Fire Emblem Catch All

Wow Ch5 kicked it up on hard mode. Vander is not a wall to protect you anymore. Had to reload a couple saves and use rewind a few times too. Boss killed my Alear a couple times jeez.

Anyway after that more shops, more stuff unlocked at base. My emblems are max relationship so not sure if I need to switch them to other characters or if I can upgrade. Got notices of that during last fight. Also created some other rings before the fight and put those on a few people. There's a ton of stuff going on and I haven't even got to cooking yet but I read somewhere that was in here too. Sheesh

Feeling overwhelmed with out of battle systems I think. Maybe I'm just tired. We'll see if it makes sense tomorrow

DSGamer wrote:

So wait, is hard on Engage closer to normal in the GBA games or hard in the GBA games?

If it's like Three Houses or Awakening I think "hard" is Japanese normal and "normal" is Japanese easy. So, hard on Engage is probably like normal on GBA games

So far on hard I have had two close calls on characters dying, but have not had to use the rewind yet. I am only at the start of chapter 5, so not 100% sure how it will pan out. I only played GBA games on normal, so not sure how hard those hard modes were. And my read on 3H hard mode is a little skewed since I did not play it until NG+ so I had the ability to buff some of my stuff early.

Yeah, I have noticed even in chapter 4 Vander is not not as strong as previous Jagens, and they stuck him with an iron axe instead of the silver spear they usually have. I wonder if he will turn out to be a pure Jagen or closer to the Oifey archetype.

I haven't played whatever game Oifey was from, but this sounds like maybe Titania in Path of Radiance?

Yeah I didn't link fandom wiki because ads are so annoying. But they do cover it on the archetype page

One of the most common archetypes, a Jagen character is usually a character that joins the group early in the game, and usually as the main Lord's guardian or mentor lore-wise. They appear impressive at first, but are usually inferior to other units that have been leveled up. Jagens are almost always Paladins. There are two types of Jagens.

Pure Jagen
They are based off the Paladin Jagen from Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light.

Story-wise, As mentioned above, Jagen serves as a figure of wisdom and a mentor to the Lord. A majority are elderly or otherwise formerly retired knights who reentered service for the sake of the main Lord.

Gameplay-wise, they appear as an early game promoted unit and are usually one of the first units already present in the player's army. Despite being promoted and having slightly better starting stats than most early game units, Pure Jagens have very low growth rates attributed to their advanced age. While they are not useless units, they are easily overshadowed by many units acquired much later in-game.

Notable Pure Jagens are:
Jagen (FE1/11)
Arran (FE3/12)
Eyvel and Dagdar (FE5)
Marcus (FE6)
Ward (BS)
Gunter (FE14 Revelation)

Oifey
They are based off the paladin Oifey from Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War.

Story-wise, Oifeys serve a similar role to Jagens as a mentor to the Lord and as an early game promoted unit. Oifeys are often older than the Lord of the game, but roughly no older than 35 years old in appearance.

Gameplay-wise, however, unlike Jagen, their starting stats are only just slightly above the main cast. Instead, they have relatively solid growth rates that modestly keeps them performing consistently alongside other army members, making them capable units in the long run.

Notable Oifeys are:
Oifey (FE4)
Raffin (TS)
Marcus (FE7)
Seth (FE8)
Titania (FE9)
Sothe (FE10)
Frederick (FE13)
Felicia or Jakob (FE14*)

Yeah, my touchstone for the Jagen/Oifey archetype is Seth, since Sacred Stones is the first one I played, I don't know who Oifey is either. I've missed a lot of Fire Emblem games honestly, so I wonder how many Emblems I will be unaware who they are (like Sigurd).

Edit: Did everyone get a bunch of free steel weapons after chapter 4 I think it was? I didn't think I bought any kind of special edition but it looked like a DLC popup handout.

Maybe you got it for pre-ordering?

I played a little bit of whatever game featured Eirika, but my first FE in earnest was Path of Radiance. I've played pretty much all the games that have come out state-side since then, but I still don't have any nostalgia for the Japan-only games, which seems to be a substantial part of the fan service so far.

I think it was rewards from that area.

Like each country has these donations you give and then you earn stuff. Although those seem to be mateirals.

Not sure, but I got the steel weapons too, and I did not get DLC or anything. I don't think DLC unlocks until after Ch 6.

I did get to use Amiibo after Ch 4, and the FE ones give tickets that unlock costumes and music direct from the emblems. Nice touch.

Plain Amiibo only give you 1 random item, like the fruit, veggies, etc. that you gather from the ground. So use your FE ones if you got em, up to 5 per 24 hours.

I think it was rewards from that area.

It was a bonus granted with the day one patch.

Presumably every time there's a patch (ie, to enable a new piece of DLC for people with the expansion pass) there will also be a similar small bonus for all players.

Well 1st paralogue and Ch 6 were much easier for me than Ch 5. A skirmish popped up and I noticed when you hover over a mission on the map it gives a base level recommendation. Skirmish was 8, but Ch 6 was only 6. Not sure what the paralogue was or Ch 5 was. But I have a few fighters at level 8 or 9 now so maybe that helped. I also modified several weapons for +1 or +2 damage.

Stele wrote:

Wow Ch5 kicked it up on hard mode. Vander is not a wall to protect you anymore. Had to reload a couple saves and use rewind a few times too. Boss killed my Alear a couple times jeez.

Anyway after that more shops, more stuff unlocked at base. My emblems are max relationship so not sure if I need to switch them to other characters or if I can upgrade. Got notices of that during last fight. Also created some other rings before the fight and put those on a few people. There's a ton of stuff going on and I haven't even got to cooking yet but I read somewhere that was in here too. Sheesh

Feeling overwhelmed with out of battle systems I think. Maybe I'm just tired. We'll see if it makes sense tomorrow

Good grief 3 more things unlocked after Ch 5 and 3 more after 6. Holy crap.

Yeah there's a ton on online stuff from the base. One sounds like co-op, the other sounds like Fates where you built a map or tried to beat others' maps. Also profile cards to share with anyone you connect with, but it's like a whole separate building and you can take photos and I didn't even get into it all there was so much to do.

For all the reviews saying this was focused on battle, I'm not sure if they really paid attention. Yeah it's not scheduled like Three Houses. But there is an insane amount of between fight activities at the base. Way more than Fates, from what I remember.

At least most of it you can do with menus, even the map, warping around. Don't have to walk everywhere. But there's a ton of stuff in there.

If you ever played Fire Emblem Heroes on mobile, it's probably worth getting this free stuff for Engage

3 named weapons and 3 S-ranked rings. Nice little boost.

Also found this insane video on Reddit. It's Ch 5. And apparently Sigurd ring overdrive will hit as many enemies as you can get in a line.

I guess I need to play around with who I put rings on instead of just keeping them on the first person that has them.

Through a few more missions today and hard is just perfect. Seems like I overextend or have bad luck 2-3 times a mission and have to use rewind to fix. Right on the sweet spot, except for that Ch5 being too hard.

I'm on Ch5 now and wow you're not kidding. I'm trying to to get to the chests but I don't see how the hell I'm supposed make it in time. I switched to hard, seems to be the right choice.

Hehe well you could look at that reddit video I posted if you want a hint for Ch5.

Got through 9 last night. I reset a couple times to try to talk to an enemy with Alear but couldn't make it work. I thought it might be a recruitable enemy. So I had to look it up. They retreat on that battle and you get a chance to get them a few chapters later. So I guess I just missed some flavor conversation. Didn't seem worth doing the entire battle over

A couple of builds I've grown to like so far:

Divine Dragon Avo Tank: Pick up +10 Avo and +10 Avo with Swords from Marth, and engrave the 4th Emblem on Liberation. This adds a total of +60 Avo when Liberation is being wielded, which puts her up to around 90 or so even when standing in the open. This is basically immortality: most enemies (on Hard, up to Chapter 8 at least) will have a 0% chance to hit, a few might manage single digits or low teens. Of course, stick her in terrain and it pushes past Avo 120... at that point almost nothing can even dream of landing a blow. It is worth mentioning there are a small number of attacks that have an "infinite" hit rate: keep an eye out for these, though the Divine Dragon's Def, Res, and HP are probably enough to survive a surprise or two.

(Spoilers: Chapter 4 unit and 4th Emblem)

Spoiler:

Louis and Micaiah: Louis is an amazing tank, but comes with the usual issue of being allergic to spells. Micaiah goes a long way to solving that problem, both by boosting Res just by being equipped, and also by offering Res boost skills you can learn. You still won't want him tanking spells often, but it goes from "death sentence" to "moderately damaging", which gives a lot more freedom. The ability to use staves is another great bonus, and indeed some staves seemed designed to be used by someone able to be on the front line, such as the ones that emit light around the user or teleport the user. Speaking of light, Micaiah's passive of illuminating the area around enemies her partner hits is also handy on a tank, since he's likely to be able to survive any surprises when pushing into dark areas. Only downside is Louis' Mag is even worse than his Res, so if you want good results from healing staves, you'll have to use at least Mend. Heal will be almost meaningless.

A couple of other random things I noticed:

If a skill has multiple levels (such as Marth's Avo+10, +15, +20 series), learning the earlier versions applies 100% of their cost as a discount to the later versions; there's no need to save up to avoid wasting SP, if you want them, go ahead and buy their earlier versions when you can.

Also, regarding the 4th Emblem's Engage skill:

Spoiler:

Great Sacrifice apparently gives you XP for every target who needs the map-wide-all-allies healing it throws out. Use it at the end of a map when you've probably got some damage sitting on many units and you'll pull in a ton of XP.

Same with upgrading weapons at the blacksmith. Going to +1 lowers the needed materials and money to go to +2 etc. So you can upgrade all at once or bit by bit and nothing gets wasted. Very player friendly systems everywhere.

And yes I've done that spoiler several times. It's great!

Up to 6 emblems now. No idea who to try who on anymore. Might be part of being online but you can check after missions who were the most used characters on that mission from the world map. And so far it's always Alear and Marth. But things are starting to diverge after the top 5. And then after the top 15 I start seeing different combinations of emblems, not on the default character they are first assigned anymore.

Up to 6 emblems now. No idea who to try who on anymore.

Yeah, I really need a good chart on class progression and character stat growth direction to help me start making better choices at this point (just after chapter 6, where options really start to open up). Granted, I am playing on normal so it probably won't matter so much if I make a few silly choices, but I do need to stop just choosing based on what sounds fun.

That said, I DID really enjoy my "sounds fun" choice at the start of the game. I put Sigurd on Framme from the start because I thought it would be useful to have a fast moving healer, and Canter seems like one of those almost always useful skills to pick up. Then, of course, I barely needed healing (normal really is pretty easy), and instead it was just fun to have her be able to rack up kills (and she looks awesome when fused with Sigurd), so I kept her with him up to bond level 10 thinking "might as well grab those weapon proficiencies since I'm already halfway there."

Of course, it then became clear to me that the class system was not going to be as free and open ended as Three Houses, and chances are pretty good she really won't need or use those weapon proficiencies. Oops.

Still, it was a hilarious and fun way to burn through the early tutorial chapters.

Oh, also, while I'm sure it's a bit harder to pull off at higher difficulties, but a Sigurd Override attack is a pretty solid way to get to the chests first in Chapter 5. I had Framme chasing over there anyway due to her massive movement buff from Sigurd, and by the time that side crew got in position there was a nice line of three enemies in the single file hallway for her to blast through and end up on the other side where she could distract and kill the thief. (Also, a Warp Ragnarok doesn't hurt either.)

Yeah, Sigurd's movement is pretty ridiculous. I so far have only paired him with Alfred but when he engages, you end up with like 11 or 12 movement on a character, he can just fly across the map.

One of the big things about hard is just how tough enemies are. Only a couple characters can actually one-short an enemy, even with advantage. Having to use multiple characters to eliminate a single enemy slows the pace down a lot since it is easy to get overwhelmed charging in. I just did the second Paralogue today and ended up having to let one of the enemies run off the map because I just could not bring enough damage up to them before they escaped.

Also noticed the Break effect only seems to last for a single attack. Once you have attacked them once without a counter, they start countering again. Makes all these axe bosses a little annoying since I still only have Alear that can wield a sword competently (I keep forgetting Celine actually can use swords, oops).

I wonder if break lasts a # of hits? I swear I've done 2 other attacks safely without retaliation. But maybe if you doubled them up it was only one?

Yeah it was a long time with just Alear as the only sword user. Think I picked up 1 in Ch 8 and 1 in Ch 9 though and now there's more balance. But my main axe user is falling behind because I really like some other characters more. So I'm out here all swords spears and magic, hoping it works out.

Stele wrote:

I wonder if break lasts a # of hits? I swear I've done 2 other attacks safely without retaliation. But maybe if you doubled them up it was only one?

Yeah it was a long time with just Alear as the only sword user. Think I picked up 1 in Ch 8 and 1 in Ch 9 though and now there's more balance. But my main axe user is falling behind because I really like some other characters more. So I'm out here all swords spears and magic, hoping it works out.

It lasts until end of turn.

No I definitely had a boss snap out of it like Malkroth. Maybe just they have a resistance or something? But it's not 100% broken for the whole turn.

Or maybe they switched and used ranged weapon? Maybe it only breaks one

Maybe bosses lose Break status when they use a Revival Stone? I *think* I saw that happen once, but it was pretty early and I'm honestly not sure I'm recalling properly.

Argh I should have done 2nd paralogue sooner. Now I have a cool axe user that I want in my party but she's 6 levels behind everyone.

Got a few characters at 12 so looked through class change menu tonight. Some of them have special classes that look very cool. Going to be hard to wait until closer to 20...

I've also got a couple of passive skills from emblems to equip different weapons. And I see those requirements for some advanced classes. So really looks like I can equip the right ring and mold anyone into whatever class I want? This game is wild with options.

Argh I should have done 2nd paralogue sooner. Now I have a cool axe user that I want in my party but she's 6 levels behind everyone.

Yeah, do make note that they are

Spoiler:

Anna

which I gather is a special thing in the series, so they are a bit odd.

Because I simply cannot resist researching and learning the details behind the scenes, something you might want to be aware of if you don't mind a very light mechanical spoiler.

Spoiler:

Her oddity this time (in addition to having a wild gold farming personal ability) is that her stat growths are such that she's actually a terrible physical fighter, and quite likely to be one of your best mages unless you get very strange RNG on her level ups.

So, get her changed to a magic using class as soon as possible -- leveling up beyond 10 in her starting class is not going to do you any any favors in terms of stats.

As for leveling characters that start low and/or present other challenges, seems to me that beyond the simple thing of using your training sessions on them, etc, abusing emblem rings should get you there. Again, some of this might not translate to higher difficulties, but I've had great luck sticking Sigurd on just about anyone and watching for a good opportunity to use his special attack to blast through a long line of enemies and get a bunch of experience. Alternately, and potentially more useful on higher difficulties, if you use the healer emblem with the global heal special when there are lots of targets with health loss, you'll rake in a ton of exp.

(Also, if you don't might getting a bit cheesy with things, skirmish resets can be triggered by

Spoiler:

the passage of time on your system clock, not just progressing through story/paralogue chapters.

So, you know, if you want an easy way to grind some levels without moving forward just yet, that puts options on the table.)

----
Speaking of special characters from early paralogues, trying figure out if it'll be worth investing in.

Spoiler:

Jean, who is from what I understand to be another common archetype, the hapless villager who appears useless at the start but has a personal ability that cranks their growth rates.

The internet doesn't seem to have really come to a consensus there though -- folks still aren't sure just how well that personal ability works out this time, especially considering their abysmal base rates.

And I see those requirements for some advanced classes. So really looks like I can equip the right ring and mold anyone into whatever class I want? This game is wild with options.

Yeah, I only really have Three Houses to compare to, but my understanding is that in most ways this is much more like the traditional class system than the pretty open but grindy class system in that game. I guess maybe the big difference here is how very easy it is to get people weapon proficiencies, since relatively speaking the costs to use the Arena to buy your way to the needed bond levels is quite low. As such, so long as you have access to the needed seals, once someone has promoted to an advanced class at least once, you'll have an amount of latitude in class changes that's not dissimilar to Three Houses.

Well that's weird about 2nd paralogue character stats. I really need an axe user at some point, thought she would be it.

And yeah paralogue 1 looked like the level 1 villager that you could mold how you wanted if you feed them XP. But with so many characters I don't have time for that.

For instance I liked the first archer, Etie. But then a few chapters in another archer joined and they were already level 10 while she was still like 6 or 7. And their speed was 13 or so while hers was 7. So she's retired now, probably for good. Can only field 10 units on most missions and I've got 18 already. Not enough XP for everyone unless I want to skirmish forever

Ugh, that is one of my biggest complaints about the Fire Emblem series. Because permadeath exists, they give you way more characters than you need. I hate having to bench units just because another one came along. Doesn't help that our party ballooned so quickly in this one.

Yeah, I looked online and people are complaining Jean is another villager with abysmal base rates to compensate for his skill. If that's true I will probably drop him soon, don't need another pure healer with the 4th emblem available.

Edit: About the break stuff, just last night while I was doing the second Paralogue, I used Alear to kill/break the boss in a single attack (Marth's Engage attack), then followed up with a ranged character with no counter, then the second ranged characters got countered. So unless the revival counted as an "attack" that break only lasted a single attack.

It sounds like the deployable limit does get a bit higher towards the end of the game, for whatever that's worth, but yeah, MUCH more so than Three Houses it definitely feels like this game is handing out characters under the assumption you'll either be playing on classic and losing them, or that you'll be happy to just let the early cast mostly retire as you get flashy new units (with a few notable exceptions).

Incidentally, for anyone who doesn't want to actually look at the growth rates chart themselves, but might want to avoid some of the more goofy class assignments, aside from the Paralogue 2 character, there is one other horribly misplaced character in the early cast.

Spoiler:

Clanne has TERRIBLE magic growth, but pretty solid strength, dex, and speed, so if you want to use him definitely consider swapping him to a physical class.

Maybe there's something of an inside joke going on where Anna and Clanne should be trading classes?

Oh, and another interesting note on an early cast member.

Spoiler:

Framme actually has pretty solid generalist growth rates, including slightly better strength than magic. Her magic is still good enough that she's probably still a good candidate for her obvious direct promotion (martial master), but depending on how her RNG goes she could actually be a decent pick for a lot of physical classes too.

EDIT:

Oh, here's a growth rate chart that's heat mapped, and presented both alphabetized and ordered by average value.

https://www.reddit.com/r/fireemblem/...

EDIT 2:

And here with a version where the average value only includes the higher of str and mag:

https://imgur.com/a/CNA7b23

I finished Chapter 3 this morning and just finished my first trip through the Somniel. I think I'll put this game down for a week or two and focus on some other things, taking this slowly & in stages.

zeroKFE wrote:
Up to 6 emblems now. No idea who to try who on anymore.

Yeah, I really need a good chart on class progression and character stat growth direction to help me start making better choices at this point (just after chapter 6, where options really start to open up). Granted, I am playing on normal so it probably won't matter so much if I make a few silly choices, but I do need to stop just choosing based on what sounds fun.

Growth rates can be found here. A great reference for any Fire Emblem fan! Note -- as it says on the page -- that these are characters' base growth rates and you need to combine them with their class to see true growth rates.

Also note that it is very possible to spoil yourself by poking around Serenes Forest too much!