Xenomata

I don't know about the BEST unit, but since I play as M-Corrin I use it on whoever I S-ranked with. On my first playthrough that was Felicia, on other playthroughs it was Selkie (BR and Rev) and Velouria (CQ). Though I do wonder if it would be better to use it on someone who can always counter-attack, basically if the unit will end as a Master Ninja, one of the tome-wielding classes, or in two weeks time a Point Blank Bow user (coughcoughSnipercoughcough)

I've read that Xander doesn't move toward you on Normal, but on Lunatic he appeared at the end of turn 1 and was already on the move. Reminder, he isn't killable this early in the game without using high-level Einherjar or unrealistic grinding. I don't know about you, but I like having my units not dead. I just kinda beelined for the chest and left before Xander could hurt me.

...oh. I don't know if I'm more ashamed for not noticing that or ticked off that nothing was making it blatantly obvious to me.

Thinking about it, I'd actually like it if the difference between certain classes was more evident, or if every single class would be considerable for the end-game as opposed to class A being inferior to class B because class B has natural Crit chance or something. Another thing that bothers me is the abundance of weapons that you can't get more copies of without living inside Museum Melee for a long time. Why can't there be a more not-DLC method of getting more Brave weapons or more Guard Naginatas? To go with the above, make wanting to buy stuff from another players vendors worth the castle visit rather than "visit for resources, leave with a skill or use of the Arena". For instance, why not make a shop offer one random weapon/item each visit that is normally limited in quantity (dependant on the shops rank, so bronze shops can never offer Brave weapons).

I dunno if it's fair to compare Setsuna to Takumi, when the royal units have much better growths across the board compared to every other unit, and some of them having very good exclusive weapons. The Spellbane Yumi is indeed a questionable weapon. Personally I prefer the Illusory Yumi if I really need to target a mage with Setsuna, especially since the Resistance boost covers Levin Swords and similar weaponry. Mechanist are indeed bulkier and they do have improved defensive growths compared to Master Ninja, but Bows max out at B rank compared to Shuriken at A rank, so unless you grind for weapon ranks then Setsuna will be forced to try and live with a B rank in bows... forever. Then again there was that one chapter in Birthright with the infinite Faceless... ah, good times...

Indeed. This also means that if you have one or both of the parents have one skill in their last slot but replace those skills while in preparations for the paralogue, the skill will only be replaced after the chapter is completed. This can help if you need a child to have certain skills to survive the map (Pavise/Aegis), but want them to inherit something else (weaponfaire and Replicate are my more popular inheritance options) Question: Are there limits to what you can do with the Lunge skill and Entrap staff? I'm noticing in a My Castle battle I can't use the Entrap staff on anyone, and when I tried to use Lunge in Heirs of Fate 4 on Kiragi, the option to use it just didn't appear.

No, you cannot visit your own castle. Unless the castle was linked to another Fire Emblem Fates cartridge (or if we're talking the digital copy, another 3DS entirerly), your castle address is linked to your cartridge, so whenever you Update Castle, the castle that is shown to others is simply the last My Castle that you used Update Castle on. This unfortunately means you can never visit your own castles.

Looking at this thread again, I realize I'm not done thinking about skills, though recent IRLD happenings (In real life dreams) have sparked some... interesting things. Dynamic Combat: All attacks are reduced to 1/4th power, but number of attacks increased to 4 per single attack. (could also make a variant that cuts attack power in half but doubles number of hits, but... I dunno.) Personal: Spiritual Tribalist: When paired up with a unit from one of the great tribes or their descendants, gain either +15 hit/avoid and +3 effective speed (Hayato, Fuga, Rhajat, any of their children), +3 damage and +15 crit (Rinkah and any of her children), or -3 damage taken and +15 critical evade (Felicia, Flora, and any of their children) Adrenaline Drain: Gain +1 damage for every unit within 2 tiles of this unit. All units within 2 spaces of this unit deal -2 physical damage. Phantom Imprint: When attacking and defeating an enemy, Luck% chance to leave a healing area on the area within 2 tiles of where the enemy was. Allies recover 10%hp when they stand on these tiles. Enemies lose 10%hp when they stand on these tiles. This area disappears after 3 turns. Family Bond: When paired with S support partner or units child, deal +3 damage when Dual Striking or gain +1 shield gauge when in Dual Guard. I'm... thinking of a LOT of personal skills now...

No. Each unit can only take in one Inspiration at a given time, so giving everyone Inspiration then keeping everyone in formation will not result in massive spike of damage dealt and drop of damage taken. Though skills such as Felicias or Sakuras personal skills can stack with Inspiration, so Sakura personal + Camilla/Elise personal + Inspiration + Demoiselle/Gentilhomme + any personal skills that lower damage taken = a super bulky unit. This'll sound stupid, but when doing a Lunatic run, are sources of extra weapons or skills/classes outside of what the game gives to you during the main story or paralogues considered "cheap", especially during Conquest? Path bonuses (2 Dread scrolls, 2 Ebon wings, 2 Boots (which I found let you completely cheap out Conquest Cp.8), and 2 Dragon Herbs just for having all 3 paths on a single cartridge) Battle/Visitor rank bonuses (various stat boosters, weapons, staves, and the two Emblems for boosting your Battle and Visitor ranks) DLC, including the free "Before Awakening" and "Gifts from Anna" (Do I need to explain?) Not playing the game and collecting items from the My Castle every 6 hours (as opposed to just collecting what the game gives you after completing maps)

This is going to sound weird. I'm looking at the wikipedia page about Naginatas. It says the shaft is generally 120-240 cm (about 4-8 feet) and the blade is usually 30-60 cm (1-2 feet). I'm trying to figure out how tall the Guard Naginata is, since it looks much shorter than Steel Naginata when held by a male Spear Master in his victory pose, who I assume is at least more than 6 feet tall (not counting the hat). What do you think the height estimation for the Guard Naginata is? Makes sense. I'm mostly concerned that by the time I get to end-game, I'll not have all of the weapons I'll want, and I'm that person who buys everything that is limited in stock because I might need it later.

What takes higher priority in Conquest (Lunatic if you care), getting as much Gold as possible or getting as much EXP for your units as possible? Such as in Chapter 8 (save as many villages as possible, or let them all spawn enemies to get the most exp?) and Percys paralogue (murder everything or try to lure in as many enemy units as possible to get as much gold as possible?). Don't know if there are any other scenarios where the decision of Gold or EXP comes into play.

Oh favoritism... They're both fun characters IMO, though Morgan kinda sorta does more sadistic fun things while Kana is more fun... fun thing. I'm always down for bullying the scardy bunny for funsies.

Admitably I have much better luck with forged Iron weapons, high crit/quadruple damage on crit weapons, and beastkiller, wyrmslayer, and similar weapons than Braves, unless the brave weapon is on the Attack Stance support unit I guess... The Illusory Bow is a weapon I find best used when you know you can't target a magic unit, but your bow wielding unit has the advantage against an enemy and you are trying to lure more units to your army (in the campaign of course). It's not really units who can't double attack anyways, it's more units who CAN double attack, but not when using a weapon that lowers their effective speed, so using an Iron weapon would be the most damaging option anyways. High speed units like Kaze and Speed Boon Avatar are good Steel wielders, but not so much so for someone like Silas or Azama (at least as all 4 are on my own save file).

I'm surprised people had trouble with chap. 10 Birthright. Even going in blind on Lunatic I had pretty much no problems. I mean, Rinkah and Setsuna have the advantage, AND they give you Tank-umi at the beginning of the chapter who can OHKO any of the Ninja on the map. My problem chapter was the one with all the flying units on the boat, but that was because I also wanted the stuff in the goodies bag (why are they giving me a Snake Spirit this early in the game? Who cares, free stuff!) but I didn't know when all the reinforcements would arrive and when the enemy units (especially that Malig Knight) would begin their assaults. In Revs, the only problem chapter was Cp. 17, and only because it wouldn't let me save, when I first played I didn't know where the enemy reinforcements were, AND because it saddles you with "worst timing ever" the four person group. I honestly want to say that Cp. 7 Conquest is difficult, but really it might just feel like it because you only have two units you could have possibly trained up by this point. I've yet to play the rest of Conquest.

The topic of having them at all, what your own Waifu/husbando is, discussing who is the best, etc. I'm honestly curious to see what the people have to say on the subject of "Shippings Lord and also a war or something 2016" or as my sister thinks it is, "waifu emblem" [spoiler So does Xenomata have anything to say on the subject?] I'll be honest, I don't have one. I have favorite characters (Setsuna, Selkie, Benny, Arthur, etc.) and the characters my avatar have married I have no regrets over (Felicia, Selkie, and Ophelia), but it never felt necessary to have a favorite character on that level. I feel like there is a line between having a favorite and having a "waifu". When you have a favorite,that means you like them. It doesn't necessarily mean the subject has to like you back, so it's okay to like them without having a proper relationship between the two. But going into levels of having a waifu... maybe it's not what "having waifus" is about, but to me it feels like imposing a relationship status on someone who never agreed to it, and I feel like if the subject of the "waifu" were to try and get to know me even after getting past the whole "ur mai waifu" thing... they would hate me. Maybe I'm giving life to pixels on a screen that doesn't even reflect the character, if the fact that I'm giving life to pixels on a screen isn't worrisome enough, but that really is how I feel on the subject. ...though in real life I've already declared I would never get into a relationship like that, so it probably carried over or something.

In terms of online and My Castle, Brave weapons are used to try and one-round the enemy opposition before they can even attack. In the campaign though I only really find the use of them on General Wary Fighter Benny, so I agree with that. In terms of Hoshido > Nohr, there are some admitable differences, but there are also skills that help to bypass the shortcomings of Hoshido weapons. It's the small boosts that get to me most, and admitably the Guard Naginata, Horse Spirit, and Illusory Bow (weapons that exaggerate on the hoshido stat boosts) are my favorite Naginata/Scroll/Yumi in the game, so perhaps I'm biased. Steel weapons and similar I have many personal problems with, most prominently being that a units effective speed does not come to mind until after I begin to target the enemy. On someone like Kaze who doubles everybody anyways it doesn't really make a difference to me, but if we're talking Oboro or Arthur (for a personal example) who hover around average speed, then I begin to think that maybe I should stick to using what isn't slowing me down.

I do have a few problems with the system... It doesn't feel like there is a reason to go with Nohrian weapons over Hoshido unless we are talking Swords over Katanas, or Brave Weapons over literally anything else. I mean, a free +1 boost to Defense and Resistance? Free +2 speed? Free +2 Resistance? Free +whatever to whatever? Sign me up. It doesn't feel like you ever really want to upgrade your weapon arsenal over time. You might add Dual weapons overtime, but generally speaking I just upgrade all of my Iron weapons and be done with it. Hell I don't even feel the need to keep using the free Steel weapons that most units come packing upon recruitment. Some weapons just ruin the point of others in my mind. Magical weapons that can't crit or trigger offensive skills are easily replaced with "extra" magical weapons that don't have that limitation (Felicia's Plate over Flame Shuriken, Leo's Iceblade over Levin Sword), and also there never feels like a reason to use magical weapons in the first place. A physical attacker is a physical attacker to the ends of time.

They would have been more interesting choices as the protag as opposed to generic "universally awesome and/or liked protagonist" character #infinity. I mean, they both seem to have inferiority issues when being compared to their siblings, but especially in comparison to the Avatar in some cases. What would they have been like if there WERE no Avatar to compare to? Ryoma and Xander would have most certainly followed the same path that the lord characters of past games would follow. Sakura and Elise would make for interesting protags in terms of their starting class, but as characters? Don't ask me. Hinoka and Camilla are characters who seem really built around Avatar worship, so I don't know what they would be like without them around... [spoiler=Fan rambling] What I feel would make the most interesting protagonist is someone who is, by all accounts, a normal person who is being roped into bigger problems by some outside force. The way it's usually been going in my mind is that they were forcibly sent into the present day (our time), but were summoned back to their original time and forgot ever living in the future (kinda combining the Deeprealms of Fates and the children going back in time in Awakening), and tried to live normally and developing combat training, before getting roped into... whatever the superbig conflict is in the game. ...I mean, in my mind it all ends with the protag developing the mindset of belief in their uselessness and trying to kill the big bad guy themselves so nobody else has to die trying to do so, even going as far as to attack their army with magically created clones of the army (they're a mage in my mind) to force them to abandon him, but hey maybe it's more interesting than "a lord who fights for his country". I dunno, I'm a little wonkey in the head...

AFAIK, the NPC characters killed in Birthrights and Conquest are spoken about in either HoF 4 or 5, and Shigure alludes to the existence of the third path, but otherwise nothing much else is spoiled. At least if the translations from elsewhere on the site are to be believed.

What is by far the best character/skill set for the Arena? I would want to say a child unit with Nohrian Trust paired with their spouce having Pavise/Aegis/Dragon Ward/Aether/Dragon Fang. The four skills the other unit having being... I dunno, useful things? Do Blow skills work in the Arena? The faire skill of the used weapon will be needed, and maybe the breaker skills of the weapons the main unit's weapons are weak to...

I'm going to enjoy seeing the inappropriate things we have to say about niles quotes...

I need FemKana with Savage Blow, Poison Strike, and Aegis. If you are feeling nice, she could really also use any other skills she doesn't have right now.

Benny didn't die... really ever. except that one time in online when the Ophelia got a crit...

Look, Oboro's a fashion star. I trust her word when she calls a Bow Knight "last season"

Double post accident, though I do have to say you guys are coming up with things left and right, most (all) of which I could see a lot of people liking and using...