Level to 10 or wait till 20?

[Sunuroo]

I'm somewhata novice to the fire emblem series and looking to take on harder modes. As of now, I'm playing causal/normal on birthright.

and I'm little confused on the level system.

I read people telling me to wait until I reach 20 to level up

or

People telling me its useless and I'd me missing out on a lot of skills if I don't upgrade at 10.

Now this was from a few past fire emblem games like awakening and such. I notice there's a new heart seal and a master seal.

[Shadow Mir]

The Heart Seal is much like the Second Seal in Awakening, except it doesn't reset your level. The Master Seal promotes a unit that's at level 10 or higher. I assume that the latter is what you're confused about. Anyways, it's generally better to wait until you hit level 20 before you promote.

Edited June 21, 2016 by Levant Mir Celestia

[quasimopho13]

They may be referring to skills that promoted units get. If you promote earlier, you get the skills "faster" since you're in the promoted class.

However, by promoting later, you get more levels as the max level for base classes and promoted classes is 20 each. So if you wait till level 20 to promote, you get all of your level ups.

If you promote at 10, you miss the stats from levels 10-20

Does that answer your question?

Edited June 21, 2016 by quasimopho13

[Krovarion]

Wait until level 20. In Fates, you can't reset the level like you could with the scolaris in awakening. Promoting at level 10 is just wasting 10 level of potential for an unit. You waste xp too, since you gain less xp when promoted.

And the game difficulty clearly take in account that you don't promote your characters at level 10, as promoted ennemies starts to appear when you team is around levels 15-20, usually.

Edited June 21, 2016 by Krovarion

[MeddlingMage]

Its good to wait until you get to level 20 to use the Master Seal to level up your characters. Yes they may not gain anymore Skills after level 10. However they gain a lot stat boosts as well. Plus for some characters you can Heart Seal them into their Secondary class and gain some of those skills as well.

One of the best characters for the Heart Seal is Mozu. Her Secondary class is Archer, so you get Skill +2 and Quick Draw and she gives you another Archer that could rival Takumi. Plus it gives you a start on her Bow rank if you want her as a Merchant. Plus she gains Bowfaire at level 15 as a Sniper.

Edited June 21, 2016 by MeddlingMage

[Gradivus.]

Promote around level 16-18

Waiting beyond that is typically overkill and just postpones when the unit becomes good and also postpones when you get extra skills. Promoting too early will bite you in the back, but you don't have to wait for level 20 and I usually don't because exp gain at that point isn't much faster than that of a promoted unit.

Edited June 21, 2016 by Gradivus.

[Krovarion]

Promote around level 16-18

Waiting beyond that is typically overkill and just postpones when the unit becomes good and also postpones when you get extra skills. Promoting too early will bite you in the back, but you don't have to wait for level 20 and I usually don't because exp gain at that point isn't much faster than that of a promoted unit.

Well, if the character can pull his own weight, there is no reason to promote before level 20. But yes, I suppose that if an unit seems really too weak, promoting it a little early might not be a bad choice.

[Mrguy_123]

Wait until level 20, trust me, promoted lv 20 units are so much better compared to promoted lv 10s stat wise

[Gradivus.]

If a character can pull their weight with unpromoted stats, there tends to be no reason not to promote before level 20. The extra stats help and the exp gain is pretty similar between a level 18 unpromoted and a level 1 promoted unit. Remember that a unit is still perfectly capable of getting exp after promoting, they just need to feed off promoted enemies and bosses here and there (which are usually worth giving to them).

Of course it's fine to wait for 20, but there's a point where you can intuitively say it's a good promotion time. It comes as you play FE more, but between 16 and 18 is a good rule of thumb.

Edited June 21, 2016 by Gradivus.

[Light Strategist]

If a character can pull their weight with unpromoted stats, there tends to be no reason not to promote before level 20. The extra stats help and the exp gain is pretty similar between a level 18 unpromoted and a level 1 promoted unit. Remember that a unit is still perfectly capable of getting exp after promoting, they just need to feed off promoted enemies and bosses here and there (which are usually worth giving to them).

Of course it's fine to wait for 20, but there's a point where you can intuitively say it's a good promotion time. It comes as you play FE more, but between 16 and 18 is a good rule of thumb.

Though I've gained myself a fair bit of experience in the franchise overall (since starting with Awakening a few years back) it's nice to see this information put out there. It gives me a mental set to focus on when playing other entries. Thanks. :D

[Krovarion]

If a character can pull their weight with unpromoted stats, there tends to be no reason not to promote before level 20. The extra stats help and the exp gain is pretty similar between a level 18 unpromoted and a level 1 promoted unit. Remember that a unit is still perfectly capable of getting exp after promoting, they just need to feed off promoted enemies and bosses here and there (which are usually worth giving to them).

Of course it's fine to wait for 20, but there's a point where you can intuitively say it's a good promotion time. It comes as you play FE more, but between 16 and 18 is a good rule of thumb.

Well, I've played all FE games between FE6 and FE14, and I still never promote before level 20.

But yeah, I see your point, most of the time, when you finish the game, your characters are around level 15 promoted. So, promoting at level 18 or so isn't a big deal, your characters will just ends up level 16-17 promoted for exemple, no big change.

Still, I don't think I can bring myself to promote characters before level 20, it feel so unsatisfying.

Anyway, the point is, don't promote at level 10, it's a waste. Wait a little, may it be level 16 or 20.

[Varidan]

The only time I can bring myself to promote before 20 is if it is a healer, so they can actually fight. But then again, most can heart seal to a fighting class. It's just a matter of whether or not you want to waste the few precious ones you get early.

I actually preferred Tellius, where you don't have to use a master seal to promote, and instead just level up once more after 20. The game still throws you a few tho.

[Avalanche]

I can only recommend early promoting in 3 situations.

1. The first is if you are simply stuck in a Chapter and no alternative strategy you think of can work. If that's the case, an early promotion may turn the tables, but you're basically damming that units long term potential.

2. If you really want your healers to start participating in combat, early promoting them will help with Weapon Ranks. The 2 characters I think this applies to most are Elise and Azama.

3. Finally, if you have absolutely no intention of using a character for practical combat whatsoever, early promotion will allow them to give better bonuses during Guard Stance (Remember that Guard Stance bonuses are now solely determined by the individual character and their class, their actual stats have nothing to do with it). The character you'll see this done to most often is Charlotte, for that massive +8 Str and +5 Spd if she S Ranks someone as a Berserker.

Edited June 21, 2016 by Avalanche

[sirmola]

In this game, characters usually ram the level cap, so you miss potential levels by promoting early. Also, the way that EXP works in this game means that you get almost no EXP for a while after promoting early.

In other fire emblem games, you don't ram the level cap, and the EXP function punishes you less for promoting early, so promoting early is a better option.

[Varidan]

3. Finally, if you have absolutely no intention of using a character for practical combat whatsoever, early promotion will allow them to give better bonuses during Guard Stance (Remember that Guard Stance bonuses are now solely determined by the individual character and their class, their actual stats have nothing to do with it). The character you'll see this done to most often is Charlotte, for that massive +8 Str and +5 Spd if she S Ranks someone as a Berserker.

Oh yea, I forgot about pair up fodder too. Did that to Benny in my first run to make Selena stronger.

[Shadow Mir]

Promote around level 16-18

Waiting beyond that is typically overkill and just postpones when the unit becomes good and also postpones when you get extra skills. Promoting too early will bite you in the back, but you don't have to wait for level 20 and I usually don't because exp gain at that point isn't much faster than that of a promoted unit.

If a character can pull their weight with unpromoted stats, there tends to be no reason not to promote before level 20. The extra stats help and the exp gain is pretty similar between a level 18 unpromoted and a level 1 promoted unit. Remember that a unit is still perfectly capable of getting exp after promoting, they just need to feed off promoted enemies and bosses here and there (which are usually worth giving to them).

Of course it's fine to wait for 20, but there's a point where you can intuitively say it's a good promotion time. It comes as you play FE more, but between 16 and 18 is a good rule of thumb.

Fair points, but promoting early generally isn't as appealing in this game thanks to the EXP formula. Also, unless you're Jakob, Felicia, or Gunter, you're most likely not seeing level 15 skills come into play until the game is essentially over.

Edited June 21, 2016 by Levant Mir Celestia

[Junkhead]

It depends. It's not necessarily one or the other. If your character is very well capable before promotion, than keep juicing that Exp gain. If they can benefit from the promotion gains a lot more, then go for it. a lot of newer players wait until level 20, thinking it'll hinder their Exp gain a lot, but it's not so much of the case. If your character becomes a lot more useful from the promotion gains, they'll actually be gaining not that much less Exp if they manage on their own.

[Tamanoir]

But this is Hoshido, were you have virtually infinte level up (and Money.)

Reaching level 20 isn't that hard.
​For Nohr, then all the other above advice works though. ANd for Nohr, promoting earlier allow allow you to works on your weapon ranks ASAP (since it's a massive pain to raise them)

I thinks it depends more of the chapter you're at than the level itself. Chapter 18 is the one where you should have your main team promoted, and, depending how many character you're using, they should be in this 16-20 range.

[SniperGYS]

I'm playing causal/normal on birthright.

You can wait to Lv 20 with no problem! And it will help your characters to have better stats.

If you need Sakura or another healer to start fighting, you can always do skirmishes for lv them up! Hoshido (And Revelation) have the nice Mokushu maps (the ones where you fight Ninjas) filled with spikes on the floor. So, just do some skirmishes on said map, and leave a character over the spikes, it will receive damage every turn and you can heal them so the healer can win experience very easy. The other characters can fight the enemies to win exp and to keep the healer out of danger, to exploite it more, don't go to the enemy attack range, most of the times the more far enemies don't move at first, so you can have some extra turns to heal the damage created by the spikes, before the last enemies reach you.

But, if you aren't using this file as your main one or you have problems with a map, then you can promote your characters at lv15 or similar to finish the file quickly, since in Birthright you don't need mega stats anyway, unless you play Lunatic.

Edited June 21, 2016 by SniperGYS