Yikes yeah I'm definitely a bit over leveled. Did Ch 12 tonight and there was one ambush that got a character down under half health. But everybody else cruised. And I only gained like 3 levels across all 10 characters.
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?
Oh, I think I figured it out -- I think Sacrifice requires you to have HP available to sacrifice, and the time or two I tried to use it again I hadn't healed after the last one.
Hah I thought of that but didn't ask. Figured you wouldn't be running around with 1hp risking death. 
Hah I thought of that but didn't ask. Figured you wouldn't be running around with 1hp risking death. ;)
Well, I think the two times I tried I had left the character in a safe area where there was a recharge square, so there was no chance of them taking damage and I didn't want to waste food to recover them. Guess that's the price to pay if you want additional shots of massive healing (or free xp/sp 
) though!
Trading a vulnerary for a level of XP is the most useful they have ever been.
Trading a vulnerary for a level of XP is the most useful they have ever been.
True!
So more progress on my restart on hard mode.
So chapter 6 and Paralogue 2 felt barely any different from normal. Of course, I entirely knew what to expect and had my teaming approach planned out better, and also I was probably about the same level or higher?
Funny enough, though, on my first pass through those two battles on normal mode I definitely did at least one skirmish before each (so definitely two, and maybe a third?), but just the fact that you have so many more combat encounters on hard translated into probably being similarly leveled. This did also mean that I had fewer chances to get resources and thus fewer weapon upgrades, but I think I probably made better use of what I had.
I then proceeded to the Tiki Paralogue, again without a skirmish between (can't remember if I had done one on normal or not), and while that was definitely a bit more challenging, it was still more than manageable (again, foreknowledge of what to expect makes a big difference).
I definitely had noticed that in all the previous chapters there were maybe one or two additional units here and there, but in the Tiki mission there were significantly more, probably at least one or two more per pack. Also, there's a point in that mission where a constant stream of reinforcements starts spawning. On normal, those packs were two normal units at a time, and they didn't seem to be in a rush to create issues for me. On hard, the reinforcement waves now each included a dragon and they basically bum rushed their way towards me as fast as possible.
Thankfully I was ready for them, and had my squads well organized so I was able to keep my archer up and running to take them down before they could be a problem (even if the game called out Alear as the MVP of the fight, it was really Etie).
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So yeah, for those who might be trying to make a choice about difficulty, that's probably the clearest example of what the differences between normal and hard seem to be so far. Not sure of this is how most Fire Emblem games do it, but yeah, in addition to every enemy unit being better resourced in terms of stats and equipment, there will be additional, more dangerous units plus significantly increased aggression.
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And, up next is chapter 7, the story mission that was so brain dead easy on normal that I decided to start over on hard. So, we'll see how that goes, and then I'll be caught back up, other than the fact that I've yet to do a single skirmish in this hard mode run so as I mentioned above, I'm very behind where I was in terms of weapon upgrades. At this point though, depending on how chapter goes I may just roll straight into chapter 8 so I have more characters and emblems to work before I focus on prepping for big challenge spikes ahead.
I was thinking that bond rings were pretty pointless, just a stat buff. But I was looking again after I got a new emblem ring recently and noticed that the S ranked bond rings actually have an included skill. And those 3 you can get from playing FE Heroes mobile game are all 3 S rank. So I tried to get those on the units I'm actually using each battle. +2 attack aura for teammates can make a difference in finishing off an enemy.
So I was thinking that fragments were better spent on leveling up the main emblem rings to get passive powers. But rolling or combining bond rings at rank S can also give you powers.
I was thinking that bond rings were pretty pointless, just a stat buff. But I was looking again after I got a new emblem ring recently and noticed that the S ranked bond rings actually have an included skill.
Some do, some don't.
For those who aren't averse to a chart with names of later emblems included: https://serenesforest.net/engage/wea...
Most of the stat only bond rings remain pretty uninspiring at S tier, and REALLY aren't worth melding for (although no reason to turn them down if the gacha provides). But many of the ones that give skills are quite good. Probably not good enough to make you consider them over a full on emblem ring, but more than enough to really juice up characters who aren't currently using your emblems.
The Bond Ring tutorial says it lets units earn SP, so I assumed that meant you could not earn SP without an Emblem or Bond Ring equipped. Am I mistaken? If it works the way I think, everyone should have at least a C ring equipped if they are not using an Emblem Ring. I assume the quality of the Bond Ring does not matter for SP though.
I wish there was a non-cheese way to grind for SP and/or gold without EXP. I want to inherit skills and forge weapons, but I don't want to over-level the story chapters. And since skirmishes are always your highest character +1, they will always give decent exp. So the only way to get SP or Gold without leveling is to do it when you get your base classes to 20.
I was thinking that bond rings were pretty pointless, just a stat buff. But I was looking again after I got a new emblem ring recently and noticed that the S ranked bond rings actually have an included skill. And those 3 you can get from playing FE Heroes mobile game are all 3 S rank. So I tried to get those on the units I'm actually using each battle. +2 attack aura for teammates can make a difference in finishing off an enemy.
So I was thinking that fragments were better spent on leveling up the main emblem rings to get passive powers. But rolling or combining bond rings at rank S can also give you powers.
Not all of them though, just two per base ring, so Lyn's bond rings will have 2, Nino and I forget who else, then Ike's will have 2 as well, each of those two will have "unique" skills to them, but if you get multiple you can use them instead of actual rings. Some of the skills are quite useful, others are just meh if you don't have enough emblem rings or want to use a character without an emblem ring.
Ah yes the chart zero posted is nice. I see a couple skills like 20% more damage for all fire magic, guaranteed double attacks for wind/thunder magic. Those are some powerful bond rings.
There's a mercy one that leaves enemies with 1 health if you would kill them. I could see putting that on a strong unit to feed kills to a weaker unit.
There is a ton of things to do in this game.
Finally tried Tower of Trials. 3 maps you have to do all in a row to get rewards.
It gave me 5 separate orbs.
To enhance an emblem weapon you need 10 of one type of orb.
No way in the world I have time for that mess. Guess I won't be doing that again.
I keep poking my head into the relays and never see any maps I can take over for. So either no one is starting them or I keep looking at bad times. I can't do Tower of Trials yet, not far enough in the story. But that sounds pretty bad, especially if all you get is those orbs.
Finished 13. Story is fun but holy crap I have too many characters. Maybe I should let some die on purpose haha. They tried to give me a new archer but I like the one I gave thanks. And pre promote great Knight but I already made Louis into one of those.
A new swordmaster too and I promoted my sword girl to hero. So maybe I could use both but for the honest time only had Alear as sword user. But now I've got like 5. So can't use them all.
Just a ton of characters. And like 3 introduced at a time. I barely even tried the last 3 before the game dumped 3 new ones on me. It's a little much.
I'll sort it out I guess. But right now I'm just like whoa please stop and let me learn everyone's name even.
For now, I just need more master seals.
(Relatedly, the landscape of info available for searching about this game is TERRIBLE. Anything not on Selene's Forest or Reddit, has a high chance of being complete garbage. All the SEO farm guide sites are just plagiarizing from one or two sources, and whatever those original sources were did a very bad job to begin with.)
At the moment, the core game for me is trying to farm enough SP to buy skills
before chapter 10
while desperately trying to keep all but the three characters I've promoted (and Yunaka, because thief is special) from leveling more than once or twice past 10.
Oh, and to keep levels as even as possible to prevent skirmishes from leveling again. I think the formula is maybe more complex than highest level+1, but whatever it is, it jumped from 11 to 13 after I went through chapter 8, and DAMN that was a big jump in challenge. Very glad I've been focused throughout this run on keeping everyone as even as possible (other than Jean, because he's a special boy), because aside from healing I'm not sure even emblem engage attacks would be able to help an under leveled character catch up with this bump to skirmish composition.
I completely agree Stele. I just finished chapter 8 and am already up to 17 characters, only two of which are optional, but the game only lets you use 10 (story has been more limited, since the AI keeps giving you more). And its made worse by all the nobles having a unique class, so the retainers and paralogue characters get pushed to the side. I get the feeling that their intended end-game party is Alear, 10 nobles, and Veyl (12 emblem rings, 5 kingdoms, each with two non-monarch nobles, the Divine Dragon, and this mysterious person we keep running into). All the retainers are just filler until you get 70% through the game and they give you your last character. I am hoping I am wrong on that.
It feels like they took the wrong lesson from Three Houses. I think Three Houses would have worked a lot better if they did not allow cross-class recruitment (or limited it to like one person), making each path about the characters from that kingdom, and making use of the Seiros units to fill holes.
I am really enjoying the game otherwise, I just wish I did not feel inundated with characters and feeling like I am missing out. Like I keep having to drop Louis' spot because the game does not let me bring that 10th character a lot and if I drop Boucheron, I have no axes.
Incidentally, this is why Intelligent Systems had a mechanic in Fire Emblem 1 (Shadow Dragon) where some new characters could only be obtained if another character died. Leading to some folks letting characters die on purpose in order to recruit the next character.
One of the things I really love about the Fire Emblem series is that for better or worse you can see some of the seams of the development. You can see Intelligent Systems rebalancing systems, reacting to customer feedback, making bad decisions and then responding. I think it’s clear they struggle with balancing permadeath and adding new characters to replace them. They always have.
Another example is that since the 3DS games I think they’ve struggled with all these buff and base mechanics and the overall balance of the game difficulty.
This seems like a decent guide for who to put emblems on. It's IGN but seems like good info. Some character or just class suggestions to pair and it even suggests some other passive powers you might want to get to stack strength or bolster weaknesses. After gaining characters and emblems the last few chapters I was having decision paralysis and this helped.
Without getting too spoilery, there's a paralogue associated with each emblem later in the game. And spoiler part..
. It forces you to unequip that emblem for the mission so you can fight them.
So I was also trying to start one of those and figure out a strategy.
Well, played a bit more than I expected this weekend after both our big plans for Saturday got canceled, and made it through chapter 13. Thankfully, my concerns about a big difficulty spike as I approached the mid game were unfounded, and the *big event* chapters definitely kept me on my feet, but were not "turn the difficulty down hard" at all.
That said, as Stele warned above, you definitely need to have gotten your head around the game and prepared well for that point. As I chatted about above, that doesn't necessarily mean you'll need to grind a bunch of skirmishes or anything, as I barely did any skirmishes either before or after that point (three or four before, two after). Just that you want to be solid on the mechanics, and have prepared your team well as you've moved through the early chapters.
(Also, if you can, stick to "gold corrupted" skirmishes and do them on maps that give iron and steel, since those resources are the hardest to come by. While donating to other countries is less impactful, getting Brodia two donation levels will really help with the resources for weapon upgrades if you skirmish on their maps.)
However, the skirmishes I HAVE done more recently do line up with complaints I've read both here and elsewhere -- they DO get a bit spiky due to the scaling being overtuned, and especially if you've over leveled just a couple hard hitters and meet a composition you don't have the tools for, I can understand it becoming very frustrating very quickly. That does kind of relate to some of the other conversation here recently, though, and with regard to getting too many characters and not feeling able to use or appreciate them all.
I am really enjoying the game otherwise, I just wish I did not feel inundated with characters and feeling like I am missing out. Like I keep having to drop Louis' spot because the game does not let me bring that 10th character a lot and if I drop Boucheron, I have no axes.
Yeah, I mean, as DSGamer says, some amount of that is kind of an unavoidable consequence of having a game where permadeath is possible. But also, if you do take the time to try to level and build out a broader roster than just what you need for single battles, you'll both get to enjoy the cast more and be setting yourself up for success as you move through the game and the challenges become more specific.
For example, I just loaded into a paralogue that's wall to wall archers, and two or three of my current "A team" characters are fliers -- thankfully, though, I've continued rotating through a wider bench of characters and made sure that while everyone has a niche, I do also have some overlap in competencies as well. Also, the weapon spread question definitely gets easier to manage both as you build a deeper bench AND as you start to promote characters in to advanced classes, leading to you having more multi weapon units to work with.
Also, contrary to both your worry about the endgame just being "use the noble units" and a thing folks seem to be complaining about elsewhere about early units just being garbage that you have no choice but to replace as you get new ones, at least so far (again, on chapter 14 now) I think they've done okay with balancing things, assuming you've been building characters and choosing teams thoughtfully. I have NOT found that as I've progressed through the midgame that's it's felt compulsory to just abandon all my early characters in favor of strong, over leveled (and sometimes pre-promoted) characters. And, the noble units with unique classes are generally strong, but not in a way that completely negates retainer units and standard classes.
Yes, many/most of them are pretty solid units (and some extremely so), and that's appropriate especially for folks playing on classic at harder difficulties, but in most cases not to a game breaking degree. Diamant is a strong unit (especially promoted), but my Boucheron promoted to warrior is just as much or more of a monster (also, they are similar types, but different enough niches that I'm frequently using both).
And sticking with Boucheron, I just got a pre-promoted unit in chapter 13 that's maybe the closest thing I've encountered so far to two non-noble characters vying for the same exact same niche, and while they would definitely be usable if I wanted, there was no sense that I needed to abandon Boucheron from a mechanical perspective. They have slightly different stat spreads, but the new character isn't especially better than Boucheron's growth has been -- so I can either choose based on other preferential factors, or shift one to another niche.
Maybe the worst case of these two problems I HAVE encountered is with Etie, but that's mostly just that her growths are garbage and in my game she has not overcome RNG. So, I'm using two noble units as archers. But, if her growths HAD been better, the generic class options aren't bad at all -- in fact, if it wasn't for the fact that I like their unique looks in their promoted forms, I might have used the standard class for one of them.
So yeah, at least at this point I feel like they've done a good job overall of creating a roster of characters and general game balance (at least on hard, playing with the DLC enabled) where I've felt like I'm not being railroaded in my team choices, and am free to build things out and make the choices I want whether they are motivated by mechanics, design, or narrative.
Really, as I was complaining about in a previous post, the biggest hurdle I've encountered to using the characters that I want to use -- noble and retainer alike -- is how rare master seals are, and the fact that as much as possible I want to hold of on gaining too many levels past 10 without promoting. And, this is another place where the information you will find by googling is garbage.
Depending on which source a site is plagiarizing from, you'll maybe get some correct information about which missions drop them, and learn that they will show up in the shop periodically, but non of them have the correct details about the latter at all. The best advice I can give is to check the shop after EVERY story mission past chapter 6. You will find more restocks than information on the internet suggests will be the case. Still not enough, but more!
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All that having been said, I do want to pour one out for the characters that have finally hit the bench in my game, despite me working hard to keep a broadly leveled roster. First, a few retainers from the later countries whose design is boring or bad -- you shall remain nameless to avoid spoilers, but folks will know you when they hit you. Second, the Brodia retainer whose design was good, but whose growths were too terrible to be worth competing in one of the more heavily populated niches. Third, another good design Brodia retainer whose growths are supposed to be okay, but fell victim to the master seal situation -- maybe when I get to the point of having unlimited access, I'll pull you back off the bench, but what can I do? Fourth, the second thief -- you look cool and all, but I've already got Yunaka, and you just had no chance of competing there. Maybe I'll get you a fancy wolf to ride at some point soon though, since the stock wolf rider is definitely one of the people in that first group above :P.
Finally, though, the starter units I did have to abandon. Clanne, Flamme, and Etie, who despite heavy efforts on my part could not overcome their mediocre at best growth rates. When I get access to master seals I think I still will make an effort, but man, the game doesn't make life easy for then. And then Alfred and Celine... oooof. Celine is still marginal, and her advanced class' skill would do some work making up for her skill growth, but again, crowded niche. Alfred, however, is just inexplicable. Supposedly his growths are near the top of the charts, but you wouldn't know it from my game. Hell, I've seen enough other folks complaining about the same thing that I almost wonder if the game has some hidden skill attached to him that's the opposite of Jean, making his growths always be worse than the numbers in the datamined charts.
But on the other hand, big shout outs to my early units that will remain on my A team for the rest of the game. As noted above Boucheron is just a nightmarish monster. I think in chapter 9 he killed a squadron of three armored units entirely in counterattacks on a single turn? Then Louis, obviously -- even if he wasn't so good at his job, his chill vibes would be hard to dump. Also, Chloe, definitely living up to her high growth potential, and now that folks are being promoted is frequently able to replace a dedicated healer when combined with a sage, on top of being a high mobility, high damage unit. Yunaka, obviously -- give her the right weapon engrave and maybe Marth's avoid boost, stick her in a bush on the front line, and then laugh as anything that's not armored walks up and asks her to kill them.
And last but definitely not least, Anna and Jean. Switched Anna to Sage right at level 10, gave her a stat boost item to make up for lost time, and let her growths take over from there, and I swear, nearly everly level up she takes a point in every stat that matters. As for Jean, I maybe am cheating a bit by pairing him with Tiki for extra stat growth, but I decided you have never have too many flying death machines, so I decided I was going to make him into an early wyvern rider. Nothing quite like a seven year old kid riding a dragon in to rain murder and death on the unprotected back ranks, and then turning into a dragon himself when shit gets real.
Regarding the characters you're inundated with, are most people just using the new characters they get? In past Fire Emblem games I would roll with the older characters, because by the time I got new characters those characters would largely have gained enough experience that they'd be better than the new characters I received. For the most part.
In this game I feel like the new characters I'm receiving are much much better. They have higher HP, higher stats across the board. I'm struggling against whether I should switch to them or not. In Fire Emblem games XP is the most valuable resource, generally.
Hell yeah Chloe and Louis are my long standing all stars. I'm still using my Celine even though Anna is better in pretty much every way.
But one of the recently added wyvern riders that does magic has actually pushed Celine to the bench a couple of fights. I kept her paired with the emblem she joined with and that speed skill is just insane. Talk about one unit snowballing a map, it's one of the most fun mechanics I've ever seen in this series.
If you have +9 speed to the enemy they don't get a turn until you have both of yours. If you kill an enemy you get +2 speed for the rest of battle (cap +10). And of course the emblem gives passive +3 speed. Each kill of the first 5 makes the next kill more likely. She's a flying machine of instant death and I love it.
Agree about master seals. I just check the store after every story mission and usually there are 2 more in stock. I've got every unit I'm using promoted now, except for 1. But they are kind of tailing off, only level 15, while everyone else is probably combined level 20-23 or so. I was going to try to keep using them instead of one of the new units that is pre promote level 1 or 2, which is basically the same level. I think all pre promote are treated as level 15 in this one, not 20? Sure I saw on Reddit somewhere.
And yes farewell Clanne, Flamme, and Etie. You will never fight with me again this run, unless about 10 units die. Hah. As cool as I thought Qi class was the first couple missions I've got sage type units doing magic damage and healing covering me just fine.
Regarding the characters you're inundated with, are most people just using the new characters they get? In past Fire Emblem games I would roll with the older characters, because by the time I got new characters those characters would largely have gained enough experience that they'd be better than the new characters I received. For the most part.
In this game I feel like the new characters I'm receiving are much much better. They have higher HP, higher stats across the board. I'm struggling against whether I should switch to them or not. In Fire Emblem games XP is the most valuable resource, generally.
As I was saying above, I'm doing a mixture of both. I've had good stat growth on a decent number of my earlier units, and they had more access to inheriting certain valuable skills for certain mechanical reasons. Where I had particularly bad growth (Alfred and Etie, for example), and there were new characters aiming for the same or similar niches, I've replaced. But mostly with the new characters I've either ignored them completely -- for bad design, already having a character in the same niche that's doing well, or because I didn't have master seals to make them useful -- or more often added them to my expanded roster of niche fillers for either variety or to better handle special situations.
But no, even playing on hard difficulty I haven't found that it's a challenge to keep people current or beyond with the recommended level of story missions even fielding an expanded roster of like 14 to 16 units, especially since it helps prevent the skirmish level scaling from getting wild. Instead of XP seeming like the limited resource, it's more SP. New units come in with a big chunk of SP though, and you really can only use two skills on each character, so while I'm maybe spreading that out more than would be ideal, I feel like having a broader range of capable units to choose from is more valuable.
And, of course, there's the matter of weapons, but new units generally also bring in higher tier weapons with them, and it's not too big a hassle to move a smaller collection of well upgraded and engraved weapons between a larger collection of units to suit the needs of the mission and/or keep overall levels managed.
Emblem with speed stuff.
Yup. Also, inheriting speed +3 is for only 500 SP is maybe one of the best deals you can get for many unit types. Better avoidance plus better chances of doubling even with heavier, stronger weapons is a wild boost, and it's now effectively my default when a character doesn't have other obvious choices for a first skill (backup units, for example, should probably always get the "chain attack from farther away" skill first and foremost).
Prepromote levels.
Actually, I think pre-promotes each have an internal total level appropriate for when they join, even if their advanced class level starts 1. For example, the units you get in chapter 11 -- one is a pre-promote level 1, and the other two are base classes of level 17. I'm pretty sure that the pre-promote's internal level is 17 as well, since if you look at the overall stat "ranks" value (or whatever it's called) they're all in roughly that ball park. Same with the chapter 12 characters. Then the characters from chapter 13 included a base class level 18, so I'm guessing the pre-promotes there also all have an internal level of 18.
Or, maybe pre-promote class level 1 means internal 17 everywhere? Looking at a chart at Selene's Forest it looks like pre-promotes will start joining at higher levels, so maybe a pre-promote who joins at advanced level 3 is effectively internal level 20?
Ah maybe it was just Vander at the start then that was level 15 behind the scenes.
For example, I just loaded into a paralogue that's wall to wall archers, and two or three of my current "A team" characters are fliers -- thankfully, though, I've continued rotating through a wider bench of characters and made sure that while everyone has a niche, I do also have some overlap in competencies as well. Also, the weapon spread question definitely gets easier to manage both as you build a deeper bench AND as you start to promote characters in to advanced classes, leading to you having more multi weapon units to work with.
Well I just did that paralogue today. And I was not as balanced as I thought. 3 of my best units are fliers, and 2 of them are healers. So I tossed in one of the recent noble attendants that was a healer instead. And they got annihilated early on.
And I didn't rewind.
Farewell what's his name, I barely knew you.
I ended up using about 5 rewinds at the end of that mission because there's a damned 10-unit ambush! I backed off and used Louis as a wall for a bit, but then mages nearly killed him and I wasn't having that. Took me several retries to figure out who was too weak to survive and who wasn't and get them in/out of range. Brutal.
I probably wasn't really ready for the level of that mission if you subtract my fliers. But I really wanted the reward so tried it.
Oh, hm.
I haven't started it yet, just loaded into the map and started planning. Should I maybe do chapter 14 (or maybe 15 as well?) first?
Or do the paralogues keep scaling up as you level anyway?
Nah pretty sure paralogue is set just like story. I looked at them before the last mission but decided to continue story. And when I came back to do them this time they were the same level as before.
Yeah, I've been torn since they started appearing after chapter 11 -- like, I'd very much like to unlock their caps (especially that particular one, because speed ), but also I believe that basically each new chapter from 14 on will be
giving a new emblem or returning a stolen one, and I'm eager to get those back. Particularly Micaiah, actually, not just for exp/sp farming reasons, but also because her engrave is like the best possible thing for Yunaka avoid tanking and I'd REALLY like to move it from the iron dagger it's currently on to something with a bit more oomph.
Not to mention moving me closer to the unlocking of unlimited master seals, which is where I get to finally go back and have some fun with some of the characters I've left behind for that reason.
Ah Ch 15 is crazy. New effect type on map tiles and a changing objective. I was not prepared.
Had to cut it short and go to bed after a big 2 turn rewind because I think I'm screwed. Will try again today while properly awake heh.
Oh boy.
So, I've never played Awakening or Fates, but ever since Three Houses they've been on my list to go back and try someday.
Well, while googling around about Engage, I was reminded that the 3DS eShop is getting decommissioned soon, so I was like, "damn, guess I'd better get those games bought and downloaded now then." So I do that, but then after a frustratingly long time struggling to search the medieval torture device that is the 3DS shop it starts to become clear that there is no option to buy the DLC from the shop -- it must be bought through an in game portal. And for both games, the in game portal isn't just something in the menu (although thankfully Fates lets you buy the other story scenarios from the menu) -- instead, you have to play five or six chapters into the game before it becomes available.
So, I guess I'm going to be taking a brief break from Engage while I play through the opening hours of both games so that I can buy things before the shop goes away. Yeah, I know that technically I still have almost two months left here, but best to get it taken care of as soon as possible.
But yeah, man, what an absolute peak Nintendo bullshit experience this whole thing is.
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