Fire Emblem Catch All

zeroKFE wrote:

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

Nice!

I've got 3 or 4 stat boosting items sitting in inventory and want to use them but don't want to waste them on a unit that will max out that stat. Haven't been able to find those numbers when I searched Reddit and Google over the weekend

Edit. Serenes Forest has it now. But oh it's tricky. Class max stats plus/minus character stat modifiers equals actual stat cap. Fun times.

grumble. Bad enough Skirmish levels are apparently locked to "highest character level +1", worse when you get a bunch of recruits at the end of a chapter who have a few levels on the party and suddenly all the Skirmishes involve Silver weapons and 2nd tier ranged weapons.

Yeah I wondered. I had level 7 or 8 skirmishes and then all the sudden they were 12 or 13. Feels like my level 5 or 6 units that took a couple chapters break are doomed to the bench now.

After talking about axes I was able to recruit another axe user from allied unit on a story mission today at lunch break. And she appears to be solid and is of course leveled with the team unlike the P2 character. So I guess I've got my axe user for a bit. After looking at those crazy growths maybe I will try to save P2 into another class. But have to get to 10 first and maybe learn a new weapon proficiency. Will decide if the grind is worth it tonight.

It does appear there's no XP penalty for class change early. And some of the advanced growths are better. So I might go ahead and promote some current levels 13 or 14 tonight too.

Will decide if the grind is worth it tonight.

While I remain uncertain about the Paralogue 1 character, Paralogue 2 seems like a pretty easy call.

Spoiler:

With her growths you'd need TERRIBLE RNG for her to not be worth investing in. She has the best magic growth, she's tied for the best dexterity, and nearly has the top speed and luck as well.

And on top of that, especially if you lean into her luck, she also is a serious money maker.

Stele wrote:

...
It does appear there's no XP penalty for class change early. And some of the advanced growths are better. So I might go ahead and promote some current levels 13 or 14 tonight too.

When you reclass to a master class, does it reset your level 1 like it did in the older games or do you stay at whatever level you were beforehand? That was always the reason to wait as long as possible, you got additional levels for waiting before reclassing.

Wow if a skirmish appears on the capital of an area it is a training battle against your ally country soldiers. Ran into one of those right after I tried doing a class change on P2 unit. Got her multiple levels. And one unit died on the last enemy turn but since it's training they don't stay dead. They miss the end of training bonus XP but for the time it would take to replay my turn before that I just moved on. Nice to have a break from stressing out about units dying.

Yikes, was Chapter 7 particularly easy or did I over level myself since chapter 6?

After 5, everything has seemed easy through 10.

Cool, good to know.

I’m really glad I started over and switched to Hard. I’m at 6 and it feels more like a standard Fire Emblem game in terms of difficulty.

DSGamer wrote:

I’m really glad I started over and switched to Hard. I’m at 6 and it feels more like a standard Fire Emblem game in terms of difficulty.

Yeah, even though I generally am not looking for a wild challenge here, chapter 7 was definitely so much of a cake walk that I started to consider doing that. Problem is, I'm maybe just a hair past pot committed in terms of time investment now that I'm into chapter 8, even accounting for skipping cutscenes, etc.

I dunno, maybe I still should though? I'd still be playing casual, so it's not like I need to obsess about saving units. (Really just wish the game allowed bumping upwards to hard while protecting the purity of maddening for folks who care about that.)

Maddening has a specific stat distribution. And also no skirmishes. Apparently this was a thing last game too? So perhaps that's why you can't bump it up after grinding and getting good levels on something lower? I don't know. But switching from normal to hard should definitely be there.

Yeah. It’s a little crazy that they’ve made all of these other QoL concessions, including allowing the player to disable permadeath, but you can’t make the game *more* difficult.

zeroKFE wrote:
DSGamer wrote:

I’m really glad I started over and switched to Hard. I’m at 6 and it feels more like a standard Fire Emblem game in terms of difficulty.

Yeah, even though I generally am not looking for a wild challenge here, chapter 7 was definitely so much of a cake walk that I started to consider doing that. Problem is, I'm maybe just a hair past pot committed in terms of time investment now that I'm into chapter 8, even accounting for skipping cutscenes, etc.

I dunno, maybe I still should though? I'd still be playing casual, so it's not like I need to obsess about saving units. (Really just wish the game allowed bumping upwards to hard while protecting the purity of maddening for folks who care about that.)

There’s no harm in trying it and seeing how you like it. You can always go back to your old save. That’s all I did. Started a new save and named the character something else so it wasn’t hard to remember which save was which and then started over, skipping everything. It took me only a couple of hours to get back here.

Worst case you get a little bit into it, decide it isn’t worth it, then go back to your old save.

Stele DM'd me an interesting idea from a Reddit post about how to use the character from Paralogue 2, and I ended up writing some comments on Reddit to clarify and improve the suggestion.

Figured I might as well summarize the idea here too, in case folks are interested.

The base reddit post is here. Be warned, though, there is a reasonably big spoiler about events around chapter 10 or 11, so maybe don't click through if you want to avoid that:

I'll summarize it in a spoiler tag where I'll keep the spoilers just to the basic mechanical stuff we've already been avoiding in this thread -- who the character is, and what is special about them. I will also include the extra bits I added when responding to some comments in the thread, which are kind of important to making it work!

Spoiler:

The basic idea is that while you can just move Anna to sage to capitalize on the fact that she's got some of the best magic growth in the game, it's also worth noting that you'll have other good characters for sage and she's got amazing stat grown across the board OTHER than strength, which make her more flexible than others. And if you put her in a physical damage class using a weapon that uses magic attack, you've got a pretty unique and powerful user for such things.

The idea from the thread was based around just switching her back to warrior when you acquire a magic bow (somewhere around chapter 14 I guess), and maybe also get a magic stat based axe somewhere?

There may also be good versions of this where you'd use strong sword or lance or dagger class to abuse a magic stat based version of one of those weapons, but going back to warrior requires the smallest amount of investment in weapon proficiencies.

So, here's the two comments I responded to with some important extra details.

Some Redditor wrote:

According to the datamining done on the triangleattack website, Anna's magic stat is capped at 18. If that's true she's not really worth investing into (as a mage)

I wrote:

I could be wrong, but I believe maximum stats are determined by a combo of your current class and character proclivities.

So, for example, according to these charts at Selene's Forest:

https://serenesforest.net/engage/cha...
https://serenesforest.net/engage/cla...

Anna should have a plus 1 to whatever her class' magic cap is, so 18 would be the axe fighter's cap of 17 plus 1. Warrior has a cap of 20, and sage a cap of 48, so if you want to build her into powerful magic weapon wielding warrior, you'll want to run her as a sage long enough to get a high magic stat then switch back to warrior.

And,

Another Redditor wrote:

But how do you reclass her to warrior from mage ? You ha to go through soldier ? Will she lose a lot of magic in the process?

I wrote:

Once you've used a master seal to change to any advanced class, you can then use a second seal to change to any other advanced class you have the weapon proficiencies for without having to reach level 10 in the associated base class. (If you're still early in the game and haven't used a master seal yet but HAVE obtained one and can see class change options, take a look at Vander's options for an example.) Or, if you're still a base class, you can second seal to another base class.

So for this approach to Anna, you have several options (assuming you've acquired the requisite weapon proficiencies).

1. From any level as axe fighter, second seal to mage. Then, at mage level 10 master seal to sage. Then, when you have a powerful magic stat based axe and/or bow AND have reached the magic stat you want, second seal to warrior.

2. Reach level 10 as axe fighter, master seal to any available option (warrior or berserker, basically), then second seal immediately to sage. When you've got a powerful magic stat based axe and/or bow AND have reached the magic stat you want, second seal to warrior.

Ultimately, there's probably not going to be a huge difference in your total stats either way, since Anna's growths are so absurdly high, and either way you use two second seals and one master seal to get there.

However, I'd say if you've already got her close to level 10 (or beyond) as an axe fighter, you definitely want to do the second option -- master to warrior, second to sage, second back to warrior when you are ready.

If you haven't leveled her at all as an axe fighter, the first option might get you a few more magic stat boosts early on as you go from level 1 to 10 as a mage, but you also need to get the proficiency to make that change without gaining levels.

Of course, getting level 6 bond with Celica only costs 800 bond fragments, so that's not bad. But, you're going to also need staves to turn into a sage, so if you're trying to be economical about it it might make more sense to just get Micaiah to level 9, which will get you staff and tome, plus daggers as a bonus.

Also, if you are going to use option 2 above (level to 10 as axe fighter) Micaiah is a very strong choice to use in battle, since if you use Sacrifice when you have a decent number of targets to heal you'll gather a ton of XP, bond xp, and SP all at once.

RE your spoiler. I did option 1 already. It's going ok...

Spoiler:

Got 3 levels on training skirmish. Another level between mission training. 2 more levels on next skirmish. She's already back up to level 7 where she was when I started but she has 2nd highest magic stat already, just behind my best mage who is level 13.

I put Celica emblem on after I bought those first 6 ranks. But yeah I need to switch to Micaiah ASAP. I didn't realize you needed 2nd weapon for Sage. But that will also help as a nice pop engage gain a level at the end of a fight move for her. And she will be caught up to the group much quicker that way.

I guess even if you're above the cap, changing to another class will reduce you to the cap. So once you get to magic 21 you can go Warrior with her?

I'm still not sure about it myself, I may just keep her pure sage because it looks like she's outpacing my other mages by a lot. But I'm flexible.

I'll need to research how stat caps work more, I think.

(This is only the second Fire Emblem game I've really put time into after all, and in Three Houses I never really tried to break the systems in ways that would have run up against it.)

My assumption, however, would be that the class based stat cap would prevent stat gains at level up, but wouldn't clamp your stats down after a class change. When browsing through unavailable class options in game I definitely did see certain class changes where stats would go down from the class change, but I think that's more about differences in base stat bonuses, and not about being clamped by a maximum value. (Also, I'm pretty sure I've read people talking about using the High Priest class to get characters unnaturally high luck before changing to other classes, which supports the systems I'm assuming here.

As such, in the specific case we're talking about in spoilers,

Spoiler:

You really just want to get her as high a magic stat as possible before changing away from Sage.

Or, speaking of High Priest, that's also probably a decent class to stat farm her in as well, although it sounds like that's maybe too late for you to consider. You'll get slightly lower magic gains and a slightly lower cap if you were actually going to push for that, but you'd get better luck gains and cap, which could be useful if you want to really abuse her gold farming ability.

I'm just keeping eye on the discourse for when I eventually get the game, but it seems that the pattern continues from 3 Houses where Hard/Classic is the way to go for series vets.

So, another interesting thing found on Reddit today, this time about the Paralogue 1 character.

All spoilers are purely mechanical/about the nature and existence of this character, and the paralogue 2 character being discussed above.

Spoiler:

So this person has provided pretty solid evidence that the way Jean's personal ability works is that it doubles his class growth rates before adding them to his personal ones.

So very similar to Anna, this mostly means he can very, very flexible (more so, since he's pretty agnostic about strength vs magic), although UNLIKE her with most routes he'll probably end up being about middle of the pack compared to other units, since his personal growth rates are pretty near the bottom of the pack -- but, the better the class stat growths, the better he will be, so getting him into high growth classes is essential if you want to make him work.

You DO want to get him out of martial monk ASAP though, and you probably want to avoid other base classes since generally the advanced classes are going to have much better growths. So, like the options described for Anna above, you either want to NOT level him as a monk at all and second seal him to a class appropriate for how you want to use him (more effective for him, since he starts at level 1 in monk vs her starting at 5 in axe fighter), or get him to level 10 as a monk then immediately master seal and second seal him to your desired advanced class.

EDIT:

Also, the same person tested how Tiki works if you have the DLC:

Spoiler:

She just grants a flat +15% across the board.

Sundown wrote:

I'm just keeping eye on the discourse for when I eventually get the game, but it seems that the pattern continues from 3 Houses where Hard/Classic is the way to go for series vets.

Definitely. The UI improvements especially make it really easy to see when you're moving into attack range of the enemy. And at a quick glance you can see battle simulation just by moving beside them temporarily. It will flash their/your expected health after attack. So you can get a glimpse of attack possibilities just by moving around. Then if you want deeper you can select attack and a weapon. Then you can cycle weapons. Then you can also toggle engage with + button and see those predictions.

All that before you commit to a move. And you can undo any of it, even the engage, with B.

It really gives you more information than ever. If you die it's pretty much on you in this game. Which is much better than being surprised like some of the old games.

Sundown wrote:

I'm just keeping eye on the discourse for when I eventually get the game, but it seems that the pattern continues from 3 Houses where Hard/Classic is the way to go for series vets.

Probably so, or either Normal/Classic or Hard/Casual if you want something a bit less punishing, depending on your preferences about HOW you like to be punished.

My research indicates that there's maybe a significant spike at a certain point shortly ahead of where I am, which is the main thing holding me back from restarting other than the time I've already invested (I'd hate to restart only to get just past where I am and decide I want to drop back down). However, especially if you have the DLC, Normal/Casual is definitely very easy if you're understanding and engaging with the mechanics and systems in the game, in the first ten or so chapters.

(Emblems make your units into absurd -- in a good way -- super heroes, and the DLC gives you two additional ones at chapter 6. Chances are good that's a big part of why chapter 7 was so easy for me.)

The Emblems mechanic remind me a little bit of Jeanne D’Arc’s mechanic of having members of your party with special abilities based on bracelets. The other party members are useful, but on harder difficulties you have to use the Emblems and time them out well.

Holy sh*t Ch 10 and 11. No spoilers because the game warns you when you try to begin Ch 10 that you can't go back to base after the battle. So yeah it's 2 chapters, with a save point in between and you can't change party. So just prepare yourself.

I should not have started that after midnight probably since it took a couple hours. Whew.

Story finally got a lot more interesting for me. I probably did too much grinding as I only had 1 short rewind to save a unit. Battles were fairly easy even though I l got surprised by some mechanics and enemy abilities. But never felt like I was doing to lose

Stele wrote:

Holy sh*t Ch 10 and 11. No spoilers because the game warns you when you try to begin Ch 10 that you can't go back to base after the battle. So yeah it's 2 chapters, with a save point in between and you can't change party. So just prepare yourself.

I should not have started that after midnight probably since it took a couple hours. Whew.

Story finally got a lot more interesting for me. I probably did too much grinding as I only had 1 short rewind to save a unit. Battles were fairly easy even though I l got surprised by some mechanics and enemy abilities. But never felt like I was doing to lose

Ah, perfect timing!

I did decide to restart on hard last night and made it through chapter 5 and paralogue 1, but from "reading ahead" it sounded like what you just did might be the real stumbling block that could make me regret upping the difficulty.

So, how did you find that difficulty spike compared to what you experienced with chapter 5?

Of course, I suppose the difference here would be that chapter 10 is something you can actually prep for, whereas chapter 5 you really just have what you've been given by the tutorial stages and whatever luck you had leveling those characters within that strictly limited time.

(I also suspect my experience with chapter 5 on hard was much rougher than yours ended up being, by the way, because I committed hard to stopping the thief -- ie, with both my fast moving emblem units -- and while that mission succeeded the units were effectively sacrificed in the process or shortly thereafter, which then turned the rest of the mission into a slow moving war of attrition where I didn't really get to exploit my remaining super unit (Alear and Marth) since, you know, mission failure if things go wrong.)

Anyway, I'm very curious how the chest hunting in paralogue 2 will go, and if Tiki's paralogue will go from manageable to something else. But yeah, the main thing that still has me worried is that I'll get to chapter 10/11 and decide I need to peace out back down to normal.

Well again I did 3 training skirmishes between Ch 9 and 10, to level up P2 character and promote her. In the process several of my main units went from 12-14 up to 16 or so. And the map recommend level 11? for Ch 10. So that's maybe why it was easy for me?

FYI on maps with chests, you don't have to beat the thief to the chests. You just have to kill them before they leave the map and they will drop the chest items to you. So you have to hurry, but not crazy rush into danger

FYI on maps with chests, you don't have to beat the thief to the chests. You just have to kill them before they leave the map and they will drop the chest items to you. So you have to hurry, but not crazy rush into danger

Yeah, I was just worried about the escape part -- the in game help doesn't really make it clear how fast that will happen.

I definitely made use of that to recover a very important item from a chest them in Paralogue 2 on my normal difficulty run.

People keep talking about casting Sacrifice multiple times per battle, but I seem to not have it available again if I engage a second time. Same goes for the big special attacks for the other emblems. Are they only available once per battle (as it seems for me?) or am I missing something to be able to use them again when engaging a second time?

I don't know about the heal one because I usually pop that near the end. But I swear I've used Sigurd override twice. Usually I go to one of those recharge spots since he adds so much mobility.

So I’ve made some mistakes here and there with character xp spread and grinding too much in some chapters, not enough in others. At chapter 22(3?) and I have to say I’m liking the story, maybe not quite as much as sacred stones or advance, but I enjoy the twists and turns about as much as PoR and definitely more RD and the following games. Considering starting a new file after I finish the end game just so I can do this “right” (in my eyes). The mechanics overall are just right, I never liked the pairing mechanics from awakening and later, but the rings are a nice change that are similar to the old mechanic of stat boosts based on support level and who is paired with who. Definitely high replay value, imo.

zeroKFE wrote:
FYI on maps with chests, you don't have to beat the thief to the chests. You just have to kill them before they leave the map and they will drop the chest items to you. So you have to hurry, but not crazy rush into danger

Yeah, I was just worried about the escape part -- the in game help doesn't really make it clear how fast that will happen.

I definitely made use of that to recover a very important item from a chest them in Paralogue 2 on my normal difficulty run.

In past games, the thief would have to actually physically get to a place where it could exit the map, like the end of a corridor or something. You can often tell by its direction of travel. It won't warp out.

On another note, yesterday I experienced the thing where units recovered from break earlier than I expected. It went like this: (1) attack with advantage, breaking the defender and preventing counter-attack; (2) a second attack against the broken defender, no counterattack; (3) a third attack, and this time the defender did counterattack. So, maybe break is just good for 1 free hit?