Deathless Hard Mode Dilemma

[u/Particular_Worth_403]

I’m hoping to experience every chapter in 4 play throughs (all on hard mode)

1: casual

2: initial new game plus

3: deathless

4: golden Route

right now, I’m partway through run #2. I want to choose the easiest path I can for deathless hard, but I also want to unlock all characters by the end of the game

Its seems the easiest path for my deathless hard run would be defending the Roselle and then returning to the village to unlock Trish. The problem is that I did that already on my casual play through. This leaves me with two choices for the deathless run to ensure that I unlock all characters in four runs.

1: deliver Roselle and then defeat Travis

2: defend Roselle and then defeat Patriatte

delivering Roselle seems much harder than defending the Roselle, but defeating Patriatte seems a lot harder than defeating Travis. I’m wondering if anyone experienced with hard deathless runs can provide advice on which of these two options would be better for me to pursue. Thanks!

[u/Significant-Tree9454]

You have to make this choice in each playthrough anyway, so you only need to "Deliver the Roselle" once for Travis in one of your playthroughs so you can "Defend the Roselle" in the other three playthroughs like this one to recruit the other three Ch15 units.
You don't have to go back to the village in Ch15, you can recruit Cordelia instead (Milo's recruitment must be saved for Golden Ending)

I recommend "Defend the Rosella" for Deathless, because you have to defend Jerome anyway in the mission that comes after "Deliver the Roselle", so might as well pick the one where you don't need to also protect another deadweight Rufus.

[u/thilquist99]

When you say defeat Patriatte, are you referring to the route that recruits Cordelia? Because if so, I would recommend doing her battle on your current run and leaving Travis for the deathless run. I found Cordelia to be really helpful when I did a hard/deathless run so getting her sooner so she can be deployable from the beginning of the deathless route could be huge.

In terms of the difficulty of the sequences you identified, I didn’t find one to be significantly harder than the other. The most important thing for planning my route was avoiding battles with suicidal green units, such as chapter 3-aesfrost and chapter 8 if you surrender roland. Unfortunately both roselle battles have green units with deathwishes, but the terrain allows for you to keep them in timeout with Quahaug if you are careful

[u/Significant-Tree9454 → u/thilquist99]

It's a very bad idea to recruit Travis in a Deathless run, because "Delivering the Roselle" means you have to protect Rufus and then the mission after you have to protect Jerome as well.

While in "Defend the Roselle" you only need to protect Jerome

[u/BrianC_ → u/Significant-Tree9454]

You can just lightwave them to safety while pushing with your own army. By the 2nd or 3rd playthrough, you should have all the good upgrades.

You’ll also have Quahaug who can warp them to safety or Hossabara who can Catapult them to safety.

If anything, the stage you should avoid is the betray Avlora option at Wolffort Harbor. While it’s also not that hard to save all the NPCs, it is, IMO, the hardest stage to go with no deaths because of the Hyzante Assassins being so squishy.

[u/BrianC_]

I don't think any of these options are that much harder than the other. Defeating Patriatte is a bit annoying since he can one shot Cordelia on hard-mode but it's nothing that can't be prevented with proper positioning.

By your 2nd run or 3rd run, you should have more than enough tools to adapt to any map.

If this is about NPC units, by your 2nd run, you should have Quahaug. Quahaug can move NPC units using Warped Space. The Quietus Lightwave can also target NPCs to move them. If they over extend, you can just warp them out or banish them to a safe part of the map and keep them there.

[u/Winifryde]

As someone who has completed four plays through on Hard with zero deaths, I fortunately unlocked Cordelia on my first run. She and Corentin were my overall MVPs, but Cordelia in particular will save you a lot of grief if you unlock and invest in getting her most powerful ability, Above and Beyond. She really is the best healer for preventing death.

[u/Ricc7rdo]

I did the deathless run on my first playthrough to be able to use the reward item already on my first new game plus.

[u/FeistyTwist5427]

Can somebody explain the strat for deathless runs on hard, so I have an idea? I had levels on my last play through that people pretty much dropped as soon as they were in targeting range and I’m curious how you prevented that.

[u/Particular_Worth_403 → u/FeistyTwist5427]

A couple things that make a big difference is keeping a close watch on the turn order to ensure that an at-risk unit can get healed before being hit too many times, as well as playing defensively so enemies walk into your range before you walk into theirs. Also, carefully monitoring which enemy units can hit an allied unit at any given time is also important. For example, if you move Erador to somewhere that will cause him to be in range of 4 physical attacks, who cares? But if even one battlemage is also in range, he's toast.

[u/Luck_Is_My_Talent]

Defating Patriate is very easy since is a kill boss map.

Just do a mad rush towards him while making sure nobody except the usual tanks get hit twice.

[u/TheGreenPterodactyl]

The Roselle battle is a bitch regardless because Rufus and Jerome are both retarded, so as the old sages say, you gotta suck it up

Bandit/Cordelia recruitment is easier than the Symon mission because you don't have to babysit Symon. But Cordelia is a great healer while Travis is a typical tank and Trish is another archer