Aggro Incarnate

Some quirks and questions, after fooling around in the Prologue. 1. Some weapons seem to expend 1 use when they miss while others don't. In the Prologue, the Short Sword, Longsword, Phalanx, Hand Spear, and Short Spear (all 1 range weapons, incidentally) don't expend uses when they miss, but the Pilum does when it misses at either 1 range and 2 range. (Yet to have tested with the Lordasral or Cutlass) Does this apply only to non 1-range-only weapons, and if so, to all of them? Or is it tied to specific weaponry or weapon types? 2. Troy's Adept skill seems to expend weapon uses when it activates and the attack hits. 3. When you level-up HP, it seems both your HP and max HP increases by 1, which is cool. 4. Has anyone tested how Zeid's Miracle (Prayer) skill works? The gist seems to be that when Zeid has less than (or equal to?) half-HP, his avoid increases, and the less HP he has, the more avoid he gets. A few tests seems to imply that the avoid increase formula may be something like 25+(MaxHP/2-HP)*2 (%), but can anyone confirm/disconfirm this? 5. What does the last option in the Configuration screen do? The game seems to indicate that it has something to do with mouse auto-tracking, but I'm not sure what this even means... 6. Is there a consistent EXP formula in this game, or is it completely case-by-case per enemy? I'm confused after killing one specific bandit with a slightly less-generic portrait suddenly gave the unit +100% experience gain (i.e. guaranteed level-up) but there's nothing in that bandit's stat screen to explain this anomalous EXP gain. I've done a few tests and this seems to happen regardless of the level of the unit I've used to kill that specific bandit... 7. I get that you don't get a game-over as long as the Fural trade vessel remains intact, but does getting a money reward at the end of the Prologue depend on the pirates not sinking any of the ships? I've managed to position one of my units in a way that doesn't let the Venecia trade vessel escape, so it just sank after the pirate destroyed it. Is there a difference in reward depending on whether the 2nd ship (the Venecian one) escapes, sinks, or (if possible) all the units arrive at the escape point before that even happens? 8. How are you supposed to read Zech's equipped weapon, シルヴァビルヒ? I get the Silver part but I can't find any references to actual weapon name that sounds remotely similar to ビルヒ...

I meant (Mag+Skl), not Magic and Skill individually, since a unit's staff/rod hit rate increases by 1% for each stat point in Magic and Skill. While Elise has low growths in Skill, her Magic stat makes up for it; though Flora, when recruited as early as possible, has higher bases in (Mag+Skl) at her base level than Elise, unless Elise has been promoted at Lv. 19-20 ish. Anyways, I meant to say that Flora, with her good bases and growths in (Mag+Skl) as well as her B-rank staves at base makes her an accurate staff user in the late-game.

I feel like Flora's main utility is a late-game staff-bot than a combat unit since 15 Spd at base (slower than Xander and Leo at her level) is lackluster... However, Flora has the highest (Mag+Skl) bases and growths (not Mag and Skl individually though) out of the maids/butlers which means she has the highest staff accuracy out of them (Elise beats her in this regard, but only if promoted at Lv. 20 which is a pain; Izana as well, but be mindful of his personal skill), and starting with B-staves definitely helps: her base stats and weapon rank alone gives her +46 staff hit rate, which really helps spam out those Freeze/Entrap/Silence charges in Ch. 25, 26 and Endgame with solid accuracy. Most healing charges increase by Mag/3 instead of Mag/2 in this game which means her lower magic than Felicia or Elise isn't such a big clutch either. Also if you're not rescue-cheesing the Endgame, having multiple staff users using Freeze/Entrap/Silence as well as heal definitely helps in that map. Incidentally an extra unit deployment slot opens up at Ch. 25, which means if you're not fielding any extra 2nd gen units she might be a good addition. (IIRC she comes at a higher level and corresponding stats/weapon ranks if you recruit her later, though I'm not sure by how much more.) I don't think she's meant to replace your first maid/butler or Elise, but rather be assessed as an additional asset to your team.

In order to calculate personal stats, you need to subtract class bases from the unit's displayed stats. The 2nd gen unit having level (10+N), since depending on chapter progress the unit's level is between 10 and 20 unpromoted in his/her paralogue (though later in the game the unit may come with an Offspring Seal, which when used automatically can promote+level him/her up even further, again depending on chapter progress)

Seems like the character names save Kamui/Corrin follow the English localised versions while the names of weapons categorical features and game mechanics come from the Japanese counterpart. [Personal impressions] - So even Elise is pronounced like the English version instead of the German-inspired(?) Japanese pronunciation? I guess I'm too used to seeing '엘리스' used for 'Alice' while '엘리제' for 'Elise'. - '리오' for Leo? I can overlook localisation decisions like '아주라' (Azura) and '잰더' (Xander) over '아쿠아' (Aqua) and '마크스' (Marx) and such despite them being somewhat awkward in Korean script, but '리오' is a rather unconventional transliteration of the name ('레오' being the more conventional choice, despite '리오' being the closer to 'Leo' in pronunciation, at least in American English). Now that I think about it though, I think the localisers did this so that the names best fit the English voice-overs. In fact, this is probably why the character names save Kamui follow the NA localisation; many of these names (especially the Royals') appear in cutscenes or voice clips, while the Avatar's name does not since this is the one that the player decides. - Interesting how they used the Sino/Korean variant ([偃]月刀, [언]월도) for the Naginata (薙刀); considering their similarities and the relative familiarity the former has over the latter, I think that's a cute localisation decision. - 킨시 무사 instead of 금치 무사 for Kinshi Knight (金鵄武者) does come across as a bit bizzare since the class in the JP edition is written in Chinese script (Kanji) and as such it is somewhat more commonplace to use a direct Korean transliteration of the corresponding Chinese characters. I can only guess that the localisers understood Kinshi as being a distinctly Japanese artifact, hence going with the direct transliteration of the Japanese pronunciation instead of the Kanji. I guess my reaction simply boils down to a matter of personal preference, but I can't help but wonder how Onmyoji (陰陽師) would be localised though... - The standard weapon names read clunky. Unlike the Japanese possessive particle 'の' the Korean '의' should be used rather sparingly. I personally would have preferred 강철창 to 강철의 창 for the Steel Sword (鋼の剣) and such, but, oh well, not like it's a huge problem or anything. - I personally don't mind the Korean version using the English voices much, but gotta say, listening to Hinoka and Ryoma's English voice-overs on top of the Korean narration in that trailer does sound a bit awkward. - lol at 00:40 in that trailer, toning down Thorn In You (Roar) in favour of Azura's water splashing sound effect. I don't think I have any strong opinions though, just glad that the Korean audience is finally getting some information about the game.

I feel like what really screws up Rinkah are the tutorial chapters, particularly Chapter 5. That map just screams "Use Rinkah as a pair-up bot for Kaze". Rinkah - has weapon triangle disadvantage from the dark mages and the mercenaries (leading to nerfed damage and accuracy) - is locked to 1-range with E-rank in Clubs - gets potentially doubled by the paired-up mercenaries - has low resistance against tomes. Kaze on the other hand - has weapon triangle advantage against them - has 1-2 range without penalty which also debuffs the enemy - has high speed and resistance. Furthermore, - Anyone who isn't dragon Corrin doesn't really want to get hit by the paired-up mercenary, and compounded by the weapon triangle disadvantage and the mages targeting resistance, Rinkah's higher defense doesn't really matter in the chapter. - Kaze with a Rinkah pair-up can reliably 2HKO the mages and the mercs (perhaps even 1HKO given a good strength RNG) since their defense isn't that great; Rinkah's slightly higher base strength doesn't matter as she can't kill mages and mercs better than Kaze even with pair-up from any of the units in that chapter. She's a bit better in Chapter 4, but even with Seal Strength / Defense on Faceless, Kaze has range, debuffing and better accuracy, and the extra strength and defense from using her as a pair-up bot is easier than trying to use all three as direct combat units. Also in Birthright Chapter 6, she has weapon triangle advantage against... NONE of the units in that map. - Leo (Brynhildr) - Camilla (Fire / Iron Axe) - Xander (Siegfried) - generic Fighter (Iron Axe) - generic Cavalier (Iron Sword) - generic Outlaw (Iron Bow) - Elise (no weapons equipped) She's also in a sense hurt by her excellence in being a pair-up bot: not only is +4 STR and +2 DEF are fantastic, she can be traded around as a pair-up bot to give pretty much every attack that buff in Ch.6 since it's a really cramped map; it's usually as good as the damage she'll do while dual-striking, and the extra +10 hit one'll get from dual strikes as opposed to pair-up doesn't really matter if one makes good use of weapon triangle advantage. Being relegated to pair-up duty means... less exp for her. Plus due to no weapon triangle advantage she has mediocre hit chance against them as well, and... so many odds are against her in the early game. By the time one reaches Birthright chapter 7, she's likely to be behind others without conscious extra effort. THE ENTIRE EARLY GAME is against her. Perhaps up to this point, this might have been a rather obvious argument for how Kaze fairs much better than Rinkah in the tutorial chapters. Well here's the thing. Kaze can easily reach C-rank in Shuriken and up to level 9-10 through Chapters 4 and 5, but trying to pull something close to that with Rinkah makes that map considerably less reliable and more lengthy, and so it comes across as a more efficient choice to snowball exp to the ninja instead. This compounded with her slightly mediocre bases and growths (while salvageable in Birthright due to them being not that bad and the relatively easy nature of the route) makes her pale in comparison to most of the remaining cast. And it just gets worse in Revelations because of the high baseline defense of enemies in Chapter 9 (Fuga's Mild Ride), her re-join chapter, against her lacking HP, strength, speed and even defense. She does have good base and secondary classes though, I'll give her that. TL:DR - She's not a terrible unit, but the early game design compounded with her mediocre base/growth build gimps her.

If it helps, Tonics and forges are a thing, and you might want to take advantage of them early on in the game, especially Ch. 9-11. Also, getting Kaze (if you're going to use him) to Lv. 10 quickly could also serve your team well, as Poison Strike helps in giving other units mooch kills.

Birthright: Ch. 27. The waves of enemy action per turn makes the map suitably challenging, though I figure that if you have a juggernaut unit this map might actually be really easy. Runner-ups are Ch. 23 and Ch. 9, the former for the difficulty spike, and the latter just for the first turn or two. Conquest: Ch. 26, though probably because I haven't 'figured it out' yet, so to speak. After a few Lunatic playthroughs I still tackling the bottom chamber really tricky and unreliable, especially due to the number of Berserkers with their ungodly critical hit rates placed at the bottom section of the map. The best I could do is to lure each wave to the top of the map so that my units can kill the 10-or-so units in a single player phase, but the Pavise/Aegis on some of these enemies make this rather unreliable. I wish I knew of a way to reliably reduce turn count to a sensible level... Also the Endgame if none of your units can reliably 1RKO bold-stance Takumi (I find this specific requirement quite tricky to meet); I end up backward rescuing units after killing the Enfeebling units then try to persuade the enemies to a very specific configuration to kill all units before the 4 paired-up cavalry starts moving, then it's all about spamming leftover Freezes and Entraps, not to mention the occasional healing in between. Come to think of it, Endgame is really staff-reliant one way or another, and I never feel quite secure with it. Revelation: Can't really think of any. If Heirs of Fates count as Revelation-y DLC, then maybe the HoF 6, but the main game doesn't have tricky chapters per se. Maybe Ch. 19 for its turn requirement? Paralogues: Late-game Siegbert. Mostly due to the the Poison Strike Brigade in the north-west corner, if the effective-weapon Cavalry haven't screwed you up yet. It's a really tense experience, though I'm not sure if it's for the better or for worse. Runner-ups are Late-game Ophelia's, for being quite tight in terms of enemy triggering per turn, and mid-game Percy's w/o Wyrmslayer. While Shiro's, Ignatius' and Forrest's can be tricky as well, it feels a bit anticlimactic once you realise that they can be trivialised by a rescue staff (which isn't so limited in Birthright / Revelation) / fliers / entrap (you might as well buy one anyways for the Endgame). DLC: Royal Royale, Team Sakura. Subaki is almost useless except for flight purposes and situationally as pair-up fodder, Sakura with her self-debuffing bow becomes really situational to use, and Hana while somewhat mediocre becomes closest thing to a Godsend as she pretty much carries her entire team. They don't stack up well against the other teams in terms of combat, but the real challenge is their starting position and the specifics of how the turn-based enemy trigger works in this map, which doesn't do them any favours.

Summary Counter activates against adjacent damage. Countermagic activates against magical damage. Counter and Countermagic stack when adjacent magical damage is dealt.

Say what you might about how they make sense (or do not) lore-wise, but giving Hoshido the Nohrian slayer weapons will make Birthright even easier, given how frequently Knights, Cavaliers and Wyverns (and their respective promotions) feature in that path (Even the main enemy healing units are on horses, since Strategists feature more often than Maids in Birthright). I feel like there was a good reason why given the slayer weapon split between Birthright/Conquest was made the way it is.

Shared chapters prior to the route-split feature - 2 defeat boss chapters (one of them terminates automatically in 2 turns) - 3 rout chapters - 1 seize chapter Conquest after the route-split features - 3 rout chapters - 8 defeat boss chapters - 6 seize chapters - 1 defence chapter - 1 escape chapter (In a sense there are actually 3: see right below) - 4 hybrid chapters (Defeat X enemies / Defeat boss OR escape with Avatar in X turns / Defeat boss OR escape with all units in X turns / Defeat all bosses in X turns) Shared paralogues in all three routes feature - 2 rout chapters - 4 defeat boss chapters Conquest/Revelation-exclusive paralogues feature - 6 rout chapters - 2 hybrid chapters (Rout and activate all Dragon Veins / Rout before the boss escapes) On one hand, this is a striking contrast from Awakening or Birthright which primarily feature rout as its map objectives. On the other, one may be disappointed by the lingering predominance of certain map objectives (defeat boss, seize) even in the Conquest route; it seems that not much has changed in terms of variety of map objectives and hence variety of gameplay. However I believe the latter line of thought is quite misleading; simply counting the number and distribution of map objectives of is a rather unfair criteria of judging the quality and even variety of map design in a Fire Emblem title, and particularly against Conquest's underlying philosophy of differentiating chapters. If you think about it, the objective of a map is typically its terminating condition i.e. how you end the map. Admittedly all the things that you do within a map are steps that you take to achieve the objective, but this isn't to say that the displayed objective is what the player is pre-occupied with for most of the map; sure, Defense and Escape objectives shape how you play the map, and Rout to some extent, but when it comes to Seize and Defeat Boss, the map objective doesn't actually tell you much about the map itself. For example, consider a desert chapter and the final endgame chapter of a Fire Emblem title, both of which have 'defeat boss' as its map objective. This isn't to say that the two maps are going to similar in how the player is going to approach the chapter. All that the map objective tells you in this case is that you can end the map by defeating the boss, but there's a lot more to the map than the boss in a typical Fire Emblem game since much of what the chapter is is about what you do along the way before you clear the objective. Incidentally Seize and Defeat Boss are map types predominantly featured in the Conquest route. But Conquest manages to give variety to chapters by means other than the map objective. Much of this is facilitated by a defining gimmicks of each chapter: One chapter force you to rush to villages before enemy units pull reinforcements out of them for better rewards at the end of the chapter. Another has a hidden boss in the map who 'steals' some of your reward every turn until you identify and eliminate him. Yet another is a Duel chapter between the boss and the Avatar in a confined area, which can be terminated either by winning the Duel or by having the rest of your units travel through the map that features some of the most dangerous enemy units in the game and remove mini-bosses to open the confined area and eliminate the boss using them instead. All of these three chapters are labelled under 'defeat boss', but the 'defeating the boss' part of the objective is not the only, sometimes not even a predominant, part of what the map is about, not only because there is a lot going on in these maps otherwise, but also that there are gimmicks within these chapters that differentiate maps of the same displayed objective. Similar comments apply to 'Seize' chapters, and IMO the lategame Seize chapters are one of the most creative in the series. Indeed, I feel that many of the strengths of Conquest's map designs come from how the map unfolds itself through these gimmicks. In addition, the bosses in Conquest can prove to be formidable, stationary or non-stationary, so while they don't make up most of the map they aren't a negligible factor at all. In particular, when it comes to Defense chapters, in some sense Conquest Ch. 10 isn't actually the ONLY Defense chapter in the Conquest route. One of the members mentioned Kana's Paralogue which acts as a semi-defense chapter as one does not want any enemies to come into his/her range; I think I have a different (and perhaps better) example in Conquest. Paralogue 21, one of the Conquest/Revelation-exclusive paralogues is technically labelled under 'Rout the Enemy'. But the chapter has enemies approaching from different corners and edges of the map, and reinforcements spawning from those areas after a few turns regularly until a certain turn. Moving towards the center of a map, in addition to a recruitable unit, are various stationary semi-competent NPC Lancers guarding certain choke points. The map presents players with an obvious (though undisplayed) side objective; keep as many of these Lancers alive as possible by the end of the chapter for additional rewards. In addition, one can 'shape terrain' by picking up and placing crates dispersed throughout the map, which allows one to create additional choke points, block enemies and affect enemy behaviour. But one cannot trivialise the map by turtling or choking since the enemies are sufficiently strong (their levels and stats scale with your progression in the main chapters) and are fairly varied in their class and weaponry, not to mention that they spawn regularly enough to overwhelm the player if one is not careful enough - the number of 'chokable points' exceeds the number of crates, Lancers and deployable units. So while the displayed objective tells you to rout the enemy, much of the challenge of this map comes from protecting your units and Lancers while eliminating enemies as they come so that your units and the NPCs don't become swarmed; in other words, the map itself plays more like a defense chapter, only without an explicit turn limit. IMO The problem with some FE titles regarding its lack of map objective variety ('most of the game are rout chapters') predominantly lie in the execution of these gimmicks. Even rout chapters aren't inherently bad, if each map manages to present itself in an interesting and varied way to the player, encouraging one to strategize accordingly. The problem with having stream of rout chapters is not predominantly that there are multiple rout chapters, but that they elongate the pacing of the game for little interesting reason. The Kaga-games pre-FE5, were all Seize and even pre-FE7While I do think that more variety could have been in order, I don't think Conquest has a bad case of map variety in this sense. I guess you might be 'expecting more from the game', which I can understand, but perhaps consider for a while that there may be a bit more to these games than just that. TL:DR - Variety of map objectives are one indicator of quality and variety in gameplay, but focusing on that alone as an indicator can be misleading, and especially so for Conquest.

After hearing all of your comments, I'm realising that a lot of this is indeed reflective of my playstyle.

That should be there now. This having turned into a rather long write-up, I haven't been exactly writing in order, and as a result might have skipped a sentence or two.

Oh right, I think I got the levels confused with Voice of Peace. I will edit that.

Personal Skills are out of the discussion. DLC-skills, so Warp, Galeforce and such does not apply. This list assumes utility in-game, without explicit use (grinding and otherwise) of DLCs or castle-bonuses. I'm intentionally keeping standard of 'best' very vague since I don't want a fixed gameplay style in mind, and intend to be more of a reflection of individual playthroughs more than an objective tiering of how good skills are. In this sense perhaps the title should be more appropriately called "10 Skills I found most useful in when I played Fates". It might seem really picky and arbitrary that I have the above restrictions while trying to keep the discussion not an objective tiering: this is DLC/castle-bonuses/grinding is not something that everyone or all routes in the game have available when they play the game, and I would like to limit discussions to skills accessible to more than one unit. Some things to keep in mind though: - My own list is going to be fairly Conquest-centric, since this is the route I've played the most and where I feel that class skills really make a difference. (That said, it's not drafted with only Conquest in mind) I'm not particularly assuming any efficiency constraints, though I do stand by the obvious general principles it is better to kill enemies and complete the chapter faster and more reliably than otherwise; how much a particular aspect of this overweighs others, however, is not something that I want to set in stone. That said, that doesn't mean yours have to be; feel free to reflect more on your experiences from other routes that you've played. - I factor in both the availability and the potency/applicability of the skill. As a result Lv. 15 promoted skills, or skills in class-lines I just find less appealing for units, either native and re-classed, are not going to feature high in my list. That said, availability isn't the only contributing factor; If I judge one unit having a particular skill makes that unit just considerably better in combat/utility, gives him/her a unique niche, and be significantly game-changing for a non-negligible significant portion of the game, it will feature high in this list. - I don't think I have a particularly high-level style of play at all, nor am I assuming low turn counts as the sole or even only metric of usefulness (Again this is only because this isn't an objective tier list but more of a subjective reflection leading to discussion: that said, perhaps this can culminate in some inter-subjective common understanding of how good certain class skills are), but my list (and to an extent this whole discussion) was drawn from perspective of playing the higher difficulty settings (for me Lunatic Classic) in mind, simply because higher difficulties require more strategic play, and where skills 'really matter'. I'm not sure whether my take on this functions better as a reflection of how good skills are than of how I personally play the game, but as Felicia says, "Here goes nothing!" 1. Shelter 2. Locktouch 3. Inspiring Song 4. Poison Strike 5. Elbow Room 6. Lunge 7. Heartseeker 8. Savage Blow 9. Rally Speed 10. Darting Blow Honourable Mention I haven't thought too hard about the rigorous justification for the precise ordering (for instance I keep wavering between 6th and 7th), but the numbering does seem vaguely reflect how useful I found these skills to be in these runs in retrospect. Also, just because this is going to be more of a subjective recollection of one's own playthrough rather than an objective tier list doesn't mean one can disagree with others, so feel free to disagree with me, and more importantly tell me why :) I'd be interested to hear your takes as well; what did you find to be your top-10 class skills for Fates game-play? TL:DR - Pick your top-10 class skills in Fates in terms of its in-game utility, and defend it :)

I unlocked the Alec/Sylvia talk in Ch. 2, and due to not having first-hand experience over reasonable scale of turn counts necessary to pair units, I ended up spending all 50 turns in the first few chapters just to make sure that I get all the pairings. Unfortunately the relatively fast Love Growth for Alec/Sylvia and the Love Point boost due to the conversation meant I had Alec/Sylvia paired close to the end of Ch.4, even when I made sure that Alec and Sylvia weren't adjacent to each other by the end of each turn. This was a problem since I was going for the more canon pairings this particular one due to personal taste reasons, and I wanted to go for Sylvia/Claude instead. Out of desperation I attempted the following: - I hid Alec in the base castle. - I abused the Jealousy system to maximise Love Point gain between Sylvia and Claude. and the act of desperation worked out, giving me the Claude/Sylvia pairing I wanted. I have reasonable confidence that the latter works, since I subsequently went to (illegitimately) pair Seliph and Julia by abusing the Jealousy mechanic in Ch. 6 as well. That said, I'm not sure whether the former has any effect. I remember reading from one of the Wikis (In particular, THIS one) that a pair needs to be outside the base castle to receive a set amount of Love Points every turn, but I remember also reading the contrary; in fact most discussions of FE4 Love Growth (including the one of Serenes Forest) don't explicitly state that Love Points grow every turn ONLY IF both units are outside of the base castle. So the question is, can you prevent Love Point growth by hiding one of the unit in the base castle? If not, are there any active measures to prevent units from being paired, apart from killing off the unit or having competing lovers to grow Love Points faster?

1. Here are a series of slightly tangential questions; units seem to be able to RAPPORT with captured units in prison which use the same main weapon. In fact something like this is quite ubiquitous throughout My Castle; in Shops certain units give discounts to certain weapons, in the Arena . In the Prison, this is manifested by the Prison Guard unit being able to Rapport with certain other units. Is this correspondence completely determined by that unit's base class, the class that the unit is currently in (e.g. weapon type with highest achievable weapon rank), or by the weapon type of the unit's highest weapon rank, or something that is simply unique to the unit itself? I'm a bit confused since in the Arena, for example, sometimes I see Avatar in his/her base class wielding a Dragonstone, while at others wielding an Iron Sword; I'm wondering whether there is some variation involved even for the same unit, and if so, whether a same kind of reasoning permeates various My Castle features such as the Arena, Shops, Prison, etc. 2. Does each capturable unit have a fixed number of persuasions necessary for recruitment? Or is there some kind of randomness involved? (i.e. Does Haitaka always take 3 Persuasions, etc.) If the number of required persuasions are indeed fixed for each unit, is there a heuristic way of telling before actually trying multiple times? 3. Does Rapport shorten the number of persuasions involved to get a captured unit? And has anyone figured out a quantitative way of how this work.

Aptitude does affect stat-gains in Lunatic Mode as well where level-up Random Numbers are pre-rolled upon recruitment. Let me illustrate this with an example. If a unit's growth rate (personal and class growths combined) in, say Strength, is 60%, that means upon generation of a random number (an integer in the range 0~99), a number less than 60 means a stat-gain in Strength, whereas a number equal to or greater than 60 means no stat-gain in Strength. And similar reasoning goes on for all the other stats. Aptitude raises this threshold by 10; in this example, the Strength growth rate is now 60+10=70%, so instead what determines a stat-gain in Strength is now the generation of a random number less than 70 instead of 60. In Lunatic mode it is the level-up stat gain Random Numbers, and not the stat-gains themselves, that are pre-rolled upon unit recruitment. Since what Aptitude does is to raise the threshold for random numbers (the generation of which are pre-determined upon recruitment) to correspond to stat-gains upon level-up, Aptitude increases chances of stat-gains even in Lunatic Mode.

I've noticed in my latest Conquest playthrough that Kaze hasn't proc-ed Strength at all for me since initial recruitment. A Level 16 Kaze with 9 STR is kinda lackluster in STR even for Ninja standards (though I'll probably still find him useful), and the only reason why it's 2 higher than 7 Strength he has when he's first recruited in Ch. 3 as a Level 3 unit is due to the mandatory 6 levels that he gains between Ch. 5 and Ch. 13 in Conquest where he leaves then comes back, and a growth rate of 45% means 6*0.45=2.7 higher STR on average, which rounded down guarantees him 2 STR stat-ups. But then I wonder, in Lunatic where Level-Up RNs are pre-rolled upon recruitment, what happens to Level-Up RNs to units that leave your party after being initially recruited, only return with higher levels? For concreteness consider the following (not actual but plausible) gedanken-experiment: - Suppose I have a Kaze in a Lunatic playthrough, recruited at Ch. 4 as a Level 3 unit. - He gains 2 Levels in Ch. 4 (so Lv. 5 after Ch. 4), 4 Levels in Ch. 5 (Lv. 9 after Ch. 5), but never procs STR in those 6 levels. - Say I've written over the Ch. 4 save-file after progressing to Ch. 5, so I can't play Ch. 4 again (his recruitment chapter). - However I haven't yet progressed to Ch. 6, and I do have that Ch. 5 save-file where he proc-ed no STR in 4 levels - Given how stat-gains on Level-ups work on Lunatic, Kaze will not gain any STR levels in 4 levels in Ch. 5 no matter what. - Kaze will automatically gain 6 levels between the end of Ch. 5 and the end of Ch. 13 if I play Conquest, and he will receive fixed stat-ups corresponding to his growth rates. Now suppose that I don't want to start an entirely new playthrough to give him better stats, but I am willing to play Ch. 5 again. The question is, is it possible to affect Kaze's stat gains by a certain fixed level in Lunatic mode later in the game by feeding him less levels in Ch. 5? The answer to this question might depend on the answer to the following questions: 1. Are Kaze's Level-Up RNs re-rolled in Lunatic upon his re-recruitment at the end of Conquest Ch. 13? 2. If not, do the pre-rolled Level-Up RNs correspond to - only level-ups that I (as the player) give Kaze? - level-ups that I give him AND level-ups that the game gives him automatically between his leave and re-recruitment, but the latter is ignored by the game since he instead receive fixed stats in those 6 levels? To rephrase 2, say I decide to give Kaze only 2 Levels in Ch. 5 instead of 4 Levels after realising that he won't proc Strength at all. (So he'll be Lv. 7 instead of Lv. 9) Kaze gains 6 levels by his return Ch. 13, so he'll be Lv. 13. Do I know with certainty that Kaze won't proc Strength in level-ups from Lv. 13-15? Or are there pre-rolled RNs that correspond to his 6 levels that he automatically gained but hasn't actually been used by the game since the stat-up in those 6 levels are fixed, which are then passed onto future level-ups that I as the player gives him, perhaps leading him to proc STR between Lv. 13-15? I guess similar considerations may also apply to Gunter in Conquest (who gains 7 levels between Ch. 3 and Ch. 15; that said is it even possible to give him a Level-Up in Ch. 3?), and maybe Felicia/Jakob if you've gender-swapped your Avatar using Branch of Fates, therefore effectively re-recruiting the unit but as a higher level-ed unit with higher stats? Just wondering whether small manipulations at this scale are possible...

According to this person's test on Reddit, apparently so. I could have had a misleading sample, but I was under the impression that while stat gains through Offspring Seal promotion take Aptitude into account, their base stats don't. As for when to do the child paralogues, I think it depends on what your priorities are: If you want them to get as many children with the least effort over and above other benefits from these paralogues, then yes, getting them earlier is probably advantageous as some of them get really hard towards late game. But if you want to maximise EXP off of these paralogues, you might want to spread out these paralogues (like one after each story chapter, for instance), since enemy levels, which determine how much EXP you get off from them, depend on main game chapter progression (thought if you feel underleveled at any particular point for tackling some of the late game maps in Conquest, it may be worth going through a bunch of them just to get across the hurdle). Also if you care about weapon ranks (especially secondary weapon ranks), it might also be worth putting them off till a bit later, since units lot only come in higher levels but also higher weapon rank with story progression. There's also the issue of deployment slots (you get a few more of them around Ch. 22-ish if I remember correctly?); if you can deal with the average of +2 levels worth of stats in enemies, then it may be worth getting them later instead of recruiting them only to wait before you use them. That said, I don't think you'd want to recruit them like after Ch.25 despite all these benefits... Of course all this depends on how comfortable you are playing these paralogues with higher-stat enemies, as some of them, especially Shiro's and many of Conquest-exclusive paralogues, can get a bit out of hand. (not counting Revelation here) If you know which paralogues are easy/difficult and which of the 2nd gen units you want to actually use as part of your core gameplay team after having unlocked a bunch of them, I might consider the following if actually you want to try out the whole maximising EXP reaping thing by spreading out your paralogues. - Consider doing the hard ones sooner, and put off the easy ones for later as they'll be the more manageable ones to do later. Usually common-route paralogues tend to be the easier ones, then Hoshidan exclusives, then Nohrian ones, but this is just a general trend, and there are exceptions. (e.g. Shiro's) - Consider recruiting those that you wish to use in core gameplay units around Ch. 19-22, since that's when they would have picked up promoted Lv. 5 skills from Offspring seals and get a decent weapon rank, but it also gives you some room to make use them and fiddle around their builds yourselves in the main game and other paralogues as well. Put off the ones you don't need to either much later in the game or do them really early if you have them available just for EXP spread. - Consider doing the ones with material rewards or 2nd gen units with material gimmicks (e.g. Midori, Percy) sooner.

Purely Design-wise: Favourites: Adventurer, Bow Knight (only playable ones though: the enemy units have those slightly ugly helmets), Hero, Spear Master, Witch, Falcon Knight, Maid, Butler Least Favourites: Sorcerer (Odin's custom pallete is fine though), Dread Fighter, Female Paladin, Male Berserker

As for Ignatius' paralogue, the map becomes much more manageable if you have a number of fliers at your disposal.

I think what was meant was the Child Unit's stats at level (10+N). So if you're at a point in the game where the child unit would be level 16, for instance, N=6 in that formula.

Yes, weapons that boost criticals are skewed towards the enemy in principle. This would be a good defense for the killer weapon properties in this game if there were considerable number of enemies that actually wields them, but this is not the case for most of the main game. The more threatening units due to critical hits are instead enemy Snipers, Berserkers and Ragnarok Sorcerers, but these almost never wield the x4 crit-multiplier weapons. While these cases may lend support to how critical rates are more dangerous in the hands of the enemy compared to the ally, it doesn't really add to the case for why killer weapons in particular have the benefits they do; given that there are simply are very few enemy units with killer weapons / x4 crit multiplier weapons in Fates overall, and so they shouldn't be a big part of why killer weapons were given such a boost. Perhaps the issue with the killer weapon becomes more clear if I put it this way: what is it about killer weapons that was possibly lacking that deserve a boost in this game over previous ones? What is exactly this system rewarding? I don't see a rationale for why killer weapons deserve the x4 multiplier, given that there are already more assets to do damage compared to previous games: reliable dual strikes, lower overall HP (both absolutely and relative to STR/MAG stats) compared to previous titles? Given how all weapons are more expensive, I don't think they got the short end of the stick in terms of pricing either compared to other weapons. In terms of how they compare to others in battle utility, Steel weapons lowers the ability to double which is a legitimate drawback against the added might, and compared to standard Iron there is 0-1 might difference and hit difference of measly 5, and an avoid penalty of 10 which seems disproportionate compared to +20-30% crit rates and the x4 multiplier (perhaps not reliable in their criticalling-properties for some, but nevertheless quite frequent enough to warrant using them quite frequently over others). And encouraging players to use killer weapons 'frequently' doesn't seem like the right way to balance killer weapons at all, with durability not present in this game. All I see is that the boosts killer weapons get seem like it's further rewarding luck-based strategies, and overwhelmingly benefit certain unit/classes that allow for higher-critical rates, and I'm not sure how much this is a positive strategic addition to the game.