Are STARTER UNITS a TRAP?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 26 ก.ย. 2024
- #fireemblem #fireemblemengage #feengage
Are the early units you get in FE Engage a trap? Is investing in them so bad that it can potentially ruin or derail your maddening run? Do these units fundamentally make the game much harder unintentionally by being so bad that they aren't viable or make your life so much harder they aren't worth the effort?
"Vander should not even be hitting things in my opinion."
He usually misses anyway.
For the few moments I use Vander, he always ended up doing crits and stealing my other units exp
🤣🤣🤣 best comment
Vander makes a pretty good meat shield, with or without weapons he can block doorways or a unit from one side with Louis on another, but yeah he’s trash to level
Vander is the only character you want the Mercy Bond ring on to avoid feeding him kills.
In Etie's case, I also did promote her to sniper but afterwards class changed her to warrior and my god it's such a vast improvement for her damage and survivability: girl has become my carry in my maddening run.
I can see myself trying this when i take on maddening. Still on my first hard run and my Etie is already hitting like a truck as an Axe Bow Knight, so i can definitely envision her merit as a Warrior.
This is what i did to make her work.I think she has bare minimum of 20+ strength as a lvl 1 warrior with around base warrior HP so she can deal damage and survive one hit. The biggest problem with this idea is that you're putting both a master and a second seal on her whenever you could both on other characters like jean and anna and get way better results.
@@xavierwashington7848 true true but I invested into Etie since her recruitment plus I didn’t know much about “optimal” classes in Engage since I’m still going through my first maddening run. If I were to do other play throughs then at least I have the foresight on who to use my seals on
@Lagiacrus9520 I was in the same boat and I wanted her to work over the other firene characters.
Yeah Etie strength growth is really high so warrior in my opinion is her best class.
Ok, it might not be optimal, but you can really use whoever you want in this game and can still make them contribute. One has so many tools at their disposal that any unit can carve out a niche for themself and do it well.
When your playing a game with limited resources and mechanics with some extreme levels of rng-sus, your gonna need to start playing smart then just swarming enemies to win and not think of the consequences in later chapters. Its just FE Engage fits the babi`s first fire emblem mode logic with how many extra mechanics they put in, which also double as Resource sink traps.
Now if it was something like Wargroove, a sort of pseudo-successor to the Advance war series, gameplay logic is not as much of a headache. Which is where FE Engage with how much customization between emblem rings, inherit skills, bond levels, class changing, weapon refinement, weapon engraving, weapon types, proficiency levels to use specific weapons, buffs for one battle only and many other elements....
Well, thars a reason why the terminology, `Too many cooks in the kitchen` even exists, which FE Engage of benefited more from cutting say, HALF those elements out and focus more on polishing and expanding the remaining elements.
@@BladeSerph , for those that like slow grinds, you can still almost do anything you want.
Everyone can be made viable but I just feel like the gaps in how many resources it takes are so massive that you really will be making the game harder for yourself trying to use someone like Etie and Alfred over a Ivy for example.
Agreed, have to check the other characters chart but Alfred does keep up with Amber. Also, having every run the same characters, doing the optimal stuff over and over and over is kind of boring for me.
Just pick whoever you want, at this point the "optimal way" of playing is starting to sound like a corporate goal, like a job.
Eh, it's just so easy to invest in anyone in Engage it's almost a non issue, even on maddening
Don't forget to use Marth Sword as much as possible the one that gives u more Experience on Alear. That helps out alot on Maddening
its a good idea to use the arena to get the lvl 10 bond with marth before the yunaka chapter, where Alear can kill a bunch of bandits with mercurius.
@Crazy Blt
Yup that's wat I did lol it's not even that expensive to max out
So funny enough, I planned to drop Alfred pretty early on in my run. Until my Alfred decided that he wanted to earn his keep and stay by my side. So for whatever reason, he just decided to start hitting all these 1%-6% crits and one shot (or nearly one shot in the mid-late game) all the enemy units. So I just kept him on my team so I could laugh my ass off every time he just went and murdered someone for my attention. I ended up S ring bonding him because that boy put in work to make me happy.
Honestly same, he heard me getting tired of using him and then he was just like “no”
He got his Killer Lance and will now crit every single enemy into oblivion
I think the early game units were balanced around hard mode instead of maddening. As on hard they end up much more competitive due to more exp being available. Alfred is a fair bit better than his retainers he is like a less extreme Louis (highish strength and defense, poor speed and res) but takes too much effort to get going on maddening.
me, who fed Alfred a lot in my normal run, and he ended up still sucking:
@@meinman7591 isn't everyone good on normal though? I found him perfectly usable on hard but on maddening as his base stats just don't cut it.
Out of interest what ring were you using on him?
Finishing up my first maddening run and tbh I don't think the game is hard enough that I really feel punished for some of my intentionally silly character/class choices. Been using Etie the whole game just for longbow back up support that inherited draconic hex and it definitely hasn't felt like it's made things actively worse, and a "better" version of that unit in like, Alcryst or Fogado or whoever doesn't meaningfully change the options I have approaching maps. I feel like as long as you have a solid enough base of good units you're using, the last few can kinda be/do whatever. The characters that exceed critical benchmarks in this game feel like they do it by such a large margin that I don't feel pressed to nickel and dime for every stat point.
I got Warrior Etie and have been running Lyn on her and with her 50% speed growth + Lyn's speed and Speedtaker, she has started doubling mid game fliers. I'm sure Alcryst could do the same thing though but I like Etie
Yeah Etie was pretty bad early on but I still wanted to use her and she went absolutely nuts as a warrior. Her atk stat is pretty crazy and the lyn ring patches her bad spd and bulk issues fairly nicely. Gave her a brave axe and she proceeded to oneround almost every boss. She had 43 strenght when I reached the final map. She carried me through my blind maddening playthrough.
Honestly I think it's mostly about who you give the early resources to, you get 2 master seals by chapter 7 (I think) and the early emblems Marth, Celica and Sigurd as well as the free Steel weapons and (if you choose to get it) the FEH bonus with three really good weapons that are also relatively cheap to forge. These resources and who they're given to will most likely make your team, anyone you give a strong forge to and a fitting emblem will be contributing heavily and if they're the first ones to promote then all the easier it is for them to snowball, Chloé is the main recipient of this for most people but Alfred with his actually existent strength and solid growths all around can make great use of a solid forge early game before pivoting to wyvern as he promotes which will somewhat offset his los base speed and get him amazing growths both defensively and offensively for the rest of the game
The only one that was usable late game was Framme. Staff utility and giving Alear 10 avoid is nice. Basically, she's good because she makes Alear better.
I was thinking about keeping just for that reason kek
Early promoted warrior Boucheron is improved significantly if you also give him the energy drops. He's able to utilize Lyn better than other units since his personal ability activates off his own clones.
I did not even think of using Lyn on him that’s hilarious
Etie is usable as a crit unit. Sniper, killer bow, crit engraving, and canter. Pretty reliable crit rate. Nice change of pace from Alcyrst.
I invested in Boucheron on my first run. He did take some time to get up and running, but as a warrior he ended up being one of my carry units. He has good speed and dex, plus his high build allows him to double reliably with axes. He'll have a 45% strength growth, which is low, but high might on axes and his passive easily compensate for this.
Yes, this. Boucheron ended up being one of my few nukes in endgame.
@@jaredkhan8743 He fell off in my maddening run. If his atk growth was just 10 higher, he'd be more viable. With stat caps being a thing in normal and hard, it's better to not invest in him and instead have other axewielders with better perks. It's sorta like running sage alear. Totally doable and can carry runs, but is it optimal? likely not.
What difficulty is this if I can ask? Bc ngl in my maddening run I put Jean in that same role and he’s absolutely one shotting bosses in addition to being a crazy backup with wind god+longbow support
Is there anything that he offers more than Jean or even like Panette as a Warrior?
He’s my main tank on hard/classic/random. He’s an axe gen Louis is now a H lancer dps Yuk is my healer monk Anna MK dps Cel is dps/heal support and Halear is.wolf rider dps. It’s made hard mode more fun letting people die and just using a 5 man team for each battle.
After a few playthroughs I’ve decided that Emblem Rings are by far the deciding factor on which units are effective in any given map. Most of the time even if a unit is middling, if they can perform the niche provided excellently by emblem rings, then they get a pass.
Alfred has worse accuracy, did a 1:1 playthrough of not using Chloe at all and handing Alfred an engraved steel lance and got to midgame then did the same on Chloe, it was not comparable. He struggles to avoid getting doubled while she reliably doubles/1 rounds enemies and frankly never falls off on fixed maddening mode. I've run her on 4 runs so far and every time she consistently 1 rounds early game with an engraved steel lance. Alfred never gets the speed to do so.
Chloe with an Iron Lance turned into a Killer Lance is also scary, might need to unfortunately boost her speed or build though as those things are heavy, but adding a crest (or whatever it’s called) at the blacksmith can help her become a goddess
I feel like Etie was designed specifically to use Emblem Lyn and with it she is good, but that's ignoring other units being much better with or without it
I think Etie is one of the best Lyn users solely because she has the raw strength to hit really hard when she doubles, something most other units don’t have except for like… Rosado, Panette, and Kagetsu. Kagetsu wants a strength based emblem though, and Rosado fills a different niche so Etie doesn’t really compete for it. Panette might be the biggest issue.
People argue Ivy, but I used her as a Thoron bomber with Momentum and Mae’s bond ring.
@@ThisIsntATH-camr I agree completely, the problem I find is that without Lyn I think she falls behind too fast in comparison to others, and lyn is pretty much fantastic on anyone XD
@@ThisIsntATH-camr That is what I did with Etie on my first run and it is prolly what you want to do if you play her but you have still no reason to do that. 1) Alcryst is better anyway, since he come at higher level so free xp and has better growth... and Luna! 2) It is Lyn who is broken and she will get more value on a more powerful unit. Lyn on Ivy is a popular combo but imo, I would rather put on her speed taker and use another ring on her because Lyn on a Covert unit has some really good value.
@@UtsuhoTheSun
Alcryst is a fine unit, but I was arguing that Etie can capitalize on it better than him because she has more raw strength, and her ideal class as warrior lets her use Silver Bows and Brave Axe and still double with them because of Lyn. Alcryst’s own str base and growth are a bit shaky especially for Maddening, and Luna isn’t consistent. He’s not a bad Lyn wielder, but I think Etie uses it better than him. Also there are other emblems that I think he can use better. Eirika is one of them.
That said Panette outstrengths both of them so just hand Lyn over to her if your Etie really not hurting enemies as much as she should be at that point OMEGALUL.
I’m probably the only person who doesn’t prefer the speed build on Ivy. I see Flying Mage with S rank tome access and high base Mag and I think “Big Thoron.” (This may be because I rolled a Mae ring really early and that gives +20% damage from all thunder spells. I even threw in a Momentum on her because that also gets +20%’d)
I mean if you're really obsessed the 2nd most useless unit, you could make her useful if you waste enough resources to make 3 other units actually good. On bases versus growths, she's dogshit at both. Leveling up twice per chapter, and still getting one-shotted by literally everything then hitting like a wet-noodle, failing double armor Knights.. Makiing her viable could be a fun task, but it is a task.
Boucheron has the highest HP, Dex AND Build growth is the entire game, and very good speed growth as well. The growths in speed and build supplement his middling strength with axes, and the hp and dex combined with Ike giving him Wrath and Resolve+ for free lets Bouche realistically reach 80+ hp normally (I got mine to 107HP with full investment lol) to take full advantage of Wrath while still having a good HP pool.
Berserker/Warrior with Killer Axe and Tomahawk are all he needs along with some tonic support for str and HP and he can genuinely go into a group of enemies and come out on top throughout the game. I could have just gotten lucky but I love my Bouche, got nothing bad to say about him lol
I used him as a main hard carry unit in my 3rd maddening run up to CH 13 and he got to level 9 and is just super underwhelming. I deployed him every mission/paralogue and he got a lot of kills. This is maddening no DLC. CH13 hands you Pannette who starts out hitting like a truck
@@IcedCoffeeGaming Panette hits like a truck but doesn't have great speed and has low Bld whilst being an Axe user. I don't mean she's worse than Boucheron but she definitely doesn't powercreep him as she doesn't fulfill the same role he does.
Boucheron's honestly been my main hard carry in Maddening as well as the first to reach max lvl and I've honestly not been optimal in the way I used him (gave him the Lyn emblem, I think there's probably betters fits for him as he's already very potent speed-wise). Maybe mine's been blessed with RNG but I don't think that's just it.
@@IcedCoffeeGaming I'm definitely not gonna deny that Panette exists and comes pretty strong out the box, but I'm mainly saying that his growths outside of strength are kinda absurd for an early unit, and the strength can easily get patched up
He still requires a BIT of investment like stat boosters but way way less of a hassle than say Clanne
My thing with the early units is it’s possible to have one or two of them turn out good enough to use if you like them but it’s so much harder if you try to invest into more than that at the beginning bc so many of them are too meh to be able to afford to split that experience and SP. Like splitting experience between Alfred, Etie, and Bouch is way worse than committing to just Alfred or just Bouch.
Etie is an unfortunate case, I’m currently using her in my Maddening run as a Bow Knight but since I was 50 SP short of Canter on her before chapter 10 it caused her to be so much more harder to use without risk of her dying. Another problem is SP gain is so slow that getting Speed Taker on her which could fix her speed issue is so far off.
She’s less likely to get hit if she has a killer weapon.
@@verde5738 I’m going to go ahead and give Warrior Etie a try and see how it goes
I still love Vander even if he just sits on the bench after chapter 5
I don't tend to use many second seals early so I have one open for vander. Making him a great knight gives him 17 defense and another weapon type. I have tried swords and liked those on him while inheriting arms shield+. It hasn't been perfect so far but I am at chapter 14 and he has been a good wall that I haven't had to invest much into, but I will probably drop him soon. Too many good units coming in around now.
The only way I can think of to make Vander any good is to reclass him into a Royal Knight asap. Sure his Magic is only 5 and the growth rate is only 10, but gives you access to a relatively cheap mounted healer and gives him access to exp other than combat exp. Other than that, he is just an early game damage sponge that softens the enemy enough to one round them with Alear.
I don’t know what it is about my playthrough then (hard mode, classic, fixed growths) but Alfred has been absolutely slaying out and carrying, even during the chapters when he didn’t have Sigurd. Slapped an upgraded Brave Lance with Marth’s engraving and he kills everything he attacks, he’s standing here fighting advanced lvl 20 opponents and rarely getting doubled by anything.
Etie has an awesome niche as a crit stacker. Killer bow engraved with crit +20 (I think it's Sigurd?) with her high dex and snipers passive add up quick. With Lynn her crit kills turn into speed solving her speed issue.
I'm not sure any of that niche is unique to Etie though, any unit could do what you described. Etie's dex isn't even high either, it's 25% personal, with +25% from Archer and eventually +30% from sniper from an 11 base.
Alcryst, (kagetsu, bc there's nothing he can't do better), Yunaka, Zelkov, Pannette, etc could all likely do this build better if not just as well with comparable if not outright superior dex and/or better ways to stack crit
Even Boucheron could run this build, he has a 50% personal dex growth, with +5% from axe fighter that's already more than Etie. Get him into sniper and that's his +80% growth compared to her +55%. He also has 10% better speed and his massive personal build growth, so he might even be able to pull off brave bow memes at the same time (he will have 20% worse strength growth though)
I'd like Etie to be good but unless I'm missing something I don't think I see your point?
@5sparks niche was the wrong word lol. I mean viable. But you raise a good point lol.
I like to do fixed party classic runs, preplanning my final 12 units and having the rest fall. A big help was that units that fall return their items to the convoy.
In older games I had to remove all their items first. Now I can send them off with a steel axe, they'll do chip damage to help feed exp to my core units AND I'll get my axe back at the end.
i did invest in etie a lot more than i probably shouldve just so i could beat the tiki paralogue at chapter 6 before you get alcryst on maddening
For Alfred, I find forging him a brave lance asap. With one of the MT engraves to be an easy way to make him relavent for most of the game. His high strength growth leads to some pretty powerful brave lance attacks. And raise his bond with Leif for the BLD skills so he doesn't suffer speed penalties and gets doubled by everything is the cheapest way to keep him relavent.
Never tried this on maddening. But on hard its pretty easy to set all this up without much effort.
I use Clanne, Framme and Boucheron. Still in my first run, i hat to invest into Boucheron but He turned into a great tanky unit.
I gave Clanne the Tiki Emblem and bro is killing it as a defensive sage with Tons of HP and a variety of options.
Framme Took a while to get really useful for me as Clanne took the spotlight early on.
I would recommend still using Vander for combat. People have always suggested not using jeigens because they don’t get exp, but the only unit that exp matters on in the early chapters is alear and any unit you want to use long term. Exp isn’t that tight, so you should use Vander to make the game easier instead of unequiping him, as he has the same long term prospects as a unit like Alfred anyway.
You can definitely get away with this or normal mode. It was still a little annoying to invest in early game units only to have new folks two levels higher join me later. It’s like, why did I bother?
At the same time, in most other Fire Emblem games, new units would usually join a few levels below my current squad. I don’t know if either option is better.
In the future I wanna see a maddening challenge run from you with all low tier units, let Le Bouche, Alfred, Etie, Clanne, Vander, Goldmary and Bunet. Clanne and Seadall can be exceptions that can join the team since they support the low tiers with dance and chain guard. Anna can also join as well but she cant promote into a magic unit and Jean can join if he stays into a martial monk if yoh want a full team of bad units on maps with high deployment.
How is Goldmary low tier?
Goldmary is one of the best units in the game lmao
@@Aqalex goldmary is pretty good but if we are getting 12 deploy slots its hard to find someone worse than her that i haven't mentioned already
@@marcoasturias8520 25% speed growth
@@Aqalex lmao indeed
I'm excitedly awaiting for the Vander Unit guide.
It will be coming but he is a hard unit to make viable lol
@@IcedCoffeeGaming We need all the help we can get, thank you for your service.
@@IcedCoffeeGaming honestly I don't think he's meant to be viable, but rather as a protector in the early game. Even clanne and framme have more potential, although the former has to be swordmaster since his magic is not good to say the least.
I made Boucheron usable by promoting him asap and throwing a forged long bow at him. He still fell off mid-late game, but I got decent mileage off of him in the early game. I mainly used him for chain attacks to setup kills for other units.
I think aside from Anna and Jean, the only other early game units to invest in are Louis and Chloe. Theres currently a bug (feature?) where using Great Sacrifice on Armor units lets them get SP off of every unit, even if they are full health. Can let you farm on Louis early while not taking resources away from others.
I saw a small streamer play Maddening on a Version 1.0.0 ROM with no DLC (I think that even without the free Steel Weapons), and he beat the game using a lot of "low tier" units like Etie, Lapis and Framme. That was honestly a very cool and fun playthrough.
You can beat the game with them, it is just harder
Funnily enough I find that fixed growths actually help units like this because they can't get screwed in stats anymore. Still fun to use even if they're not great lol
My Alfred started strong (Sigurd helped him early), then went utter shit after chap 11. However I didn't ditch him (I'm stupid right xD) and suffered with him for next 10 chapters. Around second seal he started to become usable, and realy strong in late game without much focus on investing in him.
Sigurd + Brave Lance fixes most of his problems (ealier I've used DLC spear, plus Horseslayer), plus he has rather big BLK growth, so his speed doesn't suffer at all. Since he isn't tank and he has built in canter, you can slap any inheritable skill you want. Speed+ and Lunar Brace worked nicely, fixing his doubling problems and adding more damage.
As for Alear I don't like feeding him with exp since I put him as Corrin Field bot so he misses a lot of exp and fights, but works with Engage+, plus when you get Marth back you can feed him back up to rest of team levels with double exp sword.
Etie never falls off, she's simply never good ☠️
Alfred and Celine are good early units that are worth investing in, it's only that their personal classes aren't good to begin with and they perform so much better in other classes, access to canter for most of the game while all your other units are waiting until chp17 is a huge value as well
Alfred can either go GK for being a tank with his high bulk, or wyvern to be more of a bulky attacker
Celine is perfectly suited for Griffin and it lets her take advantage of her higher str than mag while still using both
I can definitely agree with you. If you are playing Maddening Iron Man with no DLC investing on those units are a waste of time. For example I invested heavily on Lapis but at the end of the day she only has decent speed. She lacks strength, HP, Defense and even Resistance. Considering that you get units with similar roles later on like Diamond, Kagetsu and GoldMary but are much better only tells how hard those early units fall off later on.
Same thing applies with Clanne. He is your first mage but then you get Celine who is better. Than after Celine you get Citrinne who is much better than Celine. And then you get Pandreo who is also much better than Citrinne. So the next units always "powercreep" the previous ones. The new units have much superior base stats, especially HP and defensive stats to increase survivability.
Ignis makes Celine viable all game but yeah panero is better
In my maddening run before getting any DLC I made Etie an Axe fighter for 10 levels then promoted her to Warrior, she hit level 20 in Warrior on the final map with 53 listed attack with only a +3 steel bow and +2 str from Roy. I gave her an early build skill from Lief and probably a sereph robe and draco sheild to help with the axe fighter levels since like you said she's made of tissue paper. Stuck Lucina on her for Parthia in the mid game to get to Warrior asap and switched to Lyn late game to double everything to death. It felt very good to see it all fall into place.
Boucheron has 50Dex/45Spd/20Build without class mods. If you make him a Berserker he has 115hp/50str/55dex/55spd/30 build. This gives him as unique option of doubling with Silver Axe and Quadding with Brave Axe with accuracy.
I had my clanne as a dark knight with sigurd, he outsped almost everyone and was a reliable carry for me on maddening. Although I have to admit I used my magic stat boosters on him
I gave etie Lynn and never ran into any problems. Made sure to keep her killer bow and longbow upgraded and she was always useful. She followed corrin equipped Yunaka around to double dip on the covert fog bonus and protected my backline from flyers. Doubled every mage and muscled through some armored unit last hits with double crits. Just depends on what ya do I guess.
Gotta admit I got lucky with Etié on my first hard mode run. Maxed out most her stats and the RNG gods blessed me with many a crit even in the early game... She was deadly!
I'm a few chapters in on maddening and she's such a liability! I'm so disappointed, she was one of my favorites! 😭
Luckily Doucheron showed himself as shit the first time through... Not falling for that shit 🖕🏾
I’m in chapter 14 (maddening classic) and the earliest recruit currently on my team is Louis. I mapped out who I wanted to use and am roughly still on that plan. I planned on using Celinne, but no. I used boss abuse to level 20 Framme in chapter 4 and I never promoted her. I am using and abusing dlc and beat all the maps before chapter 10, so I used some early units I wasn’t planning to keep a bit more than expected. Most notably Etie somehow staying in the team until chapter 11.
You're going to take any challenge out of the game me thinks, maddening is already not that hard and with the dlc and stuff like what you did with framme, take care not getting bored soon
@@orkiso1 oh I’m having a blast. I’m someone who lives for breaking RPGs wide open. And also the DLC maps were extremely challenging to beat early, especially Soren. And the point I’m at, story maps are pretty easy, but paralouges and skirmishes are still quite hard. I just full on lost to one skirmish yesterday. Even in my hard playthrough with no DLC, the main story chapters weren’t that hard at all, it was the paralouges that provide the challenge.
I've found Etie to be a be a fucking god tier monster unit. Speed taker, equipping her with Sigurd, and using her personal skill made ridiculous work of the game. She was far and away my best unit in my first play through
Etie is the MVP in Tiki paralogue
after u get Alcryst, she will forever be in bench
On my first completely blind run I benched Clanne, Vander and Etie as soon as I got better units, be it due to bad level ups or just bad bases. I tried to make Boucheron work but he felt very lackluster whith shoddy hit rates and it felt like I had to baby him, though a backup unit with access to hand axes is never a bad thing.
Alfred I stuck with all the way to endgame and he also felt very lackluster, definitely the worst unit I fielded, but I cannot pinpoint why. Statwise he had solid offense and defense, generally very accurate too, patched up his build with Leif inheritance but he always felt underwhelming somehow. He did have a mediocre speed stat so he really just felt like a worse Louis most of the time. His main job was to run lucina and bond shield whenever he could.
tldr yes the early game units in Engage are generally are not worth bringing unless you like em, in which case, use the units you like most, optimization be damned.
I don’t know how fair it is to say that a good Steel/Killer forge and Lyn make Etie very usable when that’s probably true of many units with middling speed. Etie does stand out for her large STR growth and Warrior accentuates it very well.
That's actually quite interesting. I've played through the game a couple of times now and Etie has actually been my best unit by far in every run, mainly because she crits enemies so often as a sniper. Yes, her defenses aren't that good, but simply because her damage output is quite good, she raises her level pretty easily. I can't really compare her to Alcryst however (I don't really like him as a character, but I might try him out in my next run to see how different he would be to Etie).
I restarted recently for various reasons, one of which being I taught Jean starsphere with the SP books. He was already powerful enough to one round Wyrms when he crits after I reclassed him from level 1 Martial Monk into Axe Fighter, power-leveled him on chapter 9, then promoted him into a Warrior. He would break the game if I continued.
Anyway, my plan is to use the characters I plan on benching later to soak up all the exp from the DLC maps when clearing them. That way I won't be over-leveled. It also gives me a reason to level up trash characters that you would normally avoid giving exp to. I have some other restrictions, like not converting silver below 15 until chapter 12, not inheriting Starsphere or Lineage, and not using more emblem rings than would normally be available without DLC after chapter 10. It'll still probably be easier than without DLC, but I want to have fun with the extra content.
I refuse to abandon Etie! Crit for life.
I think you can pick one of these guys max to try and make them good. I will say Clanne is being underrated. I put little to no xp on him and when I took him off the bench for ch 4 and 5 he put in alot of work just from his base stats. This is on maddening btw. If I chose him as an investment target he would perform even better.
Bad magic growth, but like Anna, he's in the wrong class. Make a swordmaster with Levin, and does great, or if you stick to magic, go mage knight with Levin.
@@eyyy2271
30% is good enough. Especially when you take into account the low res of enemies.
My brother in Christ, Etie has almost the same total growths as Vander. Like seriously, I checked and she is the 2nd lowest total growths unit un the game right behind Vander, just 5 points above him, what the heck.
Alfred I managed to make usable in Maddening, at first with Ike, and then Hector when the DLC dropped in the middle of my run. Not groundbreaking, but he was okay.
Boucheron I've no experience with, but I have little faith in him. Clanne and Framme I'm planning on experimenting with next playthrough, making them Warrior and High Priest respectively.
I think Alfred is honestly fine. He has decent enough growths and his personal skill is okay. I made him a Sniper to do ranged baits with it lol.
I made Bouchuron a Great Knight and he was... Alright. I really wish his strength growth wouldn't be so underwhelming.
Vander, Clanne and Etie are just... Terrible.
Let's start with Vander. Pre-promotes are USUALLY very strong for about the first 10ish chapters, before they fall off. In Vander's case he's only alright until about Chapter 5 before becoming essentially useless. I get they didn't want to make him too strong, but god he's trash.
I'm baffled by Clanne only having a 10% Magic growth, your STARTING MAGE has 10% in MAGIC. Are you kidding me?! Wait until you get Céline and/or reclass Yunaka into a Mage, they both got MUCH higher magic (and stat-growths in general) than him, it's pathedic. At least he's good at weakening enemies early, so your other units can get the kills.
I don't think we need to talk much about Etie. Bad growths, bad starting stats, for some reason is pretty slow, even though Archers are usually fast, garbage personal skill and to top it off she's so dislikeable as a character. (She's an asshole in almost all of her supports)
Absolutely yes I agree the only units I genuinely believe are just okay at best are the twins and mostly just framme
Small brain: Clanne
Big brain: Framme
Galaxy brain: Anna.
I fine Alfred as a halbierder helped his growths, then I gave him the Marth ring to baled out the early game then put lucking engrave on a steel lance and an avo +10 and he’s carried his own on my current maddening run. It’s rnb growths tho so I might have gotten lucky..
In the early game, I think you can only invest in like 2-4 units (other than Alear) effectively, because that's how many Emblems you get.
In my first run, I used Framme, Etie, Cloe, Anna and Diamant from the early game.
Framme was a low investment unit with Staves and Chain Guard. I gave her Healing Light. Later, I gave her Lucina, Flash Fist Art and had her Dual Assist, Chain Guard, Staff Bot, 100% Bonded Shield, Avoid stacking (Miciah Engrave, Crimson Cheer, Dual Support), and occasionally finished off low Def units.
Etie, I gave Sigurd, Forged Steel Bow, and Canter early game. Mid game, promoted to Bow Knight to help with speed. With the forged bow, she was able to one-shot fliers. Later changed her to Warrior and gave her Lyn. With Lyn Speed bonus and Speed Taker, she was able to double Wyverns. Warrior gave her the strength to one shot Griffins. Alacrity to kill mages with no counter damage.
Cloe was great in the early and part of mid game, but fell off for me damage-wise. She ended up as a Griffin, poking with forged Javalin and Flame Lance. I gave her Eirika for more mixed damage, one-shot Dragons and Corrupted.
Etie only has one good thing going for her and few units can compete with her in that one thing. She's basically radically lopsided on strength growth and bases and has nothing else going for her, which is pretty unusual on an archer (she has 1 less str than alcryst and you get her way sooner). If you engrave/forge extra damage at the cost of weight (cause her speed is indeed trash and it's pointless to try to salvage it), she can snowball to a lot of damage on units early game and from 2-3 range too. Her frail nature doesnt matter too much if the unit just dies before approaching/countering. From ''chip'' damage to ''smack'' damage. Later you can make her go crit build a la panette too if you want with sniper+10 crit and sniper will fix any dex issues.
Engage actually seems to be designed with iron man runs in mind.
You get a continuous supply of units that are as good, or more often, better than units you got earlier in the game. So when your units die, it's actually not a huge setback.
The early game units are, for the most part, not good. I wouldn't say don't use them, but they're generally meant to be useful for a few chapters, then replaced.
Now given this, this actually makes Vander better. He's still not worth using into the mid game, but the main issue is that he's a waste of exp. But the thing is, there are only a small handful of units earl game that are worth giving exp anyway.
Having your Jagen weaken enemies for your weaker units to kill is the traditional purpose of the archetype. But having Vander weaken a unit for Clanne to kill is a waste, since Clanne will just get benched in a few chapters anyway. So killing the unit with Clanne, Framme, Alfred, Etie, Boucheron is almost equally wasteful.
If you want to be super, super grindy and feed every kill to Alear, Chloe and Louis, I guess that's technically the most optimal for long term play, but it's going to make the short term a pain in the butt. Just playing the other characters for their tactically optimal value rather than as a long term investment is generally the way to go.
btw, I was very critical of Etie early on, but she's actually an early game monster when paired with Sigurd. It really helps her reach and kill her intended targets. But still, bench her once you've got Alcryst.
the thing is that dlc give 5 rings more = to more sp and that is a huge advantage
I put Alfred in Paladin and he turned out ok. Guess he was just blessed
One thing I have noticed is turning anyone except vander into a thief they actually turn out at least acceptable.
Alfred is literally suffering from some kind of chronic illness while Etie spends all of her time working out and getting jacked. Alfred can deal good damage and tank hits while Etie can't damage anything and always dies in one hit. I wished the characters' stats matched their actual character a bit more, honestly.
On my first maddening run I did Hero Alfred, skills inherited were Speed +4 and dual assist+. I gave him Roy ring to further boost his stats. He was serviceable, he was outclassed by Panette merely existing with the Ike ring though. Alfred's speed that is his main issue so he probably would be the best candidate for swapping to Halberdier and rely on pincer attacks to cover that weakness.
when I got the Hector ring, my Alfred got better instantly! He could double on enemy phase and tanks to Hector giving defense bonuses, Alfred was able to tank multiple enemies when he couldn't before and I had invested in him just enough to promote to his Avenir class.
Vander though I reclassed him into a griffin knight. He kept his S rank in axes and had the mobility of a flyer and the usability of a staff and that class gives him better growths too.
How many sages are there worth having? I play on hard so I don't really need Anna to be a High Priest, would it still be useful to use Framme mid to late game?
I had already posted about this but I feel like I should give more detail on how to turn clanne into a carry. He's one of the few units that start out at internal level 1. If you're a clanne fan you have to sacrifice making jean good but it can actually be good. Don't level clanne at all and get the the chapter that lets you get your first second seal and skip all the paralogues. Second seal clanne into an ax fighter and baby him in jeans paralogue and feed as much exp into him as you can. As soon as he hits 10 make him a Berserker and get his hands on a great axe. Inherit build from Leif and if you get enough sp inherit hit from Sigurd. He should have no issues enemy phasing and baiting as long as he is standing next to Alier and will almost always have 100% hit chance. Roy engrave for the great axe and have a ball. He can eventually be a good user of brave axes because of his nutty speed growth and decent build
Framme is seriously legit. Bonded shield from Lucina is one of the easiest ways to break most levels. And she’s the best bonded shield user imo: 100% proc as Qi Adept with best avoid potential of them. Passive with Alear + Shielding Art with Micaiah refine and this can be online from like Ch11. 0 hit on her and blocks for adjacents. Best lucina candidate for me.
I used Etie in my current Maddening run. So far she's holding up well. I promoted her to Bow Knight, and gave her Sigurd. She holds up pretty well so far, but I had to bench her until I got the rings back, she's really reliant on Sigurd from my experience. I also was using her with a Longbow to keep her out of danger.
Good point good point... But that Etie sniper fit though? Can't say no to that.
My first playthrough, Clanne and Alfred stayed with me the entire game. I was able to get Clanne to Mage knight very early at lv 10 and he stayed strong throughout the playthrough (maybe my numbers got lucky XD) and Alfred never left for me since I knew as a lord, he would stay good! But Boucheron and Ettie were damn near useless and Framme....my girl was benched INSTANTLY. And Vander....no lol. I genuinely got so lucky with Alfred and Clanne on my first playthrough that I was shook XD
Fixed Growths really demonstrated to me how screwed over some early game units are. I’m using Alfred on my Maddening Mode file (getting close to the end) and I figured out pretty early on that it was probably a mistake to do so. Which was a hard shift from my last play through where he got some really good level ups and eventually became obscenely strong with Emblem Lyn’s speed boosts.
On maddening he certainly performed fine for the early game, I don’t think I’d say avoid using him at all, but he was promoted by the time Amber joined and unpromoted Amber still had equivalent if not superior stats to Alfred in almost every area.
I didn’t drop him right then and there, mostly out of curiosity (and because I like Alfred) but I probably should’ve. Eventually I ditched his personal class for halberdier which helped him find a niche with the rider’s bane Lance. In chapter 22 he could even one shot mage knights with a plus 4 riders bane and if he uses pincer attack he can normally kill paladins and wolf knights, but I have a feeling that may not last in the final few chapters. With DLC and maybe some more favoritism I’m sure he could be a lot more flexible, but as is he’s quite vulnerable for someone with such high defense and definitely leaves a lot to be desired.
You can make all of them work except Vander, who's designed as the earlygame prepromote crutch anyway. In most of their cases it requires getting them promoted and/or reclassed at level 10 ASAP before they can snowball, but given higher difficulties value efficiency and they start out with poor base stats, it's generally not worth it.
For example, Clanne has a decent 35% str and 50% spd and only 10% magic so you have to reclass him into a physical class like Hero or Wyvern just like Anna has to get out of Axe Fighter to a mage class as soon as possible.
Boucheron has a ridiculous 20 Bld growth on his own along with 45% spd and 50% dex, so he's one of the few that's tailor made to be a Berserker and use axes without being weighed down.
Alfred has 40% in Str, Spd, and Def so he'll work great as a Paladin. It's just that his bases are so bad that Amber joins with better stats despite worse growths.
Celine is already a pretty decent Levin Sword user (+3 is already as strong as a Bolganone for less ore) and your best mage earlygame, so she'll do fine promoted as well. I'd argue she'd be better off using Griffin Knight's growths over her unique class though.
Etie has better Str than Alcryst and can work as a Bow Knight (only 5% less Str growth which she doesn't need and better Spd growth), but Alcryst has Luna and better bases. Tanking a hit doesn't matter that much because they're archers, but I agree that's a point in Alcryst's favor in case you make mistakes.
Next playthrough I do, i'm going to make Vander my main unit. This man will become a god or I will die trying.
I made Framme an Axe griffin knight after feeding her exp through healing, gave her a Steel axe+4 with sigurd's engraving, build+4 and Canto and she was actually a very nice support unit that could double reliably and deal consistent damage. Nothing crazy but it worked out well. Also, I really tried, but even Halberdier cannot save Vander from being useless. I'm currently trying a run where I have to use Vander as much as possble but in endgame he can't even reliably have more than 50% hitrate against anything that isn't a general because of his inexistant Dex.
Best use case I can think of for Etie is as a crit bot. Engraved Killer Bow + Sniper class skill means you can probably get her crit into the high 60's/70's and kill stuff pretty easily. Inheriting Wrath could get it higher, but you'd have to deal with finding a unit that can hit her without killing her. Though this is less an Etie thing and more of a thing any archer can do. I think Alcryst is just more consistent as an archer and you'd only really use Etie like this if you like her as a character.
Im using Clanne as a wolf rider (Levin sword + steel dagger ) and its like my most powerful unit lol.
I also kept Vander, made him into an axe general, with a killer axe + his ability, I get crits round 50% of the time
And Frame I kept her as a war monk and all of them are pretty useful on my team.😊
I'm doing my 2nd maddening run this time with Bonded Shield, Warp, Rewarp, and Entrap as restricted skills that I am not allowed to use. I just finished Chapter 20 and so far Alfred + Sigurd combo has been great for me. I made him into a Great Knight with Defense +3 and Arms Shield. As long as I can keep him away from spell casters, he hits pretty hard and is nearly invincible.
Because he has lance proficiency, he can use A rank lances as a great knight. Momentum + Silver Greatlance can nearly one shot swordmasters, With a little help from backup units it will one shot them. He can only use a Steel Blade for swords so he can't kill berserkers or warriors, but he can hold a line and survive crits from them with decent counter attacks. Brave Lance can generally kill sages if you can get the first strike, but if they attack him first he is toast. He has enough defense so that even without arms shield, bow attacks do almost nothing to him and he can counter with a spear. Last but not least, since he is a cavalry unit that specializes in lances, he can make the most of Sigurd's override by ripping a line of enemies to shreds with a silver greatlance and maxxed our momentum. He is also durable enough to survive if I can't get to a safe location after using Override.
I think if you know how to use boucheron right he can be very good, if you get enough speed on him to double with brave weapons bc he has good growths, he does 20 dmg before you add dmg, so his passive is he gains 2 dmg if there is a chain attack, if he stands next to alear you get 3, and he has a brave weapon that will double thats 4 hits, so 20 extra dmg(2×4 3x4), if you can double with long bows he gets 10 extra dmg just standing next to alear, these are easy to set up things and on flying units 1 dmg equals 3, so 10 extra dmg is 30, if its a brave bow that can quad you get 60 extra effective mt against flyers just for using boucheron standing next to alear, what im trying to say is, late game boucheron does amazing dmg, say you were going to double with a brave weapon, and it was going to do 30 dmg, if you just use boucheron and stand next to alear that would now do 50 dmg, and that changes killing something and not killing something. Its very consistent and its not based off of chance, you just need to have backup units and stand next to alear and with canter and dance late game its rather easy
Currently playing maddening. Using Etie, she was the mvp before chapter 11. She had Sigurd. She has a forged longbow with marth blessing but since Sigurd is gone. Inercia and canto were very good for her. (Bow knight) She is falling off a bit but is still usable since she can't miss. Currently on ch 16
of the early units, my experience has only been good with Etie. you can always reclass her to another bow weilding promoted class and she hits like a truck while still having better defenses and speed. also, if you plan to keep her as a sniper, pair up with lyn for stats and speedtaker and it helps tremendously. (I know you mentioned no emblem loadouts, but this one puts in work)
I've been playing on hard. I didn't really do much with Bucheron, Alfred, or Framme, but I kept the others until a little after chapters 10/11. I noticed pretty late that Vander was getting hardly any experience , but once I realized that he was falling behind, I haven't used him since. Clanne and Etie lasted a little longer. Clanne was doing pretty well, but other units were better for magic. Etie kept dying and was probably my main reason for using the time crystal. She died more than any other character, I think. Alcryst died on chapter 11 after several tries to get through that chapter without a death, but I was getting frustrated, so I let him die. I turned Anna into a warrior and gave both axes and bows. She does pretty well like that. I also have Fogado for an archer and whoever has Lyn's ring has a bow (Mostly, it's been Kagetsu).
I do wish that every character was able to be made good to the end. I don't like having characters that will always be benched quickly.
Man im stuck on chapter 21 on maddening 😭 I’ve done the obstruct method I saw you use and i still get dumped and i get no skirmishes either feels like im soft lock
I have a big problem that my Alear is like 10 level higher than the rest and this makes scaling chapter impossible for me, like i'am trying to do Soren paralogue and getting one shot by most things. So do not over level one character in maddening they scale to the highest lvl character.
I’m softlocked on ch 17 because I literally invested in all the bad units because I liked the aethsetics of them. Now I have under leveled good units and units that have dropped off so hard that I’m stuck.
I also didn’t realize experience didn’t carry over when you second seal so I’ve probably lost several levels to class changes without realizing it.
It’s gonna be a slog to get back to 17 ugh.
Maybe you can try doing some training skirmishes to level them up? If your units die there they actually retreat and can you be used again but that's only in the skirmishes
@@aurielayala9683 on maddening?
@@Ratstick58 yea
(Maddening+DLC) My Alfred wasn't that great but i stuck with him with relatively low investment and now has a 70%+ Crit Killer Lance that began ORKOing most enemies after around Ch. 14.
I tried so hard to keep Alfred on my team during Maddening, but he fell of hard for me to the point I carried him with me in denial despite the fact he was pretty much a dead unit on my team. Poor hit chances and damage, no speed, got doubled - at some point I couldn't stand him anymore. Anyone would tell me I should have invested in him more if I wanted to make him work and maybe I should have, but I thought just having him out there on the battlefield would help. Anytime I got a stat booster that could go to him all I could think of who it would be better to go to.
Some of the early units will definitely need some help, like him I guess, but he wasn't my choice it seems. I think the only Firene unit I kept was Louis who was my great knight but he needed no direct investment from me, I just fielded him and he went to work.
`Celine Louis and Chloe are the first units worth investing in IMO, regretted everyone else, smsll exception to mageknight framme
Well only one chapter later you get Louis and Chloe which are among the best pre Chapter 10 units. Louis falls of a bit later and is probably better replaced by one of the late joiners, but he is still a Unit that is just good from the get go and the best early game Sigurd holder. Chloe can and will snowball pretty hard if given the resources to do so. She will easily be one of the most important units of any maddening run. I do agree about the retainers and the Alfred trio though. It's just a bad idea to do any investing on them for maddening.
I'm on as women olny random maddening and I was surprised how low maning early was fairly easy and smooth the early game
Etie bow knight for me carried... she couldn't not raise str/spd in those early chapters and was soon ORKO everything but armored units
I was running Etie as a sniper on hard and was seeing the same issues until I second sealed her into warrior. She can’t tank by any means but she can take a hit and her high strength means she can one shot a lot of enemies without doubling. I’m curious how warrior Etie would fare on maddening!
Etie is slightly weaker than Panette but you can make her work on maddening. My optimal build her her would be speedtaker as speed is her only real weakness as an offensive unit.
Change Vander to a Royal Knight and give him mend, physic, and obstacle staves if you really like him. Etie is pretty good, all you need is giving her all the stat items, reclass her to warrior, spend books to give her starsphere, and give her the trio emblem. There ya go, solid B tier unit that usually mostly possibly one turns units.
What really annoys me about Clanne is that his starting class spits in the face of his personal growths. He has 30% Strength/10% Magic, and +1 to his max Strength and -1 to Magic…yet his starting class is MAGE. Not to mention he has pretty high Dex and Spd growths.
Clanne would be much better as a Berserker, Sniper, or Warrior, yet they decided his preferred class would be a horse topped with a wizard hat…
Invested in Clanne first run and he was completely awful. Boucheron on my second run however was solid the whole time. Engraved Longbow+1 carries a ton early game and then later gave him Draconic Hex to be a debuffer. Not a hard carry or anything but definitely put in work
Kinda wild how big the difference between hard and maddening is. I used Alfred,Etie, Framme and Bouch all the way to Endgame on my first run (hard classic)
But boy do they suck on maddening lol
Big asterisk because I played on hard, but my Alfred was great on hard with some investment. Giving him sigurd + speed taker makes him pretty good in his unique class. You might be better off going into paladin with him though. Given, you can probably do this with any unit with decent strength but Alfred having good strength growth helps a lot
Etie *can* be made good without DLC, but I'm not sure it's a Maddening viable prospect. The big problem with them is her growths are ill suited for her starting class. Etie really wants to be made into a Thief or Swordfighter (or from Sniper into Swordmaster or Hero), and those can really patch up her iffy Speed and her good strength can bolster her damage. This does give some overlap with Lapis especially, and that might not be worth it, depending. The other problem is Thief isn't an option until you get Micaiah or Leif for Knife Prof, and it's a lot of Bond Fragments.
Clanne's a very rough prospect in general, thanks mostly to his low starting build and strength. I found Clanne much more effective as a physical unit (taking a stint through Armor Sword and General) to build his bulk, durability, and physical prowess. That worked like a charm, but I'm not sure it's Maddening viable.
Boucheron has been good for me but honestly the build I have on him (warrior, crit engraved killer axe, vantage, canter, Ike) would probably just work better on Panette anyway