/List_of ... red_StonesJunpei wrote: ↑Wed Jul 22, 2020 1:21 amWhat's so different about Japanese FE8?Greener223224 wrote: ↑Tue Jul 21, 2020 9:13 pmAlso, I'm now wondering if there's a patch out there that lets you play the Japanese version of FE8 without having to read Japanese dialogue.
Also, I found somebody had already hacked a version of this for me:
https://forums.serenesforest.net/index. ... sion-hack/
So, I've recently been playing through this hack, and just now finished the third dungeon, meaning I'm completely done with it now. I posted fairly detailed thoughts in Vilkacis's thread that was linked earlier, though those are obviously spoiler-tastic as far as mechanics and chapters are concerned (I hadn't gotten to the new story content at the time of writing that).
To keep things more vague, as someone that played through the entire hack, I found it incredibly interesting, it did a lot of very cool things, but also a few questionable things. Still, overall, the experience was a lot of fun.
I'm very much looking forward to seeing you go through the same blind journey I did, Moonside.
To keep things more vague, as someone that played through the entire hack, I found it incredibly interesting, it did a lot of very cool things, but also a few questionable things. Still, overall, the experience was a lot of fun.
I'm very much looking forward to seeing you go through the same blind journey I did, Moonside.
ｗｈｏ ｓｕｍｍｏｎｓ ｍｅ
it should be noted that anything i may have said on this subject is from the perspective of "saw it and skimmed over it" and should absolutely not be considered meaningful in any way, i still don't see myself wanting to play it but i guess i'm down to watch someone else do all the hard work :v
it should be noted that anything i may have said on this subject is from the perspective of "saw it and skimmed over it" and should absolutely not be considered meaningful in any way, i still don't see myself wanting to play it but i guess i'm down to watch someone else do all the hard work :v
Hey Vilk. We're just turning this LP exodus forum into a Fire Emblem splinter forum, so I thought it necessary to bring you into this, given how famous you are for turning FE6 into a basket of fan-made sprite rips. No idea why Isadora would be the avvy you'd use with that reputation, though...
Speaking of FE6 romhackers, is Onmi still around? Is he ever going to finish that punchline of a romhack he kept advertising in between bashing FE10? Is he still going to claim that its story is worse than FE14?
Speaking of FE6 romhackers, is Onmi still around? Is he ever going to finish that punchline of a romhack he kept advertising in between bashing FE10? Is he still going to claim that its story is worse than FE14?
Actually, I’ve kinda got a new request. Since the SA thread is asking you about a flier-only run of a game, how about trying it in a game that isn’t one of the GBA Fire Emblems? FE2 and FE3 are both pretty infamous for how OP and how early-recruited their peg knights are. Plus I’m kinda bored at seeing everything be FE7 this, FE8 that.
EDIT: Although as I say that, I’m realizing SA doesn’t have an FE3 run, period. Just two LPs of FE11 and FE12 each, one set archived and the other not.
Because Isadora disapproves.Greener223224 wrote: ↑Wed Jul 22, 2020 9:18 pmHey Vilk. We're just turning this LP exodus forum into a Fire Emblem splinter forum, so I thought it necessary to bring you into this, given how famous you are for turning FE6 into a basket of fan-made sprite rips. No idea why Isadora would be the avvy you'd use with that reputation, though...
She's willing to throw away her romance with her engaged fellow knight to chase after Sain and Legault. Her standards baffle me.Shei-kun wrote: ↑Fri Jul 24, 2020 4:59 amBecause Isadora disapproves.Greener223224 wrote: ↑Wed Jul 22, 2020 9:18 pmHey Vilk. We're just turning this LP exodus forum into a Fire Emblem splinter forum, so I thought it necessary to bring you into this, given how famous you are for turning FE6 into a basket of fan-made sprite rips. No idea why Isadora would be the avvy you'd use with that reputation, though...
I mean you can even make Eliwood ignore his ongoing on-screen romance with Ninian and go for a random merc he found along the way. Harken is presumed dead and a secret enough recruit that i don't think i've ever even got him, much less found out about the relationship in-game. And he never even called!
...Also, have you seen Legault?
...Also, have you seen Legault?
Why A support Isadora and Legault when you can awkwardly hate-support Matthew and Legault instead? (Aside from having to field both of them long enough to hit A.)
Usually it’s Heath and Legault that the fangirls want to pair together.Tanegashima wrote: ↑Fri Jul 24, 2020 11:05 amWhy A support Isadora and Legault when you can awkwardly hate-support Matthew and Legault instead? (Aside from having to field both of them long enough to hit A.)
I don't think I've ever used Isadora. Or Heath, but that's because I hate his hair and my Fiora always seems to want to get buff
She refuses to get strength for me so I almost always end up benching her. I usually end up fielding Farina for offense and Fiora ends up shuttling or dodge-tanking, based on whatever she decides what she's gonna focus on that playthrough. The only character in that game I always use regardless of how he turns out is Wallace. Because he's Wallace.