#i cleared once on hard and im on chapter 15 on maddening

[anime-scarves]

Lately I've been deeep into Fire Emblem Engage. I haven't figured my thoughts out on it for a review, but Ive got some non spoilers tips for anyone playing.

Fill your farm in Somniel with dogs. For whatever reason they give you ingots and have a pretty high change to get silver ingots. This dramatically improves your ingot economy with essentially no trade off.

Anna is actually a mage in disguise. She has the highest magic growth in the game and weak strength and def growths. She can be functional as a warrior with a radiant bow, but she does better in magic classes.

You should immediately promote units when you can. This gives them a bump of stats for promoting and access to better growths. In previous fire emblem games you often didn't want to do this since you would cap at level 20 in the promoted class early and not be able to gain more levels. Engage has plentiful, infinite actually, second seals and when a unit caps out in their advanced class you can send them back to level 1 in it while retaining all stats.

Speaking of promotions.. Once your unit is promoted to an advanced class they can second seal into any other advanced class was long as they have the weapon proficiency to do so. Let's look at Anna here. In previous games you'd have to level her to 10 as an axe fighter, then second seal her to a level 1 mage, then level her to 10 as a mage before promoting her to be a sage. This is 20 levels as a beginner class and is not ideal. In Engage you could just promote her to warrior/zerker at level 10 axe fighter and then second seal her to sage from there. It uses the same amount of seals but takes 10 less levels as a beginner class.

Weapon proficiency can be acquired by gaining bond with your emblems. The easiest way to do this is train with the emblem in the arena. It's very cheap and once a character gains weapon proficiency they permanently have it whether they have the emblem equipped or not.

Kagetsu is a monster. I don't know why he got shipped as he did, but he's just straight up better than most of your units. Reclassing him into hero, wyvern knight, or warrior is very strong.

Miciah's Great Sacrifice is absurdly broken for gaining exp and sp. It heals everyone on the map to full and 1 point of healing is 1 point of exp and sp. You can gain full levels off this skill and you should aim to use it at least once a map. This helps tremendously for leveling Jean or Anna in the early game when they would otherwise be pitiful and struggle to gain meaningful exp.

That's enough for now. I will return later with more fire emblem tips.

[semi-imaginary-place]

In which I play maddening classic with only Byleth and Dimitri and liveblog on discord 1/15/20 - 2/2/20

because if I’ve got to see a character die repeatedly, countless times, it might as well be dimitri.  

So I'm on maddening and classic with only dimitri and I’m going to kill off every other character. I heard if they reach 0 hp in part 1 they stick around the monastery and you can talk to them they just aren’t a part of your class anymore. Give me your blessings.

I died on the prologue! ... i dont have a healer... Death count:2

I am definitely new game+ cheating this for professor level and skills. I was thinking magic focused but she can't be too squishy... Gremory would help that. Also why do all the magic classes have bad growths. Give me a moving fortress of magic!

Ashe went down, 7 to go. Ch3 turned into a survival horror... but i made it out

Ch 6 is hell. Any idea for how to kill every last one of them in 25 turns with only byleth? Or alternately get to and take down the death knight. Only byleth and dimitri run. And no dimitri this chapter, Byleth's a thief

My main problem in crowd control. If i had infinite turns then i could agro them 1 by one... Maybe I've built byleth wrong and just don't have the stats. Is the warp route faster? Haven't tried that yet. In hindsight this was a bad idea for my first maddening run. I'm so used to not using byleth much that this is very different. Damn archers...  Got done in by chip damage the first time...

I I dont know what happened... but I beat the death knight.... I was expecting to die becausr i accidentally opened the door so i skipped what actually happened.... Next thing I know game is telling me i got a dark seal What  Did I crit? With a silver sword? Im in shock I DONT EVRN I dont even know if it was a crit! But byleth is thief so lethality is out of the question Maybe I should go give a sacrifice to rng god

so I was in shock but yeah I used the warp route and avoided fighting most of the enemies.

So i'm now at the winter ball chapter and felix is still alive (i've decided to off one character every chapter so Miklan downed sylvain. oh and first time through ch5 i accidentally stepped into range of one of the center archers so every unit rushed me and i died) and i tried felix's paralogue and wowo its impossible. Rodrigue dies in 2 attacks, outruns my healing and likes to charge headfirst into the enemy. My record so far is 3 turns before he dies. Might give up since this is optional.

(i eventually finished the paralogue but gave up saving anyone else so i didn’t even get anything good out of it)

The ally A.I. is sooo bad. Jeralt. Dad. Please stop getting yourself killed

Almightly Father in Heaven preserve me. I'm making dimitri learn reason.  maybe his rationale will start making sense no more moon logic for you boy

Hey. Why wont the game let me make dimitri a dark bishop

I need dark mage certification first? Or is the internet lying to me

Well dimitri is at c+ reason but I'm tired of grinding.  

got dimitri from c+ to b+ in a battle. But the boredom makes me want to cry.  Also might have miscalculated.... Fighting an assassin in a forest.... i have 35% hit and no other weapon. They have like 18% hit....  When will i be free...

I made dimitri into a dark bishop and he beat lysithea in the magic tournament.  Also just the thought of dimitri in slithers is funny to me

wrath is how i survived the sothis paralogue. crit everything

chasing the empire around in the hold tomb with 2 units was actually kinda fun

I cant believe that worked... Final battle of part 1. I charge down the middle. And it works 4 turns for infanty to cross the field... and it worked ... Welp i somehow made it to part 2 intact. Endless waves of reinforcement here i come

(Oh yeah and rng is punishing me right now by giving terrible level ups)

For the bridge is it best to go straight for the commander?

bridge wasn’t too bad but I was convinced to spare dedue so i had to fend enemies off him like ants to a dropped ice cream cone. if dedue reaches 0 hp or you don’t do his paralogue he dies in fhirdiad and I’m trying to get everyone off my party but not dead, soooo he’s along for the ride

I'm stuck on am ch 14 ... how do I defend 4 spaces when I have 2 units... Those pegasus knights keep dodging too... Damn pegasus knights.... without them i could just hold a choke point with 1 unit. I have 4 gambit uses maximum... Another thought I had is to out fly their flyers so I can shift byleth over quickly. if I take out randolf in delusional prince the map doesn't end. It just stops reinforcements right? 

Soo I tried to kill randolf but my movement is too low. It takes 3 turns to reach him...

Yup this is possible. But because I can't do things the quick way. I'll have to do the long way of waiting out the right side and then heading for randolf with byleth all the while holding out with dimitri in the center and hoping rng favors me for lije 20 turns

ALRIGHT WhIcH oF yOuSe a LIAR Sooo .... killing randolph does not stop reinforcements nor does it get you a victory, the fire attack is the only way. Time to go guard another npc with a death wish. Also Gilbert is unkillable in AM

FEAR ME The only way to beat a pegasus knight to to out pegasus knight the pegasus knight Falcon knight bae-by! I am unstoppable I. Am absolute (I am never doing this again)

Finally got past that defend 4 spaces with 2 units and endless reinforcements

I've figured out how to level grind since same level enemies are giving like 7exp each

Alright. Taking suggestions, on how to keep hilda and judith alive in golden deers plea.  Alternately, how to kill arundel in 2 thurns without archers destroying me.  With only byleth and dimitrti.  Right now I'm thibking retribution-> byleth and gunning it. Suggestions for abilities/battalions? My current thought is vantage, alert stance+, renewal, wrath, pavaise, and evasion ring and bridgid hunters

Well i can get to arundel before hilda dies but not judith. I'm starting a campaign to save judith. Please pledge your support on the indiegogo page below

whew judith and hilda and both alive! Stride was a good idea. just make a run for arundel. Kinda sad i didn’t get the aurora shield but eh I got the stat increases at least. I also tried propping up judith with byleth healing them but tanking doesn’t exist in maddening so that didn’t work.

I've been skipping cutscenes because there’s no one else there but gilbert

Things I have learned this playthrough: how to grind skills, how to grind levels, how to save scum level ups. 

I’m actually getting a lot of dialogue I missed before just because Byleth and Dimitri are taking down every single enemy unit

At fort merceus, and i want the black pearl.  And i'd like to avoid lindhardt and caspar.  I'm thinking 1: fly over nab the pearl and kill death knight.  2: wait it out and eliminate every last unit ob the map.  What turn does death knight start running? Or is when you get to a specific part of the map?  Or am i thinking of an entirely different map...

New plan. Forget everything else and kill death knight

I have beaten the death knight. I have beaten the impregnable fortress. 44% crit rate.  But I didn't get the black pearl in the treasure chest and i want my item so... i might redo the battle

Got my pearl. for an idea what the battle is like each turn each of the 2 units needs to be on one specific tile for the best chance of survival, if they die i usually had to restart the battle or change something to get a reroll. and you do this for like 5 turns learning the combinations with a mix of guesswork and trial and error. you also need to move quickly because if 4 units surround you, you’ll be stuck until you’ve defeated every single enemy unit on the map or more likely you die.

Ok story time.  So I'm on ch 21 of AM now and aux battle no longer give me exp so my only way of leveling is healing (the exp curve is brutal). Even with the double use of bishop, i'm running down to the wire getting 1 level up/battle (plus the next battle where they gain stats for its more like 1 level/2 battles). I ran out of healing with like 500exp left to go so i restarted but by the end of the 20 heals and 10 recovers I had a different number and now I’m confused Reddit is telling me turn count? Affects exp gain?

Anyways I'm in enbarr.  One of the many wonderful things about playing with only dimitri and byleth is that you can't change their starting positions in battles

Wow i did that on my first try. O.o  Huh that actually worked... Good thing hubert is squishy. spared dorothea and petra too. huh.

I just had a realization... on the last map of AM. If I apply retribution to everyone... could I kill edelgard with that without having to cross the room? Hmmmm must try it out

Nope cant counter attack. Good thing enemy units on this map are acting defensively and only attack when you go into range.  If they swarmed me I'd be dead (again)

Once you reach a certain tile they do swam... i lasted like 4 turns... need to clear the room to stop reinforcements...

(its impossible to stop reinforcements with 2 units on maddening. once you get to the throne room a new wave comes each turn. but clearing the rooms before hand buys you time before you are overwhelmed). To give an idea of what’s going on aux battles are aprox 10 levels below my units. regular enemies are about the same level (so each is a threat and my 2 units can die on any turn) and bosses are usually a couple levels higher.

Hehehehe I am so powerful I have beaten maddening with only byleth and dimitri (Dedue came along for the ride too but was never deployed to battle)

The final AM wasn't as hard as some of the others (defending garreg mach) but boy is it long.  I think my final turn count was in the 50s.  Also the credit screen character battle  count maxes out at 999

I think I got dimitri and byleth up to like 70 base crit last playthrough. Plus wrath and defiant crit almost garunteed each hit was a crit.

nope it was more like base 120 crit

In the end for both dimitri and byleth I used rng based builts around avoid and critical hits (after i figured out what the hell i was mid way through part 1). dimitri went through the brawler line and then split time between war master and great lord. Byleth went up the thief line to assassin and then falcon knight. for both of them i also got most of the class skills.

considering this was my first maddening or classic run, I looked at 0 strategy guides (like an idiot) and had no idea what i was doing in the beginning, I’d say I did pretty well for myself.

oh and I was mistaken about something, if a unit reaches 0 hp in part one they die off screen during the timeskip (except gilbert to my despair) so there was no real point to sparing dedue. I really do hate gilbert, it seems no matter what you do you are stuck with him all of AM. there is no salvation. and this is why i skipped all the cutscenes this time around.

Dedue didn’t have much if any influence on the playthrough. Dedue was never deployed in any of the chapter battles but he did tag along as an adjunct (no weapon equipped) in aux battle sometimes because I felt bad for leaving him out all the time (that and dedue pops up later in battle on the map in part 2 and if he was still a level 1 commoner i would have 0 chance of beating the map since enemies rush him). so him leveling up was to negate the consequences of keeping him alive. If i had gotten him killed i wouldn’t have to worry about keeping him alive later. By the time I got to part 2 the skill gain from tutoring was negligible compared to the amount gained from grinding in battles, also both units were starting to max out on skills (S+) so choosing to explore the monastery gave little benefit. Interestingly, you can’t do a lot of the monastery activities if you only have 1 student (choir, dining, etc). So even after Dimitri stops loafing around, having dedue there for eating meals and stuff wouldn’t have helped and I’d choose battle anyways.

I now know more about how the game works than I ever wanted to... For example the calculations for any probability check (hit/miss, crit, level ups, pass/fail) are long done by the time you see them. so to reroll the dice so to speak you have to go back a certain amount of time (varies for each thing. Level up stats are determined before you enter the battle field so you have to reload a save on or before the preparations screen. Whether you pass/fail a certification is already determined by the time you reach as given calendar date, so you have to reload to before that day. If you divine pulse a 95% hit rate that your unit missed to right before any action is taken with that unit, they will still miss. With only 2 units you will probably have to rewind to the previous turn, but with a full party you need to go back at least a few units but I don’t know the exact number. More or less forcing the game to run at least one different probability calculation than your target will reset whatever result was determined for your target.

When you have an infinite number of iterations, even the most unlikely outcomes eventually come to pass.

This run was  60% luck, 35% perseverance,  4% "grinding", 1% skill, 100% pain

edit: 5/1/2020: looking back, i was a stubborn idiot (as usual) for refusing to look up strategies or other solo maddening runs that people had already done. i can definitively say omegarevolution dealt with the defend map far better than i did. i never even considered +20hit to deal with falcon knights

oh yeah and i don’t have dlc or the nintendo online subscription so i couldn’t use any of that.