Mandokarla

So in my own first time through Hard run, I'm in part 4 now. My Nolan is garbage, my Leonardo is lvl4 Sniper, my Greil are half T3, and Ellincia's goons are all still T2 aside from Calill. And I'm not struggling at all. Pick a couple people you like a lot, and play with favoritism. My Edward is about to cap most everything as a swordmaster, my archsages are the same. Haar is god-king. Pick your faves and abuse them.

I can understand where you're coming from, as a person that absolutely hates any and all armor units. However, I've found that General!Effie + Beast Slayer can, after level 5, Solo the Furry Genocide. Only deploy her and Corrin, pair em up with some vulneraries and whatnot, and Wary Fighter will let her sit in a bush and slowly tank her way through the map. Aside from that, Effie is too useful in the earlygame (IMO) to ignore, considering her damage output.

I saw Shurikenbreaker mentioned and I'd like to chime in: In my opinion, Shurikenbreaker is a nice-to-have, but not a necessity. I had a Corrin-mothered Ophelia by chapter 11. When I accessed the ninja cave, She was promoted with the Calamity Gate. Ophelia with the Calamity Gate is literally all you need to faceroll that chapter on LCQ. I did love LCQ, I didn't feel like it was unfair in any way until fucking Iago's chapter. When Chapter 26 is the first lunatic chapter where you are calling bullshit, I'd say thats some pretty solid difficulty balancing.

I kept seeing people reference effective weapons, and I'll add in here, at the risk of repetition: effective weapons in FE7 are hot fucking garbage. Only 2X effective might means wyverns might still not take any more damage from Lyn's bows than anyone else with their usual weapons. The Mani Katti is a decent weapon, but it only barely allows her to killsteal for early exp. She is completely worthless sans stat-boosters in endgame because the Sol Katti weighs as much as a Death Star, and kills her AS -- you know, her only potential strong point. Upon promotion she gets the objectively worst weapon class in FE7 as a secondary, and does not get a mount of any notable kind -- this limits utility purposes such as rescue-dropping with GBA canto. Lyn, like literally any character in all of Fire Emblem, can be babied into being a good unit, but that possibility doesn't make her good. Compare the effort required to make Marcus a high-value unit vs making Lyn a high-value unit. Lyn needs a LOT of experience, potentially some stat boosters, and a Prf weapon. Marcus needs a Hand Axe. Marcus is also around earlier, and can hold his own into endgame.

That was the joke Serious input would be Samurai!Odin

Ballistician!Anna

Niles and Nyx let's you get Onmyoji Nina, which can be nice for a mixed Staff Utility + Tomes unit, if you get her early. The rest I think are decent enough pairings, though I'm never a fan of using Keaton at all. Are you gonna pass Quick Draw down to Sophie?

I really should make myself play FE6, huh?

Because I saw another thread discussing the worst map in the franchise (with several entries from Thracia), I thought it would also be fun to see what we all consider to be the best designed map in the franchise. For me, I feel like Chapter 10 of Conquest is one of the best designed maps of the franchise, for a couple of reasons. The initial placement of certain enemies both gives you a couple turns to get a few of the houses, and encourages you to aggressively push outward from your starting position. Picking the first of those two choices risks you not having enough space to navigate the second half of the chapter's reinforcements (and the corresponding dragon vein activation) without risking resets or losses, and picking the second can -- if you don't plan it out -- lead to you not grabbing one or two of the houses (usually the dracoshield, in my experience). The two ballistae and the Fire Orb encourage you to use, and move, your units to use those defensive structures -- but the leftmost turret is also a potential risk for the unaware. The dragon vein activation doubles the pressure on you as your progress, and without the water's removal the map would be extremely easy to turtle. Additionally, just as you might find yourself in need of aid, you get reinforced by the best unit in the game (and her retainers). With those fliers to help deal with loose pegasi, you can breathe a bit before the DV. Alternatively, you can use them to grab the houses -- again, this map forces you into a decision. Can you afford to not use the fliers on player phase for combat? Do you value the dracoshield and the dual club highly enough to expose them? I love those choices. Also, and this might be a plus just for me because I love status staves, this map encourages, but does not require, the use of Freeze staves to give you some space.

A few months back I was playing Conquest and somehow my Kaze managed to cap strength without stat boosters. It was absurd (that said, his str. cap is 15 or 25 for ninja or master ninja, so still super low). He ripped through people later on. In my most recent run, I had my Leo level speed for 4 or 5 levels in a row, which put him into consistent doubling range for the rest of the game. He was a demon on a horse, and when I Sorc'ed him at xl16 he just got faster and hit harder. In Awakening I have a tendency to favor Virion, but even on my first playthrough the man became my most reliable ranged unit. I will never not advocate for an early forged longbow for our noble friend. There is always an opportunity to chip or kill for him. In GBA I never really had any super scary standout units actually. Hero!Garcia put in a lot of work for me last time I played SS, it was actually really nice to early promote him in time for the Ghost ship. Fuck the ghost ship.

I gave the first ones to Geoffrey and Soren. I didn't know a GM vs DB chapter was happening on 3-7, so I didn't put the crown on someone stealable.

Who should I give the first Master Crowns to in Part 3, in order of importance? Titania already promoted without one, that lovely flame-haired goddess, and Haar is not far behind.

I have a pretty intense hatred of any and all Tsundere characters. It's not cute, it's not funny, those characters almost never develop in any meaningful way, and as units they tend to suck anyway. Severa comes to mind as the prime example. I despise Corrin because of how utterly moronic they are in 2/3 routes. Other than that, I pretty heavily dislike a large amount of the Birthright cast -- Setsuna is a stoner with little to no depth, Hana is so wet for Sakura it's creepy (and totally one-note), Hinata is an idiot, and the rest (aside from the ninja trio) are forgettable. Also Rhajat exists, and while I have much less of an issue with fanservice than most people on this forum, her copy-paste design had no reason to exist. As for vague dislikes, Ephraim annoys me because cocky characters (who almost never get punished for it) annoy me. Hector comes close for the same reason. Characters like Vaike are like snorting sand to me -- coarse, irritating, and completely without value.

This is a hard one, but I think my ideal FE game would be something like the following: The "Lord" / Protagonist is a young magic user from a border dukedom. His family was originally a clan of warriors and druids that lived in the western mountain foothills -- making a living farming and mining the mountains. The local bordering kingdom paid them little mind, as their mines and meager pastures were not needed or desired by the nobility. After a military incursion from the southwest side of the mountains was beaten back by the clan, the Kingdom granted the clan the opportunity to enjoy the perks of an established kingdom while maintaining a high degree of autonomy. In exchange for this, the clan, now a dukedom, was to guard the kingdom from the southeastern raider city states -- who eke out a living in their barren, sweeping, grassy plains by raiding eachother and herding cattle. Those raider states have been quiet since, many thinking they've died out. The lord is studying magic from the clan's older druids -- the last remaining ones from the time of the Union. He shows promise, with a keen mind and a talent for the wilder dark magics of the world. However, he is still young, and battles constantly against his pride and arrogance. One day, three and a half years through his traditional five years of study and training, he is studying the more complex dark magic incantations and tomes when the alarm horn blares out -- declaring the presence of an approaching army from the other side of the mountains. He rushes outside, and sees not a band of raiders, but what appears to be an organized (if roughshod) army approaching. An army far too large to defeat on open grounds. The prologue begins with our lord rushing out to fight, against the direct order of his father and his druid teacher, and is joined by two of his closest friends -- an axe fighter and an archer. Green unit allies are arrayed against the enemy army, who receives reinforcements every turn. The enemy is forced to rush down a relatively narrow corridor, and you are to defend as long as possible (5 turns). After that ends, you are found and ordered to leave by the protag's father. Our Lord tries to cast a spell beyond his capability at the enemy, and succeeds in killing everyone in that corridor, almost including his father. After doing so, the dangerous side effects of dark magic strike back, pushing him into a state of hysteria before he collapses, unconscious. He reawakes after the battle, on the road into the kingdom, hours after the battle. He is determined to get help for his people, and to strike back against the invaders, and the story will involve him fighting the odd bandits or corrupt knights on his way to the capitol, where he will ask for aid. Plot develops from there, I have ideas on that line. Protag will struggle with the sadism, madness, and animalistic impulses associated with overuse of Dark Magic. He will make mistakes, he will in certain situations go too far and execute someone horrifically when it wasn't necessary. I want a broken, desperate character that is torn between pride and a deep fear of being a failure. Gameplay wise, there will be no avatar, constitution / weapon weight is making a comeback. Weapon durability is back except in the cases of unbreakable rare Prf weapons (which would be a dark tome for the Lord for example) that are middle of the pack statwise, with odd special effects. No Raijinto gamebreakers here. It will use a toned-down variation of the Fateswakening skills system, but with no reclassing. Unique, unit specific promos will be a thing for some units. There will be no child units, and there will be no grinding possible. HOWEVER, there will be an overworld map like Awakening, Gaiden, or Sacred Stones that will offer side quests and side missions that will appear under certain conditions. Protag-kun will have to make decisions in the plot, and those decisions will have consequences. Some side quests will be time limited (as you're being invaded, they cant hold out forever), and some will be mutually exclusive. Only two tiers of promotion. No god or dragon final boss. I want the Tellius or Jugdral magic triangles back, and I want Tellius style stealing back.

Nolan is lvl14 unpromoted, he has some room. Edward is almost promoted. I'm just gonna keep going as is, I think I'll be alright. Jill is a fast flyer, so she's just good. Edward is actually doing pretty damn well for himself, which surprised me for some reason. He has the Brave Sword to secure some priority kills if he needs to. Should I give him Vantage? It seems like it'd be good to have in combination with Wrath.

Micaiah, Edward, Ilyana, Sothe, Jill, and Nolan all have been trained -- Nolan is pretty behind though, only level 14. All of those are promoted except for Edward, who is level 19 right now. He's been getting great levels. My laura died early and I didn't feel like resetting, so I master Sealed Ilyanna at 15 because for some reason I expected her to get Staves on promo. Nope. Oh well. She does decent damage, she's just slow and has hitrate problems. Aran is level 17, but he still has almost base speed, which just kinda sucks major ass. Tormod just filled a spot that needed filling, and did decently doing so. I expect him to die lategame.

I knew this already, I generally play FE games on hard first time through, because Normal / easy almost always turns into a "this unit takes this half of the map, this unit takes the other, my lord twiddles their thumbs" kind of stompfest. FE8 did this, FE7 did this, Echoes does this, Path of Radiance kinda does that, Awakening absolutely does that, and Fates almost dodges it.

I've never actually played Radiant Dawn, so I've finally gotten my hands on it and have been playing. I've beaten Part 1 already, and I feel bad for Ms. Silver Hair because I like her and I know she's gonna get cucked out of her own game soon by Ike. So far my thoughts on units are as follows: Sothe is very useful and I like him a fair bit. I'm a big fan of Volug too, I have him with Paragon equipped right now to maybe offset his reduced exp gain a little bit -- probably not optimal, but hey I'm playing on Normal, not Hard -- and he's reliable. Ilyana just isn't great, she has some pretty noticeable hitrate problems. Jill is good, if a little strength screwed for me. Edward has been getting great levelups, his stats currently are almost equal to Zihark's before promoting. Leonardo and Nolan are on the bench right now -- one's an archer and the other is too slow. Meg is garbage, Fiona is bad (?), Tormod was excellent, and Muarim / Vika were nice and powerful. Nailah can step on me. Moving into the rest of the game, what units are good and what units are utter trash? I've been told that RD is one of the harder FE games in the mid-lategame, so I'd like to not cry inside. Is there any other thing, like a good item or something, that I should definitely be aware of?

I want more status staves, utility staves, etc. I'd love to see a return of some of the FE4 / 5 status staves, and ideally (this is the hard part) I'd like to see map designs that make the use of these staves attractive without making it necessary. For example, I don't want Shadow Dragon syndrome, where you warpskip the game. Moments like in fe4 chapter 1, where you are all but told to use the Silence staff to survive the castle approach, is a good moment in my eyes (though it is more mandatory than i'd like, because I remember that siege tome having very good hit, which is meh). I also want to see siege tomes return, the lack of obtainable ones in Fates/Awakening made me sad. It was a fun additional option that was available to the player that wanted to put in the work stealing the tomes. Heroes has some good concepts with staves, a gravity staff could be fun to see implemented. The pain staff has merit, etc. I've had an idea for a new class or skill that doubles down on staves, where they are able to invert staff effects for combat. For example, a heal/mend/physic could be used on an enemy to deal damage equal to the heal amount - target's res. For the most part, this is melee magic damage, but I think it could be super interesting to have a changed healer archetype. This would be promoted, of course. Maybe be able to Warp enemy units as long as your magic exceeds their con or some such shit. I'd also like to see traditional durability and forging return, because Fate's "balancing" without durability was atrocious -- it made Silver weapons pretty much unusable, and Steel was completely obsolete. Even Killer weapons were not all that great, but the real functioning upgrade order of weapons in fates was Iron -> Killer = Effective Weaponry -> Brave in the vast majority of cases.

3rd Option: Don't use an archer in FE7 -- only 2x effective damage combined with low stats and no 1-2 range means they are just not really good. But if you are determined to use an archer, I recommend Rath for two reasons: Mounts = good by default, and he gets swords on Promotion. He also gets hard mode bonuses I think

Of the existing classes / class archetypes in Fire Emblem, how would you improve their viability? How would you make that class / those classes more appealing to spend a unit slot on for the next FE game? For example, I've long held that the Thief -> Assassin path is weak and only occasionally useful outside of GBA (GBA Thieves were very, very nice to have. FE8 rogues are a favorite class of mine). This is for several reasons: Base thieves have weak combat (which is reasonable, and makes sense), actual thief utility in most of the recent games has been on the low side -- namely due to the removal of the Steal mechanic, and the Lethality skill that only Assassin's and Master Ninja's get is all but completely useless. What are the goals of a thief or assassin, and how do they achieve those goals? Stealth, cunning, and timing. I would improve these classes by implementing the following skill choices (I will use the Awakening / Fates skill system, because that's the most likely to stay): What class archetypes would you guys like to see improved for the next game, and how would you do it? Preferably without outright breaking the game, though I know my idea above comes close to that.

The preference here is entirely playstyle based. Some people are more aggressive, and others are more cautious. I personally trend towards the aggressive when I play Fire Emblem, and so I think SB is a good skill for dealing with a mob. That said, I like having both skill sets because it's easy to get both. I've found that savage blow is actually helpful on Lunatic, it puts more units into reliable ORKO range for the rest of your team later on. A defensive player would prefer Rally Def, but it only costs two HS to get both skill sets, so I see no real reason not to invest those to get a Camilla that can carry you really easily. Sakura's map in particular was borderline cheesed by my Camilla with both Swordbreaker and Trample. I was at zero risk until I greeded for xp after killing Yukimura. Tl;dr there is value both ways.

Honestly, WL is better for her 9/10 times, BUT, It is worth either staying in, or dipping back in, to Malig Knight at 15 for Trample. It does make a significant difference, especially on lunatic.

*High five* Damn right. And hey, nothing wrong with liking tits. I'm partial to them myself. Just support them with better writing next time.

How are we supposed to actually gauge this? Are we making these judgements based on checking the boxes on completed runs, are we considering turncounts, or maybe the number of resets/deaths? It's hard to accurately judge this kind of thing. To pull a subjective placement out of the air, I'd like to say that I'm somewhat better than average, but not good, per se. Conquest Lunatic was, in my opinion, the perfect example of well balanced Lunatic, and I've thoroughly enjoyed it without struggling until roughly the eternal stairway. Sacred Stones on hard with no grinding whatsoever is actually a fair challenge, and I see it as the best way to play the game. Still on the easier side, but I love that game. The only map in SS I consistently struggle with is Ephraim's damn boat. Not a fan of boat maps. This is a hard topic to judge with any degree of relevancy. There isn't really any "right" way to play outside of Lunatic (and that's only because there are some DEFINITELY wrong ways to play the hardest difficulty in that game).