WISH PLAYS RADIANT DAWN
Part 2: The Swordie and the Doggy
HE'S HERE!!! I wouldn't be posting this playthru at all if not for @kradeelav and the inspiration I've gotten from all those posts about sweet sweet Zi, so. I would feel silly not bringing everyone's favourite swordmaster with me along for this journey.
In this part, I'm power levelling Micaiah because I want to preserve BEXP, and I'm working on setting Zihark up with one of my favourite supports for him--both because it's mechanically sound, and because it's fucking hot.
I've slapped a couple skills on him here--his defense is always his trickiest stat for me, and while he's great at just weaving through attacks, I'd rather be certain he's going to be okay out there. If he does happen to take too many hits, Resolve will kick in, and with a little luck, nothing else will hit him for the rest of the chapter, or until I can give him some rest. Resolve + Adept is an absolutely busted combo and the fact that Zi comes with Adept for free is just.... chef's kiss. Excellent unit. Of all the swordies you get access to in this game, I think he's my favourite. Edward is cool, don't get me wrong, and Mia is great. It's just. Y'know.
And all this to say nothing of his Earth affinity!! If you haven't played RD, there's an elemental affinity stat that sort of works like astrology, and they come into effect when supports are being utilized. Earth affinity grants nothing to any stat except evasion. You can really snap this mechanic over your knee by getting two earth affinity supports up to A, granted each character a whopping +45 to evasion.
So. There are a couple options I could pick here. Fiona is about to be recruited in the next chapter or so here, but I've never tried to use her. The skills she comes with are really great, but... I rarely use horse-mounted units to begin with. Nolan would be a great option, too!! I feel like that snarky old(er) man and Zihark would have a lot of, er, ~fun~ together, given the chance. It'd be a fun fic to write.
But if you hadn't noticed, I am not fielding Nolan. In fact, I'm not fielding anyone at all. It's just Zihark out there, along with 4 forced units on this upcoming chapter.
So Volug it is. The Swordie and the Doggy. I think it's a really cute ship tbh! Zihark functions best as a character when he has someone to snark off of a bit, bouncing a little jovial teasing back and forth... but how does that work if he doesn't share a language with this weird dog? I love the idea of his previous (and late) laguz lover perhaps being a man, but I haven't done enough research into the guy to know if gender was ever confirmed on that front. Ike is already pretty heavily implied to be queer (I'll get to that. later. there's an entire video essay within me about this), so... why not another Earth affinity gay swordie??
Also they're both just cute anime boys and I'm pushing them together like dollies, and the game even rewards me for it.
What a great fucking game.
Anyways.
This is what Part 1: Chapter 6.1 looked like. Micaiah, Sothe, Tauroneo, and Volug are all forced units, and Zihark is the only unit I chose to field. That's all I need. Micaiah is fast enough here to avoid being doubled by the reinforcing flying units that appear on the cliffs. I didn't even have to worry about them this time. Tauroneo didn't get a single battle in whatsoever; I don't want him stealing EXP from units who I'm actually using--so his job was to go sit in the corner and chill. There were a few stat growths in here that were good enough, and I didn't get a single game over! So I'm feeling pretty confident. I kept Zihark and Volug close to one another, sometimes sacrificing a kill and flinching when enemies swung, but Resolve, as stated, saved Zihark's ass when things grew dodgy.
Onto Part 1: Chapter 6.2.
Lmao.
Micaiah is not supposed to be this strong at this point in the game, I don't think... but I really like to power level her during Part 1. It fits the story better. I still remember my first playthru here, being like, "Damn this girl sucks ass actually" and hating all of the Dawn Brigade chapters. Just getting mad as hell. I wanted my little ragtag team of rebels to be stronger!! I wanted to use them all!! Daein deserves a respectable and sprawling army!!
But in fact, it's so much easier to just pick like, one or two of them (aside from Sothe and Micaiah...), and then the EXP distribution is much, much easier to deal with. She can actually pull her weight and get kills in. Sacrifice, her latent healing-by-sacrificing-hit-points ability, actually gets some use in, because she's got a little more HP.
You can't see it in the image above, but Sothe is within range for support, giving her a little extra oomph on her attack. So long as I have them fight together, she's an unstoppable force. The mounted units in this chapter are no match for her. It's lovely. It's cute. I really like the ship, too. If I was [redacted] years old and a cute lil guy started following me around, I think I'd get a little close to him, too. Kawaiiiii
Well. Not a great look for Volug there. Less than half HP going into the actual defense of these poor Marado knights... eeesh. There's two fire mages up above that might've posed a threat, but. They kind of didn't!
I think I only lost 1 prisoner and 1 Marado knight?? I could be wrong--I haven't looked up how much each one is worth for a long time because I rarely manage to save them all. I wish I could, but again... story. I really like the story in this game. I like the idea of Micaiah seeing losses like this and going "I can do better." And then she does. Anyways, yaaaay 5000+ BEXP from one level! Not bad! That'll be very, very useful later on. I still have no unit to logically pump full of the stuff yet; I'm not using Jill (she's my usual pick for this), and Volug doesn't need any until much later.
Speaking of Volug. Look at that! He had his first "conversation" with his boyfriend. For the uninitiated, Volug only speaks in the Ancient Language, so Zihark and him don't share a tongue. But that doesn't mean they can't share some tongue.
uhuehahuehe. ppbpbrrtt.
Someone also hit level 20 during that last chapter, hehe. 15 Speed is pretty fucking good for Micaiah, I'm not gonna lie. Usually I'm happy with like a 13 but this is excellent. Without that Dracoshield (uhh boosts defense by 2 immediately when consumed, for those who haven't played!) she'd still be above average in her Def stat, but 8 is just. Massive. Excellent. No surprise when it comes to her capping Mag and Res, but it's nice that it's a given.
Moving into Part 1: Chapter 7, I pulled Resolve off of Zihark. I'm not facing a loot of crazy stuff coming up, and Zi will be fine without it. Instead, I slapped the Paragon (Double EXP from every battle) skill I grabbed from the boss in Chapter 6.2 onto him. He's the only one who truly benefits from it right now; Volug has that stupid Wildheart skill on him that halves EXP anyways, and Sothe will get his time to shine later. Instead, Volug gets Resolve, just in case. JUUUUST in case.
Let's fight a boss!
Waow.
Part 1: Chapter 7 is habitually fucking simple for me. Tormod and Muarim are actually among my absolute favourite characters from the Tellius series--it's a real shame their availability makes them virtually useless. I once took them to the endgame just to prove to myself I could, and it was fun! But not really worth it. :\. Vika is adorable too and I love her but.... literally why would you use her at all with the myraid of better birds. Naesala is right there. lmao Also, hey, how about that, we rescued all the prisoners this time! Micaiah really did do better!! How lovely. And Zihark got a really, really good growth in there. 5 stats going up is always delicious. His strength can be tricky at times, and sometimes I have to use an item to boost it, but this time 'round he's doing alright. Atta b'ye!
And, hey. Seems like we're getting closer with that weird dog. This will help a lot in Part 3, when we're dealing with hordes of laguz with our own army of...
(counts on fingers)
uh, 4. 5 If you include my husbando. We'll get to him later.
My closing thoughts on this particular chunk of gameplay is basically just. Yeah, this strategy is stupid as hell, but not if you've sunk 2000+ hours into the game. I know what I'm doing and where I'm bound. I know where to shuffle things and which enemies to aggro. The next chapter, which includes rescuing a bunch more prisoners, is going to net me another ~2000 BEXP at minimum, and we'll continue saving that up.
Easy stuff so far! But we're moving into the weirder chapters of Part 1 now.
Thanks for reading!













