any tips?

[EarthboundAddict]

I'm nearing the end of my PoR playthrough (I'm at chapter 28) and I love it and am very excited to start my RD playthrough.

So before I do that could I ask for some help before I play it? I heard that unit balance is very bad in this game and that it's harder than most Fire Emblem games. Which units should I consider using? Is there anything I should know before I jump in? How hard is this game compared to others?

[Radiant head]

This mostly applies to just the Dawn Brigade chapters. The problem with the DB chapters is that most the units start off paper thin, and have potential to become really great. But due to the weird balancing and the sparse availability of DB characters, you want to pick a handful of characters to train and stick to them. The difficulty you're playing on affects how many.

Sothe is incredibly useful in Part 1, and then he starts losing his value, so try not to sponge too much exp on to him.

Jill is the opposite. Starts off hard to use, but if you invest in her, she becomes capable of making the otherwise difficult Part 3 DB chapters into a breeze. Transfers from PoR help, but if you don't have that, you can just dump the stat boosting items you get on her.

So I would use Sothe, Jill, and Nolan. If you're not playing on Hard, you can add others like Edward and maybe Aran. Avoid Leonardo, Meg, and Fiona. The better you make the above units, the easier the Part 3 chapters will be.

[BrightBow]

When you're coming from PoR, the most important thing to know in regards to the difficulty is probably that the localisation renamed the difficulty levels in RD to match the names that the localisation used back in PoR. Thing is, PoR got it's highest difficulty removed and a new easy mode added while RD received no such changes. Which means that the Radiant Dawn localisation renamed Normal mode into Easy Mode, Hard Mode into Normal Mode and Maniac Mode into Hard Mode.

Edited March 13, 2016 by BrightBow

[Noma9]

Yeah, the DB chapters are the hardest. If there are some tips I could give I'd say:

- Let Sothe dodge-tank for you. You don't want him doing much killing outside of the few "all hands on deck" chapters, because you really need your other units getting that experience.

- Edward is squishy but has every capability to kick ass if you help him on his way.

- Use Nolan -- Nolan is wonderful.

- Do not use Leonardo more than you have to, he's incredibly lackluster and you'd be better off siphoning experience into other fighters.

- Likewise, Ilyana joins you early on and is serviceable at first, but really won't amount to much unless you get very lucky with her levels. Also, after Part I endgame, she will wander off and meet up with some other people. It is not a bad idea to preemptively load her inventory up with sellables and skills your DB guys aren't using.

- Aran always turns out great for me and is one of the DB characters that will actually be able to take a hit so, I suggest using him.

- Do not use Meg. Just. . . just don't do it.

- Volug is a bit of a Jeigan and therefore a trap. He definitely has uses and you shouldn't avoid fielding him, but kind of like with Sothe, you really rather put your experience somewhere else.

- Zihark is fabulous.

- Jill has the potential to be great, though I seem to get pretty RNG screwed with her; watch her speed!

- A weaponless Tauroneo is a great distraction and I highly advise taking his free Resolve skill off and putting it on someone like Zihark or Edward.

- Fiona. . . Fiona has amazing growths and high caps. She has pretty great skills, is the only cavalier to hit 34 speed, has earth affinity and is technically the best cavalier in the game. . . except for the fact that her bases are utter trash. And she has very little opportunity to train because basically every map after you get her actively hinders her in some way. She's amazing but takes a lot of effort and resources to initially raise. Now, I have gone at lengths to make her great and I ended up bringing her to Endgame with nearly every stat capped, and nigh untouchable due to being an Earth pair. She's absolutely wonderful, but you really don't need to bother if you don't want to, since there are lots of cavaliers who will be fine with FAR less investment. Still, it's a fun and rewarding challenge.

- Tormod's whole crew disappears for basically the entire game, just a heads up. The guy himself has great bases and nice growths but good luck ever getting to use him. Vika I also took to endgame after some insane grinding when you finally get to properly use her, and it worked out great, but much like Fiona, there's not really any need to do this. I'm just saying it's possible, if you like her.

- Use earth pairs! Avoid is a beautiful thing.

- Also, use ledges to your advantage. Ledges are great and you don't want to not have them.

Uh, there's plenty more but that's advice for Part I at least, which is arguably the hardest.

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

I don't want to tell that much about the characters, because it was pretty much said already. (although disagree with the Leonardo thing)

I only want to tell a few different / new mechanics in 10:

• support system: It features the unique 1x1 system. Anyone can support with anyone. You can cancel and build new supports at any time. The major plus is that you can make broken supports by using two units with the same affinity. Earth-earth will give +45% avoid and I highly recommend to build it. The Dawn Brigade has four units with this affinity (one is very bad though), so support them to get massive evasion.
• quick save: Unless you're playing on hard mode you can save at any time. And restart from this point you saved.
• skills can be swapped (unlike in 9)
• ledges: You get attack and accuracy boost if you attack from a higher platform, and accuracy penalty if you attack from a lower platform.

Edited March 14, 2016 by Mister IceTeaPeach

[Shamegmeg]

A little tip is to use your money more wisely as you don't get nearly as much as you do in Path of Radiance. I never had serious issues with it, but I racked up so much money in Path of Radiance and was able to buy whatever I needed whenever I needed. I can't remember exact parts of the game, but I definitely had to watch my spending (maybe not getting the killer weapons all of the time haha)

Oh, and also check the shop often because Aimee does sell some pretty sweet stuff, like skills, weapons, and stat boosters if you're into that!