Inference

Felicia being Percy's mother should result in instant Axefaire. Skill access is easily Felicia's strongest attribute.

Beruka's character trope is pretty common, but this is one of the most perfectly-realized executions I've seen of it. As a stoic with a heart of gold, she really does show a lot of both in her supports without compromising her craft as an assassin. That lack of compromise is key, as a character with a dark past who gives up their old ways is a little too cliche to play straight; having a genuinely nice assassin who'll drop you if she deems it necessary is a much better, less predictable take. For the record, I legitimately think all of her supports are good, of the ones I've read so far.

I'm pretty sure Lucina is also one of the most universally liked characters in Awakening. I really don't even know why you're trying so hard to push this agenda. There is no factual basis for it.

Beruka is not flat and bland. You take that back. Still sincerely don't understand why this topic gets beaten to death. Design is 90% of the reason that Female Corrin is popular, and the rest of the 10% is a mixture of gender bias for certain personality traits. I will fully acknowledge that there are still members of society that believe a male is meant to be strong, while a female isn't expected to, but in the context of this game and the discussions we have, appearance is always the first thing mentioned and the main topic discussed.

Sounds like you've never heard of the Heart Seal. Elise has a ridiculous amount of combat potential in numerous class setups, and can even get her staves back in some of them, such as an Adventurer build with Shining Bow (hint: use Arms Scrolls). With a Sorcerer build and a +Mag Avatar pair-up she's about as efficient as deleting units from the map as Ophelia, and she has a massive availability lead as a Dark Mage to boot.Draco Elise is probably her go-to offensive option, as it comes early, fixes her defenses, and doesn't require an A+ or S-rank support to reach. She can easily train her way to C-Axes by Ch. 13, whereafter the Bolt Axe train comes in full force. Marrying off Jakob early gives you Dwyer anyway, so you're not even screwed out of early healers if you pick FemAva (though you really don't even need one before Felicia/Jakob 2 show up).

I'm giving #1 to Sakura because there is way more controversy regarding Hinoka's creation and lack of presence than there is even discussion about who Sakura is and what her role is in the story. I only remember her because I ran into one really good support with Xander in which both come out of their shells quite naturally. Meanwhile, almost every other damned character discussion has a mini-section on Hinoka. She also gets a respectable amount of screen time in Conquest, has genuinely good artwork, and even a cutscene that I watch every now and then. Quality of writing aside, Conquest does a pretty good job of firmly establishing Hinoka in the Corrin fan club.

Just as an aside, since a lot of people keep mentioning: I don't think Conquest does a very good job of making you care about any the Hoshidan characters that you're apparently supposed to regret betraying. Unless you played Birthright first, they're a bunch of underdeveloped nobodies who don't express enough range of emotion or even get more than a few lines throughout the entire game. I mean, sure, we see plenty of Takumi, but you don't feel any guilt about betraying him of all people because he fucking hates you. We learn absolutely nothing about Hoshido other than them 'loving peace' and being the 'innocent ones'. They're just a sideshow to contrast all of the Nohrian characters.

Uh, so are we going to wait for somebody to agree with this guy to help him feel better? I don't see anything else to talk about.

A great many topics have posed this question and the general consensus is that Conquest is the best Fates has to offer in gameplay. Even if you find the story eye-rollingly terrible (which many do), it will give you tons of replay value courtesy of its difficulty and the complexity of its mission design, allowing you to approach the game from several different angles. I've played Conquest exclusively since its release and am not yet bored. It's worth the praise.

I'd advise using an offensive boon over a defensive one. +Str or +Mag not only helps you smoke Ryoma before he smokes you, but it makes the rest of the game way easier overall. With high offensive growths, you'd be too busy ORKOing squads to really care all that much about your 18 Def. There are a plethora of ways to patch up your hit-taking capabilities throughout the game, such as Jakob, Felica, Elise, Haitaka, Gunter, tonics, Camilla reclassed into Wyvern Lord, Rallymaster, etc. But having the strength to kill things before they kill you is paramount in a player-phase heavy game like Conquest. An easy out to the Onmiyoji spam lategame is to just feed Xander all of your Talismans. With that out of the way, there's no need for +Res.

Read her A support with Takumi. It's one of the few good ones she has.

It's funny how you insist that Vantage is terrible despite the post just above yours possibly listing the greatest Vantage user in all of Fates. Vantage probably doesn't do much for anyone who can't one-shot the enemy in return, as they'd still be taking the hit, but for a Sorc with Nosferatu and extremely high damage, it's immortality.

Hinoka has a great design and I was prepared to become a really big fan of hers before I discovered she was just another face in the Avatar fan club. Not much of my disappointment has been lifted since realizing how flat she was, but I was pleasantly surprised that she doesn't spend all of her supports talking about Corrin. As a matter of fact, she just spends her time doing normal, everyday things and being really nice to everyone. There's still not much defense against her being an wooden character in there, though.

Yeah, that is absolutely not how you use Ophelia. Her critical hit rate has nothing to do with her performance in the main game. What sets her apart from other mages is her extremely high magic cap, making her the most solid investment of resources (Spirit Dusts, Magic Tonics, forged Nosferatu, etc.) with the ability to OHKO just about everything on the enemy phase from recruitment with Nosferatu and a Sorc pair-up. A Sorc Avatar pair-up mitigates the hit drop from WTD, making her effectively invincible in most chapters. Even if she misses every once in a while, Vantage allows her to get the drop on an enemy seeking to finish her off by allowing her to OHKO them instead, on top of building Shield Gauge for even more chances to live and kill when she shouldn't. To put things in perspective, she's probably the only Sorc that stands a chance of getting to S-rank in tomes because of how much combat she'll naturally be facing. Critical-based builds are probably for PVP and are unreliable and suboptimal at best. Ophelia is a pure damage tank and boss-killer in the main game.

Honestly, you explained just about everything with 'Master Ninja'. I've had Felicia straight up maul endgame with Master Ninja from Kaze marriage after an earlygame dip in Hero and a midgame dip in the Cav. tree via Peri, so I'm fully aware of the amount of destruction a skill-stacked Master Ninja causes. But I am ignorant in the way of Soleil, since I rarely use her father. In general, Conquest really rewards 1-2 ranged enemy phase powerhouses, so the few that can do it really well tend to be among the best overall units in the game.

1.) Laslow went from a great first impression to full-on stupid. At first, I'd only read his some of his castle quotes and recruitment dialogue and figured, "Huh. This is like a smoother version of Inigo, without the 'hit on everyone' gimmick." ...only for him to go full stupid in his supports. Really, I don't see any major difference between him now and the way he was in Awakening. 6.) Thankfully, the parts of Selena that were exacerbated in Awakening are pushed aside in favor of her more positive qualities. She's a lot more honest and self-aware, and even admits her flaws at certain points. Her support with Beruka is as fine an insight into who she is as any, as are her supports with Subaki and Caeldori. She smiles a lot more than she did in Awakening, too, and has much better portraits to display her various emotions. Altogether, I feel like this is a naturally matured version of Severa that doesn't compromise her core character. 4.) Boy, here we go. Flora's portrayal in Conquest is that of a bitter and unapproachable woman who hides it through a thin veil of servitude. It makes little sense for her to even join the army, and unlike Kaze, she can't play the 'loyalty to Corrin' card, considering she put that aside to protect the Ice Tribe in the first place. At the point in the game she joins, they're still fighting under Garon's banner, so what's she even doing there...? Her support with Corrin never even brings up the rebellion, which is extremely odd and should have created at least a hint of friction between them. Her supports don't explain anything about her, other than the one with Felicia, where she is, again, bitter. I get that she's been a hostage for most of her life and she holds resentment toward Felicia's combat prowess, but that's all we have to work with. Nothing about Flora is terribly interesting.

Ophelia's a given, but what's Soliel's ace in the hole?

You didn't read the entire thread. Rofllol did a good job of breaking down the mission variety in this game, and even he missed a couple of things, such as the map layout for each mission requiring a different approach or other mini-objectives that impede you from playing mindlessly, such as Hexing Rod users in key locations that cover large sections of the map (Chs. 14 and 20 come to mind). If you don't know what a Hexing Rod is, well, play the game. Make it a point not to criticize the game without playing it or reading all of the replies to your query. It just makes you look contrarian and a bit ignorant.

I took his query to mean, "When can x child paralogues be feasibly done in the early game?" Understand that despite them all being available to unlock immediately after the branch, which I assume is common knowledge by this point, the paralogue enemies start off reasonably tough and blitzing for loot only adds to the difficulty in certain missions. Ophelia's for example, requires your team to take a reasonable amount of enemy phase without being overwhelmed to stand a chance of getting to the villages before the Outlaws do. Nina's paralogue is essentially the same way; I always try that one before Ch. 10 to give Anna the Shining Bow.I've found that the best way to do Ophelia's paralogue early is to load Ophelia with tonics, pair her with another mage, and let her carry. It gives you both the loot and a substantially lower overall difficulty curve for the entire rest of the game, an ideal scenario for newcomers who want to learn the nuances of Conquesr Lunatic.

Recent data suggests Ophelia's Paralogue can be done about as soon as Odin is married, provided she's paired with Odin or another Dark Mage during her recruitment chapter and her pair-up partner brings an HP/Def/Mag tonic + Nosferatu for her to use. That's about as hard as the game's going to get. Chapter 10 and on, Ophelia one rounds almost everything. The accuracy boost Corrin provides is crucial, as it allows her to effectively ignore WTD and barge through even lance-heavy sections of the game with little fear of missing.

Loved the abuse of Shelter-passing Azura and the Shove/Swap mooks. Movement is still king in this game.

It's sort of disappointing how few the viable options are for enemy phase in this game. Every time I try something new, there's usually a hole in the plan somewhere until I fall back to 'throw more Xander/Ophelia at it'. The one pleasant surprise in recent memory has got to be a souped up Anna in the Merchant class with Avatar pair-up completely tanking the final room of Ch. 26 with all of the Berserkers and Generals. Other options that have not been as reliable: - Magic user with Horse Spirit - uh, let's see, the only viable Magic users in this game are either Elise or have Nosferatu. To add to that, magic in general faces an insane amount of WTD in this game with Lances being absolutely everywhere. - Forged Hand Axe/Javelin: ideal for luring in some enemies for an EXP-starved party, but useless in high enemy density, as only a couple will be able to attack you, while the rest simply advance. It's usually better to take the few close-quarter kills while the ranged attackers get a free hit in. Plus, the doubling builds more Shield Guage. - Shining Bow: outside of my extremely specific Anna build, we're lacking in Bow users with both defense and Magic. Still, it's probably worth investing in if your party allows because the Lance armada I spoke of earlier takes a sharp dip in damage output when they're facing WTD. - Bolt Axe: Just tried this with Berserker Felicia (Arthur marriage). Unfortunately, Bolt Axe comes too close to the same time Xander does, so there's very little time to see it in action before the golden-haired god takes over. Even with Xander taking entire fronts by himself, Felicia and Avatar compliment each other well enough to allow for more EP combat than most, and they can pretty much handle the first half of the game by themselves with almost any build if you let them. - Levin Sword: I think only the Avatar can do this viably. Have not tried any Levin Sword-focused builds. Not a whole lot to work with there. I'm not sure if I want to say it's good game design for Xander and his Siegfried to show up when the game becomes 1-2 range heavy, or bad for having him be one of the only ways to clear out the enemy phase with so many bow/magical fuckers around. But then again, the nerf of ranged weapons was a conscious effort to do away with the Javelin/Hand Axe solo of older games, so maybe it isn't good or bad, but rather blatant.

There's no way Armsthrift and Sol allows Donnel to compete with Draco Panne, a unit whose overall capabilities would come second only to the Avatar if she had Galeforce access.

Entrapping Hans is totally unnecessary, though. He doesn't move with the bulk of the force, (not sure, but I think his trigger is one of those two Warding Blow Generals guarding the door) so you can just walk up to him and OHKO with Ophelia or something when everyone else dies.

It doesn't matter how quickly he gains EXP when he can't hit or damage most enemies in any of the chapters surrounding his join time. The kill setups required to get him up to par are objectively a waste of time when the alternative is simply rushing through the map with Avatar and their backup and beating the game. Also consider the fact that every unit before him also has a weapon level lead because two of them are Cavaliers, one is Frederick, and the other is Avatar, the single most powerful unit in the game. Even after the babying, his offense will never catch up because he's forced to start over in Bronzes after reclass. Finally, you neglect the most important aspect of any unit's offense in this game: the enemy phase. Donnel had better be getting all of that EXP per kill because he is getting one per turn, max, with setup. Avatar is getting several, and everyone else is at least able to get some enemy phase combat in without being one-rounded in an early game full of axes. So you've trained Donnel, Congratulations. What then? He's still lagging behind Galeforce Avatar and children, and likely has no mount, Nosferatu, or Rescue to contribute to mid or late game. He's useless in every defeat the boss Chapter, and still isn't getting in much EP with his inferior 1-2 range options in route chapters. He doesn't have strong tools for beating the game, period.