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Any tips for Awakening?


Samz707
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It feels like so far (On Chapter 6 Foreseer) that Awakening is just banging your head against the wall, Enemies come in so high numbers (and mostly mages) that it seems like any strategy on any map boils down to "hope the 50 chance to hit magic doesn't hit." because you're simply being rushed by too many dudes to actually use your healers (Since they'll then be targeted by magic.) so it just feels like spamming healing items and hoping you'll survive.

Even when I do get through a map, it feels like it was done out of luck rather than any actual skill because there's so much magic/arrows being thrown at you that it just boils down to if the RNG will have your guys dodge enough attacks and since it's all ranged stuff/magic it's not like Knights/Healers can really do anything, I don't have a Physic staff yet so my healers are pretty much useless since If I move them up to heal then they'll have 2-3 Mages/Archers killing them in one turn and the side-chapter with one that I've unlocked isn't exactly much better since it falls to Ana to defend the village til' I get there and she doesn't exactly last long and again, enemy mage/archer spam so I can't rush Frederick up there since even Frederick doesn't exactly shrug off 3-4 magic attacks at once. (She doesn't even seem to try to stay on the Tile Bonuses like Jaffar did and only has a regular sword while pretty much every enemy archer/mage has a 50-ish chance to hit on her.)

It simply feels like no matter what my strategy is, it all comes down to "Does my guy hit their 60-ish chance to hit/does the enemy hit their 50 chance to hit magic." and if it simply goes the wrong way one too many times then it's restart time, like there's no actual consistent way to beat maps without a way too large amount of luck.

Edited by Samz707
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Are you using Pair-Up? If you're playing on both normal and hard then Pair-Up is one way to beef up your individual units. Also, if your units are struggling a bit, then don't shy away from using map battles to grind a bit. Foreseer is a tough chapter early on but is pretty close to the part of the game where the difficulty tips back in your favor on hard mode. What units are you using and what levels are they?

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7 minutes ago, twilitfalchion said:

Are you using Pair-Up? If you're playing on both normal and hard then Pair-Up is one way to beef up your individual units. Also, if your units are struggling a bit, then don't shy away from using map battles to grind a bit. Foreseer is a tough chapter early on but is pretty close to the part of the game where the difficulty tips back in your favor on hard mode. What units are you using and what levels are they?

The problem is that simply there are too many enemy mages in my experience, even if my units are beefy none of them can exactly tank magic.

I've only had one map battle spawn so far so those aren't an option.

I've been varrying up my units but pretty much outside of Donnel's recruitment I've only been able to (Since no map battles have spawned yet) do story missions so everyone's fairly low level and dies in 2-3 hits with only Frederick/Knights being the exception so everyone is pretty much only a few levels above their starting join level if at all.

Virion is level 9, Chrom is level 9, Robin is level 6 and Frederick is level 5, everyone else is less than 5 levels above starting stats since I've only been able to do plot battles so far. (And had to leave them mostly to Frederick since every recruit in Awakening so far has pretty abysmal stats so it's hard to actually use them.)

Lon'qu for instance dies in two axe hits generally so he's borderline useless and sadly this sheer lack of defense is pretty much most of my units so I easily get overwhelmed.

Edited by Samz707
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6 minutes ago, Samz707 said:

The problem is that simply there are too many enemy mages in my experience, even if my units are beefy none of them can exactly tank magic.

I've only had one map battle spawn so far so those aren't an option.

I've been varrying up my units but pretty much outside of Donnel's recruitment I've only been able to (Since no map battles have spawned yet) do story missions so everyone's fairly low levle and dies in 2-3 hits with only Frederick/Knights being the exception so everyone is pretty much only a few levels above their starting join level if at all.

Are you playing normal or hard? I don't want to hate on Donnel as a unit, but he's not really worth using because he takes so much work to be good (if you're using him at all). Another recommendation would be to use Frederick to set up kills for your weaker units so they can level up as much as possible. Awakening in general is easier if you are using one team that you put together in the first ten or so chapters of the game rather than varying up your units so much. I never use Virion or Miriel for example and tend to leave Kellam behind early on in favor of the units that have been seeing action in the first few chapters already.

Edited by twilitfalchion
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2 minutes ago, twilitfalchion said:

Are you playing normal or hard? I don't want to hate on Donnel as a unit, but he's not really worth using because he takes so much work to be good (if you're using him at all). Another recommendation would be to use Frederick to set up kills for your weaker units so they can level up as much as possible. Awakening in general is easier if you are using one team that you put together in the first ten or so chapters of the game rather than varying up your units so much. I never use Virion or Miriel for example and tend to leave Kellam behind early on in favor of the units that have been seeing in the first few chapters already.

Hard 

Yeah I pretty much haven't touched Donnel since his recuritment. (Since he does only 5 damage-ish, which means it's pretty much literally impossible to set up kills since everyone else does more damage.)

I've had no map battles spawn at all after the first one so far so I've not had any opprotunity to grind, Everyone simply dies in 1-2 hits outside of The Lords/Knights but the high amount of ranged enemies means using Healers isn't possible.

 

 

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Just now, Samz707 said:

Hard 

Yeah I pretty much haven't touched Donnel since his recuritment.

I've had no map battles spawn at all after the first one so far so I've not had any opprotunity to grind.

I can understand why you're having issues. Ch. 6 is tricky on normal but fairly difficult on hard. Awakening hard is really hard until it isn't. Once your units gain enough momentum in level-ups you'll be curbstomping most maps with Pair-Up.

Perhaps you could try pulling back towards the room where Emmeryn is and turtling together and pairing-up units with either Lissa or Maribelle healing in the center of the group until the enemies thin out. DLC grinding is also an option if you want to get it. I'm sorry I don't have better advice to give you.

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2 minutes ago, twilitfalchion said:

I can understand why you're having issues. Ch. 6 is tricky on normal but fairly difficult on hard. Awakening hard is really hard until it isn't. Once your units gain enough momentum in level-ups you'll be curbstomping most maps with Pair-Up.

Perhaps you could try pulling back towards the room where Emmeryn is and turtling together and pairing-up units with either Lissa or Maribelle healing in the center of the group until the enemies thin out. DLC grinding is also an option if you want to get it. I'm sorry I don't have better advice to give you.

I did get to the end (But the boss then killed Chrom) on one run but the problem is that for that, I didn't actually do anything differently. (not that the level permits much opprotunity to do stuff differently, it simply felt like "Oh hey they missed a few attacks." rather than any sort of actual strategy.

It seriously feels like it's just a numbers game where any strategy doesn't really help that much unless I'm missing something.

Edited by Samz707
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Just now, Samz707 said:

I did get to the end (But the boss then killed Chrom) on one run but the problem is that for that, I didn't actually do anything differently. (not that the level permits much opprotunity to do stuff differently, it simply felt like "Oh hey they missed a few attacks." rather than any sort of actual strategy.

Yeah, Awakening is generally more a game of luck and good stats instead of being heavy on strategy. Ch. 7 is exclusively non-magic attackers, so you may have a bit of an easier time there.

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10 minutes ago, twilitfalchion said:

Yeah, Awakening is generally more a game of luck and good stats instead of being heavy on strategy. Ch. 7 is exclusively non-magic attackers, so you may have a bit of an easier time there.

 Does it at least stop doing that at some point?

Does actual strategy start mattering later on? or does it just get easier via stats getting higher?

Edited by Samz707
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5 minutes ago, Samz707 said:

Does it at least stop doing that at some point?

'cause I'm starting to get frustrated pretty much every level due to this.

No, actually. Most of the game is dictated by the stats of your units versus the stats of the enemy units and luck. But as you strengthen your units, you shouldn't experience as much frustration because you'll be better prepared to handle it. This is one of the biggest issues with Awakening. The maps are mostly open spaces where your units attack head-on instead of using the environment and good placement to strategically win each battle. I've found it a bit tough to go back to Awakening after playing the older games and 3H because of this.

Edited by twilitfalchion
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I'm gonna break up this little two-sided conversation thread by adding my voice as a third side.

If you have Spotpass activated for the game, you can grind on the Bonus Box Team battles through the Wireless menu.  This can be an effective replacement for the normal skirmish battles, which would cost around 5,000G to forcibly spawn (with Reeking Boxes), at least on the difficulty you're playing on.  Especially since you don't have to pay for Spotpass, either in-game or with real-life currency (apart from of course needing internet).

With this said, I'll give a few bits of advice that I think can apply to Awakening.

  • Not everyone is actually good in Awakening.  Some may tell you that you can make anyone a good unit, but that's only true if you're grinding.  The reality is, you'll want to use some units and avoid others like the plague.  I'll list some examples here, but generally speaking you'll want to focus on a specific set team.
  • Donnel sucks if you aren't grinding.  The only way you can use him is as a support unit in pair-ups until he gets enough levels from assists to be able to fight on his own.  He is good as a father, as his child will get the incredible Aptitude skill which makes unit growth ridiculous, but he's awful to use without a lot of care and attention - IMO substantially worse than Mozu.
  • Frederick, on the other hand, is bae.  Seriously, don't be afraid to bust him out from time to time, when you really need it.  Even if you don't use him as a combat unit, he provides much valued protection against enemies that use non-magical attacks.
  • Virion is kinda bad by virtue of being locked at 2-range.  In some games archers are absolutely amazing, even in some games where they only have access to 2-range attacks, but in this game they're just terrible because they have no notable strengths to make up for their lacking short-range capabilities.  That said, he might be a solid unit for baiting mages, but I'd say you should avoid using him much unless you plan to reclass him.
  • For dealing with mages, you might want to consider having healers and mages pair-up as support units to your main combat units.  By that point in the game I think you have four total magic units.  It may not be a bad idea to use the mages as combatants either, but be warned that units with non-magical attacks will destroy them.
  • The best tactic for this chapter is to wait for the enemy and rely on enemy-phase counterattacks to soften up the enemies for finishing blows.  Don't let your units get too hammered by attacks, and if need be push weakened allies back behind safe lines to get healed.  There are three main choke points, and you have plenty enough units to hold them all.  Chrom and one or two others should take the west flank, a tanky unit paired up with someone should take the middle stairs, and the rest of your allies should be on the east flank.  I know it may seem difficult and BS, but I know that the chapter can be beaten with good tactics because I've beaten it consistently without grinding, you just have to be constantly defensive, and if your units are dying all the time either you're being too aggressive or you screwed up and spread unit levels too thin.
3 minutes ago, Samz707 said:

 Does it at least stop doing that at some point?

'cause I'm starting to get frustrated pretty much every level due to this.

The further you get through the game, the more overpowered your units get.  But at the same time, the game will occasionally throw absolute BS difficulty spikes, mainly in Chapter 12.

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I think the big problem is that I tried to spread the EXP around this early on so no one's particularly high-levelled so most of my units aren't particularly strong and have the durability of a wet tissue.

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1 hour ago, Samz707 said:

I think the big problem is that I tried to spread the EXP around this early on so no one's particularly high-levelled so most of my units aren't particularly strong and have the durability of a wet tissue.

Well, like I said, try the Bonus Box Team battles.  Look for teams with bosses of a lower level than your own team's average, and summon them.  Go to them and parley, then choose to challenge them to a fight.  You don't have to recruit them post-battle, you just do this for the free skirmish essentially, and you can do it as many times as you want.

Just shy of that I'd either say buy the grinding DLC or start over, but I don't think you should have to do either of those things.

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4 hours ago, JubileePhoenix said:

Awakening is not a stranded fire emblem game. You need to make broken units with pair up bots or the game will chew you up. 

So the only way to not be constantly dying is to just heavily exploit it? 

It seriously feels like my units are all crippled stats-wise to "Encourage" pair-up but then my healers are literally useless because the maps are too wide to allow me to block off dudes from rushing them.

Yeah I kinda doubt I'm ever going to finish Awakening at this point. 

 

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6 hours ago, JubileePhoenix said:

Awakening is not a stranded fire emblem game. You need to make broken units with pair up bots or the game will chew you up. 

 

1 hour ago, Samz707 said:

So the only way to not be constantly dying is to just heavily exploit it? 

It seriously feels like my units are all crippled stats-wise to "Encourage" pair-up but then my healers are literally useless because the maps are too wide to allow me to block off dudes from rushing them.

Yeah I kinda doubt I'm ever going to finish Awakening at this point. 

 

I don't think it's that bad outside of Lunatic.

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30 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

 

I don't think it's that bad outside of Lunatic.

All of my units are basically glass cannons that make Lyn look like a Knight for the most part. (Hell, at least Lyn has a consistent hit chance.)

Maybe I've just been screwed with level-ups (Since one or two stat increase have been the norm so far) but my army is seriously useless, pair-up merely allows them to generally defeat 1 dude in a 1v1, they mostly can't even win a 1v1 without pair-up/tile bonuses. (Lon'qu is weak even with his killing edge and only survive a single hit, Vaike , who according to the wiki is "High HP" dies in two hits against a single axe enemy and basically anyone that isn't Frederick or Robin dies in 3 hits at most.)

And if I pair-up everyone, then my Healers are useless because the enemies can just run around them to attack my healers and I don't have Physic because Ana in the second Side-quest chapter dies pretty much right away before I can get to her so the village gets destroyed and while pair-up might increase their dodge chance, it doesn't do enough to stop them actually dying in the same amount of hits.

Am I seriously supposed to just start/close the game constantly to farm map battles?

 

Edited by Samz707
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36 minutes ago, Samz707 said:

Am I seriously supposed to just start/close the game constantly to farm map battles?

If anyone tells you the game can only be beaten with grinding, they're telling you absolute BS.  Like you said yourself, your failing was trying to give too many units EXP (maybe also bad levels) - early on you should just immediately bench some people.  As with any other FE game (barring certain black sheep that are less than balanced), you should only focus on a limited pool of units or else grind incessantly.  I get that FE Awakening doesn't have the best balance or map design in the world, but I've hardly ever heard of people familiar with the franchise struggling to complete the game on Hard.

And you still won't even acknowledge what I've been telling you about the Spotpass battles you can use to grind EXP.  If EXP is what you're looking for you don't need to rely on the regular map skirmishes because you can summon legacy characters via the Bonus Box feature to fight instead (they come with teams to fight alongside them), their only drawback being that you don't get money or items from beating them.

It's like Shadow Mir said, it's nowhere near as bad as that one person said, not on the difficulty you're playing on.  You're being punished for playing in a very poorly optimized way - you tried leveling up characters that you should've just left on the bench, and it sounds like you're incapable of using formations that block off an enemy's advance or using the level design (the chokepoints/walls) to your advantage.  Awakening is not a very difficult Fire Emblem game, but it will punish you for playing poorly, just like any FE game that isn't Gaiden/Shadows of Valentia or Genealogy of the Holy War would.

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9 minutes ago, Ertrick36 said:

If anyone tells you the game can only be beaten with grinding, they're telling you absolute BS. 

Exactly. Awakening is highly customizable in its gameplay in that you can choose to play it like an RPG and max out your units with grinding, or play it like a traditional FE game and choose not to grind at all. There is no right or wrong way to play as either path will let you beat the game. Once you get past some of the early chapters, units start to get really strong and destroy everything in their path throughout the rest of the game. Btw, thanks for explaining what I was trying and failing to far better than I could. I'm just not great at explaining the advice I give.

Edited by twilitfalchion
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37 minutes ago, Ertrick36 said:

If anyone tells you the game can only be beaten with grinding, they're telling you absolute BS.  Like you said yourself, your failing was trying to give too many units EXP (maybe also bad levels) - early on you should just immediately bench some people.  As with any other FE game (barring certain black sheep that are less than balanced), you should only focus on a limited pool of units or else grind incessantly.  I get that FE Awakening doesn't have the best balance or map design in the world, but I've hardly ever heard of people familiar with the franchise struggling to complete the game on Hard.

And you still won't even acknowledge what I've been telling you about the Spotpass battles you can use to grind EXP.  If EXP is what you're looking for you don't need to rely on the regular map skirmishes because you can summon legacy characters via the Bonus Box feature to fight instead (they come with teams to fight alongside them), their only drawback being that you don't get money or items from beating them.

It's like Shadow Mir said, it's nowhere near as bad as that one person said, not on the difficulty you're playing on.  You're being punished for playing in a very poorly optimized way - you tried leveling up characters that you should've just left on the bench, and it sounds like you're incapable of using formations that block off an enemy's advance or using the level design (the chokepoints/walls) to your advantage.  Awakening is not a very difficult Fire Emblem game, but it will punish you for playing poorly, just like any FE game that isn't Gaiden/Shadows of Valentia or Genealogy of the Holy War would.

FE7 and Echoes don't punish you in the first 10 levels because you actually tried to use the new units you just got, yes you had to commit but you never had to bench someone right after they joined.

Again, when my Vaike (Which the wiki claims is a high HP unit.) dies in 2 hits from a single axe enemy, that's not exactly helpful for holding a line, then add that Vulenaries don't heal full health and healers aren't exactly durable and it's not exactly easy when the game sends two mages at you at once. (So I have to try to tank magic damage since just letting them keep coming would be even worse since then they could both attack someone at once in the same turn.)

As for Legacy Characters, I hate using DLC stuff that imbalances the game in general. (I'm someone who dislikes it if a game gave me a few extra resources just for buying it digitally.)

In my experience, in other FE games (Which includes Echoes on Hard.), my other characters can actually generally not die immeditely in combat, while part of the reason I've neglected everyone in Awakening so is that frankly, they're all terrible, Donnel is so bad he gets one-rounded by Archers even on Normal, so I've been mostly using Robin/Frederick since they're the only ones who can actually take more than a single hit before dying.

So in my experience Awakening is harder but only really because I can't even rely on most of my units to consistently win a 1v1 and my units that are actually good aren't good enough to reliably knock someone down to be finished off  (Knocking someone down to 5 Health isn't exactly easy.) or at worst you have someone like Vaike, who dies in 2 hits and has only a 60-ish chance to hit so yeah I accidently let them slip behind because they're frankly as useless as Alm and his villagers as children in Echoes and it takes more effort than it should to feed them a kill.

Edited by Samz707
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17 minutes ago, Samz707 said:

FE7 and Echoes don't punish you in the first 10 levels because you actually tried to use the new units you just got, yes you had to commit but you never had to bench someone right after they joined.

And that right there is part of the problem. You’re trying to play the game in a way it’s not meant to be played. For as similar as the core gameplay experience is each FE game is pretty different overall. They have their own unique mechanics and overall map design and other elements that set them apart from one another. For instance, the reason SoV doesn’t require you to bench units right away like awakening does is because you have a lot less units overall meaning benching a character will only hinder you and the game is balanced around that. I can’t speak for FE 7 but awakening gives you plenty of more units to work. In fact I’d argue that the game expects you to bench most of the first gen at some point considering how broken the child mechanic is in this game. The game also expects you to take advantage of pair up which can make some squishy units a little less squishy. Robin’s skill gives him a 50% exp boost when paired up(which is the reason why Robin solo is the only way to play lunatic without grinding) but that’s neither here nor there.

for mages, generally what I like to do is bait them with a high res unit like a peg knight, mage, or even a healer then send in some of my more physically offensive units to finish the job. For chapter 6 in particular Lucina can generally tank a lot before she falls even on Lunatic so generally speaking there are only a couple units at a time rushing you on each side of which I find the calvarly to be the most dangerous but that’s just me. And hey that’s why Chrom has a rapier.

like others have said awakening isn’t really a hard game but it will punish you for not following its rules properly. You just got learn what the game wants and then do it.

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35 minutes ago, Ottservia said:

And that right there is part of the problem. You’re trying to play the game in a way it’s not meant to be played. For as similar as the core gameplay experience is each FE game is pretty different overall. They have their own unique mechanics and overall map design and other elements that set them apart from one another. For instance, the reason SoV doesn’t require you to bench units right away like awakening does is because you have a lot less units overall meaning benching a character will only hinder you and the game is balanced around that. I can’t speak for FE 7 but awakening gives you plenty of more units to work. In fact I’d argue that the game expects you to bench most of the first gen at some point considering how broken the child mechanic is in this game. The game also expects you to take advantage of pair up which can make some squishy units a little less squishy. Robin’s skill gives him a 50% exp boost when paired up(which is the reason why Robin solo is the only way to play lunatic without grinding) but that’s neither here nor there.

for mages, generally what I like to do is bait them with a high res unit like a peg knight, mage, or even a healer then send in some of my more physically offensive units to finish the job. For chapter 6 in particular Lucina can generally tank a lot before she falls even on Lunatic so generally speaking there are only a couple units at a time rushing you on each side of which I find the calvarly to be the most dangerous but that’s just me. And hey that’s why Chrom has a rapier.

like others have said awakening isn’t really a hard game but it will punish you for not following its rules properly. You just got learn what the game wants and then do it.

Yeah Awakening isn't hard IMO, it just alternates between "Easy" and "Unfair." 

Benching units right away isn't intuitive at all, You just got a new thing, obviously you're going to want to use it, having that so early on is just frankly dick-ish design, You got a new thing so very obviously you're going to want to try it out, you certainly aren't going to know who to bench/not to bench as early as level 6.

 

And yeah I am using Pair-up but if I have 3-4 enemies coming for me and a unit dies in 2-3 hits, that's still more than they can take regardless of pair-up.

 

Edited by Samz707
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10 hours ago, Samz707 said:

Yeah Awakening isn't hard IMO, it just alternates between "Easy" and "Unfair." 

Benching units right away isn't intuitive at all, You just got a new thing, obviously you're going to want to use it, having that so early on is just frankly dick-ish design, You got a new thing so very obviously you're going to want to try it out, you certainly aren't going to know who to bench/not to bench as early as level 6.

 

And yeah I am using Pair-up but if I have 3-4 enemies coming for me and a unit dies in 2-3 hits, that's still more than they can take regardless of pair-up.

 

Tbh I bench pretty much everyone except Chrom and Robin for the first few chapters until dlc unlocks and then I catch everyone else up lol.  Also have you been raising everyone's supports?  That'll help as well.

 

Also I have cleared hard and it is no where near Lunatic or Lunatic +, those two modes are truly difficult lol.

Edited by TheSilentChloey
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On 7/10/2020 at 9:49 AM, twilitfalchion said:

Are you playing normal or hard? I don't want to hate on Donnel as a unit, but he's not really worth using because he takes so much work to be good (if you're using him at all). Another recommendation would be to use Frederick to set up kills for your weaker units so they can level up as much as possible. Awakening in general is easier if you are using one team that you put together in the first ten or so chapters of the game rather than varying up your units so much. I never use Virion or Miriel for example and tend to leave Kellam behind early on in favor of the units that have been seeing action in the first few chapters already.

 

I will be contrarian and say that Donnel can be one of the best units due to his high growths. He is not worth touching in Lunatic in which side quests are harder than normal story related chapters. But in hard, Donnel can become a beast if you train him in just one paralogue. From then on, he breezes in the game.

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45 minutes ago, Mylady said:

 

I will be contrarian and say that Donnel can be one of the best units due to his high growths. He is not worth touching in Lunatic in which side quests are harder than normal story related chapters. But in hard, Donnel can become a beast if you train him in just one paralogue. From then on, he breezes in the game.

I disagree - he has trouble getting going because he's lance-locked in an axe-dominated section of the game, and his bases are so bad those villager levels are essentially his growths trying to play damage control. Even if raised, he NEEDS a Second Seal just to function. I'd rather just use someone who doesn't have to go through this.

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