Man my b for stressing you out, it's tough to fly by the seat of your pants in FE7's lategame at this stage of the meta so props to you for keeping it together the best you could. From my POV I would say that you got punished for minor mistakes in a way that e.g. FFO didn't. I don't think that not meeting your own high expectations is a sore loser's mindset. In fact in a team draft I'd think it's expected to feel that you let down your teammates if you don't believe that you performed as well as you should've. That said, a singular race is the tiniest of sample sets by which to express skill, subject to FE7 being FE7 when it comes to RNG, so... you can't feel too bad about it. For me, it's the continued exposure of draft racing to the viewers through this type of content that is valuable, and I appreciate you for it. Here's a few other thoughts on FE7 in this 3-player meta: - Florina's role as a secondary was unexplored, probably because we think of her as carry or bust (and we also never draft race 3P FE7). I think 2x Body Ring Dart could work by adapting Hawkeye strats and having Athos do less in Final, but you're correct that the Hawkeye strat in VoD didn't take into account Dart's defensive benchmarks when I made it. Florina as a secondary could probably substitute for Fiora after taking a few kills in 16-18 to gain a few levels and a weapon rank, but this would require a bit of advance planning that I don't think any team had the insight to test before the race. - If you wanted to be extra spicy, you could pick Florina in round 3 and pretend that she'll be your carry, then pick Dart in like round 8 for a bait and switch (similar to the Severa - Morgan switch in FE13!). - MDWGO's chapter 13 strategy was interesting though IMO worse than just picking up Marcus with Hector on turn 1. In the usual strat without a dedicated Marcus rescuer, you sit through a few extra combat animations against the 2 enemies coming up the right side (distract them with Oswin). If you take a extra turn to kill them with Marcus, you save some of those animations, but in exchange you fight Guy which is a reset risk, and you end up taking 1-2 extra combat animations from the brigand that destroys the village, so it's riskier for a minimal time save.
LoudHeart from My Dart Will Go On. I was our Awakening Runner, so I thought I’d provide a little more explanation for some of the Awakening picks my team made that Mekkah was a little unsure of. 34:15 The reasoning behind the Flavia pick was that I thought she could save me some time in Ch. 25 of Awakening, by killing a couple enemies in the top left of the map and then blocking the reinforcements from the fort. However, it took her quite a few rounds of combat to deal with the enemies that went after her, and so without a more refined strategy for it, it would’ve been faster to not deploy her, in hindsight. 36:17 I do want to mention that the Kellam pick wasn’t completely arbitrary. Kellam obviously gives strength and defense on pair up as an Armor knight. But the other important thing from pair-ups is that they give combat bonuses based on support level as well. Getting a C Support is really helpful because that gives an extra 10 avoid from the pair up. And it just so happens that Kellam and Sully can build a C support in a single map, rather than requiring 2 like most of Sully’s support partners. 39:09 Gaius was literally just to open the Secret Book chest on his joining map. 43:37 Mekkah didn’t notice this in his recap, but while the other two teams did train Robin, I did not. In fact, the closest Robin ever came to fighting was pairing into Chrom to fight Validar. 1:24:37 We weren’t reclassing Chrom back to Lord. We were promoting him to Great Lord. 1:28:00 As far as I’m aware, none of the enemies surrounding Grima will actually break formation. I absolutely agree with you on the teams really enhancing the social aspect of draft racing and making it way more fun. And I’m super excited for the next one in April.
how would getting a particular offspring/inheriting skill paring work? say if it's allowed, but the non picked unit can't carry a weapon ect. or is that not really a thing in draft racing? (I suppose you'd have to pick all three units in the group)
Spoilers for the drafts and races... .... Gee golly what an incredible set of races this has been all around. Usually rooting for DB in these, but had to root against you guys in awakening because of Dark Flier and galeforce usage :P. I will say you guys made up a lot of time in FE7 though, given that you came out of awakening behind. I guess that probably makes how the whole thing ended a bit harder to take, just because of how close it feels you are to pulling a rabbit out of a hat, as so to speak. The entire concept of double body ring dart is hilarious though- if you told someone even just like 2 years ago that people would seriously be competing with that as one of the best carries they'd think you were trolling. I did have a couple observations about the awakening draft from all teams: I'm not a Hard Mode or Draft racer expert, but I'm really, really surprised that no team decided to draft Libra. I can get not going for him right away, but when units like Rebecca/Serra/wallace/gaius end up getting picked over him, it just feels very wrong, almost to the point where it feels like I have to have missed some rule that makes him undraftable somehow. He seems like the best rescue staffer in a draft race context, because he just turns up with no training and no paralogue required, with great mag and good enough bulk to not die on EP after rescuing too. I haven't watched the entire vod, but I did notice moments where every single team would have benefitted from the rescues he could have done. I guess if any of the awakening runners are in the comments section they can enlighten me on that one, because it seems like a really weird choice from everyone Maribelle is also an interesting pick in this, because of the paralogue rule- she can technically fulfill it the fastest. Brady's map is a kill boss map that is extremely easy to beat in 1 turn with just 1 use of the rescue staff/galeforce, and you don't even have to get Maribelle to S- just c support her with Chrom and then he auto marries in C11. I've messed around a few times when draft racing against myself on lunatic and found that to be super useful, both for the extra staff bot and for basically skipping an entire chapter. I actually think this makes her a way better pick her than Donny and Anna, despite them being drafted before her. Fred also seems a bit nuts. It feels like he ought to be able to do everything you need to win on HM. He's got good stats, good growth and can get into griffon for 10 move, so really is the only challenge getting him through lategame? Feels like the prepromote squad could help out there. Or a kid unit, if you really needed that. I wasn't expecting Lucina carry to be anywhere near as good as it was though, so that was new to me. I guess it makes sense considering the draft race meta on hard seems to be "get a wyvern and sprint across each map with deliverer", but I'd never made the mental connection of Lucina jumping into Griffon. And yeah Sully might be a better carry in this context than Vaike, but I'm just saying that man would never let people down in C2 like Sully did. I guess as a final point, if the pairup rule works how I think it does, then it's a bit weird. AFAIK in most other runs, drafted units can rescue undrafted ones, and undrafted can rescue each other. If non drafted units are banned from pairing up at all, it puts them in this weird position where it's just more difficult to keep them out of danger for a reason I'm yet to work out. But uh, I've probably talked for long enough about I thing I don't know that much about, so I'll leave that as it is. Overall, I really enjoyed watching this whole series and it was great to even see the greatest fire emblem game ran (and the best unit was even drafted 🪓🪓🪓🪓🪓🪓), so thanks for your draft content mekkah and thanks to everyone who participated in the event. Good luck in the next one.
Hey, one of the Awakening Runners here. I can answer some of your questions. 1. Libra could be a decent rescue staff user, however, in my experience, rescue isn’t actually that useful on that many maps. I know of strategies that let you save a turn on a couple of chapters with certain carries (for example, it comes in handy with Gaius carry, which is a real thing), but Sully carry wasn’t one of them, so we didn’t go for a staff user. I’ve also seen Libra die before I reached him on his join map (it’s rare but it happened in one of my practice runs). I will admit that I haven’t considered if the extra rescue range from Libra would let you 1-turn some maps you normally couldn’t. 2. You are absolutely correct about Maribelle being a potentially useful pick to get her Paralogue. However, that doesn’t work for any of the carries we had. For Sully carry, I wanted to marry Chrom and Sully together. For FFO, they needed to marry Chrom to Robin so that they would have a stronger Lucina. And for DB, their carry (Morgan) was their Paralogue unit. 3. Fred is really good and can actually beat the whole game by himself (I tested it). However, even with a speed pairup from Chrom, he didn’t have the speed to double faster enemies at the end of the game. The big chapters are 24 and 25, which are two big route maps with some ridiculously tanky enemies. Even my super strong Sully (who I’m pretty sure capped strength) couldn’t one round the great knights on 25 without Chrom chipping in with a Noble Rapier. Using Frederick for the first half and then switching to Morgan (with Fred marrying Robin) could work very well though. 4. I also would prefer it if undrafted units could pair into other undrafted units, but I wasn’t the one who made the rules, and obviously the middle of a race wasn’t the time to try and argue about changing it. Next time we race Awakening, I’ll be sure to suggest changing that. Hopefully this clears up some of your questions.
I love these draft race recaps, can't believe they were still decently close in the end!
Man my b for stressing you out, it's tough to fly by the seat of your pants in FE7's lategame at this stage of the meta so props to you for keeping it together the best you could. From my POV I would say that you got punished for minor mistakes in a way that e.g. FFO didn't.
I don't think that not meeting your own high expectations is a sore loser's mindset. In fact in a team draft I'd think it's expected to feel that you let down your teammates if you don't believe that you performed as well as you should've. That said, a singular race is the tiniest of sample sets by which to express skill, subject to FE7 being FE7 when it comes to RNG, so... you can't feel too bad about it. For me, it's the continued exposure of draft racing to the viewers through this type of content that is valuable, and I appreciate you for it.
Here's a few other thoughts on FE7 in this 3-player meta:
- Florina's role as a secondary was unexplored, probably because we think of her as carry or bust (and we also never draft race 3P FE7). I think 2x Body Ring Dart could work by adapting Hawkeye strats and having Athos do less in Final, but you're correct that the Hawkeye strat in VoD didn't take into account Dart's defensive benchmarks when I made it. Florina as a secondary could probably substitute for Fiora after taking a few kills in 16-18 to gain a few levels and a weapon rank, but this would require a bit of advance planning that I don't think any team had the insight to test before the race.
- If you wanted to be extra spicy, you could pick Florina in round 3 and pretend that she'll be your carry, then pick Dart in like round 8 for a bait and switch (similar to the Severa - Morgan switch in FE13!).
- MDWGO's chapter 13 strategy was interesting though IMO worse than just picking up Marcus with Hector on turn 1. In the usual strat without a dedicated Marcus rescuer, you sit through a few extra combat animations against the 2 enemies coming up the right side (distract them with Oswin). If you take a extra turn to kill them with Marcus, you save some of those animations, but in exchange you fight Guy which is a reset risk, and you end up taking 1-2 extra combat animations from the brigand that destroys the village, so it's riskier for a minimal time save.
LoudHeart from My Dart Will Go On. I was our Awakening Runner, so I thought I’d provide a little more explanation for some of the Awakening picks my team made that Mekkah was a little unsure of.
34:15 The reasoning behind the Flavia pick was that I thought she could save me some time in Ch. 25 of Awakening, by killing a couple enemies in the top left of the map and then blocking the reinforcements from the fort. However, it took her quite a few rounds of combat to deal with the enemies that went after her, and so without a more refined strategy for it, it would’ve been faster to not deploy her, in hindsight.
36:17 I do want to mention that the Kellam pick wasn’t completely arbitrary. Kellam obviously gives strength and defense on pair up as an Armor knight. But the other important thing from pair-ups is that they give combat bonuses based on support level as well. Getting a C Support is really helpful because that gives an extra 10 avoid from the pair up. And it just so happens that Kellam and Sully can build a C support in a single map, rather than requiring 2 like most of Sully’s support partners.
39:09 Gaius was literally just to open the Secret Book chest on his joining map.
43:37 Mekkah didn’t notice this in his recap, but while the other two teams did train Robin, I did not. In fact, the closest Robin ever came to fighting was pairing into Chrom to fight Validar.
1:24:37 We weren’t reclassing Chrom back to Lord. We were promoting him to Great Lord.
1:28:00 As far as I’m aware, none of the enemies surrounding Grima will actually break formation.
I absolutely agree with you on the teams really enhancing the social aspect of draft racing and making it way more fun. And I’m super excited for the next one in April.
how would getting a particular offspring/inheriting skill paring work? say if it's allowed, but the non picked unit can't carry a weapon ect. or is that not really a thing in draft racing? (I suppose you'd have to pick all three units in the group)
Yess finally the last part! Been waiting for this!
Spoilers for the drafts and races...
....
Gee golly what an incredible set of races this has been all around. Usually rooting for DB in these, but had to root against you guys in awakening because of Dark Flier and galeforce usage :P.
I will say you guys made up a lot of time in FE7 though, given that you came out of awakening behind. I guess that probably makes how the whole thing ended a bit harder to take, just because of how close it feels you are to pulling a rabbit out of a hat, as so to speak. The entire concept of double body ring dart is hilarious though- if you told someone even just like 2 years ago that people would seriously be competing with that as one of the best carries they'd think you were trolling.
I did have a couple observations about the awakening draft from all teams:
I'm not a Hard Mode or Draft racer expert, but I'm really, really surprised that no team decided to draft Libra. I can get not going for him right away, but when units like Rebecca/Serra/wallace/gaius end up getting picked over him, it just feels very wrong, almost to the point where it feels like I have to have missed some rule that makes him undraftable somehow.
He seems like the best rescue staffer in a draft race context, because he just turns up with no training and no paralogue required, with great mag and good enough bulk to not die on EP after rescuing too. I haven't watched the entire vod, but I did notice moments where every single team would have benefitted from the rescues he could have done.
I guess if any of the awakening runners are in the comments section they can enlighten me on that one, because it seems like a really weird choice from everyone
Maribelle is also an interesting pick in this, because of the paralogue rule- she can technically fulfill it the fastest. Brady's map is a kill boss map that is extremely easy to beat in 1 turn with just 1 use of the rescue staff/galeforce, and you don't even have to get Maribelle to S- just c support her with Chrom and then he auto marries in C11. I've messed around a few times when draft racing against myself on lunatic and found that to be super useful, both for the extra staff bot and for basically skipping an entire chapter. I actually think this makes her a way better pick her than Donny and Anna, despite them being drafted before her.
Fred also seems a bit nuts. It feels like he ought to be able to do everything you need to win on HM. He's got good stats, good growth and can get into griffon for 10 move, so really is the only challenge getting him through lategame? Feels like the prepromote squad could help out there. Or a kid unit, if you really needed that.
I wasn't expecting Lucina carry to be anywhere near as good as it was though, so that was new to me. I guess it makes sense considering the draft race meta on hard seems to be "get a wyvern and sprint across each map with deliverer", but I'd never made the mental connection of Lucina jumping into Griffon. And yeah Sully might be a better carry in this context than Vaike, but I'm just saying that man would never let people down in C2 like Sully did.
I guess as a final point, if the pairup rule works how I think it does, then it's a bit weird. AFAIK in most other runs, drafted units can rescue undrafted ones, and undrafted can rescue each other. If non drafted units are banned from pairing up at all, it puts them in this weird position where it's just more difficult to keep them out of danger for a reason I'm yet to work out.
But uh, I've probably talked for long enough about I thing I don't know that much about, so I'll leave that as it is.
Overall, I really enjoyed watching this whole series and it was great to even see the greatest fire emblem game ran (and the best unit was even drafted 🪓🪓🪓🪓🪓🪓), so thanks for your draft content mekkah and thanks to everyone who participated in the event. Good luck in the next one.
Hey, one of the Awakening Runners here. I can answer some of your questions.
1. Libra could be a decent rescue staff user, however, in my experience, rescue isn’t actually that useful on that many maps. I know of strategies that let you save a turn on a couple of chapters with certain carries (for example, it comes in handy with Gaius carry, which is a real thing), but Sully carry wasn’t one of them, so we didn’t go for a staff user. I’ve also seen Libra die before I reached him on his join map (it’s rare but it happened in one of my practice runs). I will admit that I haven’t considered if the extra rescue range from Libra would let you 1-turn some maps you normally couldn’t.
2. You are absolutely correct about Maribelle being a potentially useful pick to get her Paralogue. However, that doesn’t work for any of the carries we had. For Sully carry, I wanted to marry Chrom and Sully together. For FFO, they needed to marry Chrom to Robin so that they would have a stronger Lucina. And for DB, their carry (Morgan) was their Paralogue unit.
3. Fred is really good and can actually beat the whole game by himself (I tested it). However, even with a speed pairup from Chrom, he didn’t have the speed to double faster enemies at the end of the game. The big chapters are 24 and 25, which are two big route maps with some ridiculously tanky enemies. Even my super strong Sully (who I’m pretty sure capped strength) couldn’t one round the great knights on 25 without Chrom chipping in with a Noble Rapier. Using Frederick for the first half and then switching to Morgan (with Fred marrying Robin) could work very well though.
4. I also would prefer it if undrafted units could pair into other undrafted units, but I wasn’t the one who made the rules, and obviously the middle of a race wasn’t the time to try and argue about changing it. Next time we race Awakening, I’ll be sure to suggest changing that.
Hopefully this clears up some of your questions.
I do really love ALL Mekkah videos!!!! ❤