Dunal

Harken is pretty slow, yeah, and I may have overestimated Marcus's STR a little (he doesn't gain any through promo bonuses, so his average is more like 8). He gains more SPD instead -- which I mistaken for STR. I get the impression that Harken's SPD growth is pretty good though -- at least 40% or something. It's his STR that's great. Guarenteed to have 11 at promo + focus. Yikes.

Yeah, I Imagined it would be akin to that. Might just be because her HP growth is low, so her other gains are high across the board. Seems about right. Eh, I wouldn't say so. Isadora's STR and DEF are pretty mediocre/low. I think she averages 7 STR (30% growth?) at level 10/2/- and with mono swords, that isn't fantastic. Her DEF also averages 7 at that level, due to the promo bonuses. She's like a mounted myrmidon. Her SKL/SPD are very impressive. I can imagine her with a Killing Edge later on and doing awesome with it, that can be assured. Marcus on the other hand seems to average out with 9 or 10 DEF at promotion. Same with STR (and with Lances his attack is a great deal higher). SPD is a lot lower though and he does get weighted down a lot to boot. Harken's more in-between and balanced stat-wise. Don't underesetimate Focus as a skill though. When defending chokepoints the bonuses are really good. As are his promo gains. So I wouldn't say Isadora is better. She's strictly less bulky than they are. But I wouldn't say she's worse either -- just takes a bit more effort to get there. Not much different than Harken overall in usage. Marcus is just really good on the account of the enemy soldiers you fight (they are by far the strongest enemies you fight and Marcus doesn't gain WDA against them). Because Isa and Harken cannot fight them. This makes Marcus gain even more levels over them and promote really fast. So that makes his level advantage more severe than it actually seems. Which all in all, makes him really strong overall. He even arguably out-performs Uther in the Prologue since he can tank more damage, thus saving your healing. The only reason I'm not demanding nerfs for Marcus is because well... he's Marcus. :Dominating the earlygame since 2002:

Madelyn's is obviously more than 350% you liar So you're going for the FE7 range? That's cool. I always felt the later FE titles did overkill it a bit (5+ levels never felt that awesome anymore).

You just need to ferry an Iron Lance over to Marcus with Eagler. This allows him to double the enemy at base level and 2RKO them. Isadora needs 7 SPD to 2RKO the 3 SPD fighters. Granted Isadora's base SPD should be 7 to secure her usefulness. Eagler can do the same anyway so w/e. He can bait the fighters turn 1 and then grab an Iron Lance for Marcus to give to him on turn 3. Either way, I don't see the issue. The reason why is because I wasn't aware the boss could be reached turn 5 in Prologue before checking. You'd still need a couple lucky crits from the trainees though. And keeping Uther alive on turn 5 may or may not require a fluke. Still, yeah It's possible, I guess. Eagler shananigans seem plausible for the others. However, considering there is probably an EXP rank, I'm gonna take a gander and say it's not optimal in the slightest. I'm sure you know this anyway of course. For LTC it depends on later chapters requiring a competant team. Not that your point doesn't still stand, however. In any case, most FEs have this trend, so it isn't surprising.

u wot m8 Best typo ever?

I actually found chapter 2 quite easy (on hard mode: the drunk priest edition)! Uther/Eagler kill the squires effortlessly. Marcus can solo the two guys near the lower village within that chokepoint. Isadora can bait and double the fighters near the start. Clean them up quick and then just have Eagler/Uther bait the other enemies while your trainees finish them off. Heck, Marcus can solo all the enemies on the west side of the map to get to the village as well (on both my runs). Even though Eagler might be better for LTC. If anything, CH2 is too easy. Prologue on Hard is far harder because of the lack of healing. You kind of can't even use Isadora/Harken that much because you'll want both vulneraries for Marcus/Uther (That needs changing if I haven't said it enough already!). In fact, Prologue isn't even that hard, the lack of resources is just annoying above all else. CH5 is fine aside from the archer boss who adds very little (On hard, he should move on turn X rather than approaching him). LTC'ing that map should be fun.

Or maybe your potential max stat Sophia just broke the game? ; ] If it is the turncount, then perhaps the game just got mad at you for abusing so much. Ha. Either way, it's very strange. Not sure why that would occur.

Question: When exactly does it crash? I tested it and it works fine. I basically loaded your .sav and played through chapter 19 again. I finished the chapter and went on to chapter 20. Here is the working example. No problems for me. Perhaps you could play through chapter 19 again and see if that fixes it? Or have you tried that? Or is CH20x that's having the problem?

Cheers. I'll try and replicate this with a new game refresh. Has anyone else encountered this issue before (I should have advertised that Ilia Route isn't more attractive now dammit!)? My earlier test run didn't have this occur. Might be to do with either Niime, the weather effects, or enemy statistics. I'll test some things through once I get there. Otherwise I'll get the trial maps done. And I think that wraps up the project unless balance needs to be improved further (or bugs -- wherever they continue to pop up, with FE6 this happens...). EDIT: If anyone wants; create a wacky team comp for me. Might make my next run-through interesting. Otherwise might go for a full-magic user (+Roy) run. Hugh tank goooo~~.

That sarcasm? Yes, they have actually increased that much. But it's less than they look because they only each have 11 and 8 level-ups respectfully. A 20% increased growth would only increase that stat by 2 at max level, and Dayan is even less (1.60). And their bases are slightly worse. Yeah they now have extremely high growths. But only a less extreme version of Karel, since they don't get much level-ups either. It's both a nerf and a buff. They are weaker when they join, but end up a bit better. Lack of levels amplifies the reason to increase growths that much. Don't be fooled by the actual values.

New patch. PATCH NOTES

Like I said, I'm not all against giving him a few changes if he's a bit under-par. So far I've decided to give him +1 speed, +2 defense for now (along with support/weapon changes). May tweak growths too. Allows him to double a good part of chapter 16 in any case. His growth puts him up to ~21 speed late game so that's all well and good. Strength is his forte still. Good growth + Dark affinity. Can't have it all. He even beats Alan there. =P I'll improve Alan/Lance a bit more too. +1 STR/DEF at base. -5% DEF growth. Late game they lose out on 2 defense due to the growth (or 1 technically), but they're better early game. As for Yuno/Dayan, Ideally, their 20/20 stats are on par or possibly even better than the non-premotes -- but join a bit underleveled / underpowered (think Sedgar/Wolf). So I'll give them quite a few tweaks. They break the rules of other prepromotes but for good reason. Wouldn't want them to be too weak to avoid using though. EDIT: Trial maps should be interesting. I'm thinking one should be a gauntlet of all the bosses or something. By the way, I'll make some tweaks on things like Wyrmslayer (uses) and add some more options for anti-dragons. Devil Axe? I wouldn't think the player should be compelled to use Divine weapons before endgame.

Supports aren't my only reasoning at all. Thing is, in an efficiency run, Percival will still be a good/great unit due to having good utility/stats without requiring any resources or RNG. Better yet, you can use him long-term and he'll be consistently decent. He's a great filler unit and can even be used endgame. Supports cover a unit's weaknesses, sure (doesn't change whether they're viable or not). But when a prepromote has no weaknesses it kind of takes away the point of them ( the fact that supports can take away weaknesses arguably makes prepromotes often too good). I understand people don't want him to be filler (based on his godmode-ness in the original). But as a prepromote, should he be anything more? Compare his stats to Cecilla, or Douglas for instance. You don't notice that they're on the same wavelength -- since they weren't too good in the original. Is he really any different from them two? To buff him would just make him better than other pre-promotes. I'll still give him those changes, mind. I won't object to give him slight improvements if necessary (if he happens to be slightly worse-off than the other prepromotes, so be it). But buffing him majorly just so he can be the 'best' prepromote might just be a bit unnecessary. He may lose out to stats over the cavs, and so does Cecilla compared to Clarine etc... But shouldn't that be the cost of using prepromotes? They shouldn't be as good as non-premotes. And in an efficiency run, the gap is very close already (people are likely promoting much later at a lower level). For example, it wouldn't be a stretch that any of your cavs are not actually promoted (or at least 20/1 rather than 16/1 or something) by Percival's join time. Really, you can level Clarine to 20/3, and be awed by the stat difference to Cecilla still. She beats her in pretty much every stat (Except HP). The case isn't any different to Percival (who happens to join when Marcus/Zealot have long dropped off massively, unless the latter has leveled a big deal). I think that Marcus/Zealot is another big reason really. The idea is that if Percy were as strong as the cavs, you could just use Marcus/Zealot for the early/mid game and then replace them with Percival for zero cost, while having an easier early game and without spending any resources to boot (such as promotion).

I definitely wouldn't revert Percival. His old stats made him as good or better than any of the 20/10 cavs. Prepromotes come readily with high stats, high weapon ranks, no promotion item cost, RNG proof etc... In a team of 15 units, including a single prepromote allows you to pump more resources in your other 14 units, effectively making them better while adding another for free. Making a prepromote as strong as an unpremoted unit at the same level makes leveling one a bit pointless (Well, not completely, since they'll still be useful as you use them, clearly -- but still use resources that can be used for anyone). I actually used Percy in my last PT. I chose to use Lance/Noah. But Noah turned out worse than I expected. So I switched him for Percy who is RNG-proof. Reason I did so was because Paladin's are a great class, clearly. I dropped Noah at level ~16 before promotion so I saved using some resources, including a Knight's Crest. At the same time, he scales okay. Good supports, three Divine weapons to use. Good candidate for a Body-ring for axes (tied with Noah for best Con). You can go for Armads for +8 Def/Res w/ Klein support. Heh... I'll give him those few changes nonetheless. I just think people are just noticing the actual nerfs rather than the stats, which are still okay. His stats do seem a bit lower compared to say, Igrene or Garret, but then he's a paladin. 8 move, full WTA... None of the paladins really excel in stats tbh. Same with the Valkyries. Stats tend to be a-parallel with movement or utility. On a similar note, I'd like to hear your opinions on Yuno and Dayan. They may still need further improvements, but I'm still undecided. EDIT: Soon I may release an average stat calculator for every unit for some clarity and for those who would find it really useful. I've used it as a basis on changes (placing markers on average stats for key points in the game, against enemies too) so people may argue these things too.

Hmm... When looking stat comparisons and averages myself, Percival still came across rather strong as a prepromote (obviously someone you can pump zero resources into and get for free -- and who's RNG is not at risk). I wouldn't think he's meant to have stats on par with the other cavs. Yet he still ends with lots of strength and dark affinity. And can support Klein for defense (An A support gives him +3 STR & +3 DEF/RES). As long as he can reach 20 speed he works well late game for a prepromote (top 3 I'd say, with Garret and Igrene being the other two). I suppose what I can do is shift his bases/growths a bit, I guess. Slightly better from the start but ends up the same. I can also increase the support speed of Klein, and shift his weapon ranks to A/B/C (from A/A/D) to give him more weapon choice. EDIT: Proposed these: +2 DEF +1 SPD -5% SPD -5% DEF A SWD, B LNC, C AXE Klein now 50/3 (from 30/2)

I may look further into the cavs then. But just looking at averages -- ALAN: LV20/15 HP: 50 STR: 25 SKL: 20 SPD: 22 LUCK: 18 DEF: 16 RES: 10 TRECK: LV20/14 HP: 55 (+5) STR: 23 (-2) SKL: 17 (-3) SPD: 21 (-1) LUCK: 26 (+8) DEF: 24 (+8) RES: 3 (-7) Well... Again, not much in it. Alan does have Ice affinity options to improve defense. I'm not sure I'd want to change them further. Looking at comparisons at Noah/Trecks join times and throughout the game, there is still not much in it for units you get from chapter 1. I think it's just the problem that Alan/Lance have lower bases, thus having more room for screwage in the shorter time frame. Noah will always have at least 9 SPD and 10 STR. So the illusion is quite often he's a better pick if Alan/Lance falls short of either stat (which can be the case). The best thing I could do is tweak for slightly higher bases but lower growths. They may help a bit. Both still come very under-leveled and with 4 move. So high risk in terms of efficiency for high reward, I guess. Insane promotion bonuses help with that I should think. Then give her Clarine Support, a killer bow and watch her blow people up. In all seriousness, she is one of the most dependable units in the game in terms of RNG. She will have crazy high STR. She will have mediocre SPD at worst. She's a great candidate for a speedwing or bodyring if only because of Murgleis, of which she becomes the best Sniper (and otherwise doubles things like Druids). Wolt is great if he gains some STR. But on average it isn't that great and prone to screwage. And he has zero supports that really improve his power. Brave Bow further adds to her strengths. He's a great Axe user and can actually use the blade weapons without much effort (Probably the only one aside from Merlinus), and has double thunder with Clarine. He doesn't perform as well as other units late game, but you have ways to work with him. Early-mid he's a very strong and efficient unit. So does Guinevere. Point is, is that bosses can often be as strong as they like at that point since at the end of the day they are immobile enemies that are fought alone against an army of 20 player-owned units. On normal mode, possibly. I think she's fine otherwise. 17 STR, 16 DEF, 12 SPD at base is still fairly strong for her class. Took a hit to her speed growth in exchange for defense. Tradeoff makes her stronger against other flying units who she wasn't doubling regardless. Great in Ilia. Zeiss is much the same way. Higher bases makes him good from the get-go. And his growths are great. Also, Miledy's Dark affinity makes her an interesting support choice for someone like Lugh -- who's one real weakness is magic.

TBH, the changes will only be minor at best (As in, a pick-up stat booster difference for any unit). You shouldn't need to start again. Perhaps give your Alan a Speedwing to make up for it? Or reset for 1-2 points of speed w/ level ups? Could just do that, I guess. As long as he's not getting doubled he should be okay. Cavs/Paladin's aren't meant to really double much past mid game or so anyway.

New patch is up. I'll refrain from changing the original data in the original post until the hack is absolutely complete. Until then I'll just post changes that have been made. PATCH NOTES

They start at D, which, while still low -- S can be achieved. It helps that Noah has 1 extra CON over the other cavs to warrant using them (another plus point for Dieck which I forgot, who can reliably use axes over the other heroes). Just to note; all secondary weapons gained on promotion start D rank, with the exception of Staves for male Sages (E) and Staves for female Druids ©. Yeah, there are more. They do have high hit, granted. Don't rely on dodging them, I guess (unless you're Sue or Thany or something). But they're also easily taken care of due to no 1-range, obviously. They are ridiculous, yes! But that's how dark magic typically should be. They have 4 move to compensate though, of course. Ray and Sophia are the same. I believe that Ray has 24 MT at base. Someone like Lugh needs to wait until 20/8 in order to reach that with an Elfire. And he even loses speed from that. On the topic of dark magic, Guinevere was primarily added so you have another dark magic user should you need one (You haven't trained Ray or Sophia and Niime is risky to use for obvious reasons). You need all the Divine weapon uses as you can get. She's the Gotoh/Athos-esque unit this game needs. She just conveniently happens to be a sage who has appropriate dialogue for her to join. As for supports, Athos didn't have them either, I guess. And Roy is already capped at 10 options I presume (which would be an obvious pair). It's certainly something I could look into nonetheless.

Well, compare mid-game where Ilia or Sacae begin. NOAH: LV5 HP: 43 STR: 21 SKL: 20 SPD: 18 LUCK: 13 DEF: 15 RES: 11 Supports: Fir A, Treck B TRECK: LV4 HP: 46 STR: 19 SKL: 14 SPD: 18 LUCK: 19 DEF: 20 RES: 3 Supports: Gonzales B, Noah B Reason for Fir and Gonzales is because they're likely picks if you choose Noah/Treck IMO. Obviously you can go for any option. Gonzales really likes wind affinity (dodge them mages) and Noah is Fir's best partner (IMO) if you should choose to use her. Supporting with each other is only if you use both which doesn't always happen, but yeah, likely. Honestly, again, they're very similar. Main difference is trading 5 defense with 8 res. Noah will be better at Ilia. Treck at Sacae. Otherwise they are pretty much interchangeable. Noah is a better Axe user due to higher skill, I guess. Both can go for Armads but Noah is the better candidate IMO. Believe it gives him enough res to be 3RKOed by divine dragons, which is nice. Reason I'd put emphasis on the late game chapters because they're the hardest to do efficiently. Also, the defense cap for paladins is 24, which Treck caps easily (LV13 on average). Noah's still gaining defense at that point.

I think the Cavs are fine for the most part. Here's the averages for ~CH12; NOAH: LV: 15 HP: 32 STR: 14 SKL: 13 SPD: 12 LUCK: 9 DEF: 10 RES: 5 Supports: Fir B, Treck C/Zealot C TRECK: LV13 HP: 33 STR: 13 SKL: 10 SPD: 11 LUCK: 13 DEF: 13 RES: 0 Supports: Gonzales C, Zealot B (Or Noah C?) It's pretty damn close. And on the topic of supports, they both have supports that give them Avoid and Critical Avoid. Noah trades defense/Res for a little avoid and hit though. Support with Fir gives Noah more avoid/attack/crit (which is likely B by now). Treck likely only has a C with Gonz which gives him some crit. They can both go for Zealot if they need more damage. I think Noah wins at this stage still. He has an earlier better support option with Fir and trades STR, SPD, RES & SKL with DEF & LUCK. They're fairly even otherwise. Cavs gain +3 speed on promotion so they do get a healthy boost to that should they need it. Alan/Lance is weaker than both though (in terms of raw stats) so if anything I'd give changes to them. Yet they have two support options that give Ice Affinity, which are great for Cavs. And they come immediately. A potential +5 Def/Res by mid-game is really strong. I may revert their base speeds to keep them roughly on par with Noah/Treck though. Alan especially can suffer if he gets screwed. A low base can do that. As for Ellen/Saul and Wade/Lot. I can explain them. Ellen is a better healer due to plainly more magic. But their combat efficiency is not as different as you would think. Saul is very, very susceptible to crits and Ellen is almost immune to them as well as having a lot more avoid (like 15 more avoid by mid-game -- and that's without taking into account her own affinity which can easily give 10 more). Saul has speed, granted. And with Ice affinity, can certainly take a couple hits (still gets eaten by crits though). Wade and Lot... Wade has a better early-mid game. Lot has by far the better late game. More speed, faaar more res (which will matter so much). To put things into perspective, Lot doesn't get doubled by mamkutes. Wade borderline does (Armads coupled with Barrier/Water is enough to stop him getting ORKOed by Divine Dragons, but that's it). Lot is one of the best late game characters in the game, period. Can even double Mamkutes with Murgleis. Out of the four axe wielders (Wade/Lot/Gonz/Geese) Late game goes Lot > Geese > Gonz > Wade. Early/mid is inverted. Mages are much more common mid/late game, which is where strong early game units such as Wade, Treck, Bors etc... Drop off. And units such as Lot, Noah, Wendy, Geese etc... start to shine. Depends which route you go, however. Ilia is more magic heavy overall.

This would be accurate. Chapters 1-7 are mostly easier. The only exception would be chapter 6, which in Vanilla was strangely easy due to enemies having nerfed stats for some reason (Most enemies share a character ID, of which in CH6 had low base stats). Soldiers are another exception, due to much higher Speed (+con) and defense. Chapters 5 and 7 are noticeably nerfed. They were the peak difficulty in the original game which obviously came upon too early in the game. Chapter 8 is actually where enemies start to get stronger compared to Vanilla (again, aside from 6). Then the curve spikes up to chapter 12, then will be stable until CH17 or so, then spikes up in the split routes again. By that point the difficulty difference compared to Vanilla is huge. Then you'll be fighting 9 move, 24 Speed dragons with the best case scenario being that you'll actually clear CH24 with any Divine Weapon uses left. I think the main difference with Bors is that he can actually, well... hit things now? Many of the earlier chapters have plenty of axe users to the point where Bors previously couldn't really fight them all that well. Weapon hit buffs and increased skill fixed this. And that extra +1 speed base pretty much solved his problem of being initially doubled for the most part. You know, Dieck is probably in the top 3 characters I'm still not completely sure on the balance, but he's still good in practice. In the original game he had low-ish growths, but his dominance early on coupled with how slowly enemies grow post CH7 meant he always remained relevant. This meant he was fine in late game still (AKA, one of the best units in the game). Now he isn't, and struggles more late game. That goes for a lot of units though -- typically prepromotes (which he is better than on average, granted). He also has Thunder affinity and very good support options. He can go A Clarine for great crit rates, and Klein is a very good option for extra tankiness (+3 Def/Res at A). Then there's Rutger for damage or Thany for Dodge. They all come quite early and he's flexible with his class and numbers. I tried a late game Dieck with Klein support, and he turned out appropriately based on his average stats. He was okay, certainly not the best unit but he shouldn't be I guess. His early game is where he's really good still and can help clear fast. Oujay is by far the better late game-er but that goes without saying. Yeah, Wolt is very reliant on gaining STR due to his low base. In any case he still helps Marcus stay relevant mid-game even if his gains aren't too good. Double Ice is arguably the best affinity combo in the game. Dorothy suffers from not doubling anything much. But her bases are a lot more reliable for what she does. And she's not expected to double so speed isn't much of a concern. Killer or Brave bow usage is her forte. Percival support makes her pokes godly. Well, they're still the weakest non-iron/slim in terms of mt and are still on the low side of hit. They clearly fall off when you need stronger weapons later on. When enemies start using Spears/Tomahawks they won't compete, obviously. I can always increase the prices of them so they remain a threat when enemies have them, at least. Ha. Must have been when I upped the rank of those weapons recently. I always try to recall bosses that use certain weapons when I change them, yet that one didn't cross my mind! I'll have a fix for that soon. EDIT: Also, how you finding things where you're at? What units are you using?

Hmmm... I just tried it (the V1.0.2) and it seems to work fine. Are you sure you're using the correct file? Is it not the original JP copy? Best advice I could give is to try a fresh Rom if you can get one, I guess.

Here is a savestate you can use that has Hard unlocked.

Thanks for feedback, I'll look at making some changes. A lot of the balance has been made with late-game chapters in mind. For example, compared to the original game, the difficulty doesn't actually ramp up a big deal until ~chapter 10. Past CH16 or so, non-premotes are rarely, if ever encountered. As for caps, they do matter at endgame, in some respect. It doesn't matter than other aspects however, I agree. Also, the hack is balanced for hard mode in mind. But even in normal mode, the second half of the game should still be a nice challenge. I would think in normal mode the first chapters would be very easy indeed. As for Lilina in chapter 8, I'll hotfix that immediately. Something I strangely overlooked. EDIT: Hotfix has been done. Re-download the patch. How far are you? There are more promotion items to be stolen, especially chapters 8-13 or so. I believe you get two more guiding rings, for example (one in 8x and another in 12). I believe that before chapter 16x there's; 4 Guiding Rings 3 Orion's Bolts 4 Knight's Crests 4 Hero Crests 3 Elysian Whip Should be enough. You can of course buy more at the CH16 secret shop. I assume this is on normal mode. Dorothy doesn't double anything on hard mode (except armors). Soldiers on hard have ~8 speed at lowest for example. Wolt is subceptable to STR problems. As for longbows -- they're rare and/or expensive to buy. They're a luxury item like a Killer Weapon would be. I can tell why on normal mode they'd break the early chapters though. It's hard to balance both normal and hard modes though. In early chapters an enemy with 5 speed on Normal would have 8 speed on Hard. But in later chapters it would be 15 speed on normal and 18 on Hard which is much less of a difference. Power creep is similar but lower bases are obviously very different. If you are on normal mode the bases on early enemies will be awful granted. Class bases are low and growths are high, so in normal the growths haven't kicked in yet for enemies. Whilst on hard, they have (since they have hidden levels). Ray has Anima. Giving Sophia light is just a unique quality I guess (two magic types at tier 1). Light magic has the highest hit rates to help her early on. She doesn't get Anima at promotion though (just staves). I believe you only receive two in the game total. In general I think it's fine. 20 uses may seem a lot, but rescue isn't nearly as powerful as say, warp. And Rescue promotes interesting strategies and makes the early healers less one-dimensional. I think on a second playthough you would reserve them as much as you can until lategame however. Since in those chapters you need all the help you can get. But using a clutch rescue at any stage can help you in certain situations throughout the game. This should be fixed now in another hotfix I just did. Seems like some enemies have 0 luck default on that map and I gave the enemies on that map -1 luck, meaning it loops to 31. So I've removed that. So hopefully it's fixed.