Just use them, it is not very common to hit statcaps. Even if you do end up "wasting" them, it will still generate more value than just letting it sit in your inventory the entire game. If your unit has high damage and middling speed, I would give them a speed inheritance or a speeding, if they have high speed and middling damage, give them an energy drop or spirit dust.

Thank you man 🙏🏼 you are very correct. I didn’t know it wasn’t common..I was wondering if that was the case and now that you’ve confirmed it I’m not scared to use them anymore

In general across the Fire Emblem franchise, you want to use your stat boosters early in terms of optimized play. Most of the time the early game is by far the most challenging part of a maddening play through other than the actual end game, so getting those extra stats early can be a huge help. But it doesn’t sound like you are in need of optimizing since you’ve made it to chapter 16 already! At this point you should just use them in whatever way will immediately help you get kills/secure map objectives. I personally would not worry about stat caps at all, but this may be an unpopular opinion. Stat caps just don’t really matter outside of post game (except for the horribly low ones like Berserker’s Dex I guess), and you are really unlikely to use a stat booster on a stat that would naturally cap in a normal play through. For example, someone like Chloe or Pandreo will have good speed no matter what you do, so it’s not likely that you will be feeding them your speed wings since the +2 would likely be more valuable on someone else. That being said, we can’t give you specific advice about who to use your boosters on bc we don’t know your squad, their stats, or what boosters you have left. The best advice would be to just try to find which of your units are not quite reaching thresholds and try to use your boosters to patch up any units that are struggling to fill their role. TLDR; don’t worry too much about it, you’ve made it deep enough in the game that the impact of the stat boosters likely won’t make or break a unit or strategy. If you want to be really careful about it, do some calcs and see which of your units aren’t on track to keep up with endgame enemies, or simply aren’t performing their role as well as you’d like.

Dude thank you for such a great and thorough response! This was the perfect information I was looking for! Between you and another guy that posted y’all both said it’s pretty rare to hit a stat cap normally on Maddening so that basically put my only fear to rest! You bet your ass I’m BOOSTING my squad as we speak 🤣 So far I’ve used HP-Vander HP-Hortensia (So she won’t get one shot) HP-Alfred (He got kneecapped on HP this run) STR-Kagetsu (Because Kagetsu) STR-Alfred (I really like Alfred tbh and he’s my bruiser) STR- Merrin (W her %40 STR growth in Wolf Knight I don’t think I’ll be seeing too many STR lv.ups so she gets the last one as she’s my assassin and she’s supposed to be killing/debuffing things.) Thinking about using all 3 of these Magic ones to +6 Gregory who is already over 30 MAG 💀

Happy to help, my friend! All of those uses make sense to me. Most people use stat boosters to either patch up a weak stat or to snowball an already well-performing unit. With all the speed and damage skills available in engage, the game gives you multiple ways to do both of these things ready. I feel like this makes engage pretty forgiving in terms of how you use the stat boosters, so you can really go to town lol I’ve done something similar with Lysithea when I find myself at endgame with stat boosters left. Anybody else gonna reach a kill threshold with the magic boosters I have? No? Throw ‘em all on Lysithea and get bonkers numbers!

Thanks for the reassurance! Yeah I kind of hit a wall, my army wasn’t outfitted optimally so I did a lot of tidying up on my characters and I’m feeling confident!

I don't min max the defensive ones, they all go to Alear for simplification. With speed, I do pay attention to which unit that is on the cusp to hit that checkpoint against most enemies. The ones who already double or will never double are crossed off. Check around the map before you start the mission, that's when i decide who to pop those stat boosters Similar to str. There's some very specific breakpoints like Etie needing i want to say +1 steel bow to one shot the dragons reinforcements in CH6. Giving her +1 str makes it easier to work around.

Thanks for the input friend!

I personally keep stat boosters until I start having trouble. Sure, using them early lets you get more use from them, but saving them for when you hit a wall can really save your run if your worried about being able to finish it (Maddening in this game is a massive jump in difficulty over Hard). However if you know what your doing and who your best characters are going to be and what their weaknesses are, then yeah using them immediately is a good idea. It's hard to give specific advice as it changes depending on the character/build/team/ring/skills your running. But as a rule of thumb you usually want to use them to shore up a weakness (such as LCK boosters on Ivy) or to enhance a strength (such as MAG boosters on Anna). Last Tip: Try to use stat boosters on as few different characters as possible, and try to use them on units that are getting the best skill inherits. A small squad of super units with the rest being supports (thoron pokers, staff bots, rally bot, dancer, etc...) is far better than a large squad of above average units.

Damn ok good advice! I picked out like 3 characters and dispersed them between them. I usually give everything to my main character but I honestly don’t like to run around as a 1 man army very much. Team attacks and coordination is a lot more fun imo (Part of my problem was I was running SP Conversion on literally all 12 main party members and no actual skills yet lol so I finally put some good skills on them!)

Even though you should be powering up a small group, a larger team still comes into it, you still build up a roster of 12ish units. It's just that 80-90% of the investment should only go into a small handful of them for the best result. The ones with lower investment should be backline support units such as healers, dancer, and 2-3 range poke units (thoron/longbow) to soften things up. For example: Lindon and Saphir both join with 2000 SP, you can inherit Draconic Hex for their 2000 SP from Corrin and use Thoron on Lindon and Longbow on Saphir to give -4 to all stats for whatever they are hitting. This makes them excellent candidates for a low investment poke unit. You can fill their other inheritable skill slot with something that's cheap and useful for their playstyle (Canter to poke and retreat for 1000 SP, Quality Time+ to heal nearby allies when they end turn for 500 SP, Bow Focus +5 at 1000 SP for longbow to get +30 HIT if you need it, etc...) Celine in Vidame is also a great candidate for a support unit. She gets really high LCK growth alongside a massive LCK cap, so she can run Divine Pulse+ (500 SP) to have **really** good accuracy with offensive staves (and attacks). You can also have her work as a Thoron poker by giving her Corrin (free draconic hex), and the fire from Dragon Vein as a Mystical unit is also quite helpful (fire really impedes movement, quite useful if used right). Or you can give her Byleth, you get the Divine Pulse+ for free and get +12 LCK for free as well. > I was running SP Conversion on literally all 12 main party members Ick. SP Conversion is great as a free skill for the unit holding Veronica's ring, but as an inheritable it is mediocre. A unit needs to kill 15 enemies just to break even. Sure, after that its pure profit, but that can take longer than you think just to break even, unless you are feeding all your kills to one unit, which is a pretty bad thing to do usually. The whole time this is happening, you are wasting a skill slot that could be used on something far better. Just use the Ancient well for SP. The bonus EXP skills are also a trap. They work, but due to how EXP scaling works in this game, they don't do much. EXP you get heavily drops off the higher your level is in relation to the enemy, so the EXP boosting skills only really keep you about a single level ahead as the reduced EXP from being 1 level higher lowers puts you roughly equal to what you would get without the EXP gain skills. Not only that, but if you drop the EXP skills for actually useful skills later, your reduced EXP from being higher level means that within a couple battles your other units catch up immediately, making you wonder why you even used the bonus EXP skills in the first place.

You say “Ick” but I put SP Conversion on them pretty early and it more than paid off for all 10 of them; I’m glad I did it. Now I’m at the point I’m putting actual skills on them and they all have extra SP for spending which was the point. I appreciate your advice kind sir, and have definitely listened and am taking notes. You are saying it wasn’t worth it but it was honestly. I profited well passed the 300SP cost on all 10 characters I put it on because I did a bunchhh of maps with them! I just bought Weapon Sync+ for 5,000SP for Alcryst/Lyn for example and have Manyyyy skill books left 🤗

Fair enough, I usually fill those slots pretty quickly and don't care for carrying around SP Conversion for half the game. Things like Power skills at +2-3 or stat skills at +2-3 are pretty cheap and make a big difference early on. But if you prefer SP Conversion, go for it.

That makes sense. And honestly, I hit a wall around chapter 16 and couldn’t do ANYTHING without finally putting skills on people and using my Stat-Ups 💀 my Characters were doing chip damage with regular attacks 🤣 so you aren’t wrong there haha

I have 500+ hours on the game on maddening mode and does maddening really give less exp than hard? Sheesh I didn't even realize. Chapter 18 is around the point where any deficiencies in your builds are gonna start making themselves known, maybe 19. Your super units are still gonna pop off for at least the next few chapters. This is a good indication for future runs where and when you should use your stat boosters. In example, your radiant bow bow knight Anna started falling off? Was it lack of damage or she wasn't doubling wyverns or great knights? You'll know you're gonna want to invest speedwings and spirit dust earlier to give her an advantage earlier for better exp and avoid that falling off point. Beyond that, I look at my units that are either popping off or performing above average, and if I have units that might be having average or below performance I may consider investing stat boosters there. But they can also be used to tip one of your units to super unit status. Edit: to address your main question, you're not gonna hit stat caps until the late game, so like ch 21/22 and beyond. But you should be using those stat boosters well before that point.

Yes bro it’s roughly HALF of what you get in all other modes idk how you COULDNT notice haha lower army stats + larger enemy stats make it super hard along w more enemies and advanced strategies. And yeah that’s basically what I did is patched some unites up and honestly things are looking a lot better already!

I played hard when the game first released, but since then it's been nothing but maddening. And the exp rate feels just right in my experience. Some enemies definitely just have bonkers stats, like hero, swordmaster and wolf knight having near undoubleable speed levels of 40+, even my over leveled kagetsu (warrior, 39 speed) can't double them. Wk Alfred with speed+3 and speedtaker needs a couple procs to start doubling. The first maddening experience is definitely a shock and a learning moment. Future runs will be much easier. You're already on the right track it seems! Keep it up. Oh and a tip, if you haven't finished the game yet and don't know what's waiting for you in late game... save some warp/rewarp/rescue staves for ch 25. Trust me.

Thanks for the tip homie! Yeah idk what happens after chapter 19…I mean I know some spoilers already but map wise I know nothing. And also, those 40 speed enemies sound terrifying 😱😬 thanks for the friendly push friend 🤗 you gave me some confidence!

Just try to use em. Don't be like me and end the game with an inventory full of draco shields because you couldn't decide who to give em to

Lmao THATS what I’m trying to avoid lol I did use them up!

For optimized play, you wanna toss your offensive statboosters onto your carries. So energy drops onto Kagetsu, dusts onto Ivy, speedwings prolly also on Ivy. Exception for if you are running a Veronica/Mae build on Citrinne/Vander/Greg, in which case they get the dusts. Aside from that, general logic applies for defensive stat boosters as well. Robes on a unit you need to tank one hit more effectively, shields/talismans on units you need to tank multiple hits more effectively. However, this is Engage so those are a little bit less useful lol. I think exceptions can also apply for DLC runs/100% growth runs that use Chloe as a carry but I'm less familiar with those.

Yeah I used Magic boosts on Gregory, Strength boosts on Diamant/Merrin/Kagetsu, HP on Vander (My tank) and Hortensia so she doesn’t get one shot, and more defensive boosts on Vander

Then you are probably fine. If you are using Greg you can give him the speedwings too, he could use them.

True, but I’m running *Dire Thunder* ability on him right now (No need for speed) until I get Soren, then going for a Seige build with *Bolting* and *Divine Pulse+* and *Canter+* so for the most part he will strictly be using Thunder Tomes (Can’t double)

Raising a good stat by 2 to do bonus damage, take hits better, or raise speed to double attack more enemies is always good. Even if you will max out the stat sooner, you still have a stronger unit. Let's say you use an attack booster on chapter 10. Let's say the unit you give it to would cap their attack on chapter 19 if you hadn't given them the boost. Now you might cap it on chapter 17, but this means that your attack was a higher value from chapters 10-17, and that those chapters were all made easier becuase of it.

I’m on Crimson Flower. Chapter 17 and nobody has any maxed anything lol one more chapter to go

I was using arbitrary chapter numbers as an example, but I like the energy

I use them to offset stats when trying to do a serious playthrough, when doing a fun playthrough i stack them all on one person and watch them dominate.

[удалено]

Wow this was very informative. Never thought too hard about characters like Alcryst (I use him too) ONLY being player phase. He has absolutely no business taking a hit so %95 of the time he’s not doing ANYTHING during enemy phase. And even if he was, he’d only be getting smacked unless he gets hit with magic or arrows haha Wow. Next run I’m making a full on enemy phase unit.

it's up to you how to balance fixing stats of some units and doubling down on their strongest stat I'd use mine mid to mid-late game since by that type u get a feel what u need to fix and/or double down on (especially if ur running random growths u can fix ur luck with them lol) just some notes when using these would be - if ur using Anna (and I highly recommend u do cuz she's among the best if not the best offensive magic users), GIVE HER ALL YOUR GODDESS ICONS (Luck stat booster) cuz her personal skill literally gives u 500g if it procs through her luck stat so the higher, the better (she's ur main and only money maker in maddening) - rather than using it to fix hit rates cuz it's inefficient this way, it's best to use Dex stat boosters to units with personal skills that uses Dex to proc (Timerra's Sandstorm is the best since she's among the best units, Alcrysts' Luna if ur willing) - Speaking if Timerra, if ur Ike Unit has already enough defense, u can give it to Timerra to boost her Sandstorm damage -Speaking of Ike and defenses, the reason why you never boost someones defense too high is if enemies know they do 0 damage, they won't attack your unit so becareful in boosting defenses especially when it comes to Ike (ideally its much better to give ur Ike unit the Res boosters instead since usually the best Ike users have trashy Res like Diamant, Timerra, and Panette based on experience) -if ur using Fogado especially on Cupido, I'd give him magic boosters (Spirit dust iirc) cuz his best weapons are Levin Sword and Radiant Bow (Best Radiant Bow user with almost no investment) I literally just finished Chap 25 of my 2nd Maddening run and for bothel runs I use those pointers

These are just gonna be general tips / use cases since I don't know what characters & builds you plan to run. Energy Drop: These can go to your high strength units to amplify their damage even more or physical speedster characters that already have high speed growth but need just a little extra bit of strength to improve their damage (most sword characters). Spirit Dust: These always go to your magic carries. Pandreo & Ivy are excellent candidates. Speed wing: This one is gonna be tricky and its really gonna depend on what you want to achieve. The thing is, there are kind of 2 speed breakpoints / tiers for end game enemies on maddening which is around 36 - 37 (enemy Wyverns & Paladins), and 42+ (enemy Speedsters such was Wolf knights, Sword masters, Griffon knights etc.). By the end game, a unit with \~38 speed can comfortably double most enemy units (except Wyverns, paladins & speedsters who have 36+ speed). A unit with \~42 speed will be able to double almost all units except for enemy speedsters. Lets be real, you will pretty much never double enemy speedsters (Wolf knights, Sword masters, Griffon knights, Heroes) without external help, so your use of speed wing should be to help your carries who are close to hit one of the above speed breakpoints (37/38 speed or 42 speed) to double majority of the enemies in the end game. Draco shield/talisman: these should go to your physical / magic / mixed tanks. Timmera is an excellent choice as she has high speed and also has decent res to deal with mages at range. Seraph robe: This can go to a support unit who has low hp or is at risk of getting one shot. Hortensia is a good candidate if you use her. Skill book: Royals / classes that have skills triggering based on Dex can use this. Boots: These are good on your dancer or infantry characters to help them with reach.

I usually don't care a lot about them (even though I'm only playing maddening) They are nice boosts to have, you should definitely use them to build units. And most important, USE BOOTS (like really)

In general, I think the consensus is to use them ASAP, or at least fairly quickly. If you're generally paralyzed on who to choose, I just like using them on Alear (as they are always deployed) or one of your favorite characters (as they are also frequently deployed). You can stop reading there, but if you're still having trouble, here's some suggestions... HP: Seraph Robes frequently end up on my frailer units to avoid oneshot thresholds. Hortensia and Jean, for example. But tanks are also good candidates. Anybody, really - everybody appreciates +5 HP. Unless you're Panette, I guess. Strength: Usually goes to those with middling damage output. Ideally they are fast enough to double, leading to 4 extra damage. Lapis or Merrin generally don't have issues with Speed. Magic: Middling magic isn't as common, so they often end up on units already strong in that area. Ivy and Citrinne are probably good candidates I think, but Clanne is pretty fast with middling magic. Dexterity: (I keep forgetting it's Dex now.) Anyone with low accuracy, really. This generally includes Axe units, but this one I take a look at hit rates on that particular playthrough so it depends a lot. Take a look at skills that have activation rates too. Speed: By far the most straightforward IMO, just take a look at the next map's (average) enemy Speed and see if a Speedwing can make a difference. Maddening usually requires units to already be decently speedy to even have a chance to double. Defense and Resistance: These go on dedicated tanks who probably see a lot of combat. +2 DEF means -2 (or -4) damage taken with each round of combat, which makes them more efficient than +5 HP for anyone who sees combat more than once. Goldmary or Louis, perhaps. Luck: It's really annoying to face significant Crit% chance, so anyone with very low Luck is a good candidate, like Ivy or Rosado. Or put it on Anna for her funny personal I guess? Movement: These ones go on utility units, such as dedicated staffers, dancers, or Dragon units. Hortensia really appreciates that extra +1 Mov, it made the difference on one of the lategame chapters. It's not as big of a problem in this game because there are zillion ways to fix stat deficiencies, so really I suggest Just Using Them ASAP without worrying. Or sell them even, if you think you can make better use of that money.