Your content has helped me so much on my engage maddening run! I always get anxiety for worrying I’m not investing right, so I really appreciate your guides!!
@@IcedCoffeeGamingthanks bro! Love helping and supporting other creators that make great content! There’s seriously nobody even close to you on Engage tips/advice! I still can’t make Timmara work but I feel like that’s on me😆
I'm glad you changed your mind about Yunaka and the early Iron Dagger + 2. I love when content creators are willing to teach others and learn from their audience as well. This guide is really good. The Steel Bow is a good thing to upgrade or put a damage engrave on if you're going to do Tiki Paralogue. I know you don't cover the DLC but for context, Tiki paralogue has dragons with 40+ HP. An upgraded steel bow destroys them because of +6 might due to effectiveness.
My engraves I do for each maddening run before chapter 10 (NO DLC) Roy: Thunder, save to upgrade to elthunder instead of refining. Leif: Hammer/Armorslayer to help beat armors across weapon triangle. Higher Might scales well vs armors, weight doesn't matter, and these weapons are pretty future-proof if you're going to use this weapon type. Celica: Like you said, probably best on either an early forged Levin sword or Elfire to for Celine. Elfire+3 with Celica engrave gives Celine no speed reduction. But to be honest, mine has literally never doubled anything but Armors so levin sword is probably better. Micaiah: Probably best on shield art because might reduction doesn't matter. Alear can technically keep up with thieves in Corrin's fog like this. OR Smash weapons because the lower weight can let you justify upgrading it to next tier to more than compensate the mt reduction on a pretty good enemy phase weapon. (Probably Iron Blade since the others have poor hit) Marth and Sigurd literally have no downsides to play around so depends more on your units. Typically best on units that double often, or enemy phase often.
I like putting Micaiah's engraving on a dagger for dodging tanking thief. I like Leif's on Liberation since the weight increase is inconsequential and it gives a bit of avoid. Sigurd's is good on a Steel Lance for Chloe. Roy's is good on an already slow character's weapon like Dire Thunder Citrinne, or a Hand Axe/Javelin for Louis/Jade. Celica's is good on
Engraved Steel Axe +3 with Bouch carried me so much all midgame, I recommend that or if planning on using a Warrior or Beserker this is the go-to weapon. Upgrading donations for Brodia seems really smart especially since they give so much material. Next run ima definitely do that.
I think the Dawn engraving is better suited for tomes or magic weapons. I put it on a Levin Sword and gave that to Mageknight Clanne. He has been quite good at dodge tanking and destroying the enemies on their phase. I can only imagine giving it to a unit with better magic would make it even better.
I would promote the units you want to run long term immediately and as soon as possible with everyone else. Because of how internal levels work promoting early is actually a good thing. Gaining more level ups on promoted classes means more growth rates. Thanks for the tip m8 :) I appreciate you
I made the micaiah engraving on a steel hand art which later became flashing fist art and gave it to Seadall so he could be a dodge tank much earlier and I don't have to wait to get micaiah back.
Steel bow +3 carried my alcryst all the way until getting the brave bow. I really like how good forged steel weapons are, you can pretty much use them the whole game
I am going to try to get a bolganone by ch10 on my current maddening run (using the forge) and put Celica on it. It is arguably superior to the Levin sword but more importantly ivy can use after you recruit her. The biggest issue with ivy is her low luck which gives the enemy crit chance which will be nullified by Celica engrave.
You can put Roy's engraving on a spear if you intend to use a armored unit for an amount of time in the early game or beyound. Mostly your only using the armored unit to bait/get in the way and the -avoid and the extra weight isn't going to make much difference to them anyway.
Can confirm Alear Wyvern Knight is op and will wreak everything. Used a liberation +5 and armor slayer +5 but I suspect a stick + the armor slayer is good enough. Alcryst, I think a longbow + bravebow is good. Chloe, I used a javalin +3 for ages until I upgraded to a spear then quickly to the legendary 2 range spear. She was also a wyvern night until I needed s proficiency in spear. Overall, my biggest regret is wasting silver! It is very limited. I don't think I would take a weapon past +3 unless I was going to use it endgame...
Forging guide 101 - Forge Steel weapons - Forge 1 or 2 killer weapons (for crit fishing) - Don't forge tomes of Arts (fist) - Maybe forge thunder if you have dire thunder - Brave weapons good
in the forge if you go to upgrade a iron dagger you can use the forge to change the iron dagger into a steel one (bottom option with a black icon) and you can do it again to get a silver dagger by chapter 6.
@@vaquishers I didn't realise steel had higher crit but you probably just have both. I personally use silver and it felt consistent with crit and hit.
Dawn engraving is good on smash weapon on a high avoid unit. The high might makes the mt loss negligible. The +40 avoid ensure your unit is not harmed.
I run Steel lance +3 with Sigurd engraving, thunder +3 Roy engraving Dire thunder for chapter 11 and onwards until more emblems, early Levin sword +2 Leif engraving, forged steel dagger +3 with Miciah engraving, +3 Alear's sword (might swap to steel sword after this) with Marth's engraving. I think Dire thunder is really easy to reroll with that many bond fragments for Anna or Ivy and better than Levin sword if not using Lyn on Anna or Ivy at least for early game and get a free levin sword not too far from chapter 11 saving resources overall. Steel dagger upgrade with Miciah is really good since dagger units are especially good early on and give +2 mt per upgrade making them really strong while really hard to hit especially if passed to Zelkov or Merrin after chapter 11.
I'm in the middle of a hard mode iron man run right now, and have been trying some funky things for forging. The most notable was after Anna's paralogue, I promoted Chloe to a Sword Griffin Knight, then forged an iron sword to steel to levin+1. Total cost, 2500 gold, 430 iron, 20 steel. Definitely a heavier weapon than desired at 11 Wt, but she was still faster than Celine, and hit just about as hard due to the 13 Mt. The high weight became more tolerable once I realized it was only 2 heavier than a Javelin. Chloe's magic growth is higher than her strength, and most enemies have lower Res than Def, so I think this was a good way to go. By contrast, forging an iron weapon to steel +3 costs 1800 gold, 280 iron, 16 steel. 9 Wt 15 Mt. Not a bad weapon by any means. But putting Chloe on swords gives her lighter weapons in general, as well as a drastically better magic weapon. The Flame Lance is 3 less Mt, 10 less Hit, and 5 more Wt than the Levin Sword. You can save 1000 gold 100 iron and 10 steel by having enough patience to get a steel weapon regularly. And in retrospect, waiting just until the end of the next chapter to do that would have likely been wise. But it was really fun to 1 round the armored knights on the bridge to Brodia from a flying horse. Another thing I did was Fire to Elfire for Celine also worked nicely, 1000 gold, 100 iron, 10 steel. 7 Wt was a bit of a downer of course, but I gave it Celica's engraving to help a bit for Ivy to use later, and still kept a fire on hand for when the 2 points of speed matter. Other than that, I mostly forged iron weapons to +1. 300 gold and 10 iron for 2 mt is a steal, even if you're just going to toss them later on. Most units at this point get slowed down by steel anyway.
Liberation is cheap to upgrade but yeah it definitely falls off hard even in the mid game. Its basically only useful to finish off damaged enemies to Engage faster so not worth upgrading a lot even considering how cheap it is. Dawn engrave on arts is a good idea not only for the frail early game units like Framme and Jean, but also eventually for Seadall who really benefits from avoid tanking
I don't think it falls off per se, but this also depends on the build stat Alear will have late game. Fully upgraded, it does a bit more than a base silver weapon. It has the absolute best weight to damage ratio of any sword.
One useful engraving is also either Ike at chap 13 or Roy at chap 8 on a Thunder/Elthunder/Thoron user. You give up speed pretty much completely for 1 solid hit, Citrinne is actually really useful with that even without the Dire thunder ring, and later Ivy can also use that high Mag+MT to still deal okay damage to enemies with medium RES like bosses. Momentum is great for damage for that, canter makes it really safe. While engaged with celica you still get the 2 uses of it with Echo that can procs assist/dual assist from 3 range.
Boucheron is legitimately becoming an MVP on my team mid-game. It takes a while to get him going, but with an engraved tomahawk+2, a suitable emblem and with Speedtaker skill, he is an absolute juggernaut. Everything that attacks him gets two tomahawks to the face, he has so much HP and he pairs well with Anna and Alear on the front line. Overall I think he is slightly better than Pannette but Pannette doesn't need as much early investment
I found that Boucheron was good throughout early and mid game. But unfortunately, my Boucheron fell off hard in late-game. I didn’t give him Speedtaker, though, that certainly would have helped.
I love axe users in fire emblem. So on my first run, which was on hard, boucheron was one of my highest level people. Then panette came and was better at basically everything if not actually better at everything and they were the same level 20-1 Boucheron and level 1 panette. Huge strength difference.
@@zekdom It's because his Strength growth is stupidly low. His base Strength growth is 20% before class growths. He has the highest build in the game to offset this though
@@zekdom my man speedtaker I'm finding solves everything lol. Can't put it on everyone for logistical reasons but I've already got it on my main carries and its so insane
Like you also said I put dawn on liberation just for Alear to hold while I throw her in to aggressive bond shield, just to give it a use since I already forged it somewhat and it lost most of its use with steel sword +3 lol, and it works like a charm! 200 avoid with supports and no avoid skills equipped is pretty value 😂
That's what I did on my run, Etie was one shotting the dragons using a +3 engraved Steel Bow. So I just kept farming the reinforcements until they were over. The paralogue took a long a time to finish but it was pretty easy.
I guess you don't use DLC but Folkvangr Fensalir and Noatun are also excellent weapons to forge early and are free DLC if u get/have Heroes the main selling point is that they are light for their high power Oh and Leif is Thracia 776 in case you needed to know he is also in Genealogy of the holy war but he's the main character in Thracia 776
Those weapons are free to obtain so not technically DLC. Extremely strong in the early game though. Almost ridiculously. They are Steel weapons with lower weight and bonus effects
Don't underestimate liberation's plus three points of drip. None of the other early game weapons even go that high because they're all generic. It's way more viable than steel.
If you put Dawn engrave on a Wo Dao and make Zelkov a Swordmaster dude will have just enough avo to be attack but pretty much never get hit by anything it's actually kinda nuts
I'm curious, do you think you could get someone like Chloe, Lapis or Clanne fast enough that you could engrave a Ridersbane with Dawn and successfully send them in to handle groups of Wolf Knights in the midgame? I feel like effective damage does so much that you can sacrifice some of the Mt against low Def enemies to help you avoid their nasty counters. Decrease in Wt is a bonus.
didn't know where to throw this comment but hope it reaches you . momentum is multiplied by bond ring skills like great thunder but is not effected by break defense/brave effects/marth speed. putting momentum on a unit with a soren BOND ring makes a mage a air killer real quick
A steel Great Lance with Roy's Engraving is fantastic early on. He eats 2 hits for 0 and then deletes whatever is in front of him. Just don't let him get near any makes.
just a personal preference, I prefer to upgrade killer weapons over steel weapons, as they use the exact same amount of ingots. you're just exchanging some hit for a ton of crit.
I don't know that I could be super engaging for hours during a live stream. I tend to just focus on topics and make vids on them, I experimented with longer form lets play content to kind of test run what it would be like to live stream without being live and it can be difficult to be entertaining for long periods of time.
@@IcedCoffeeGaming your long content is the best haha, I think if you had chat to bounce off of you would have more to talk about, but your content is great no matter what :)
I actually disagree, it is absolutely worth it to refine tomes. Specifically, I think it's worth it to transform them into their more powerful versions. You can immediately master seal Citrinne after chapter 7, and have access to both Thoron and Bolganone for the rest of the game. Hell, having Elfire for Chapter 5 is well worth the investment alone since it lets whoever doesn't have Celica be useful
Not only do I think Liberation is not worth upgrading, I actually feel like it warps the perception of Pepsiman to being even worse, because OBVIOUSLY you use the unit with their prf weapon right? Personally I have an addiction to refining and engraving effective weapons. Might be the Shadow Dragon paranoia talking, but I get the big dopamine when I see my Hammer or Poleax' number go up
This video has provided Pure Upside to my day! Lol yeah anyways this is all really good advice. I never did get why levin swords are so good though. Are they better than tomes?
Levin is upside. Therefore has use cases. Almost all tomes have more downside. Elwind is pure upside with Anna, but Thunder with dire thunder can be very uppity upside imho. I found elsurge to have less use cases, therefore downside.
Levin sword has high MT and early game can hit hard, on Anna it can double with weight reducing engraving and be a kind of slightly weaker Bolganone. Lategame Bolganone is arguably better but you don't get it until near the end of middlegame or until you forge it from an ElFire which is expensive in terms of resources
You didn't mention upgrading your thunder to Elthunder then to Thoron early in the same way you upgrade the Levin Sword. Really powerful for any mage that early.
I slap the dawn engrave on a short knife then +5 it for yunaka. because it is a trainee weapon, it is cheep to upgrade and because it is a dagger, the upgrades give disgusting amounts of mt. it would probably be better to put it on an iron dagger and upgrade that to a steel later on, but upgrading from iron to steel makes me feel like i'm just wasting resources.
It hurts to not see longbow upgraded. Why would you ever not always have the only 1-3 range bow equipped as the default weapon on your archer(s)? The 3-range is massively more useful than the higher damage of the 2-range bows, plus you get to participate in chain attacks from 3 squares away.
Covert units cannot chain attack. Granted, Warriors have access to C rank bows, but most of your bow users are likely going to not be Warriors, especially since Fogado and Alcryst have their own classes. I can see longbow+1 being a thing since it’s super low investment, but any higher than that and you’re severely cutting into your ores.
I have beaten the game on maddening twice so far, and I can say without a doubt that Killer Weapons are the best weapons, hands down. I've tried upgrading steel weapons, iron weapons, tomes, brave, etc. Do not waste your time with anything other than killer weapons except daggers, bows, and tomes. Sure, you can toss a level or two into a steel weapon in the early game to make life easier, but if you want my two cents, save as many resources as possible to dump into killer weapons. There are about 5 (maybe 6) engraves that give bonus crit. If you put those on killer weapons, you will quickly have your crit chance over 50%. I've also learned in my experience that if your crit is high enough, your hit chance matters less. I'm not sure why, but it seems that the game first calculates a crit and then whether you hit. Although I cannot prove it, if the game calculates you will crit, you will always hit, regardless of enemy avo. I once crit an enemy sword master standing on an avoid tile with a 2 percent chance to hit.
@@IcedCoffeeGaming. First, I appreciate all of your content! Keep it coming (looking forward to your eventual Lapis/Goldmary guides). To be clear, I agree with everything you said in this guide (especially the Levin swords). I'm just trying to get across the idea to not over invest materials into early game weapons since Killer weapons are so good. My first maddening run I took many of my steel weapons to +3 and they were great, but later on I felt like I made bad investments since killer weapons end up being so powerful. My second maddening run I only gave my steel weapons +1 and had much better results mid/end game when I had those resources I saved to upgrade my killer weapons right away.
I agree killer weapons are very strong but only when engraved. I found steel/silver to be endgame viable as long as the unit has good enough STR growth. What classes do you usually run on your crit builds?
@@IcedCoffeeGaming , so far, I found great success with warrior, halberdier, and Wyvern knight. I want to like berserker, but I’ve come to find that it’s not as well rounded as warrior. Oh my next Playthru I’m gonna try sword master, which I’m gonna assume will be perfect for a crit build.
Also, Lyn or Carmella engrave on killer weapon for great knight. My Louis had on average a 65% crit chance which made him more useful than just a meat shield. His high strength allowed for high damage crits
If you have the DLC and don't want the extra gold to make the game too much easier for you, dump it into Brodia lvl4. As for the silver, you can use it to upgrade your Longbow, or set a rule where you only allow yourself to convert silver to other materials when you have more than 20 of it.
Why not insta upgrade iron dagger to Steele or even silver dagger? Not much silver is used and you have a silver dagger on like chap 8 and dagger goes +2dmg on all upgrades
I know I have done a lot of trolling and stupid comments but your videos are really good. I just went and watched some other strategy videos and boy is their analysis terrible.
I tested Steel bow and can tell you, that it is not worth it. You Overkill flyers but you don't one round other enemiy types, so the resources are better spent somewhere else. Definitely sword and lance to +3 before anything else. And I would recommend getting +1 sword and +3 lance asap. The lance feels way more impactful than an extra sword on Alear (with Marth he already has a solid pool of weapons). Maddening no dlc
Is there any new game plus? I'm finishing my first hard run, I'm just curious if there's any benefit to finishing before starting a new run with new builds.
My favorite switch up of yours ( not a bad thing changing thoughts are good. You do the same to me all the time) is Alcryst. I remember your first maddening play though you thought the Prince of Solm was a better archer. I was like nooooooo 🤣
I would say he is a great archer. Radiant bow is a pretty spectacular weapon, and there aren't very many people who can use it. As long as you put a few upgrades on radiant bow he will be a great unit. He can also use Levin sword pretty effectively if you need to fight at 1 range and he is okay at killing tome users with a silver bow.
I would replace your first three steel weapons with those. I use the Lance on Chloe, and the Sword and Axe on Diamant. I’m not using any main axe units
I put Liberation+5 with Marth's engraving and have not had to worry about Alear's weapon through the first 15 chapters and don't see that changing anytime soon. It's a great weapon, and it recharges Alear's engage meter faster which is crucial
@@IcedCoffeeGaming That is true. And you would be missing out on the speed growth from Axe fighter. If you instantly reclass her to Sage you would also be getting that extra 5% magic growth earlier as well, so in the end you only lose 1-2 points of magic in exchange for 1 speed and a sooner build increase. Alright you have sold me for my future runs.
I know you don’t use DLC but what about the fe heroes free items what are your thoughts on them? Or do you just choose not to use them because I mean they definitely are fairly overpowered early on having mt comparable to like silver weapons for significantly lower weight and being available basically from the start like chapter 3 or something
@@IcedCoffeeGaming I agree. I think it’s a pretty minimal difference. Which I’m fine with cause Female Byleth in Three Houses seemed to be ~pure upside~
Your content has helped me so much on my engage maddening run!
I always get anxiety for worrying I’m not investing right, so I really appreciate your guides!!
Thanks! I appreciate the superchat :)
Also nice YT channel man, you are almost at 3m Subs, that is wild!
@@IcedCoffeeGamingthanks bro! Love helping and supporting other creators that make great content! There’s seriously nobody even close to you on Engage tips/advice!
I still can’t make Timmara work but I feel like that’s on me😆
I'm glad you changed your mind about Yunaka and the early Iron Dagger + 2. I love when content creators are willing to teach others and learn from their audience as well. This guide is really good.
The Steel Bow is a good thing to upgrade or put a damage engrave on if you're going to do Tiki Paralogue. I know you don't cover the DLC but for context, Tiki paralogue has dragons with 40+ HP. An upgraded steel bow destroys them because of +6 might due to effectiveness.
I will definitely miss things so I appreciate when people point out different tactics/strategies :)
My engraves I do for each maddening run before chapter 10 (NO DLC)
Roy: Thunder, save to upgrade to elthunder instead of refining.
Leif: Hammer/Armorslayer to help beat armors across weapon triangle. Higher Might scales well vs armors, weight doesn't matter, and these weapons are pretty future-proof if you're going to use this weapon type.
Celica: Like you said, probably best on either an early forged Levin sword or Elfire to for Celine. Elfire+3 with Celica engrave gives Celine no speed reduction. But to be honest, mine has literally never doubled anything but Armors so levin sword is probably better.
Micaiah: Probably best on shield art because might reduction doesn't matter. Alear can technically keep up with thieves in Corrin's fog like this. OR Smash weapons because the lower weight can let you justify upgrading it to next tier to more than compensate the mt reduction on a pretty good enemy phase weapon. (Probably Iron Blade since the others have poor hit)
Marth and Sigurd literally have no downsides to play around so depends more on your units. Typically best on units that double often, or enemy phase often.
I’m absolutely following all of these forging guides on my next playthrough
i’m following the guide now
I like putting Micaiah's engraving on a dagger for dodging tanking thief. I like Leif's on Liberation since the weight increase is inconsequential and it gives a bit of avoid. Sigurd's is good on a Steel Lance for Chloe. Roy's is good on an already slow character's weapon like Dire Thunder Citrinne, or a Hand Axe/Javelin for Louis/Jade. Celica's is good on
Lol
Engraved Steel Axe +3 with Bouch carried me so much all midgame, I recommend that or if planning on using a Warrior or Beserker this is the go-to weapon.
Upgrading donations for Brodia seems really smart especially since they give so much material. Next run ima definitely do that.
I think the Dawn engraving is better suited for tomes or magic weapons. I put it on a Levin Sword and gave that to Mageknight Clanne. He has been quite good at dodge tanking and destroying the enemies on their phase. I can only imagine giving it to a unit with better magic would make it even better.
I have a question about class promotion. How soon would you recommend? When they hit a certain level or when they get to a certain chapter?
I would promote the units you want to run long term immediately and as soon as possible with everyone else. Because of how internal levels work promoting early is actually a good thing. Gaining more level ups on promoted classes means more growth rates.
Thanks for the tip m8 :) I appreciate you
This video was much better than the last early upgrade guide... pure upside
I needed this right now actually. I watched your other forge video before I went and messed up my forging like I did in a previous run. Lol
I made the micaiah engraving on a steel hand art which later became flashing fist art and gave it to Seadall so he could be a dodge tank much earlier and I don't have to wait to get micaiah back.
Excellent content man, always happy to see a new upload!
Steel bow +3 carried my alcryst all the way until getting the brave bow. I really like how good forged steel weapons are, you can pretty much use them the whole game
I took fogado’s killer bow and gave it the Lyn engrave and he’s a killing machine
I am going to try to get a bolganone by ch10 on my current maddening run (using the forge) and put Celica on it. It is arguably superior to the Levin sword but more importantly ivy can use after you recruit her. The biggest issue with ivy is her low luck which gives the enemy crit chance which will be nullified by Celica engrave.
You can put Roy's engraving on a spear if you intend to use a armored unit for an amount of time in the early game or beyound. Mostly your only using the armored unit to bait/get in the way and the -avoid and the extra weight isn't going to make much difference to them anyway.
Can confirm Alear Wyvern Knight is op and will wreak everything. Used a liberation +5 and armor slayer +5 but I suspect a stick + the armor slayer is good enough.
Alcryst, I think a longbow + bravebow is good.
Chloe, I used a javalin +3 for ages until I upgraded to a spear then quickly to the legendary 2 range spear. She was also a wyvern night until I needed s proficiency in spear.
Overall, my biggest regret is wasting silver! It is very limited. I don't think I would take a weapon past +3 unless I was going to use it endgame...
Forging guide 101
- Forge Steel weapons
- Forge 1 or 2 killer weapons (for crit fishing)
- Don't forge tomes of Arts (fist)
- Maybe forge thunder if you have dire thunder
- Brave weapons good
in the forge if you go to upgrade a iron dagger you can use the forge to change the iron dagger into a steel one (bottom option with a black icon) and you can do it again to get a silver dagger by chapter 6.
Ya but it doesn’t get crit
@@vaquishers I didn't realise steel had higher crit but you probably just have both. I personally use silver and it felt consistent with crit and hit.
Lets go, much needed!! Thank you Coffee Man!!
Dawn engraving is good on smash weapon on a high avoid unit. The high might makes the mt loss negligible. The +40 avoid ensure your unit is not harmed.
I run Steel lance +3 with Sigurd engraving, thunder +3 Roy engraving Dire thunder for chapter 11 and onwards until more emblems, early Levin sword +2 Leif engraving, forged steel dagger +3 with Miciah engraving, +3 Alear's sword (might swap to steel sword after this) with Marth's engraving. I think Dire thunder is really easy to reroll with that many bond fragments for Anna or Ivy and better than Levin sword if not using Lyn on Anna or Ivy at least for early game and get a free levin sword not too far from chapter 11 saving resources overall. Steel dagger upgrade with Miciah is really good since dagger units are especially good early on and give +2 mt per upgrade making them really strong while really hard to hit especially if passed to Zelkov or Merrin after chapter 11.
I'm in the middle of a hard mode iron man run right now, and have been trying some funky things for forging.
The most notable was after Anna's paralogue, I promoted Chloe to a Sword Griffin Knight, then forged an iron sword to steel to levin+1. Total cost, 2500 gold, 430 iron, 20 steel.
Definitely a heavier weapon than desired at 11 Wt, but she was still faster than Celine, and hit just about as hard due to the 13 Mt. The high weight became more tolerable once I realized it was only 2 heavier than a Javelin. Chloe's magic growth is higher than her strength, and most enemies have lower Res than Def, so I think this was a good way to go.
By contrast, forging an iron weapon to steel +3 costs 1800 gold, 280 iron, 16 steel. 9 Wt 15 Mt. Not a bad weapon by any means. But putting Chloe on swords gives her lighter weapons in general, as well as a drastically better magic weapon. The Flame Lance is 3 less Mt, 10 less Hit, and 5 more Wt than the Levin Sword.
You can save 1000 gold 100 iron and 10 steel by having enough patience to get a steel weapon regularly. And in retrospect, waiting just until the end of the next chapter to do that would have likely been wise. But it was really fun to 1 round the armored knights on the bridge to Brodia from a flying horse.
Another thing I did was Fire to Elfire for Celine also worked nicely, 1000 gold, 100 iron, 10 steel. 7 Wt was a bit of a downer of course, but I gave it Celica's engraving to help a bit for Ivy to use later, and still kept a fire on hand for when the 2 points of speed matter.
Other than that, I mostly forged iron weapons to +1. 300 gold and 10 iron for 2 mt is a steal, even if you're just going to toss them later on. Most units at this point get slowed down by steel anyway.
Liberation is cheap to upgrade but yeah it definitely falls off hard even in the mid game. Its basically only useful to finish off damaged enemies to Engage faster so not worth upgrading a lot even considering how cheap it is.
Dawn engrave on arts is a good idea not only for the frail early game units like Framme and Jean, but also eventually for Seadall who really benefits from avoid tanking
I don't think it falls off per se, but this also depends on the build stat Alear will have late game. Fully upgraded, it does a bit more than a base silver weapon. It has the absolute best weight to damage ratio of any sword.
One useful engraving is also either Ike at chap 13 or Roy at chap 8 on a Thunder/Elthunder/Thoron user. You give up speed pretty much completely for 1 solid hit, Citrinne is actually really useful with that even without the Dire thunder ring, and later Ivy can also use that high Mag+MT to still deal okay damage to enemies with medium RES like bosses. Momentum is great for damage for that, canter makes it really safe. While engaged with celica you still get the 2 uses of it with Echo that can procs assist/dual assist from 3 range.
Boucheron is legitimately becoming an MVP on my team mid-game. It takes a while to get him going, but with an engraved tomahawk+2, a suitable emblem and with Speedtaker skill, he is an absolute juggernaut. Everything that attacks him gets two tomahawks to the face, he has so much HP and he pairs well with Anna and Alear on the front line. Overall I think he is slightly better than Pannette but Pannette doesn't need as much early investment
heck yeah bouche is so underrated
I found that Boucheron was good throughout early and mid game.
But unfortunately, my Boucheron fell off hard in late-game. I didn’t give him Speedtaker, though, that certainly would have helped.
I love axe users in fire emblem. So on my first run, which was on hard, boucheron was one of my highest level people. Then panette came and was better at basically everything if not actually better at everything and they were the same level 20-1 Boucheron and level 1 panette. Huge strength difference.
@@zekdom
It's because his Strength growth is stupidly low. His base Strength growth is 20% before class growths. He has the highest build in the game to offset this though
@@zekdom my man speedtaker I'm finding solves everything lol. Can't put it on everyone for logistical reasons but I've already got it on my main carries and its so insane
Like you also said I put dawn on liberation just for Alear to hold while I throw her in to aggressive bond shield, just to give it a use since I already forged it somewhat and it lost most of its use with steel sword +3 lol, and it works like a charm! 200 avoid with supports and no avoid skills equipped is pretty value 😂
I only recommend upgrading steel bow if you want to make tiki's paralogue more tolerable.
That's what I did on my run, Etie was one shotting the dragons using a +3 engraved Steel Bow. So I just kept farming the reinforcements until they were over. The paralogue took a long a time to finish but it was pretty easy.
@@mateuscm imagine how evil it would be if they patched in a turn limit lol
@@mateuscm oh god yeah it's that bad
I guess you don't use DLC but Folkvangr Fensalir and Noatun are also excellent weapons to forge early and are free DLC if u get/have Heroes the main selling point is that they are light for their high power
Oh and Leif is Thracia 776 in case you needed to know he is also in Genealogy of the holy war but he's the main character in Thracia 776
Those weapons are free to obtain so not technically DLC. Extremely strong in the early game though. Almost ridiculously. They are Steel weapons with lower weight and bonus effects
@@Cr4nched DLC isn't necessarily something you buy, it just means downloadable content.
@@Cr4nched
The Noatun singlehandedly fixes most of Boucheron’s early game problems. This should be telling about how OP the Heroes weapons are.
Don't underestimate liberation's plus three points of drip. None of the other early game weapons even go that high because they're all generic. It's way more viable than steel.
Now if your okay with only getting one might with Yunaka’s + 2 iron dagger, dawn engraving is amazing for her
Ooo new forge guide
I have the michaih engraving on a shortbow just to help my archer dodge tank if he gets caught out of position.
If you put Dawn engrave on a Wo Dao and make Zelkov a Swordmaster dude will have just enough avo to be attack but pretty much never get hit by anything it's actually kinda nuts
did somebody say pure upside 0_0
I'm curious, do you think you could get someone like Chloe, Lapis or Clanne fast enough that you could engrave a Ridersbane with Dawn and successfully send them in to handle groups of Wolf Knights in the midgame? I feel like effective damage does so much that you can sacrifice some of the Mt against low Def enemies to help you avoid their nasty counters. Decrease in Wt is a bonus.
Watching your videos is pure upside.
You're pure upside :)
didn't know where to throw this comment but hope it reaches you . momentum is multiplied by bond ring skills like great thunder but is not effected by break defense/brave effects/marth speed. putting momentum on a unit with a soren BOND ring makes a mage a air killer real quick
too add to this momentum is 3X with crits so panet momentum is a fucking one tapper
Warrior Lapis on leif with genealogy hammer, steel bow, longbow+1
A steel Great Lance with Roy's Engraving is fantastic early on. He eats 2 hits for 0 and then deletes whatever is in front of him.
Just don't let him get near any makes.
I forge a steel dagger and put dawn emblem on it so yunaka can solo maps as well
just a personal preference, I prefer to upgrade killer weapons over steel weapons, as they use the exact same amount of ingots. you're just exchanging some hit for a ton of crit.
Did you consider doing a live maddening run? I bet many would like to watch that, me included.
I don't know that I could be super engaging for hours during a live stream. I tend to just focus on topics and make vids on them, I experimented with longer form lets play content to kind of test run what it would be like to live stream without being live and it can be difficult to be entertaining for long periods of time.
@@IcedCoffeeGaming Totally understand that. If you ever give it a try tho, I will make sure to be there! :)
@@IcedCoffeeGaming your long content is the best haha, I think if you had chat to bounce off of you would have more to talk about, but your content is great no matter what :)
Clearly this video should've been called
"How to Pure Upside your weapons"
"Thunder...can't follow-up."
'Dire Thunder' begs to differ
I dunno that is like an "Exploit" tho unless you get lucky on the RNG
Did not know a weapon could have negative might neat
Any bonus hit chance engraves go on axes...
Just kidding!
They go on tomahawks.
Fax
I actually disagree, it is absolutely worth it to refine tomes. Specifically, I think it's worth it to transform them into their more powerful versions. You can immediately master seal Citrinne after chapter 7, and have access to both Thoron and Bolganone for the rest of the game. Hell, having Elfire for Chapter 5 is well worth the investment alone since it lets whoever doesn't have Celica be useful
Upgrading to better tomes makes sense early, great point!
Not only do I think Liberation is not worth upgrading, I actually feel like it warps the perception of Pepsiman to being even worse, because OBVIOUSLY you use the unit with their prf weapon right?
Personally I have an addiction to refining and engraving effective weapons.
Might be the Shadow Dragon paranoia talking, but I get the big dopamine when I see my Hammer or Poleax' number go up
Just no reason to dump resources into Alear when you can slap Byeth or Corrin on them and they'll be a 0 investment S tier unit
@@1mealer
That too.
But, there's no reason to not beef up a sword they can use early, that gets handed off to someone else later
Steel weapons are underated. It costs little steel and silver to upgrade and you need those for specific weapons.
Steel = pure upside.
This video has provided Pure Upside to my day!
Lol yeah anyways this is all really good advice. I never did get why levin swords are so good though. Are they better than tomes?
Levin is upside. Therefore has use cases. Almost all tomes have more downside. Elwind is pure upside with Anna, but Thunder with dire thunder can be very uppity upside imho. I found elsurge to have less use cases, therefore downside.
Levin sword has high MT and early game can hit hard, on Anna it can double with weight reducing engraving and be a kind of slightly weaker Bolganone. Lategame Bolganone is arguably better but you don't get it until near the end of middlegame or until you forge it from an ElFire which is expensive in terms of resources
@@IcedCoffeeGaming more availability, more use cases, therefore...
You didn't mention upgrading your thunder to Elthunder then to Thoron early in the same way you upgrade the Levin Sword. Really powerful for any mage that early.
Good point, this could be helpful for 3 range poking
I slap the dawn engrave on a short knife then +5 it for yunaka. because it is a trainee weapon, it is cheep to upgrade and because it is a dagger, the upgrades give disgusting amounts of mt. it would probably be better to put it on an iron dagger and upgrade that to a steel later on, but upgrading from iron to steel makes me feel like i'm just wasting resources.
Sweats in upgrading to a silver dagger to damage armor knights early game.
Daggers are the best weapons for engraving imo. Short Knife+5 and Silver Dagger+3
@@Byakurenfan you absolute chad
It hurts to not see longbow upgraded. Why would you ever not always have the only 1-3 range bow equipped as the default weapon on your archer(s)? The 3-range is massively more useful than the higher damage of the 2-range bows, plus you get to participate in chain attacks from 3 squares away.
Archer can do chain attacks? Longbow infrequently doubles if at all and has lower MT, steel bow 1 rounds most flying units not upgraded
Covert units cannot chain attack. Granted, Warriors have access to C rank bows, but most of your bow users are likely going to not be Warriors, especially since Fogado and Alcryst have their own classes. I can see longbow+1 being a thing since it’s super low investment, but any higher than that and you’re severely cutting into your ores.
@@ThisIsntATH-camr
Warriors are the only RELAVENT bow users that aren't Alcryst, fair enough.
@@IcedCoffeeGaming oh, yeah I reclassed alcryst to warrior on my first run I guess most of the time that wouldn't apply
I have beaten the game on maddening twice so far, and I can say without a doubt that Killer Weapons are the best weapons, hands down. I've tried upgrading steel weapons, iron weapons, tomes, brave, etc. Do not waste your time with anything other than killer weapons except daggers, bows, and tomes. Sure, you can toss a level or two into a steel weapon in the early game to make life easier, but if you want my two cents, save as many resources as possible to dump into killer weapons. There are about 5 (maybe 6) engraves that give bonus crit. If you put those on killer weapons, you will quickly have your crit chance over 50%. I've also learned in my experience that if your crit is high enough, your hit chance matters less. I'm not sure why, but it seems that the game first calculates a crit and then whether you hit. Although I cannot prove it, if the game calculates you will crit, you will always hit, regardless of enemy avo. I once crit an enemy sword master standing on an avoid tile with a 2 percent chance to hit.
The crit engravings appear midgame, this is an early forging guide sir
@@IcedCoffeeGaming. First, I appreciate all of your content! Keep it coming (looking forward to your eventual Lapis/Goldmary guides). To be clear, I agree with everything you said in this guide (especially the Levin swords). I'm just trying to get across the idea to not over invest materials into early game weapons since Killer weapons are so good. My first maddening run I took many of my steel weapons to +3 and they were great, but later on I felt like I made bad investments since killer weapons end up being so powerful. My second maddening run I only gave my steel weapons +1 and had much better results mid/end game when I had those resources I saved to upgrade my killer weapons right away.
I agree killer weapons are very strong but only when engraved. I found steel/silver to be endgame viable as long as the unit has good enough STR growth. What classes do you usually run on your crit builds?
@@IcedCoffeeGaming , so far, I found great success with warrior, halberdier, and Wyvern knight. I want to like berserker, but I’ve come to find that it’s not as well rounded as warrior. Oh my next Playthru I’m gonna try sword master, which I’m gonna assume will be perfect for a crit build.
Also, Lyn or Carmella engrave on killer weapon for great knight. My Louis had on average a 65% crit chance which made him more useful than just a meat shield. His high strength allowed for high damage crits
🦀 Pure Upside 🦀
If you have the DLC and don't want the extra gold to make the game too much easier for you, dump it into Brodia lvl4. As for the silver, you can use it to upgrade your Longbow, or set a rule where you only allow yourself to convert silver to other materials when you have more than 20 of it.
Why not insta upgrade iron dagger to Steele or even silver dagger? Not much silver is used and you have a silver dagger on like chap 8 and dagger goes +2dmg on all upgrades
I know I have done a lot of trolling and stupid comments but your videos are really good. I just went and watched some other strategy videos and boy is their analysis terrible.
Thanks lol, appreciate the comments even if sometimes they are "Roland is F tier" :)
I tested Steel bow and can tell you, that it is not worth it. You Overkill flyers but you don't one round other enemiy types, so the resources are better spent somewhere else.
Definitely sword and lance to +3 before anything else.
And I would recommend getting +1 sword and +3 lance asap. The lance feels way more impactful than an extra sword on Alear (with Marth he already has a solid pool of weapons).
Maddening no dlc
Basic steel bow is good enough until the bows in ch12.
I found this to be upside.
pure upside
Embrace the upside. Reject pure downside.
I swear I will have to make shirts that just say pure upside at this point. It is beyond my control
@@IcedCoffeeGaming omg yes
Is there any new game plus? I'm finishing my first hard run, I'm just curious if there's any benefit to finishing before starting a new run with new builds.
dawn engrave + marth early and endgame... make alear dodgetank basically immortal.
My favorite switch up of yours ( not a bad thing changing thoughts are good. You do the same to me all the time) is Alcryst. I remember your first maddening play though you thought the Prince of Solm was a better archer. I was like nooooooo 🤣
I would say he is a great archer. Radiant bow is a pretty spectacular weapon, and there aren't very many people who can use it. As long as you put a few upgrades on radiant bow he will be a great unit. He can also use Levin sword pretty effectively if you need to fight at 1 range and he is okay at killing tome users with a silver bow.
I also thought Fogado was better than Alcryst my first playthrough cause the superior movement and better usage of Radiant Bow but Luna is superior
Huh my post got Sussed…
The FE Heroes weapons are free and like better steel, very good to use
I would replace your first three steel weapons with those. I use the Lance on Chloe, and the Sword and Axe on Diamant.
I’m not using any main axe units
pure upside nation
Damn I invested hard in my liberation sword!😂😂😅
I put Liberation+5 with Marth's engraving and have not had to worry about Alear's weapon through the first 15 chapters and don't see that changing anytime soon. It's a great weapon, and it recharges Alear's engage meter faster which is crucial
Liberation is decent, steel sword is better long term, you eventually catch up to its weight/it has more damage. Liberation is cheaper to +5
What would you say about reclassing Anna to mage right as you get second seals, as opposed to getting her all the way to Warrior?
I don't recommend it because then she needs to level up from 1 to 10 instead of 5 to 10
@@IcedCoffeeGaming That is true. And you would be missing out on the speed growth from Axe fighter.
If you instantly reclass her to Sage you would also be getting that extra 5% magic growth earlier as well, so in the end you only lose 1-2 points of magic in exchange for 1 speed and a sooner build increase. Alright you have sold me for my future runs.
Ana becomes mandatory in maddening lol love it or hate it
I know you don’t use DLC but what about the fe heroes free items what are your thoughts on them? Or do you just choose not to use them because I mean they definitely are fairly overpowered early on having mt comparable to like silver weapons for significantly lower weight and being available basically from the start like chapter 3 or something
One might call them pure upside
I don't like when they give advantages for paying or doing extra things outside of the game.
@@IcedCoffeeGaming fair enough man I can respect that
What is benefit of levin sword over a spell tome?
Can break axe units for follow up attacks
Why is Levin sword better than a tome? I thought they were pretty close
Early MT but you can always upgrade fire into ElFire and ElFire into BOLGANONE
Which Alear do you feel you prefer? Gameplay wise
They are about the same, some passive interactions on some units but basically the same thing
@@IcedCoffeeGaming I agree. I think it’s a pretty minimal difference. Which I’m fine with cause Female Byleth in Three Houses seemed to be ~pure upside~
Pure upside.
What weapons do you use for endgame ?
Usually steel/silver/brave and some utility weapons like wyrmslayer/armorslayers/horseslayers. Crits can be fine with the right engraving as well
It's nice that steel is good in this game after it was absolute ass in 3H
Steel REDEMPTION ARC
If every one is a hard carry no one is
Agreed, not sure who said everyone is a hard carry though
Your videos are pure upside.