Fire Emblem Engage General Questions Thread

[wambam]

1 hour ago, MercyWalk said:

What part do you find a slog? Honestly it's just all the cutscenes for me. I played on normal till chapter 7ish and restarted to hard while skipping everything to get back to where I was and even turned animations off. Personally hard is the right balance of difficulty for me

Thanks for this, this does help. However I have heard some rumblings that the games does get a little harder by Chapter 10ish.

I think the slog part is all animations (which I can skip) but also some micro managing around the base. It might not be as bad as I am thinking in my head.

[Azz]

5 hours ago, Arcor said:

Do the Paralogues scale to your level like skirmishes? Or are they really just overtuned compared to your current story level recommendation?

 

Just wondering if I should be doing them asap or just wait for later.

No. Paralogues generally tend to be like 3 levels higher than the normal story battle from my experience. I personally find them fine going in underleveled however I am also playing on normal so take that as you will.

3 hours ago, Bk1234 said:

How many slots are available for skills?

Everyone has a personal skill, you get a class skills at level 5 in advanced classes (which cannot be unequipped nor can be used in other classes) and then you have two slots for inherited skills from emblems.

[Shadow Mir]

How many instances are there that I have to do multiple chapters in succession?

[FashionEmblem]

Saw some comments about brave bow above and I have an adjacent question—are brave weapons kind of bad this time around? High weight and low hit, which are expected/usual, but also incredibly low MT? As a test I forged a brave sword and Alear has pretty much the same physical attack as a silver body art which does noodly damage: e.g., 7x4=28 is the best I've gotten out of a silver body art and the brave sword would have gotten ~8x2 = 16. Both of those numbers are lackluster and I haven't used body arts much outside of the shield one for tanking. I don't want to spend a bunch of resources on acquiring brave weapons for them to end up in the dustbin alongside my body art scrolls.

At least on maddening I think most enemies have high enough defense that one whack of the silver weapon can easily outdamage two attacks from a brave weapon? It's just jarring to forge a weapon down ~10 MT to gain the brave effect and I'm not sure it's worth it. Mildly annoyed since I've done some of my reclassing around getting characters to A in weapons and perhaps I shouldn't have bothered.

Edited January 25, 2023 by FashionEmblem

[Technoweirdo]

1 hour ago, FashionEmblem said:

Saw some comments about brave bow above and I have an adjacent question—are brave weapons kind of bad this time around? High weight and low hit, which are expected/usual, but also incredibly low MT? As a test I forged a brave sword and Alear has pretty much the same physical attack as a silver body art which does noodly damage: e.g., 7x4=28 isn't much better than he can do doubling with a sword that has some actual MT to it. At least on maddening I think most enemies have high enough defense that one whack of the silver weapon can easily outdamage two attacks from a brave weapon?

Looking at Iron and Brave swords across a few titles...

New Mystery: Iron 5 Mt / 100 Hit / 40 Use -- Brave 7 Mt / 80 Hit / 30 Use, always attack twice
Awakening: Iron 5 Mt / 95 Hit / 40 Use -- Brave 9 Mt / 80 Hit / 30 Use, always attack twice
Fates:  Iron 6 Mt / 90 Hit -- Brave 6 Mt / 75 Hit, attack twice on initiation. Also -4 Def/Res.
Three Houses: Iron 5 Mt / 90 Hit / 5 Wt / 40 Use -- Brave 9 Mt / 75 Hit / 12 Wt / 30 Use, attack twice on initiation
Engage: Iron 6 Mt / 90 Hit / 5 Wt -- Brave 4 Mt / 80 Hit / 13 Wt, attack twice on initiation

Yeah, Brave this time is a pretty lousy generalist weapon in exchange for infinite uses. Debating with myself whether it's worse than Fates' version. Less Mt *and* possible Wt penalty vs. Fates' Def/Res penalty. Leaning towards Engage's. Like, you swing at someone with a Brave weapon in Fates, you expect them to be dead and to have someone to cover you if the rest of the enemy army isn't dead to minimize the Def/Res penalty.

If there's one upside, it's that Hit penalties for WTD don't exist in Engage, so you can absolutely swing that Brave Sword at that Wyvern Knight.

-

Alear is really lucky to be in a combat-focused class that can punch people. Well, when promoted anyway.

Edited January 26, 2023 by Technoweirdo

[SumG]

9 hours ago, bookwormbabe29 said:

Apologies if this has been asked before, though I'm wondering is there way to reset level ups?

If Engage is like other Fire Emblem games, stat gains for level ups for all units are rolled when you first enter a mission.  They will not change regardless of any Time Crystal shenanigans.

However, stats gains for level ups will be rerolled when you change maps.  So doing things like exiting a mission to the world map, then re-entering it will reset any level ups that were in place previously.  Similarly, if you get a bad level up near the end of a mission, you can use the Time Crystal to revert to prior to the level, then make sure that you don't use that unit anymore until the end of the mission (watch out for any end of mission XP you may get from Training Skirmishes).  After you clear the mission, you can try your luck again at the level up either in the Arena or in your next mission.

Further, level ups you get from the Arena in Somniel are also subject a similar restriction.  As best as I can tell, all level ups for your party are rolled when you enter Somniel, so switching around the order that you put people into the Arena will not alter what level ups you get.

If you really want to cheese it, you'll have some flexibility in avoiding terrible level ups.  If a unit has a bad level up near the end of a mission, you can reroll it in the Arena.  If you have a bad level up in the Arena, you can reroll it in the next mission.  If you get a bad level again, then at point you likely just have unrealistic expectations about what you're looking to get out of a level.

On 1/24/2023 at 6:36 PM, Shadow Mir said:

Is it just me, or are skirmishes overtuned? Because I have noped out of all the ones I have seen thus far. Doesn't help matters that you often start out surrounded.

 

On 1/24/2023 at 6:32 PM, BrimstoneCheeks said:

Has anyone figured out a way to train up low-level characters? Skirmish scaling is so insane they get oneshot by every enemy in them by midgame, I just want to use some characters from early game that I haven't trained yet.

I've found a good time to do some training is after you get your first handful of Master Seals, but before enemies start classing up to advanced classes (I'd that's somewhere in the range of Ch. 12-15).  You can go into a mission roughly a 50/50 split of promoted units and units to train.  If you've chosen who to promote wisely, the early promoted units should be able to handle enough of the initial press to give your lower level characters some room to breath and hand any problematic press of enemies.

Also bear in mind that a couple of the emblems have abilities that can be used outside of combat, and these abilities can give a *ton* of experience (area healing with Micaiah, Goddess Dance with Byleth).  It can be a good way to get experience for units that are struggling to do any damage at all.

[Hiroki]

2 hours ago, FashionEmblem said:

Saw some comments about brave bow above and I have an adjacent question—are brave weapons kind of bad this time around? High weight and low hit, which are expected/usual, but also incredibly low MT? As a test I forged a brave sword and Alear has pretty much the same physical attack as a silver body art which does noodly damage: e.g., 7x4=28 is the best I've gotten out of a silver body art and the brave sword would have gotten ~8x2 = 16. Both of those numbers are lackluster and I haven't used body arts much outside of the shield one for tanking. I don't want to spend a bunch of resources on acquiring brave weapons for them to end up in the dustbin alongside my body art scrolls.

At least on maddening I think most enemies have high enough defense that one whack of the silver weapon can easily outdamage two attacks from a brave weapon? It's just jarring to forge a weapon down ~10 MT to gain the brave effect and I'm not sure it's worth it. Mildly annoyed since I've done some of my reclassing around getting characters to A in weapons and perhaps I shouldn't have bothered.

Yeah, I got my first brave weapons too, and...they're disappointing. I tried a lot to re-read what I saw, but it seems they're not so good, with that very low Might. Less damage than a silver one, for more Weight. I don't think there's really point in using them, then. If you can double and do the same damage as the silver one...but with speed penalty!

 

But, in the chapter when we get the Brave Axe on someone, I saw a number I could not explain. The Brave would have done more damage than the silver one, and I couldn't find the explanation (and I just remark I didn't take a picture). Silver was doing like 40 damages, less the enemy defense (17), so 13. But the Brave was doing 30 (15 two times) and that's all. I just didn't understand why the defense was not be taken in count here. Whatever

[Shadow Mir]

Are chapters 10 and 11 the only ones that must be done consecutively? 

[ciphertul]

4 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Are chapters 10 and 11 the only ones that must be done consecutively? 

No, one of the later chapters is done in a pair like that.

Secondly for those who it may concern, yes +20 is the limit for stats. If I put Lck +12 and Hp/Lck +10 on it will only boost Lck by 20.

[IzzyFresh]

Those who got the game, is chain attacking worth it? Or is this another horse/flier emblem?

[Hiroki]

8 minutes ago, IzzyFresh said:

Those who got the game, is chain attacking worth it? Or is this another horse/flier emblem?

Chain attack is so so worth! It's so worth that I ended up, not consciously planned, having many backup in my team (all my team, except Alear, Yunaka, Framme and my 3 Sages). And even then, I give Lucina ring to someone who's not a Backup to profit a lot from this.

Chain attack does all the time 10% of damages. Whatever the weapon, the user or the enemy defense. So, low strength unit can do 10% of the enemy HP with 40 defense. If you settle right, you can do 5 damages to big armored boss, with your backup being placed one by one. At the end, you did the damage of each of your unit + 5 damages * 2-3-4-5 units each turn (each turn, you have one more unit placed, so one more chain attack). Just think of it, doing 25 damages bonus, on one attack; only because you place your unit well (and gave them good weapon). There's even a skill, The Hero one, that let you chain attack twice with the same unit! That's so powerful I lost a battle because of that, the enemy placed two Hero by my side, and each new unit attacking was doing 20 damages bonus (5 damages * 2 times for the skill * two Hero), even if my unit High Defense were negating the other damages.

It has a accuracy of 80 %, so sometimes it miss. But it's a great thing I think!

 

[ciphertul]

42 minutes ago, IzzyFresh said:

Those who got the game, is chain attacking worth it? Or is this another horse/flier emblem?

It seems one of the big metas right now is Wind God Longbow Warriors and their 4 range chain attacks.

[lucxien]

anyone know if there are character epilogues / end cards? 

[Hrothgar777]

Hi,

 

There's going to be a delay of probably several weeks in me playing the game and for once I'd like to avoid spoilers on the plot. But I do have a few preliminary questions about it, from people who are already halfway through it or have already beaten it. These are just out of curiosity:

 

1. Is there a children mechanic?

2. Any big timeskip midstory?

3. How many chapters is it?

4. Any branching routes?

5. Any new weapon types?

6. The "turn into a past hero" thing aside, along with the reintroduction of the classic weapons triangle, has the battle system been thoroughly overhauled?

7. Is it strictly linear or can you decide in which order you do story stuff in the different kingdoms?

8. I've heard the support conversations in this game tend to be shorter and more superficial than in 3H. Is this true?

9. Are there a lot of minigames in the Somniel?

10. How big is the explorable area in the Somniel compared to Garreg Mach?

[wambam]

21 hours ago, MercyWalk said:

What part do you find a slog? Honestly it's just all the cutscenes for me. I played on normal till chapter 7ish and restarted to hard while skipping everything to get back to where I was and even turned animations off. Personally hard is the right balance of difficulty for me

Tried hard, it feels a lot better. Normal was so easy I didn't really see much need to use Engage attacks. Hard is now maybe a little too hard, but I think that is cause I still don't have bond rings and better equipment to min-max. 👍

[Shadow Mir]

1 hour ago, Hrothgar777 said:

1. Is there a children mechanic?

2. Any big timeskip midstory?

No to both. 

 

1 hour ago, Hrothgar777 said:

7. Is it strictly linear or can you decide in which order you do story stuff in the different kingdoms?

It's linear.

1 hour ago, Hrothgar777 said:

4. Any branching routes?

No.

 

[wambam]

1 hour ago, Hrothgar777 said:

1. Is there a children mechanic?

2. Any big timeskip midstory?

3. How many chapters is it?

4. Any branching routes?

5. Any new weapon types?

6. The "turn into a past hero" thing aside, along with the reintroduction of the classic weapons triangle, has the battle system been thoroughly overhauled?

7. Is it strictly linear or can you decide in which order you do story stuff in the different kingdoms?

8. I've heard the support conversations in this game tend to be shorter and more superficial than in 3H. Is this true?

9. Are there a lot of minigames in the Somniel?

10. How big is the explorable area in the Somniel compared to Garreg Mach?

I am still early but from what I have read and seen so far:

1. Doesn't appear so. Every chapter you get new people though. Lots of units are thrown at you. One nitpick I have so far (and I have seen other people complain about), all the new units seem to immediately outclass your older units.
2. Not that I have seen, but opening cinematics show that there could be something related to multiple lives, cycle of conflicts over years.
3. I am avoiding spoilers, but seems like mid-20s.
4. Not that I have seen. Single story. 
5. A special class uses knives which can poison. Martial arts class was combined with healer. Martial arts is good against tomes, bows, knives.
6. There are some interesting changes, but they seem pretty subtle. What I listed in 5 seems like most of what I have noticed. Class upgrades seem to be pretty linear, compared to older games. 
7. Linear (from what I have seen).
8. Yes. More like the 3ds ones. Trope-y. You have the girl that likes to exercise, the big dude that is really a softy, multiple characters that put themselves down whenever someone praises them. I think this stuff is pretty standard to the franchise in my opinion though. However I doubt it will get much deeper like with 3H.
9. Yes, exercising. Fishing. Virtual pet stuff. I don't think I have unlocked everything.
10. Pretty small. You could probably argue that it is only one or two sections of Garreg Mach.

[Azz]

1 hour ago, Hrothgar777 said:

Hi,

 

There's going to be a delay of probably several weeks in me playing the game and for once I'd like to avoid spoilers on the plot. But I do have a few preliminary questions about it, from people who are already halfway through it or have already beaten it. These are just out of curiosity:

 

1. Is there a children mechanic?

2. Any big timeskip midstory?

3. How many chapters is it?

4. Any branching routes?

5. Any new weapon types?

6. The "turn into a past hero" thing aside, along with the reintroduction of the classic weapons triangle, has the battle system been thoroughly overhauled?

7. Is it strictly linear or can you decide in which order you do story stuff in the different kingdoms?

8. I've heard the support conversations in this game tend to be shorter and more superficial than in 3H. Is this true?

9. Are there a lot of minigames in the Somniel?

10. How big is the explorable area in the Somniel compared to Garreg Mach?

1. No

2. No

3. Fixed prologue ala Awakening/Fates premonitions + 26 main story chapters + 15 optional paralogues

4. No

5. Not necessarily. Sword, lances, axes and bows are as normal. Tomes are like their Awakening incarnation where there is fire/thunder/wind variants but are under one weapon rank. There is a new surge variant that is 1 range only and never misses. Staves are split amongst healing and offensive. Knives/daggers are back, some are 1-2 range and they inflict poison on enemies which increase the damage they receive. Gauntlets from TH are back, now called Arts. They have a brave affect but are relatively weak.

6. Not particularly. The engage feature and break mechanic are probably the biggest changes alongside some other things here and there.

7. Completely linear.

8. They do feel somewhat shorter, but not too much so. Their length is still solid enough imo. Each character does have a bond conversation with all 12 emblems and they are quite short however.

9. There are three main ones: exercise, fishing and wyvern flight. All are optional and don't provide much. The exercise minigame provides very small stat boots that aren't worth it, and fishing and wyvern flight provide some items like bond fragments (used for emblem mechanics). There are some smaller ones too, the main one that I think is worthwhile is the cooking one which is similar to TH where you and two allies eat, you get support points and stat boosts. The arena is also there, which can be used 3 times after battle and also the tempest trials which is a series of battles where you get special items used to buff emblem weapons.

10. The Somniel feels somewhat smaller but I do think it is a good thing.

[DefyingFates]

What's the difference between Avoid (Marth's passive) and Dodge (Eirika's)? Do they stack?

[Azz]

18 minutes ago, DefyingFates said:

What's the difference between Avoid (Marth's passive) and Dodge (Eirika's)? Do they stack?

Avoid determines odds of evading a normal attack whereas dodge is critical hits. So you can have both avoid+ and dodge+ but they do do different things

[Shadow Mir]

19 minutes ago, DefyingFates said:

What's the difference between Avoid (Marth's passive) and Dodge (Eirika's)? Do they stack?

Dodge is crit evade (basically, the higher your dodge is, the lower enemy crit chances will be against you). Avoid is the chance of avoiding enemy attacks.

[DaveCozy]

I've been thinking of building a crit monster of a unit in Engage. What I came up with:

Yunaka personal skill (+15crit if on avo terrain), Sniper class skill (+10crit), forged killer bow+5 (+40crit), forged with Fates engraving (+30crit). That's a total of +95crit in the right conditions, before factoring in Yunaka's stats vs enemy dodge.

Anyone see a better way to stack crit than what I'm trying?

I haven't looked much into bond rings tbh but quickly skimming the site, I couldn't find any that would help the above setup.

Also, I did think of Lindon... but he's a Sage on join with magic stats. While theoretically higher crit at 100 if I placed him over Yunaka, he'd be too much work to mold into that role.

EDIT: I guess I could add Dex+ lol. I kinda answered my own question. Anything else I'm possibly missing?

Edited January 26, 2023 by DaveCozy

[DefyingFates]

12 minutes ago, Azz said:

Avoid determines odds of evading a normal attack whereas dodge is critical hits. So you can have both avoid+ and dodge+ but they do do different things

Thank you so much! So fast too!

Are there any easy ways to get SP and support points beyond just skirmishes? I know a lot of people thought the Monastery was tedious but I really miss being able to make ten lunches in a row to make people talk more...

[Azz]

21 minutes ago, DefyingFates said:

Thank you so much! So fast too!

Are there any easy ways to get SP and support points beyond just skirmishes? I know a lot of people thought the Monastery was tedious but I really miss being able to make ten lunches in a row to make people talk more...

I am also struggling with that lol.

RN, for grinding in general, I'm thinking skirmish->cooking->arena->skirmish is gonna be how to do it, especially for units you may have benched/have fallen behind considering how skirmishes scale with you, making it pretty impossible to grind low level units up to par.

As for SP, everyone seems to be saying SP is pretty hard to get. After beating the game you do get skill manuals I think that straight up give SP to units. Am not sure if these are grindable if you repeatedly beat the final chapter or if they are a one time thing but other than that being a viable way to get SP after the game is over mind you it looks like you'll just have to keep doing skirmishes (which is gonna suck when I try to 100% my file lol).

[DefyingFates]

6 minutes ago, Azz said:

After beating the game you do get skill manuals I think that straight up give SP to units.

Wait, you do? I saw a ton of stuff pop-up as a reward, so missed those. Does anyone know how many of them you get?

(And also if you can farm the final boss for them, as you said.)

P.S. The Engage profile icons for the Switch, can you get them with the 7-day Online Membership trial or only with a paid membership?

Edited January 26, 2023 by DefyingFates