Fire Emblem Catch All

Yeah Fates was a money grabbing mess all around. I enjoy some of the character designs and the Conquest maps are pretty challenging. But mostly I hate it because it should have been one game instead of 3.

Stele wrote:

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.

Wasn't too bad when I went a little slower and kept my team together. Actually nice mission design.

Then I started a skirmish searching for upgrade materials and ran into a bunch of fliers. And one of my archers is 20 and I'm out of master seals to promote. So I'm in a bind. May have to quit and go back to story.

Stele wrote:

Yeah Fates was a money grabbing mess all around. I enjoy some of the character designs and the Conquest maps are pretty challenging. But mostly I hate it because it should have been one game instead of 3.

Yeah, although honestly at the moment I'd be willing to forgive the absurd Pokemon style sell it as two (and an half?) games stuff if they just let me buy DLC directly from the shop without having to rush to play to a certain point in each game, since my time is the more valuable commodity in this situation. I just want to have the entirety of both games' content available whenever I decide to play them. Big sigh!

Stele wrote:
Stele wrote:

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.

Wasn't too bad when I went a little slower and kept my team together. Actually nice mission design.

Then I started a skirmish searching for upgrade materials and ran into a bunch of fliers. And one of my archers is 20 and I'm out of master seals to promote. So I'm in a bind. May have to quit and go back to story.

I mean, it's not the worst thing in the world to waste a bit of XP, but yeah, as I've been saying the biggest problem with the game so far is the master seal economy in the early and mid game.

That said, I believe you are getting pretty close to unlimited store stock.

Speaking of seals, what’s the conventional wisdom in this game with using them early vs waiting for some growth on lower level classes?

Also, I'm still not clear on if it's a good idea to keep using earlier characters or not. I might try to find a screen grab if there's a view that shows the various members of my party right now, to get some pointers. I feel like this game's a little weird in that the added team members that are from the same class aren't pre-promotes like they generally are. So it isn't super clear what the best strategy is in terms of sticking with pervious units vs new units.

DSGamer wrote:

Speaking of seals, what’s the conventional wisdom in this game with using them early vs waiting for some growth on lower level classes?

Using master seals as soon as possible has no downsides -- there's no level penalty, and you'll have ready access to plenty of second seals long before you cap at level 20 on an advanced class and need to either change or prestige your class.

However since they are limited (more so if you don't rush towards the story chapter where they finally go from annoyingly rare to unlimited stock in the store), you'll want to be judicious about who gets them first. So, make sure you pick the characters who have the most to gain. Ie, big benefits in terms of skill growth vs their base class, an incredibly useful skill in their advanced class, or opening up useful strategy options through weapon proficiencies. Or, they're one of the characters you get in the midgame that starts close to base level 20 that you want to use, and you're worried about leveling them to that point (ie, what I assume just happened to Stele).

My personal picks of a few specific units that might make good use of your limited early master seals:

Spoiler:

Alear, probably first and foremost immediately at level 10. Her growths aren't THAT much bigger in her advanced class but they are for real, the skill is useful, the increase in movement is useful, and you're going to have trouble keeping her from leveling no matter what you do because she's such a powerhouse.

Anna and Jean, if you are going to use them, both should be promoted then probably second sealed immediately to appropriate classes. They both can be quite good (Anna probably has more easily tapped potential, but still), but you can't leave them either in their base classes or their initial promoted classes one level longer than absolutely needed.

Get a warrior ASAP. If your Boucheron is doing well on growths, he's probably the most likely candidate. They are powerful, and can be a backup bow user (or a cover that niche on their own on a map light on fliers).

Diamant, who is generally very strong and thus you'll want to use him and thus gain levels with him, and so getting better growths right away is ideal. More than that, though, having a sword and axe unit around the time you get him or shortly after is likely to give you useful team building and tactical options.

Yeah I'm still getting like 2 seals per story mission restock in the store, or sometimes every other mission?

Tonight I just got my last two units I still use promoted finally after Ch 16. I'm not even sure I'll use them much after the last 2 new characters dumped on me but we'll see. I ended up with 2 separate units capped at 20 in their base class before I could get seals to promote. Had to sit them out of a mission waiting for restock And 2 others that hit 20 while I was using them and I promoted immediately between missions. Part of that was specialized units (bow) that I had to bring to counter flying units. One was just a unit that joined at 17 or something and hit 20 way too quick.

But yeah like zero said there's no penalty in this game. XP seems to be calculated by your total level. So promote ASAP the units you are using. And if you want to change later, second seal them. It even looks like you can reclass to the same class and level again if your stats don't get maxed. I haven't confirmed that but the class change menu shows you can do it.

And also yeah my max character now is promote 9 or so but in reality total level 25 maybe. So I think that's right I won't hit promoted 20 before unlimited second seals unlock at the store. I mean I guess you could if you grinded skirmishes forever. But that would be your fault. ;). So promote away

Is anyone else playing the DLC? I just finished the Tiki Divine Paralogue and it took me so long. It was ridiculous.

DSGamer wrote:

Is anyone else playing the DLC? I just finished the Tiki Divine Paralogue and it took me so long. It was ridiculous.

Yeah, that's a long one!

There are definitely a few missions later that might give it a run for it's money as a long mission, but especially if you do that one when it's first available and maybe don't have the most prepared team it could be rough.

One very important note about it that might have been easy to miss:

Spoiler:

Not sure if you saw the yellow sparkling tile by the lakes behind the fortress, but that's a very important item -- that's where you get the 30% store discount card, assuming you want it.

If you didn't pick it up though, don't panic -- skirmishes will pop up on that map from time to time, and you can pick it up any time you fight on the map. To get to it you can either send someone ALL the way around the far right outside the fort, or you can just use a hit on a warp or rewarp staff and teleport through the fort walls. Having done each option once once (playing on normal and then on hard), I definitely recommend the warp option.

I did notice that and decided I couldn’t deal with it and so I ultimately left it and hoped I could revisit it in a skirmish. I’m glad to hear I can.

I definitely played it too early and underleveled. As a result I had to do some pretty weird stuff to finish the map like wait out every wave of attacks from the bottom. And then at the end I sent someone all the way to the left to trigger the last spot and then bottlenecked the opening at the right side.

That led to a weird situation where I had one character bottlenecking who was almost dying every turn, downing a vulnary every turn and then someone else was chipping away at the final boss from the back like. It was a mess.

In hindsight I could have sent someone around the side, but I was freaked out about the possibility of a last second reinforcement.

Yeah, it's definitely a map where knowing what's coming makes all the difference.

To wit, when I played it on normal I was probably a bit more challenged than when I came back through on hard even though I was probably lower level and had fewer weapon upgrades, just because I knew what the ideal team comp would be, how best to split my teams to handle the events that occur -- and because I didn't effectively remove a member of my team (plus Sigurd!) by having them go the long way around the fort to grab the sparkle by the lake, and instead just had a single person with rewarp ready to zap themselves out to the lake and then back in to the second tower to hit the button and grab the chests while the enemies were rushing out to fight my team in the main hallway.

So I set Alear birthday to 2/2 when I started, figuring I'd still be playing now but also far enough in to get whatever rewards. Looks like it's working as today I got gifts from almost everyone at the base.

Oddly there's a couple Firene nobles that are locked into story conversations right now and won't give me my presents. But I guess if I can do the next mission before end of day maybe they will give me stuff next time at base.

It appears to only be the gifts that you can give out for support increases. No weapons or materials or anything. Wish they would give me hundreds of iron. Dogs are digging but it's not enough to upgrade everything, not even close.

Wish they would give me hundreds of iron. Dogs are digging but it's not enough to upgrade everything, not even close.

Don't forget you can turn steel and silver into iron in a pinch.

Not sure it's worth converting steel, but if you get lucky and have good dog RNG (not a phrase I ever expected to type) you can sometimes get to a place where you have a few extra silver you can afford to convert down to iron.

Also, if you haven't already, it might be worth exploiting those Brodia donations. Again, as I mentioned a day or two ago, I'm not sure it's worth donating to the other countries (at least not until the endgame if you want the high end weapons from the highest tier of donation), but Brodia will actually start to drop good amounts of iron and steel if you get their donation level up.

I just got another infusion of cash from helping another country, and I'm strongly considering bumping to at least the 25k tier with Brodia the next time I get a gold skirmish on one of their maps just so I can get the extra materials.

Oh sh*t Ch 17. I may have to restart. Or let someone die.

Stele wrote:

Oh sh*t Ch 17. I may have to restart. Or let someone die.

2 hours later and still not done. I got out of the jam I was in then thought I had it, killed one of the multiple bosses and nope, I lost a unit.

Rewind, lost a different unit.

Rewind, didn't kill boss with counter and lost a different unit.

Gah. I might have to load my save from a few turns ago, but tomorrow.

This was the first time hard is really hard.

If you want to farm the few S rank bond rings that you want, you can with a little reset magic. Still gonna take some time but it can save you a ton of fragments. Video here.

Quick explanation:

Spoiler:

Basically RNG is fixed when you exit a story or paralogue mission. So if you do a pull and get an S ring in spot 3 you can reset and then just buy 3 and get it but also can buy from different emblem she get S ring from that slot on their list of you want a different one.

If you don't get S ring then you just enter exit a mission and RNG is reset, back to base, save and try again.

This was the first time hard is really hard.

Huh, interesting -- excited to get there.

I'm now nearly done with chapter 15, and I've been starting to feel like I've gotten ahead of the difficulty again by a significant amount. Even though I still feel very behind on weapons, I'm still more or less steamrolling most of my recent battles, and I haven't had any real troubles in quite a while that weren't caused by gross negligence and that were easily fixed with rewind. Granted, I'm playing hard/casual so I don't really need to sweat losing units too badly, but I do still generally try to make it through without it happening.

Guess I'll find out soon though!

Yeah it's wild. Seen some reddit threads saying the same. 10-11 is a spike. Then 12-16 is chill. Then 17 a spike again. You'll see why soon.

I tinkered for a few minutes this morning, thought I had it done but then lost one at the very end, and ran out of rewind. Couldn't get it to replay exactly the same. Using rewind is a lot easier than reloading saves but I'm stuck now, almost done, not starting over. Maybe I'll let one unit die just to move on soon.

Guess that depends on which unit it was.

23 is also a hard one, with similar difficulties all the way to the final one. I found though that it wasn’t as hard as some other end game maps. You do get some nice rewards for completing the game, but there isn’t much of an end game beyond just doing skirmishes and trials. Will probably wait for the dlc or run another file now I know what I am doing.

Ah figured it out. Turn/attack order and placement is huge for chain attacks. Especially whoever you put Lucina emblem on. Just using two of my support heroes first then bringing in another added 5, 10, 15 or 20 to chain attacks for later attackers. One enemy I took out with my 0 damage spear attack because 20 chain damage was enough to wipe out 19 health. Then I was able to entirely burn their second bar down with my speed unit paired with Lyn.

I knew I had a good enough and high enough leveled team but I just wasn't doing things in the right order.

Also Corrin emblem fog is amazing. Keeping my team together in a grid and having most of them be untouchable was huge to getting through parts. And Lucina saving one hit from adjacent allies also saved my life a couple times.

Hopefully I will remember the lessons I learned in one 3 hour long mission that didn't have to be that long. Won in 17 turns sheesh.

Just completed chapter 11 myself and that was seriously a doozy. Had to actually restart the map once because I was not aggressive enough and Alear got caught in an AoE freeze, which meant I couldn't get off the map in time before the super units caught up and killed someone. And now I spent all my cash with things still in the shop I want to pick up. Money is really tight in this game, which I am not really used to.

More spoilery type thoughts:

Spoiler:

Dark Sigurd is a real pain. Enemies with perma +4 or +6 movement is exceptionally annoying. You can't really orient in a way that they can't reach whatever they want. Kind of have to present them a target and hope they go for it rather than a squishy unit. The rest of them didn't really give me any issues, although dark Roy was annoying for the survival mechanic, forcing you to use an extra unit just to finish them off.

I had avoided doing skirmishes for the most part prior to this because I thought I would be getting more emblems as the game progressed, but now I am back to only having two, and both of them more archery focused. Not having Maciah to throw on someone to allow them to use staves makes me a little uneasy with the low levels in my reserves. I had already done a training skirmish with my B team and everyone but three of them died in the map, even though it was level 10/11 versus 14ish. Now that the game gave me even more high level units, the skirmish levels are probably going to be even worse.

I've been trying to hold out for level 20 on my units before promoting. Since your level resets, in previous games that provided the most growth opportunities. I think it is still too early for anyone to have definitive proof of which way is the best, but with the option to reset your advanced class to 1 with Second Seals, it may be better to promote as early as possible to get the better growths earlier.

I started a Relay Trial last week and have checked on it a few times, but it is still not completed. Watched the replay so far, and no one has even picked up where I left off, so it seems like no one is doing Relay Trials at the moment.

Yeah chapter 10/11 and 23 have been the difficulty spikes I've seen most mentioned. Tough stuff.

And it's hard to give tips without story spoilers. Like maybe you want to get certain bond rings ASAP if you can.

I started a Relay Trial last week and have checked on it a few times, but it is still not completed. Watched the replay so far, and no one has even picked up where I left off, so it seems like no one is doing Relay Trials at the moment.

I've never even clicked the menu. Since it used a limited ticket I didn't want to waste them if I didn't know what I was doing. But I've probably got a stash now since you get 1 each day. Maybe I'll figure it out this weekend

Yeah, I have been avoiding spoilers as much as possible, which means not really looking anything up.

You only use up a ticket if you actually start a map in the Relay Trials. I went in and looked at one, saw the enemies were too high level for me, and backed out and still had my ticket. It's completely free to take over someone else's trial, only costs one to start one yourself.

Well I can confirm the store has unlimited master and second seals after Ch 17. Plan accordingly.

My highest advanced class is 12, second highest is 10. So I wasn't anywhere near close to needing a second seal.

I didn't get around to Ch 18 last night, wanted to do a couple paralogue missions.

Some of these paralogue missions are not balanced to their level at all. WTF.

Edit: pay attention to objectives. If you don't have to clear the map, maybe don't try to do that. Can save frustration.

Well I got curious, so did some quick googling... Apparently the "random" option in Relay Trials is currently broken (has been since launch), so the only way to do that mode is to enter codes directly. There are a couple of reddit threads with people posting codes. I was thinking of starting one and posting a code here if there's enough interest in doing them.

Edit: Started a Verdant Plains trial - 1BN6F14

Stele wrote:

Chapter 17

I was out of town all weekend, so I finally made it to chapter 17. As you said, it's definitely the first real difficulty spike since chapter 10, but I found that just like that earlier sequence simply being prepared and taking my time with it was generally sufficient on hard difficulty (albeit with DLC), without any excessive grinding needed or anything.

I did have to shutdown for the night with two enemies remaining on the map (but I'm fairly sure there isn't going to be a big reinforcement drop at the last second), and while it did make me rewind a bit more than other maps have -- including to avoid a one hit kill on Alear -- I was happy to find that I was pretty well prepared for it, despite the "oh sh*t" moment when the concept of the battle was unveiled.

Spoiler:

I was expecting to face maybe all four hounds equipped with emblems. Having it turn out to be that plus Veyle and the king as well definitely gave me pause!

---

On another note, while I was out of town I DID manage to do the 3DS Fire Emblem project I mentioned above of playing through the openings of Fates and Awakenings to the point where they would each let me buy DLC. So since we've been talking a lot about the relative difficulty of different modes and games in this series, I decided to play both on the same difficulty that I'm playing Engage now -- hard/casual.

So, just comparing the opening sections of the games -- ie, up to the point where the game stops being heavily tutorialized and lets you have more control and start doing skirmishes, let's say through chapter 5 in Engage, 6 in Fates, and 4 in Awakenings -- Engage and Fates are pretty similar, and Awakenings is MUCH harder. I know that for Fates after chapter 6 the difficulty diverges wildly depending on which path you play, but I'd be willing to bet that Engage and at least Fates: Birthright probably remain similar. (And quite likely it splits the difference with Conquest.)

Awakenings, meanwhile, was incredibly brutal. Also, in doing some research it seems as though for both Fates and Awakenings if you play on casual, units that are lost in combat do NOT retain support gains, whereas I'm fairly certain that in Engage (and Three Houses) they do. Which, given the nature of what supports do in those games creates some very strong incentive to care about keeping everyone alive even without permadeath enabled!

Meanwhile, with both Engage and Three Houses I definitely still try to keep everyone alive (after all, losing a unit still means they've lost the opportunity for additional exp and support gains from the rest of the battle, and especially in Three Houses I still VERY much cared about the supports since the story and character development was so much more of a hook for me then) -- but I think some extra bit like losing support gains would go a long way towards making hard/casual really feel like the best difficulty combo for my personal tastes.

The game is easy right? I want it to be easy so I am hoping it is. I watched this video today and I don't want to spend hours working out best ring pairings, inheritance, etc. I am happy if some folks want to but I don't. So tell me I don't have to.

10 ESSENTIAL Gameplay TIPS AND EXPLOITS in Fire Emblem Engage You Can Learn & Do Right Now.

farley3k wrote:

The game is easy right? I want it to be easy so I am hoping it is.

On normal, especially normal casual, especially if you have the DLC, yes, it is easy.

If I remember the key on Awakenings is to use pair up.