dragonlordsd

Are you sure? It was only very recently that people were sure Hilda wasn't recruitable. And no, I wasn't talking about lost items, I was talking about all other items, especially the ones that give professor Exp. But what I meant was, there's plenty for the community to keep digging into, which will keep the game fresh in people's minds. If there's some mystery to uncover, it usually makes the fan base pay attention longer, as they can spend time theorizing and testing, and get more out of the game than they would normally. Also, serious question, how do you get the red face icon? What does it mean?

I don't expect the honey moon phase to be over super quick, mostly because of how little we actually know about this game. Especially considering there's already been data-mining, I'm amazed at how little can actually be found out about the mechanics on the internet. Things that are still a mystery: 1. Exactly how recruiting works, even at a basic level. 2. What controls item spawns in the monastery. 3. A complete list of support availability. 4. Whether or not you can recruit people post timeskip and if you can, who you can recruit. 5. Whether or not there are any hard limits on recruiting in terms of time. And those are just the big things. There are a ton of questions that have been raised about path differences that still haven't been resolved. Heck, people are still putting questions marks next to whether or not it's possible to recruit Dedue or Hubert. Edit: and while I'm on the subject, what the heck is up with the red faces? Seriously?

Catherine likes the Four-... something blend. The one that costs 1,500 and is for mature tastes. I don't have the game in front of me. Tea is really expensive, so a chart like this is handy.

I kept him alive the entire time and got nothing. The fog chapter, though, did give you rewards based on how many green dudes you kept alive, but importantly, it was only generic green dudes. Catherine didn't count.

Yeah, doing the math, I think you're right. I was doubtful because I've mostly cleared all of them without doing much grinding, but, to be fair, I haven't actually finished them all. Looking at the numbers, it seems to be either impossible or extremely difficult even with grinding.

This would make some sense. As a side note, I'm beginning to wonder if there's an element of randomness for the recruiting based on skill. The numbers you need have been all over the place. I'm beginning to think that it's either: A) A percent chance that increases as you gain skill B) Different students are more or less specific C) Different routes have easier times recruiting some characters than others However, I think you may be on to something, and B may be the correct answer. Someone posted on Gamefaqs early on that Ingrid was the second most recruited student, behind Sylvain. It may be that her stat requirements are much lower than other students.

That's good to hear! Yeah, even though a lot of the maps have been rout or kill commander, I have really liked the designs better than fates/awakening.

I.... don't think that's true. Remember, you can farm renown off of tournaments. That said, practically (ie, meaning you do other things with your time) I think your advice is correct. I mean, you may be right anyway, but has anyone written out the totals? You need 40,000 total renown. Each quest gives you 300-500, each tournament gives you 300. Story missions and paralogues give you an amount (I don't know how much) In total, you'd need about 130 sources of points... maybe it is impossible.

Ingrid, though I'm really interested in Shamir... but she's still at C support, so we'll see. Edelgard or Petra for black eagles, of course.

Pretty crazy. How did you grind out flying/riding/armor? Those seem to be the most troublesome.

They've confirmed that additional difficulty will be added in a coming update, so that should fix it. So far, I've found the map designs to be good in terms of scale and number of enemies, but the enemy stats to be lower than I'd like. Also, it's a little silly that at chapter 6 you're still encountering enemy healers with no offense, but that's not super common. I'd put it at easier than Fates Conquest, but harder than Birthright. About Sacred Stones level?

Weird question, has anyone ever been able to recruit a student with NO support at all, other than Sylvain?

Yes, the dialogue is much, much better than fates. I had very low expectations, and I've been really impressed with the writing and characters so far. A huge leap forward.

There already is a thread where we're compiling info on this, though it's fallen off the front page. It's called the "recruitment war". I think one of the mods should create a sticky on this to help us compile information better.

Basically, do almost no damage and fight a lot. If the unit has sufficiently high defenses, giving them a broken weapon can really help. The only unit I've really succeeded in mass grinding with is Ingrid. When I recruited her, she had massive defenses (like, 15) and terrible strength (11). I had left one of those level 7 quest missions undone, so I just sent her out with a broken lance. It took more than 30 minutes, but she maxed out her class in one go. Unfortunately, her strength has picked up since then, so it's not so easy any more. The unit gains 2 class exp every time they do anything, so it's really just a matter of having them do something 50 times without leveling too much, which is harder than it sounds.

It seems like B support does further lower skill requirements to recruit characters. I don't know if it's possible to A-support a character without recruiting them, so some testing will be needed on that. It is excellent to know that there isn't a cap on B-support recruits, though, obviously, some characters cannot be B-supported in time to recruit them. Due to the fact that you can't really customize Byleth's stats at all, and I haven't seen any reports on male female differences, it seems that some characters are much easier than others. Characters you get with NO effort: Felix - Byleth's strong in swords, you start with swords, and unless you choose to be a cavalier or an armor, your speed should be 15-20 by the time you hit level 17 or so, depending on how lucky you are. So, no real effort needed here. Ignatz - Same thing. My Dex was above 20 at level 20, you're strong in authority, and it takes no effort to grind it out. Just slap Geralt's mercenaries on Byleth and wait. Characters that require little effort: Leonie - I WAS able to get her with D+ rank lances, but my strength was 22, so it seems really high stats can offset skills a bit. I think. Still not sure on this one. Anyway, there are three lance tutors, so it's easy to get trained up in lances. Strength is generally byleth's highest stat, so that makes it easy. Caspar - More difficult, since there're less brawling instructors, but I assume it follows the same principles. Characters that are EXTREMELY difficult: Marianne - Marianne wants magic (Byleth's worst stat) and Riding. Magic is hard enough. I invested in it fully, and had my Byleth promote to a monk at level 5, and a mage at level 10. At level 20, my magic was... 15. My strength was 22. As a mage. I had to use a spirit dust to get any recruits with it. Riding adds the additional difficulty in that it can't be used by any of the second tier classes, so you can't even start grinding it unless you've already advanced it to at least D+, and on top of that you'd need to have lances at D+ too. Overall, promoting Byleth to a calvalry or flier seems really, really tough. Ingrid - Ingrid wants flying and, notably, she's the only character in the game who wants flying. So, if you invest in flying (as opposed to armor or riding), it can only be used for her, adding to a massive opportunity cost. Fortunately, the only stat she wants is Dex, so that's not a problem.

I don't know. I'm not sure when the earliest you can recruit is. I THINK it's possible in the first month, but maybe only for specific individuals (ie, those whose meal preferences and such match your options and the earliest available gifts are preferred) Obviously, females get Sylvain for free, but I don't know if he counts against your monthly quota.

I was wondering about that. It does seem that the professor exp is based on the "success" of an activity, so it does make sense. Also, as far as I can tell, the "proficiency" for choir and cooking never changes, unless there's some sort of special event. The absolute most exp I've found so far is from correctly answering a student's question, which gives 1,000. I'm not sure if these are triggered randomly or predetermined.

This is true. I can confirm, it is only once a month. This means that you can only recruit as many students as you have months, though I haven't yet checked if it's possible to recruit a student in the first month. I can also confirm that there is no limit to how many characters you can recruit through skills, though. I recruited Lystheia, Annette, and Leonie all on the same day, and I'd already recruited Marianne earlier that month through supports. I believe this also works for special recruits like Sylvain, but I'm not sure?

Just Byleth. Same for level for knights. Recruiting is always based on Byleth's stats.

It makes sense from a programming/game design stand point. The convos sometimes take place in specific locations or reference specific events, so it makes sense some of them are time-locked.

I haven't done the math, but so far, I haven't found seminars really useful. They give about 20-40 exp for 2+ stats to a bunch of characters, but there are some problems with that. For Byleth, the gains are much better by doing personalized tutoring, which can be done at least twice for each skill during exploration and can give greats or perfects. For the students, they gain a ton of exp through both instruction and regular study, to the point that I got most units up to B by the start of the fourth month. You can also grind specific skills a bit in battles as well.

There are two free ways to build up professor EXP. The first is gardening, which gives you by far the most. It gives you about 100 exp per level of cultivation, so essentially it lets you just straight trade cash for exp every week, which is pretty good. The second is fishing, which is limited by bait. AFTER you complete the side quest to open up trade routes (it's a battle), merchants will show up, who will sell items. They have limited stock, but will sell you bait, gifts, tea, and seeds. Fishing gives limited results, as you only get a max of 30 exp for catching a gold fish (that's excluding the white fish, which seems to be extremely rare. Using 5 -star bait, I only got it to show up once in 40 minutes, and promptly failed to catch it, so I have no idea how much it gives). That said, it is free exp, so use it as you will. @Ririn: Choir is an odd one, as it's the only way to get professor exp and skill level up. If you're going for faith (which you can use to recruit Lystheia and Annette), it seems to be pretty darn useful, but you may want to wait until you change it to a strength for byleth. Also, there isn't much point in increasing support for your own students as you can just grind that out in battles, but it will give skill exp for the students you use it on, so it's up to you.

The game tells you the requirements for each student: 1 stat and 1 skill. The exact level of skill and stat you need aren’t clear, and may or may not be affected by support level. this seems to let you recruit them for “free.” Additionally, you can recruit any student automatically if you have B-rank support with them, but it seems you can only do this once per month. Finally, knights seem to be purely based on your level, but capped at one per month.

Well, at first, I think people were confusing recruiting based on support with recruiting based on skill, which is why some people were saying that, but I'm not sure. It is possible that different students have different levels of requirement, though. Since Geralt gives you a bonus with lances, I can try it out on Leonie, see if I can recruit her at D+. I've got well over 20 strength at level 16. I'm playing black eagles, it's a pain that only she and raphael want strength, while 4 people want magic. Why can't my magic grow faster?!?