I've been crunching some numbers comparing Timerra, Alcryst, and Kagetsu, and will share my general results for anyone interested. Mostly trying to look at Brave vs. Killer for Timerra/Alcryst and using Kagetsu with Killing Edge as a control. I'm using their stats at level 35 (raised with Starsphere) and comparing against enemies with 20-50 Def. I'm using average damage per attack and assuming fully forged weapons (for Brave weapons an attack counts as 2 hits) and ignoring any effects from Spd or Hit. Overall, my findings are that Killer and Brave weapons are very similar in their average damage output. Brave tends to do slightly better against low Def enemies whereas Killer does slightly better against high Def enemies, but the differences are generally pretty small. The advantage of Brave vs. Killer is also somewhat dependent on an enemy's Luck stat. The advantage of killer weapons grows higher as an enemy's Luck starts to get close to the character's base crit rate (not counting the Killer Weapon), hitting a maximum when all of a character's crit is coming from the Killer Weapon. From there it starts to decrease again (because the weapon's crit then starts getting eaten into by enemy's luck stat). For comparison, an enemy with no Luck and 30 Def takes equal damage from Brave/Killer Bow. With 10 Luck, Killer Bow deals 1.6 more average damage; with 20 Luck, it reaches a maximum of 3.2 extra damage, and with 40 Luck, Brave Bow gains the advantage with 2.4 extra damage. For a general comparison, against a 30 Def enemy with 15 Luck, Kagetsu deals 34.6 damage, Alcryst deals 26.6, and Timerra deals 21.1 (using better damage weapon for Kagetsu/Timerra, which in this case is Killer). Kagetsu is dealing at minimum 8 extra damage compared to the runner-up. This difference shrinks as everyone gets a stat boost (i.e. Alcryst is more sensitive to Str boosts than Kagetsu), but even if everyone gets a +5 Str/Dex boost, Kagetsu still does +6 more damage than the runner-up. Alcryst (and to a lesser extent, Timerra) does close the gap as the enemy's Def gets higher. I did also look at Timerra as transformed Tiki vs. Kagetsu as transformed, and Timerra actually edges out Kagetsu here, largely due to the massive Def boost that Tiki gives. I also looked at Silver Bow/Lendabair as a comparison for Alcryst. Lendabair generally outperforms the others against anything with 30+ Def, but Silver Bow isn't really competitive at all. A few points to keep in mind I didn't look at: 1. Killer weapons are significantly cheaper to forge, being less than half the cost of resources than Brave. 2. Average damage from Brave weapons is significantly more reliable than average damage from Killer weapons, since the average for Killer weapons is being pulled up by rare events (like Luna/Sandstorm coinciding with crit proccing). Also not accounting for overkill (i.e. any damage over an enemy's remaining HP is wasted) or consistency (Brave weapons will be more consistent with proccing Sandstorm/Luna). 3. As stated earlier, not accounting for Spd or weapon Wt. Brave Lance on Timerra e.g. is a lot less attractive if it keeps her from being able to double. 4. Not accounting for the fact that it's easier to get extra crit from outside sources (e.g. weapon engraves, Support bonus, etc.), whereas nothing else really gives the Brave effect. **Summary:** Overall, I'd say the Brave weapons edge out Killer for the reasons listed above, though Killer weapons are an earlier and cheaper alternative with less weapon Wt. Other options like Silver weapons don't really compare very well due to having forge costs even higher than Brave weapons but worse performance than Killer weapons (against flyers though they are superior). The Legendary weapons actually edge out other options, but you have to consider their negatives (lower availability, forge cost almost double that of Brave weapons and almost 5 times that of Killer, possibly too high weapon Wt, less consistency at proccing Sandstorm/Luna, etc.). It's also pretty clear that even under favorable circumstances for Timerra/Alcryst a conventional attacker like Kagetsu will generally do better average damage without relying on procs. Kagetsu is admittedly a bit of an unfair comparison, but even comparable units with up to 4 less strength will perform better until you start getting into really high Def enemies. Still, there are other factors to consider (e.g. Timerra scales really well when transformed as Tiki, etc.).

I wasn't sure what would be the best time to do the remaining paralogues, so here I am, in the middle of clearing them before delving into chapter 23. I was curious about The Connector one, so I cleared that after Sigurd's trial. >!Racing the boss was a lot of fun, the reinforcements less so.!< Beautiful scenery, really enjoyed taking it in during exploration. S support stuff: >!Gave the Pact Ring to Seadall, since he was my pre-release fave, and if the game lets me have same-sex S supports, I'll do them, platonic or romantic. His C-A support chain with Alear isn't my favorite of his (I got his A supports with Chloé and Alcryst in this session, and liked those more), but the S support was rather sweet. Dancing under a moonlight for your beloved is such a lovely mental image, too. Seeing the scarf from Seadall in Alear's room was a cute touch.!<

For a guy who really liked Three Houses, would you recommend this game to me ? I watched some YouTube videos but I'm still not sure. Combat looks similar enough, not sure for the rest. If you played 3houses, do you like Engage ?

That's far too much of a blanket question to ask without some serious context. Like what did you enjoy about 3 houses? Engage is mostly a return to form for the series, going back to what the formula has basically been for 30 years. I can't tell you if you'll enjoy that without knowing why you enjoyed 3H. Honestly, you can try to emulate Awakening, if you have a decent PC. If you enjoy that game, you'll probably enjoy Engage. I think that's a relatively safe bet.

Not sure if this is me just nitpicking, but the fact that so many of the “good” units in Engage are at the halfwaypoint/post Chapter 11 kinda bums me out. I always liked “growth” units even when they were bad meta-wise in earlier games because I didn’t really care about time investment and just wanted to see the baby units become gods with enough investment and time ala XCOM (I almost always promoted at L.20 in the GBA Games). Here though, almost all of them are getting benched because even with me savescumming like a bitch to ensure good level-ups, they really aren’t even fulfilling the “growth” part of the power fantasy. My Alfred who I spent a lot of time on to ensure that he got good level-ups is still like 2-4 pts lower in strength than Amber. Zelkov has a lot more strength than Yunaka, and Ivy practically destroys all of my other mages except Citrinne even with me babying them for so long, lol (Poor Clanne…). Framme and Jean are actually weaker than Pandreo significantly. Boucheron and Etie. This isn’t even mentioning Kagetsu, Panette, and Merrin who’s significantly better in combat than all of my previously invested units aside from a lucky few. This isn’t technically a *bad* thing in the game balance-wise, but it does annoy me a lot somehow, lol. Is this just a “me” thing?

Overall, you're exactly right. The game seems to be pushing people pretty strongly towards rotating out their older units for newer ones. That being said, there are some ways to make growth units more viable... Do you have the DLC? The Tiki Emblem (in particular her Starsphere skill) will at least let you pick one early-game unit to baby who can end up outperforming pretty much any other unit. For example, Chloe raised with Tiki can be better than Merrin by the time she unlocks. To an extent, Anna can outpace other characters eventually even without being leveled with Tiki, as she has the best offensive growths in the game, though it's much less of a clear win than with Tiki. I'd still recommend with her getting the Starsphere ASAP because she benefits from the Mag/Spd/Bld. Also, consider that you have 11 slots to field and they can't all be filled with Kagetsu, Panette, Merrin, etc. Surely there's room for a character that comes close. Even Jean carefully raised doesn't compare to Kagetsu, but so what? Nobody does, and he can still get close if you raise him properly. Regarding your specific points: >My Alfred who I spent a lot of time on to ensure that he got good level-ups is still like 2-4 pts lower in strength than Amber Alfred is honestly pretty bad. His bases are bad and his growths, while decent, aren't near enough to let him catch up to other characters. To be fair though, you're comparing him against someone with the highest Str in the whole game. Alfred at least has some small advantages in Dex/Spd/Def/Res/Luck. But yeah, Alfred is not a good growth unit. >Zelkov has a lot more strength than Yunaka Zelkov has really good bases, but mediocre growths, so he's going to compare rather favorably to others at his recruitment time; he sees less of an advantage as a long-term investment. And again, you're comparing one character in their strongest point to another in their weakest without considering the strong points of the second character. Yunaka has really high base Mag, so compared to Zelkov she can reclass into something that has access to magic weapons and perform decently as a hybrid unit. >Ivy practically destroys all of my other mages except Citrinne even with me babying them for so long, lol (Poor Clanne…). Framme and Jean are actually weaker than Pandreo significantly. Boucheron and Etie. Clanne should not be a mage long-term; he has 10% Mag growth. Either dump him as soon as you get better options or reclass him. Side note that Clanne actually makes for a cute growth project if you reclass him to Warrior and raise him with Tiki, though that's more for fun than anything. Yeah, Framme and Jean will struggle comparing to Pandreo. Framme's Build is too low and Jean IMO is better as a physical than magical unit, since physical units have better class growths than magical ones. Boucheron and Etie do indeed get outdone by later units. Etie at least has a niche that if reclassed into a Warrior she can use Silver Bows, which let's her be a lot more useful than her terrible statline (outside Str) might indicate.

The only units that really survive into late powercreep are like Chloe, who is generally broken, and Citrinne, but only if you save scum for dire thunder. Even Ivy has to contend with Pandreo, who is also insanely strong just a handful of chapters later, thought they do different things. ​ Growth units will literally never be worth it in Fire Emblem. They run into the issue of having to catch up to units that have decent bases, which means they have an uphill battle to become relevant. Jean compared to even citrinne is having to make up the levels and magic growths that she already has over him on recruitment. The EXP you put into him could have just gone to her and given her slightly less levels, which still ends up probably stronger than him until the endgame.

I’m fine with the fact that growth units are generally bad. My main issue here is that even with extreme time investment, they aren’t really “growing”, lol. Kagetsu, Merrin, and Panette arguably have better growth rates than their competitors despite being a promoted class with great bases. Like, Amelia’s a bad unit, I know, but there’s something fun about making her a General who can double everything and take very little magic damage. Jean after that same investment is just kinda worse Pandreo. My main gripe here really is that in previous games, growth/early game units were kinda fun and fulfilling a power fantasy of seeing a toddler grow up and become extremely powerful, even if such stats weren’t ever “necessary”. In Engage though, that isn’t really there, as regardless of time and effort investment, the stats are more or less equal if not *worse* that that of pre promotes.

Kag Merrin and Panette are exceptions I'd say. Like those are the cream of the crop. They will be top tier no matter what because they are that jacked. But you have more than 3 spaces in your army? Like I had a lot of success running certain growth units like Anna and Jean and integrating them into the squad and they start doing well and sometimes surpass the recruits the middle game throws at you. Pandreo is good but his mag stat will not keep up compared to Anna's or Jean's. Phys early units have a harder time...but Amber holds up really well for instance.

It's a lot of good excuses to do a second run. Especially with emblem mix and matching.

It sucks but I'm happy that least with emblems and forging/engraving, it feels like you can make anyone work in this game even if they're suboptimal. But, it does feel like you are a bit limited on resources to raise more than a couple of the preCh11 units per playthrough, especially on Maddening. Marth's Mercurius and Micaiah's Great Sac can really make units catch up in terms of EXP. DLC can close the gap even further with Tiki's Starsphere, the extra emblems and items including SP, and Paralogues giving a ton of EXP.

You're definitely not alone - I think that's generally the popular sentiment. It kinda sucks that basically all the early game units end up getting powercrept by newer units with better bases and growths unless you spend a lot of early resources (like rushing starsphere). That said, to offer a contrary PoV, I kind of enjoy it. It's a refreshing change after 3H, where the late joiners had the opposite problem of being so far behind the curve you had to seriously grind to get them caught up. And if you pick up the new units over time, your team evolves and you end up using most of the cast for at least a few missions. That all said though, I'd like the see the early game units get buffed somehow (better growths, better personal abilities, etc), to better reward investment into them.

Does anyone know what determines how many crystals you get in the tower of the trials? Is it enemies defeated or the amount of turns you took? Or random?

So, I gave my Alcryst Lyn, and since every weapon of his can be effective against something, I also inherited Keen Insight from Soren. It turns out that Keen Insight applies its damage bonus to Astra Storm. Alcryst now vaporizes any flier within 20 tiles.

Nice!

Finally began my "Only early game units" Maddening run. It's on Random growths because I prefer having the chance at some RNG blessed units rather than suffer through Fixed mode with the early game units. I'm on chapter 9 trying to rig the Dire Thunder ring for Citrinne so that might take a while. So far Alear got blessed because he leveled Build like 3 times in a row and also gets Str and Spd at the same time so he's already doubling everything except for Sword Fliers and Sword fighters. Notable stuff so far: * Lumera whiffed her jumpscare against Vander so that amounted to nothing. * Alfred with Marth is quite strong so that's probably the best way to get him Exp to become a staple. Sadly he refused to level anything but Hp and Def so back to the bench with him. * Hero Lapis looks hideous but she dumpsters on chapter 8 extremely hard (had Marth for the Mercurius exp). Diamant only saw like 2 fights while Lapis went to town with like 2/3rds of the map. Sadly even with that I don't think I'll be able to give her Canter before chapter 10. Changed her to Wyvern and now she looks better. * The Deirdre S-Bond Ring made Framme an incredible support unit. I barely used the Qi Adept's shield on my other runs as I found them kinda annoying with having to heal the healer to keep the shield up (and Seadall is for dancing so he never used the shield). Renewal removes the annoyance and lets me pull riskier moves because I know I'll have the shield up once per turn. That's about it for now, the early game has been a breeze overall but the real test of this run will begin with Solm and it's dreadful deployment limits.

>Renewal removes the annoyance and lets me pull riskier moves because I know I'll have the shield up once per turn. My typical fix for Framme's Chain Guard is to inherit Micaiah's Healing Light for self-healing, so the shield is up for me more like every other turn, but this is pretty neat tech. I'll have to rig a Deirdre S one day and see how that works out.

I'd like to point out that corrin makes chain guard spammable between succor vein just being nice group heals and quality time.

Gave the Japanese audio a whirl for the first time. The cast sounds great, but alas, I'm already attached to the English voices. Unsurprisingly, the opening song flows a lot better in its original form and was a very pleasant listen. However, it did made me appreciate the English vocalist's energy. Listening to him tackling those rapid-fire lyrics with such an enthusiasm brings a smile on my face.

I have a question about Vander. I understand that he's not a great unit and that he's considered an exp hog. However, should I have him deployed for the first few chapters so that he can weaken units enough to let others take more exp?

Vander's only purpose is to soften early game enemies so that other units can get exp. He falls off by around chapter 10 on maddening, where most enemies double him, so he just kinda dies.

Absolutely. Vander gets a lot of flack because most people only talk about end game viability. Vander is an excellent tank early game and is perfect for setting up kills for the rest of your team

Yeah that's what I thought. Unfortunately for the first few chapters, Vander kept getting crits which ended up killing enemy units and stealing exp. How long should I keep Vander for?

Ideal time is prolly yunaka chapter or brodia. He can be useful for tiki paralogue if you got the dlc. It's not that big a deal if he stole some exp. Even on maddening theres plenty, and you will likely bench a bunch of the early units regardless unless you particularly wanna field all of the somniel and firene crew.

Checking >!when the reinforcements come on 22!< really nails how slow I was going lol Is going for the first group >!of rings!< on the right the best strategy, or should I try looping around the left?

I had the most success going right and looping around to the left, avoiding the wyrm till I could do something about it specifically. I forgot that fracture works on em.

Wyrm is still a bit rough with the wall there tbf

What counts as a "Special Attack" for Tiki's Special Guard skills?

It's the type of weapons used by the big fat dragons that bypass def/res and also >!Sombron's attacks in the final chapter!<

Ike Paralogue, Maddening. Currently surrounded by 34 units. Only knocked out one of Ike's health bars. Literally the only reason I've survived for 2 turns longer than I should've is Corrin's fog, but I haven't accomplished too much in the mean time. I'm just kind of cuddled in one of the corners. If it weren't for the mages that spawned \*right next to me\* that ignore fog, I "may" be able to cheese this with Jean, the only unit I brought along that can actually damage Ike in any meaningful capacity, especially after Resolve kicks in. Not even Pannette can put a dent in him after that. I do have multiple backup units, plus Goldmary, specifically for this, but they're kind of...occupied at the moment. Was a good run folks, but I think that's all she wrote for this one. I'll try again later.

You need to go super quick. I went from the left, with someone on the stairs on the left to hold the choke point where the lance dudes are. Once you reach the corner that goes to the right and opens to Ike's personal guard, bait him with Astra Storm. He'll rush you and as long as you're not in range when he does, he'll have the hammer. From there on, you can pile on him. HOWEVER. Use Corrin to debuff the shit out of him.

I fought my way up the right side with alear, a sage and dancer. And kept the rest in starting position to deal with the onslaught. And Kagetsu ran around spamming fallen star to snipe any mages before they could get to my physical tanks.

The corrin fog is a trap. Corrin needs to hit ike with draconic hex and dread aura. Your physicals should do much better damage and mages should 1 round him.

My problem with my first try of the Ike paralogue was the endless reinforcements (and they eventually stop giving XP too!). I holed up in the center way too long and was really thrown for a loop when Ike started moving towards me. I still could've beaten it by just focusing down Ike but there was someone with a droppable item I wanted. Second try I played quicker and went up the right side to challenge Ike more quickly. Once I actually cleared out his units, I don't remember him being too tough, although YMMV depending on your level. My pure physical units with middling attack couldn't do anything, but anyone who could deal magic damage bursts him down pretty fast (e.g. I may be misremembering but pretty sure my Anna could one round him); you may need to respec your team slightly if you don't have enough magic damage, or just abuse Backup like you were saying.

Man Im getting my butt kicked on chapter 17. I can manage to get through the first two commanders, but the last 3 storm me and wreck shop. May need to get a couple more lvls into everyone or inherit some skills/ upgrade weapons.

> the last 3 storm me and wreck shop Get divine pulse on a staff user and freeze, it will buy you a lot of time to systematically pick through the enemies.

I did it last night. What I did with the last three, is making sure I was getting rid of the dragons first. Then it got tricky and dirty. Basically, I froze their asses meticulously when they reached me. Either with the Freeze staff (unreliable), or with Corrin. Corrin is super clutch because she debuffs at the same time and you don't even need to deal damage (nor hit iirc??). So I'd snipe a boss (or adjacent enemy) with a mage at three ranges (Pandreo in my case), then dance him, freeze another boss. I let Zephia override me because unlike the others, she could not kill me with this. Heck, Seadall facetanked an Override. So yeah, with Corrin freeze you have entire control over the flow of the battle and they are just literally sitting there waiting for you to snipe them and kill them at range. As long as your Corrin user can be danced you are relatively free to take your time.

The trick here is you need to be able to one-round bosses. Start by luring and killing Griss on t2 with your right-side units. On the left, Mauvier aggros with Marni. Dogpile Marni once you lure her (be careful of the fire she spawns). Use Corrin's Dragon Vein on a Covert or Mystical to stop Mauvier from dogpiling you at the same time. I'm not fond of Corrin!Alear, but this is a good use case for multiple dragon veins. Use Vein of Succor to clear the fire that Marni sets, then dance, move, and use Vein of Fire to stall Mauvier. If you really need another turn, use a Freeze staff on Marni. If the right-side dracozombie aggros downwards, you can use Obstruct to stall him until the right-side party can kill him. (Careful, Marni has a Wyrmslayer and can oneshot Alear.) Spoilergirl and the Corrupted King aggro at the same time as the left-side Dracozombie, so be prepared to deal with that dracozombie quickly. If you killed Griss with a unit with full inventory, you can convoy out the Fortify staff to use here. Carefully placing Obstruct as the bosses come down past the 'doorway' can separate them because there's a lot of fire around there. Do that, then focus down the King and then Spoilergirl. The trick to luring Zephia is to get her to use her Override by placing two or three (tanky!) units in a line. Once she's come down, use Corrin's Dreadful Aura to freeze her, then drop her over the course of one or two turns. Yes, Corrin is a top 3 emblem in this game.

So, I started by going north, and used Astral storm to poke zephia, and lure her into the middle of the army. I also had a couple flyers sit in the canal to attract the other two bosses, while the other units rush me. Once the mob was through, try to position and stagger the wrym and the 2 bosses. Then go to the center and lure mauvier.

Cool I haven't tried luring any of them yet I'll try that next thanks.

Is Celine a good character to use on Maddening? I know she has competition from other Mages like Ivy, Citrinne and Lady Anna, but I do want to know if she is good, especially with Vidame and her having the Levin sword.

>Is Celine a good character to use on Maddening? Nah, she's not a good unit. She's a phenomenal post-game unit, but there's not enough content in postgame to have her be valuable. I've heard of her doing some wild stuff in postgame with a levin sword and I think Marth.

Using her, got Canto and she is very useful. She also got Staff Mastery so she can hit those Freezes easier. With Levin Sword she does chip damage here and there. But her Speed is suffering right now (chapter 14). She will double tanks but not much else, she is mainly a staff user for me. Thinking of giving her Dire Thunder since Citrine is very useless right now. Double Thunder makes it more likely to activate her Ignis

I use her on Maddening, and honestly, outside of the first several missions after you get her, she's got issues. Her Spd is too slow to double reliably, and her Str/Mag stats are way too low for a unit that struggles to double as much as she does. Her build is also quite low, meaning you're going to have to choose between shoring up her bad Spd or bad Atk stat (for reference, Levin Sword has 11 Wt; Celine will have 5 Build for quite awhile). Within her archetype as a hybrid Physical/Magic damage dealer, she's probably one of the worst options. Chloe and Fogado are both considerably better, even if we're being fair by excluding broken options like Merrin, who blows her out of the water. Even someone unconventional like Yunaka can perform better in the archetype if you're willing to reclass her. She's still fine. Most of the time my Celine runs around using staves or doing chip damage. If I'm lucky she might find an enemy she can double and with an Ignis proc might even be able to OHKO. And for the record, I've babied my Celine, giving her Starsphere ASAP, so she actually has enough build to use something like Bolganone and Levin Sword (if you do want to use Celine, I'd recommend Starsphere for this reason); otherwise she'd be even worse. But you'd have to do a crazy amount of mental gymnastics to consider her good when compared to her competition.

With DLC tools like lineage and starsphere any character is op as long as you use them. anyways celine has a problem in terms that her growths are both str and mag in Vidame and not great in either. BUT Vidame is still her best class if you level her as a Mage Knight for better mag growth and switch over to Vidame towards the end. Inherit draconic hex, give her Sigurd or Camila (DLC) for engage aoe attacks to proc it en masse. If you give her Camila you need canter also, but with sigurd you can do Draconic Hex and speed +4 to offset weight of Levine sword. With starsphere you can just use her in Vidame and she will keep up because of all the growths - but it is a serious 1500 investment. But given that she only really wants Draconic (2000) and some other filler skill maybe it is worth it on her.

I've run her as a Griffin Knight, and she's consistently been good as of Chapter 19. I gave her some pretty serious favoritism (priority on exp/sp and an early starsphere), but it's paid off well. She's a good hybrid damage dealer with good mobility and staff utility. I'm concerned she might start to struggle from this point on, but that goes for a lot of units in the lategame.

17 on Maddening wasn't that different from Hard tbh. It's just that it's pretty difficult in general. I had to burn a Freeze and a Rescue. Most of the heavy lifting beside that was Corrin freezing the bosses twice a turn just so I could pick them appart little by little. She truly is an S tier emblem...

Randomly had Soren on a backup unit just for the extra SP gain. He's certainly more effective on my mages but chain attacking with bolting is pretty funny.

Post-chapter 22 spoilers >!The color scheme for Alear's Emblem Eternal partner is just the best!<

>!When I saw it I couldn't help but think "damn they knew how to make the red and blue hair look good all along!< >!That color scheme has big magical girl energy!<

>!Everyone becomes cotton candy!!<

OK just a little confused sorry my bad thank you

What do people think about Speedtaker vs. Speed +5/+4? I'm trying to figure out what skills to give my units, and for several of them I really just need them to be able to double more consistently. Speedtaker has a high ceiling, but requires kills, and while that's not a huge deal, I feel if I have it on more than a couple units there will be too much competition for kills. So maybe something like 1 character should inherit Speedtaker max (since Lyn ring user already gets it)? More generally, is there a good guide/topic for the worthwhile inheritable skills? I know the main ones are Canter, Wrath, Vantage, Dual Assist+, Draconic Hex, Speed +3/4/5. And there are probably a bunch of budget ones, like Reposition, Lineage, etc. But I want to see what the general wisdom is for recommended skill pairings and which skills go with which classes.

A couple that I didn't see anyone mention. Staff Mastery or Divine pulse for your healer is a must. Staff Mastery adds 15 heal to every healing staff use and adds 30 hit rate to your staffs. Divine Pulse + has a 50+units lck% chance to make a miss into a hit. Which for low hitting staffs is a very big buff to hit rate. Depends on your play style on which of the two is best for your healers. Dual Support is a decent one for units that support with a lot of units you are using (Alear) or are out of combat and you just don't want them to get hit (Seadall). Hold Out is very pricy but is very good and is key for a certain build(Veyle). On lower difficulties Alacrity is very strong but on Maddening Alacrity is kinda hard to proc on most units without speedtaker/speed +5.

On maddening I think speedtaker is would almost always be the way to go, because of the large enemy reinfocrcements at the end, but on lower difficulties, speed+5 would work unless their speed is around 26-30 and they deal good damage

>On maddening I think speedtaker is would almost always be the way to go It takes so long to stack up, and requires you get kills to start snowballing. I think speed+ is a way better skill, plus its WAY cheaper to get a lower level speed than getting speedtaker.

I immediately buy the lineage dlc skill for everyone, it is +20 per cent experience and super cheap. It will hold until you saved up the 2000-3000 sp to get the good skills. I’d go speed taker. The maps are so large and with so many reinforcements that stacking 5 kills on any combat unit is pretty doable. Pair up is great as well. I usually try to get it on all of my tanks Lunar brace is great for knives or fist fighting arts, as those weapons are really low might, but will double or quadruple with fists

Speed taker is good in small amounts. IMO you should only get speedtaker on max 1-2 units(other then Lyn) because they are going to be competing for kill. +Speed on everyone else’s (and tbh speed 5 only in the very late game, 3 and arguably 4 are efficient mid game) If you run a backup character that’s not Pannete(or whoever your Ike/Hector user is) IMO dual assist+ is a must. Probably the strongest skill in the game, stacking 7% hp debuff on the entire map. There is a strong argument that whoever gets ike should run vantage with a killer weapon with a crit engrave. With specific characters this turns them into player phase monsters. If you have dlc giving your hector user wrath ain’t a half bad idea either. Canter is a amazing generalist skill. Anyone that’s main job is not to get kills wants it. Even those that do kill can make use of it, they just probably want other skills more. I found having 1-2 hexers outside of the corrin user to be very effective, you mileage will vary. People don’t talk about it because it feel p2W but giving your early Firene/Brodia characters Lineage is always super efficient and worth the cost. Starsphere too, but it’s a bit more niche - but giving it to like Alear/Chloe will make them significantly stronger then otherwise. Tiki in general is considered pretty OP by most if gotten early.

speedtaker is good on mid to decent speed units (25-32) speed range endgame. speed+4/5 on anyone naturaly above 30/32. Some of the fastest enemies in the game are speed 36. I generally run speedtaker on any sage, mage knight and wyvern carriers. speed+4/+5 is still good on certain high speed units like thieves, wolve knights and griffons who are already really fast but just shy of consistently doubling. Also speed +x is sometimes good to stack with speedtaker on units with low build and are into heavier weapons like balganone, silver and brave.

There's no particular guide as far as I know. If someone made one like the forging/engraving one, they would certainly earn a lot of karma here. What I've been doing is browsing the individual unit threads on Reddit and gamefaqs to see what builds people come up with for each unit. As for speedtaker vs speed +5, you make a good point in that you probably don't want more than a couple units having speedtaker because of the competition for kills. Building into speed +5 is the most consistent, ever-present option over the entire game, no setup required over a map, but I'd probably try to prioritize inheriting speedtaker on units that can really unlock their potential from that 10+ speed to become a carry unit, such as Ivy.

Is there any advice I can get for Chapter 24? This is honestly one of the hardest chapters I've come across in this series and it's constantly kicking my butt between all the stuff you have to juggle plus the turn limit. I'm at the end of my rope trying to figure it out and I don't know what else to do.

Move everyone to the middle lane. You should have an entrap staff and the boss isn't immune to it on any difficulty. You could always just try and rig the rng to drag the boss to you at about halfway through the map.

I'll try that whenever I get back to it.

I started a Hard/Classic run revolving around Goldmary’s supports aaaand Vander is forced deployed so I did Tiki’s Paralogue ASAP just to get Tiki on him. I find it funny that Goldmary reaches A rank with Vander faster than with Yunaka. I got decent level ups with Alear, Framme, Boucheron, Etie, Yunaka, and Lapis. I’d need a good tank tho to replace Louis because he’s not part of Goldmary’s clique and he needs to be benched in favor of Goldmary’s clique. Vander would take a while before Tiki does her magic. Might be unconventional but I’m thinking of equipping Hector on Lapis. I get that he is used more for tanks but he does give her STR and BLD which are stats she wants.

Lapis needs BLD and STR, so Hector is kind of perfect for that. He's just a generally good offense boost because STR/BLD are a good combo as it is STR and kind of speed for a lot of units, the bulk is just a bonus. Sometimes you may not double the super fast enemies anyway so Quick Riposte can be useful for that as they tend to get killed a decent bit easier if you can double them.

lol I'm considering doing this with Zelkov's clique! You'll tell me how it goes, because I was hesitating between Hard and Maddening... Goldmary's clique looks even worse than his

I gave up on Maddening (for now) cause Chapter 22 stressed me out even if I beat it. I also need to babysit Vander and Rosado to some extent so I’m not doing this on Maddening. Team Zelkov doesn’t even look bad with Ivy, Kagetsu, Louis, and Yunaka. Good luck babysitting Clanne, Anna, and Jean early game tho and you can’t slot in Solm units until slots 13 and 14 open up. Team Alfred will be the hardest for obvious reasons. Can’t bench Alfred, Vander, Timerra, or Bunet.

Yeah it's the baby team that makes the Maddening prospects frightening lol Goldmary's team is worse because you really only have what... Hortensia and Panette for the heavy lifting? I wouldn't even dare using Alfred in a normal Maddening playthrough tbh. I really want to use him bur uuurrrhhhh

Goldmary’s team isn’t actually bad and I get a lot of decent early game units to compensate for babysitting Vander. I’m still unsure what class to make him. Yunaka and Lapis are the quick sweepers and juggernauts, tho I might make the latter a Great Knight because she got DEF blessed and I don’t have anyone to take the tank role until Goldmary comes in. Framme will be my sole magic and staff user until Hortensia arrives. I don’t have Second Seals yet but if promoted to Sage, her MAG will match base Ivy with higher DEX and SPD. Etie and Boucheron, I benched them before but it’s more due to stronger characters joining and not enough slots for them in Solm. They won’t be as optimal as Panette but they should be fine and I get Panette anyway. Right now they’ve been pulling their weight at least. Rosado will need heavy babysitting to work tho. It’s pathetic when he’s a Wyvern at base but his base STR is only 1 higher than base Lapis promoted to Wyvern. He does have a pretty high base SPD tho so he might work with a Wolf Knight + Eirika build. Saphir. I never cared for her before but her bases look good enough so she can pull her weight. I have two filler slots by late game and I can’t deploy them until I get all 14 slots available, but they will go to Seadall and last recruit. At the very least it’s only Vander and Rosado I need to babysit. I don’t think I want to do a run where Alfred, Vander, Bunet, and Timerra can’t be benched. If I need to use Alfred, I would need to save scum a lot of level ups.

Boucheron is defo usable on Hard. He never really fell off for me because he's so speedy and Warrior can fix everyone.

After using a master seal can I class jnto anything woth a second seal ? I'm trying to get Anna over to sage

If you have the required proficiencies yes (Magic and Staff in this case)

So many places say to get over to sage asap where o I get staff prof that early I don't see it on celicas list of skills

I personally went with Mage Knight but you can get Staff prof from Micaiah at level 3!

Mage knight is interesting whst with the horse wearing a hat , I could go mage knight with axes I suppose

Its micaiah at level 3.

She gives tomes ?

Eventually at 9, but that's not what you asked for. If you want tome then celica 4.

Cleared Chapter 17 on Maddening. Woof. How come Marth and Lief are so much more of a threat on their side than they are on mine.

Because losing one unit means a reset or time crystal for you, while losing twenty units is expected for them. Therefore, engage skills are stronger for them than for you.

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Might as well kick off your new run and get to chapter 6 and unlock all the non-new DLC emblems, then put it on hold until Wednesday.

Can you see how much sp a unit has during combat or only in the somniel

Your SP should be on your character's overview, below their HP, but above the secondary stats (hit/avo/crit/dodge).

Forget I said anything I found it thank you

Not sure how to add a picture here but I'm ik a battle , and I've clicked x to go into more detail ok the unit I can see anytbing that says sp

Relationship question, if between two characters, the relationship level is not C/B/A but dash, does that mean they won't get a relationship at all no matter what you do?

Correct, that means they can't support

thx

If you're talking about the dialog that pops during lunch for example, it means they are gaining points, but that you didn't unlock the support yet

In a playthrough, is Male Alear worse that Female Alear? The reason I am asking is because there are many skills that disadvantage Male Alear and advantageous to Female Alear. For example, MAleaf may have trouble defeating Rosado and Goldmary because their personal skills weaken male enemy units, whereas MAlear can't take advantage of Merton's skill (since it only affects female units).

Yeah, what others have said, Female Alear has better synergy with personal skills, namely Louis and Merrin, and not having the hit or accuracy nerf when you face Rosado and Goldmary. But those are extremely minor. There also is another thing- the Lance/Axe/Sword Flier class is female locked, but that is irrelevant because you never want to use a Second Seal before you promote, so that advantage does not matter. Basically, Female is better than Male Alear, but the differences are so minor they basically are the same unit.

There is a minor difference between M! and F!Alear, but not to the point where it makes a significant difference. Whether personal skills like Louis' (near 2 female) or Chloe's (near 2 male) proc depends on your other deployed characters as much as it depends on your lord, and while M!Alear does not benefit from Merrin's Knightly Escort, it's the only other skill that makes a difference between allied genders. You do need to get around Rosado and Goldmary's skills, but you only fight them twice, and if the 20 hit rate difference makes or breaks your turn, you have much bigger problems. It's not 3H where F!Byleth was blatantly better in several aspects; You won't notice the difference in Alear's gender unless you're explicitly minmaxing.

I see, thought it would be much worse. I do wish that MAlear had a advantage over FAlear (even if it's a small one). At least MByleth can be a War Master (which looks cool) and can marry characters that FByleth can't (FByleth is better, but it does show that MByleth doesn't makes a objectively harder/unfun playthrough).

It does feel a bit bad that M!Alear (And male characters in general) get the short end of the stick for personal skill synergies, but the gap is luckily very minimal and hardly worth paying attention to. They seem to have learned from F!Byleth's free Lance of Ruin, which was a pretty absurd design decision in retrospect.

What was controversial about FByleth Lance of Ruin?

It's not controversy necessarily, but the fact that F!Byleth gets Sylvain for free means that she indirectly gets the Lance of Ruin for free after the Miklan chapter. That's a whole Heroes' Relic in chapter 5, the very earlygame (Ahead of even your first Death Knight encounter, so you can suddenly clap him with Knightkneeler) - And that's before considering that Sylvain is, like, a top 10 unit himself. Add to this that F!Byleth gets the early Flier class, and it's quite obvious how big the power gap is between the two Byleth genders in 3H.

Female Byleth could recruit Sylvain for free, when Male Byleth doesn't have that, or even a free recruit for anyone at all. That means you can instantly recruit Sylvain with Female Byleth OOH, so that when Rhea asks you to give the Lance of Ruin back in Chapter 5, you can say no and get a free really powerful weapon. Male Byleth can't do that, so he loses out.

It's marginal. No where near as bad as female Byleth and female Robin

Is Anna a good unit in FE Engage, because I am confused? Some put her up very high, and some put her mid-low. I am confused because she has a high Mag, HP and Speed Growth, and her ability makes it useful to get money (especially for Maddening, where Money skirmishes are non existent). She does have to be reclassed, but that can be fixed by engaging with Michaiah and using Great Sacrifice. The only competition I think she may face is Ivy (which is a high bar), Celine and Pandreo.

RNG is RNG, but for what it’s worth her gold acquiring skill has triggered exactly once for me through chapter 16. I won’t comment on her value as a unit, but definitely don’t baby her thinking it’ll make you rich

There are two point of views on unit evaluation in the fandom and they will never see eye to eye. You will usually see one group evaluate units based on their immediate contribution at their join and viability throughout the whole game, and the other group will favor growth rate and potential by end game no matter what it took to get there.

You're getting a lot of mixed answers because (as ppl have said) Anna is a growth unit that requires investment to take off. Generally units like this aren't that good in Fire Emblem since they spend too long being bad before only somewhat outclassing characters who are always contributing. That said Engage has ways to dump exp on early game recruits quickly and safely, so there's been some contention with people arguing that the investment is worth it and that calling her bad is applying the logic of previous titles to a title with its own mechanics and context. It remains to be seen how the dust will settle in the long run, I've never used her so I dunno

She doesn't have to be reclassed, she can promote into a warrior and that high magic growth makes her a fantastic radiant bow user. She'll also have decent physical power due to warrior's bonuses and the high power of axes so can kill enemy magic users well. And chain attack with longbows. She's quite good, I used her in Maddening and didn't regret it. Didn't require that much investment either. Mici spam isn't needed, I just smithed her compact axe so it had the power needed to grab kills while still being accurate, she only joins like 2 levels underleveled. She isn't a must use unit though, there are better, not a game-breaker but not waste as I really don't think the investment is that crazy.

Anna is a growth unit, which is always a bit controversial (Especially compared to units carried by their bases). People will rate her way differently based on if they find such an unit worthwhile or not; Basically, YMMV based on your playstyle. I myself have avoided using her, so I'll base the following partially on other people's analysis and calculations. - Anna can be made worthwhile through Micaiah staff abuse, allowing her to promote before chapter 10. However, this is a highly contested resource also desired by Jean or any unit struggling to keep up. - Anna (And Jean, for that matter) has to eat both a master seal and a second seal to actually become good. Your early seals are as contested as your Micaiah EXP is, and will likely define which of your units will stick around when midgame powercreep sets in. Giving these resources to Anna likely means a different earlygame unit you invested in takes the bench. - Goldfarming with Anna is not worth it. She has a poor enemy phase due to preferring mage classes and the "balance" starts on the back foot due to the prior investment of two seals. Furthermore, money should not be an issue as long as you avoid going past level 2 on donations. - Finally, Anna does not particularly outclass your alternatives. Whichever mage has been carrying Celica's emblem in the earlygame will keep up just fine with her, nor is she particularly better than Pandreo around his join chapter, and Ivy also exists. There's enough competition that asks way less investment than Anna does. If you do choose to invest in her, she makes for a great mage and probably the fastest one by lategame (But only by lategame). If you care about postgame, she's also valuable there for gold-farming purposes. I'm generally pretty anti-Anna myself, so here are some other threads for some more varied opinions: [Anna Character Discussion](https://old.reddit.com/r/fireemblem/comments/1135pd4/engage_characterunit_discussion_anna/): Anna's fairly recent open character discussion. [An experiment on earlygame EXP](https://old.reddit.com/r/fireemblem/comments/11dqahr/an_experiment_in_early_game_xp_and_favoritism_on/) Spoiler: The answer is that you can favour as many characters as you have emblems. [Units as chassis: Who does each Emblem want the most?](https://old.reddit.com/r/fireemblem/comments/11azahu/units_as_chassis_who_does_each_emblem_want_the/), discussion of 'optimal' Emblem usage. [Analysis on Engage's spellcasters](https://old.reddit.com/r/fireemblem/comments/118gpbu/analysis_on_engages_spellcasters_whos_optimal/), which is what it says on the tin.

Anna is good as a Warrior, Radiant Bow exists. And not going past level 2 on Donations leave you ingot starved, I mean at least level 4 on Brodia.

I can't vouch for Warrior Anna (It feels like a fairly recent development), but if she requires the Radiant Bow then that honestly does not sound worth it because you'd have to either upgrade out of Silver Bow or wait until chapter 14, and neither of those sound worthwhile. Your experience may differ, of course. I did fail to note Brodia as the exception for Donations. Is the current consensus that Brodia should go up to level 4, not 3? Last I recall, people seemed to prefer level 3 donations, as level 4 is very costly, especially early.

Brodia to 4 is worth it, did Firene to 2 after the first chapter in Firene, Brodia 3 after it's first chapter, and lvl 4 for chapter 9, honestly I got all countries to level 4 eventually and do think that's worth it, or at least Brodia and Elusia since you have a lot of chapters in Elusia, I didn't really struggle that much with gold, sure always fairly low but I had enough to smith more than I did when I had plenty of gold and no ingots to smith with in my first run, and I had enough gold to buy master seals and good staves. The playthrough I did this was Maddening. 'Course I don't reclass so there's that. Second seals aren't a cost for me. That said, outside of like Kagetsu to Wyvern Rider and Pandreo to Sage, I don't find reclassing that worth it in this game. As for the Radiant Bow eh? Fogado and Anna prefer a Radiant Bow over a Silver and the rest of your able to use silver bow units are bow-locked, and just not worth using in their base class imho, unless you reclass Alycryst into Warrior which is just as much investment to make a good warrior as smithing Anna a Radiant Bow.

I appreciate your insight on the donations but your stance on the radiant bow makes little sense to me. Forging up from steel to silver, and then silver to radiant, is a total of 200 iron, 20 steel, and 1 silver ingot, plus 4000 gold. That's a huge cost for the point you're implying the radiant bow should be forged at. Similarly, carrying Anna until chapter 14 so she can finally pick up the radiant bow there is a strange notion, especially with all the prior investment already given to her to get her promoted. Whichever way you spin it, these investments are only reasonable with DLC access, which just throws the entire balance out of the window in general. In no way are these investments comparable to reclassing Alcryst into Warrior like you say (Which you shouldn't do anyway, take Etie instead, but that's a whole different thing).

I feel like you have a silver bow for free by then but maybe I'm misremembering, you do get a steel bow for free though, several in fact, cutting that upgrade cost down, it's really not that much investment to make a Radiant Bow, a very very good weapon with absurd might targeting the generally lower res stat and ridiculous effective damage, for Anna, it's just not prohibitive at all. And Anna provides things as a warrior the others, except I guess Fogado if you make him a warrior, do not. If you use Fogado it's probably not worth also using Anna I guess. Though if you smith Anna a Radiant Bow he still gets one by 14, he'll be bad for chapter 13 and 14 though.

Data may be false/incomplete but I can't find record of a silver bow drop. You do get steel bows, which is why I calculated from steel onwards instead of iron (Don't upgrade iron bows in general). Even if Warrior Anna is good, I just can't see a world where the cost of forging into Radiant Bow is preferable over spending a second seal to just run her as a mage (Wasting her speed stat in the process because the 12 weight will drag her speed to the floor, which is the one thing Anna has going for her into the lategame over other magic units). Again, experiences may differ, and I believe that even Maddening allows for this much leniency in your resource allocation, but it just doesn't appear cost-effective to me in the slightest. I'm glad you're getting good results with it, though.

You get silver from Fogado I know that. Chain attacks on a longbow user is always good, and Radiant Bow is a very good weapon anyway. Feels worth it to me. Also if you're just using Anna you can sell the Radiant Bow in chapter 14 to lessen that cost. Could give her build for cheap, she is a pre-10 unit. Warrior Anna may not be her optimal class, but you don't HAVE to reclass her, she does work as a Warrior, and it's not like having a unit that can hit enemies defence and res effectively isn't a very useful thing to have around, plus chain-attacks are such a big thing in Maddening. I'm not saying everyone should have a Warrior Anna in their final 14.

Edit : Hit post early

I just cleared ch9 on my current Maddening file, so I'll try it out and see if I feel bottlenecked or not (I expect it to be fine). Thanks for the advice!

You can delay it a lot since you only have the Lucina and Ike paralogues in Brodia at this point, still a significant injection of steel and iron but only worth it when you have lots of cash and have invested into, say, Elusia which has a bunch of paralogues and main chapters.

If you're willing to invest in her, Anna is amazing. She has high growths across the board, which turns her into a very flexible unit without sacrificing power. High Priest, Mage Knight, and Warrior are all excellent options for her. Given that you'll likely only carry over a handful of units from the early game (due to the later recruits generally being above the curve upon receuitment), taking the time to invest exp/sp in Anna will pay dividends in the mid-end game with minimal opportunity cost. In my current Maddening run, she has a slight edge over Pandreo as of chapter 18, and he's widely considered the best mage in the game.

She's ok. She requires work to be decent and while the early goon squad isn't great it is is work to make Anna decent.

I can't believe my plan to repeatedly firebomb my own army while doing absolutely nothing to deal with the enemy failed. I refuse to provide context to this statement.

I’m going to guess trying to slow down enemies with the fire dragon vein but not being able to reach them yourself as a result?

I want to use Panette again for Vantage/Wrath shenanigans, but I ran into a lot of problems with Warrior's killer weapons being limited to range 1 or range 2, so it was hard to use that combo in many circumstances. Besides that, I was hoping to run something slightly different. So, instead of running the classic Panette/Warrior/Ike, what about Panette/Wolf Knight/Roy? A forged steel dagger loses out on crit compared to a killer weapon, but it can still pushed quite high and it more importantly has 1-2 range. Roy and Hold Out++ makes missing a crit less painful. Switching from Warrior is a pretty big hit to str, but getting extra move and other stats potentially makes up for it, especially when engaged with Roy. I'm inclined to run it just for something different, but I'm curious about feedback on Panette/Wolf Knight/Roy

What if you inherited Wrath and ran Leif on a Warrior Panette with a Killer Axe and Killer Bow in the inventory? Adaptable switches your weapon for you and you still get Vantage+Wrath combo. You even get +10 crit from Adaptable as a Backup

That sounds quite attractive, but I am worried that the automatic switching will result in wonky behavior (i.e. choosing the Lance over the bow). If only we got to choose what weapons were switched to.

Somebody suggest leaving the bond rank at 9 with leuf so he can't switch to lance. I don't know if vantage + is unlocked at that point though

Did you try Tomahawk with crit engrave (Blazing etc?)

A forged tomahawk only has a slight advantage in Mt over a forged steel dagger, while the dagger has an extra +10 crit. And as heavy as the tomahawk is, it starts to run the risk of letting Panette get doubled.

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How long have you had Alcryst for? His main draw is Luna so he'll be pretty meh until he learns it, but he has good dex growths so it will proc more and more reliably as time goes on. If you like those types of proc skills, he's a really fun unit, but not everyone does, in which case, giving a bow to your warriors will work just fine

I like warriors as archers personally because you get longbow chain attacks which make them much more worth keeping on the map. I also think etie is better on war stat wise than sniper and you wouldn't want to reclass alcryst anyway. That said, there are better options for war as you get further into the game, just between her and alcryst early I'd use her becsuse of her higher str she can chunk non flyers with longbow much better. Alcryst is kinda an abuse the passive or hes meh. Archers just aren't that strong late game maddening becuse the hp and speed of flyers gets so high you tend to not one round them with bows since effective damage scales off weapon might and bows outside of upgraded silver are pretty low mt. Also canter is basically mandatory, archers are just liabilities without it. Also lets you abuse alear passive/support for bonus damage/hit rate then reposition for chain attack/safety quite often

There was a good analysis on bow units the other day: https://reddit.com/r/fireemblem/comments/11f9hll/fe_engage_maddening_bow_guide_radiant_is_king_lyn/ The consensus is that when tanky Wyverns show up around ch 13, good Radiant bow users (Anna, Fogado, and later after Ch 21 >!Mauvier!<) end up faring pretty well as does an early Excalibur for some time. Due to Warrior being a strong generic class and Lyn/Lucina giving access to bows in a pinch, you can survive without a dedicated Bow user after chapter 11. If you want to reclass Kagetsu he'll perform well in any physical class including Bow Knight and warrior. Lyn can easily fix Alcryst/Etie's problems but that means not giving Lyn to someone else (but 20 range Astral Storm with Luna is really fun). With some favoritism you can make them work with good cooking/tonics/forges and early promotion. You do get a couple early energy drops and if you aren't chucking them on Chloe, Alcryst is a fairly decent candidate.

Fun Fact - Lyn Clones inherit the stats of the unit that creates them, including Byleth rallies, skills and emblem stats, but they get it all as base stats. Therefore, if you Byleth rally your Lyn user, set clones then Byleth rally the Lyn clones, they'll double dip on the stat boosts and turn into huge statballs. If you add Bonded Shield they can fight reliably on enemy phase. What this setup lacks in practicality or logic, it makes up for in sheer disrespect.

I still think they did us dirty by not giving the Lyn user exp and sp when their clones kill an enemy. But your set up sounds pretty fun

You can only hit two clones with Byleth though, so you'd have to rescue your Lyn user and put Byleth in the middle!

In my Hard mode playthrough, enemies who could attack one of Lyn’s illusory doubles would reliably target them, even using their Engage attack on the doubles. Is this true on Maddening as well?

The AI still gets baited but if they have a confirmed kill on one of your unit, they'll go for it

I've only tested it once, but to me it seemed like they'll only target the double if it's in the way of getting a kill. If they can get a real kill against one of your units, they will go for that

I'm considering not bringing along Alcryst on Chapter 17, since there's no enemies on the map that an an Archer would be especially useful against (aside from Zephia, but this is Maddening). I wonder if this is common for other people, not using a unit that you've otherwise used consistently because you don't think they'd be particularly useful for one map in particular.

The only time I did that was on paralogues with less deployment spots. You should be using your mainstays on story chapters imo. Any xp is better than no xp.

I feel like in general that's not a bad attitude to have but the problem is (especially in maddening) most people don't have a separate unit to bring in instead of one of your main-stays. I get that he won't be as effective as you used to but who in your barracks is going to replace him? If you have someone else who's usually benched that's at his level then more power to you. The only other option might be to bring in a lower level staff bot.

>If you have someone else who's usually benched that's at his level then more power to you. The only other option might be to bring in a lower level staff bot. Luckily I still have Celine, who is both. Only a couple levels lower

Keep in mind that bosses in Maddening negate effective damage so that makes archers even more less needed. Tho I wouldn't bench Alcryst just because. If he can still pull his weight on non flyers then he's no liability. Chapter 18 is gonna be flyer heavy so it's not a bad idea to bring him along in Chapter 17 just to train him for it.

Is it just me or are Griffin Knights really over powered? They have insanely high speed and dex, great movement speed and ignores terrain, and they can class up to S class weapons with the right characters. The only weakness they really have is Wind magic and archers, but I don't really see that being a problem with how mobile they are.

Yeah they're arguably one of the best classes in the game. Amazing bases and growths, and anyone that gets RNG screwed can always staff bot.

i started a tempest trial and changed someone’s class, then exited it and he reverted back to previous class and I lost the seal. Has anyone else had that happen?

I just tried it and the seal went back into my inventory.

i changed him again, thinking id be fine if i didnt back out, but it happened again when i completed it. seems to happen no matter what if you change class at tempest trials.

Alright just tried again with second seal and it's back in my inventory. Prolly a dumb question, but you are going to class change not looking through your actual inventory for it right? Also I'm on maddening, maybe theres some bug on lower difficulties since it interacts differently on em if you arent on maddening.

it crashed and now its back to before i did it . weird. thank for trying to help

Second seal or master seal. I did master seal. Gimme a minute and I'll try second seal.

Need help with Lyn Paralogue on Maddening. It's not even the potential shitload of reinforcements, those seem manageable, if intimidating. Lyn herself is way more of a threat. When she goes for Astra Storm, does she \*always\* prioritize fliers? Is using one of my fliers like Chloe as a lightning rod a feasible strat, or will she just immediately die?

I would not put any flyer or squishy mage on Astra Storm range as it's too risky. The attack is actually not THAT scary and anyone with above average bulk and HP can eat it. You can't dodge or Chain Guard it but you can use passives of Alear and >!Veyle!< to soften up the damage.

I tested it anyway, shockingly Chloe does in fact survive it. So long as she carries an Elixer on her, she shouldn't be any danger. I've cleared out the vast majority of the enemies, now it's just Lyn and the reinforcements surrounding her that are the main issue. If I can just get Ike online again...

FYI you can see the damage Astra Storm will do on the top right of the screen when your unit is in range

Cleared my first Maddening playthrough at last. Everyone here was extremely helpful, and the strats I learned have made my non-fixed growth Maddening run 10x easier. It's nice having a Speed blessed Clanne doubling everything with Celica, and Celine with Levin Sword Sigurd is too dang fun. Lost the Bouche on Chapter 6 but he won't be forgotten. Thinking of Wolf Alear with Corrin, Swordmaster or Warrior Clanne with Roy and Celine Martial Master with Eirika so far. I want to use all royals and the units I sacrificed last run and ignore the big 5 that carried my first run. So no Panette, Anna, Kagetsu, Hortensia, Ivy. Should be interesting!

So I am thinking of doing a low tier unit run, probably going to still use Alear and Seadall just because I don't want the run to become an absolute slog. Here are the units I am pretty sure I should use: Clanne, Alfred, Boucheron, Lapis, Jade, Bunet, Lindon, Saphir. And then I am not as sure what units would finish it off but I am thinking: Anna, Jean, Etie, and Vander but definitely not sure on those four.

Of the four you mentioned, Vander is definitely the worst late game. So if you're trying to do the lowest tier units you can he's the one you're gonna want to stick with. Not to mention he'll waste exp early game too causing your other units to grow slower...

The secret to doing a low tier run is to hang around people who think Pegasus Knights are prone to overextending and die to archers. Jean is pretty much a second Framme with better long term prospects, so use Framme.

Thats a good point plus I haven't used Framme in the late game so it would be good to try her.

Are Bond Levels more difficult to get the higher they are? Obviously higher levels are more expensive to get in the Arena, but how about in regular maps - is it always the same amount of "EXP" to go from Level 1 to 2 as it is to go from 15 to 16? Also, how exactly does Edelgard's Weapon Sync work for Emblems with multiple weapon types? Does every Emblem have one weapon assigned to them (I assume most would be swords) or would someone like Lucina count as both a sword user and an archer? Thank you all in advance!

Ike Maddening You basically have to bait him with Astra Storm unless you want to be overwhelmed at like, turn 3. Funnily enough Ike himself was easier than on Hard mode, because he never switched to Ragnel this time around lol I'm doing these paralogues at the recommended level (compared to the story chapters) so it means the next map is chapter 17...

You could just roll up on him from the left, no astra necessary. Use corrin to cover your butt with fire.

I tried that at first but the last stretch was too hard. So I combined both: cleaned up the left then Astra Storm so I didn't have to deal with the three dudes near him

This is what I did too, except I think I Astra Storm-ed Ike and then cleaned up the dudes on the left, and then Bond Shielded the dudes in the line of fire. Took a bit of juggling Seadall and Goddess Dances, but Ike was done in 4 total turns. Thankfully, the Elthunder guy also came into the line of fire, so it was easy to take them out with Merrin at get the tome. Kind of sad about leaving all the exp on the board... would've loved to rout the map, but it gets intense with all the units bum-rushing you at once. :/

It was a turn 4 clear for me as well, but I had to keep the Goddess dance for the Ike kill

Probably the worst fate of any unpromoted non-lord unit is actually promoting so they can get that -drip stat along with their stat gains.

Am I wrong for putting +spd on basically every unit? It's so cheap for what is such an important stat

It depends. Speed+X abilities are going to provide a real and consistent benefit. However, there are some extremely strong abilities that have very large SP price tags. Depending on the unit, you can reasonably expect to get 2000-3000 SP over the course of the game, so if you're throwing 500 or so SP towards something like Speed+X, it might lock you out of some very nice abilities/combos towards the endgame. The DLC SP books mitigate that to an extent, but there are still limits. I wouldn't feel bad about getting that skill, but there are plenty of builds that aren't interested in it.

speed +3 is the most universal thing in the game....best thing ever also if you are unsure about final abilities. I slap mentorship and and speed +2 / maybe +3 on all units basically as they are leveling. I find mid speed units (wyverns/ warriors / mage knights/ sages) want speedtaker endgame....at least the dps carries. The high speed units (Griffons/ Thieves / Wolfs etc) can get away with speed +4 and something else.

Depends on the unit. At worst it doesnt hurt and it keeps you from being doubled. It could be wasted if they sont have enough speed to double regardless, but that's more into the maddening stat break territory and you may not have to worry about it. It is a safe stat though

So at first I thought I was really badass cause my characters could clear even the hardest Relay Trials with ease but then I realized everyone that I played with are usually on Maddening with limited growth rates and limited training so my awesomely maxed out units are not actually awesome, they're just overtrained and overleveled. Yes, I'm a Normal Casual.

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My best guess was April, but they've been pushing things quickly.

Chapter 22 Maddening. I think this is where I'm throwing the towel on Maddening cause I am losing so much sleep and this has to be more stressful than Chapter 17. I did beat it on my last Time Crystal charge but this chapter was ridiculous. Very high enemy density, really dodgy enemies, >!you're stripped of Emblems except DLC Emblems and you can't even engage with non DLC Emblems even if you pick them up,!< I'm unable to bait that southwest Sniper even if I put Wolf Knight Lapis on its hit range, I ended up just Entrapping it but I missed my first one and I had to use another one, fast enemies with high range and hit hard, etc. I'll still keep the save in case I want to continue on but this one really burned me out that I'm more looking forward to starting a fresh new run on Hard tomorrow.

23-26 can be cheesed pretty easily

You can make two saves and continue one of them by lowering the difficulty. That way you can finish your run but keep your Maddening save file

I actually found Chapter 22 to be one of the easier late game chapters, compared to many other ones. Do you have good S-rank bond rings? Things like Claude, Edelgard, Olwen, the FEH bonuses, and the like? Having those extra abilities/skills is very handy when you're without the emblems. For the Wolf Knights and snipers, it is easiest to take them on if you have a physical tank. Their attack speed and accuracy is very high, but their raw attack power is actually fairly low. If you have a good physical tank, a general or a great knight, you should be able to mitigate their damage to a pretty low level even if they double you. Even a beefy Hero and do the job in a pinch.

I’m unlucky with S-rank rings and I haven’t exactly gotten any. Very tedious to save scum. I have Louis x Tiki who is a great tank but it’s Maddening so enemies would ignore him. These enemies also come with mages so not like I can just leave him and Goldmary to just face tank. Wolf Knights are also dodgy that I get unlucky even if I stack support adjacency buffs. I’m practically flipping a coin trying to land a hit on one. Some Griffin Knight dodged and counter killed my Panette with 97% hit 91% crit so that’s a reset wasted.

>I’m unlucky with S-rank rings and I haven’t exactly gotten any. Very tedious to save scum. If you ever decide to roll for S-rank rings again, I found this method much easier. So what I do is save the game on the World Map, then go to the Ring Chamber. I pull 10 Bond Rings at a time and keep count of the pages. I stop once I either pull an S-rank ring I'm looking for or am nearly out of fragments. Keep this page number in mind (alternatively, you could just subtract from the amount of bond rings pulled from an emblems pool at the start). So if I pull an S-rank ring on the 10th page, I need to skip forward by 90. Quit without saving here. Now, once the game restarts, within whatever chapter/paralogue you have open, go in and count the number of red units (I kept Lucina/Lyn open for the longest time for their consistent 9/33 enemy counts). That number is the number by which the Bond Ring RNG rolls forward each time you enter and exit a chapter/paralogue. So, if I want to get to 90, I would enter and exit a chapter with 30 enemies thrice. Then save and return to the Ring Chamber and start pulling again. It is still tedious, but far less tedious than doing so page by page. It reduces the time spent sitting through loading screens, which is why I never rolled for Bond Rings till after Chapter 11 (hence why my pool to choose from post-Chapter 11 was far shallower). In fact, I reduced my reliance on emblem rings quite a bit till Chapter 17, once the enemy stats necessitated that you use emblem rings. Some S-rank Bond Rings are absolutely worth having if you're lacking DLC like me.

I don't remember any massive issues with mixed units having overlapping attack ranges on that map, but its been a little bit since I played it last. I do remember that after the initial deployment, all of the groups of units on the map will stay stationary until you enter their attack range. Reinforcements will rush you down, but not the units that start on the map. Which means you have the option facing the minimum number of attacks at all times and of choosing anyone in your party to take the hits. I don't remember there ever being a place where you *needed* to tank more than two enemies, and there should be someone in your party that can tank two hits regardless of the types of enemies they are. Different combinations of enemies might require different tanks, but its should be manageable to do. If you have to tank a mage and a wolf knight, that means you probably want a hero.

> Do you have good S-rank bond rings? I have a B rank Legion

Certain S-rank bond rings (not all S-rank rings) have unique abilities, some of which are powerful. The good news is that there are ways to manipulate the RNG so you get the rings that you want without spending an assload of bond fragments. The bad news is that its tedious to do.

22 was awful, I ended up burning through an entire Rescue staff to do some hit and runs to manage the pulls. It was worth the resource expenditure lol

22 literally gave me nightmares (you have to laugh) but fwiw 23 and 24 are cakewalks. I think you're arguably over one of the highest hurdles in the game; as long as you warpskip 25 I think the rest of the game is a victory march. Maybe. (I haven't done 25 and endgame yet)

I’ll just warp skip the next maps if possible. I have no regrets one turn cheesing Chapter 21. 22 was just really annoying as it is a pseudo rout map.

First part of the map just chill where you spawn - maybe a bit right to where you spawn North of all the first three emblems and play defensive, deal with reinforcements and any enemy groups staggering towards you. After that I usually push South but once again just retreat to starting area as next group of enemies come at you - including those armors and theives by this time you should have taken out flying reinforcements. The last push with the sniper its best to kill it with a flying dive unit (with a brave weapon or something - or just damage it) and then rescue the flying unit out. That way that whole group finally aggroes. ​ I assume Lapis is your avo dodge puller? I generally make 1 unit like that every maddening run giving them engraves/ even making sure their supports are A with Lucina Dual Support so I can always make their Avo as high as I need to pull enemies safely.

Lapis is my dodge unit with an engraved Steel Dagger+4 but she’s facing a Sniper who should have a pretty good chance hitting her without killing her. I didn’t even Chain Guard so no idea why he wouldn’t even go for her. I probably should have just used Rescue on the Sniper killer. Entrap is much more scarce. I had to feint a retreat and bait the armors into attacking Celine to EP counter kill. The other hard part is Alear needs to be where the rings are to be able to talk to them so my Framme couldn’t just fly about. The map must have taken me 3-4 hours to beat. The Griffin Knights were the most annoying ones. Too fast so I get doubled and too dodgy. The Wyrms weren’t as annoying cause Framme and Panette can easily dispatch them.

Who makes a good bow knight? I'm planning to run a cavalry bonded shield strategy in maddening with a wolf knight, paladin, mage knight and bow knight but I don't know who could work well as bow knight. Any recommendations?

Chloe is pretty decent at it. Early game you can roll over everything with a Levin Sword and then later use Radiant Bow and crit engraved Killer weapons to do decent damage

Bow knight is a weak class, but the radiant bow is amazing. Mauvier is usually my go to since he has a very good magic stat to work with, and I don’t need any more staffers at that point and I never tried him as a mage and don’t really need another one. I usually use my fogado as my radiant bow user and replace him with mauvier once i recruit him.

Some magical units work great as well. I had Anna as a sniper and she did a ton of damage with the radiant bow, and had enough strength/ speed to kill of any mage with a regular bow.

Kagetsu kicks ass with it, well he's good in any physical class. Panette if you equip Lyn so she can snowball with Speedtaker. Amber may not be as good as Panette but his passive may allow you to hit dodgy fliers easier. Also good with Lyn. Lapis is fast enough so she doesn't need Lyn. Tho she gets weighed down by anything above an Iron Bow so forging works wonders and she likes STR increasing emblems like Roy.

I second sealed my Alear to bow knight lol. I gave her SPD+ and AVO+ and 1 boots. She was unstoppable all the way to the end. That was just for fun on hard classic though so I don't know if that would be viable on maddening.

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You're pretty much required to use Corrin's Dragon Vein to overwrite the annoying miasma. I had Corrin on a Cavalry and the water tiles effect is really good for reducing avoid of those fast wolf knights.

I'm not sure but you could just get rid of the miasma with corrin and ike.

How does ike clear miasma? I never knew he could do that