timon

Well you can't give her gifts but you can still eat and do choir (which she likes), and I'm pretty sure once I got to C I unlocked Tea time? That might be me misremembering stuff, but I'm certain I got her to B before even choosing which side to take. Don't know how many months I had her at B, but she never asked me. I'm not sure about the chances though, so no idea if I was unlucky or it's just not possible (I think it's locked tbh).

So wait, if you get her to B support (you don't need hacking for that btw, I did it) in Edelgard's route you can have her autojoin even if you go empire? Otherwise I don't get what you're saying, I got her in Church route no problem? Raising her to B support is really not that hard, you can get to C just by eating and then spam flowers on chapter 11 if anything.

I like her as a unit, I have a weakness for "nuke" builds in all games, I just like to see how far I can take that damage count. But I really dislike her character, most of it is due to her voice. I get it, she's meant to be a kid, but she's 15, she sounds like she's 6. Yes, I get it, there are adults with that kind of voice, I'm not saying it's unnatural or whatever, I just can't stand it. It's far, far too high pitched for my likings. Design wise I like her post skip, though I was hoping for a bit more growth, after all she goes from 15 to 20, you'd expect her to change the most. Preskip is a bit bland, but it works. Her backstory is interesting (especially since I discovered it while playing through Crimson Flower), but as for personality and traits I'm not a fan. Prodigies are not my thing, the only one I liked in FE was Cordelia, and Lysithea doesn't share a lot with her. Playing the "I'm an adult" thing is also not a favourite of mine, though she does it miles better than the kid from Fates whose name I can't remember. The one trait I like about her is that she's "rushing" through life because she knows it's short. It makes you think really, she's rushing because she knows she doesn't have a lot left, and yet every single one of the characters could be in that situation, it's a war after all, everyone should make the most of it (if you want to be deep you could even extend it to real life, we don't know how much we have left after all). That said, she's definitely not the worst character in the game, that award goes to the likes of Lorenz (no, he has not a single redeeming quality for me, at all), Bernadetta or Caspar.

Well, you just confirmed it then. "A good tank needs to be fast enough", that's my point, there's no space for variety, that's a problem at the root of these games (again, I'm not talking about FE only). And even if he was, you'd still rather make him a hard hitting Wyvern Lord, and even then there'd be better units than him. On the Oswain point, to be completely honest I can't remember a thing of old FE games' gameplay so I'm not sure what you mean, but again this is not necessarily only about Fire Emblem, but RPGs and leveling games in general. They always push an archetype, balance is nearly impossible. I suppose there's also a nice thing about snowballing which is that you can mostly play in whatever way you want and still do good (if the game isn't too hard), but that doesn't shake away the feeling that you're limiting yourself on purpose.

I'm... not sure if you're purposedly trying to miss my point or what. It's not really about Fates, and it's not about level difference, I said Camilla off the top of my mind. What I mean is, you want to hit hard and do it fast, just like in every other game, instead of tanking or do "quirky" more interesting stuff. I haven't played Fates in a while so I couldn't really tell you specific examples, I didn't even enjoy it too much so it's not very memroable to me, but I'm not talking details here. Just think of the life long discussion you had in that other thread about Raphael, the whole point is that Raphael is actually not good, because he's meant to do something that is not optimal. That's it. You can use him, and it's probably more fun to use him and mix up your team instead of smashing everything with Lysithea+Wyverns, but powerful fast hitters are always going to be superior. I can't think of a single RPG that's actually balanced and makes hybrid mages or tanks as valuable as "focused down" builds.

Yeah okay, point still stands, magic maybe is not THAT good in that iteration, but you're still better off killing everything on the spot with Camilla than training General Benny or something like that. Also note that I wasn't just talking about FE, it's a general problem in every level/stats/class based game, it always ends up in snowballing, and snowballing means power and speed are everything (be it magic or physical). Mage knights are always such a cool idea, and yet it's always better to go Knight or go Mage.

Please never focus on that skill, battallion are so infinitely better than a plain 5 damage. Even Jeralt's Mercs at E Authority could be considered better tbh. On the hybrid topic, tbh I'm not sure, if he didn't have a strength in Bows maybe I could see it being a good option, but if you have strong bows and easy access to Assassin/BK there's not really much of a reason to switch to magic. The occasional Fortress Knight isn't enough imo, those are so garbage you can beat them with a stick. What you're going to end up with is more likely to be a jack of all trades that actually gets outclassed by the others. It's the ethernal struggle of class/stats based RPGs, hybrid and tanks are always a cool idea, but in the end you're always better off having incredibly fast and hard hitting physical units and glass cannon mages. It's a problem at the root of a level based game, raw power becomes all, and it cancels other builds in terms of efficiency.

Well this speaks to how useful and memorable she is rofl

Dorothea is a good dancer for Eagles and Deer where you have better mages (Hubert and Marianne/Lysithea), but when I recruited her in Lions and used her full potential man, was she a powerhouse. So I'd say Gremory since basically everyone is a good dancer, though imo she's the best one since she has access to both long range attack (Meteor) and long range healing (Physic). Also strong in sword if you're ever going to use a sword instead of a spell (I doubt it). Felix I like to keep as an Assassin, Mortal Savant is just not a good class, and I'd rather abuse his crazy speed, I'd consider it if he had a spell with higher Mt than f-ing Thoron. Would be nice if Swordmaster were viable in endgame, but Assassin having 1 more Mov and Bow proficiency is just better. That said, if we're going for optimization Felix is a Bow Knight. About Ferdie, I'm sad that so many people are going for Master classes on this guy, I get that Wyvern Lord is his best class, but it gets boring since it's everyone's best class. Great Knight seems interesting, but you're forgetting that Paladin is actually a damn good endgame class, better than GK imo. And you can really focus down lances without hopping into weird axe cavalier shenaningans. (which is fun, but unless you're in NG+, getting to GK without statues might be a pain, especially if you go for the shorter Edelgard route). Chicol's lance (can't remember the name) is also very nice with his ability, since it puts him back to avoid boost.

In my first playthrough I've had Linhardt's back to back with Marianne and Lysithea. With Annette as well iirc. To Marianne he tells that he'll dedicate his whole life to her, to Lysithea that he'd like to know her as family or something like that. Can't exactly remember with Annette, but iirc he mentions marriage.

I think it's really all about the last thing you pointed out. It's a war in the shadows. IIRC Hubert tells you that internal conflicts have been happening for quite some time, and that he intends to personally deal with them without worrying Edelgard. Obviously the ending tells us that she leads the charge, but we could guess that before this happens our local vampire does a fair amount of work to weaken them. And they're already pretty weakened, with Edelgard as emperor. Arundel doesn't really hold much more political power, he can't abuse the nobility system since it's basically destroyed, Cornelia and Solon are dead. So yeah, the Empire is not at its best, but the slitherers are in a similar position.

I'm not sure how much you know, so I'll put it under spoilers, read at your own risk (but do know that there is a reason).

I really like everyone in the Eagles except Bernie and Caspar. I guess Edelgard, Dorothea and Hubert have the edge. Vote goes to Hubert since I'm sure the other two will get plenty. Blue Lions has the opposite problem, I really can't think of a single character that stood out to me. I like Dimitri's character arc, but I really don't like him. I guess I'll vote Annette, she's a bit bland but her voice is one of the best in the game, and her timeskip appearence saved her from being our regional loli (thank god). Goldeen Deer is Leonie. Marianne and Hilda are good but Leonie is SO good. Was disapponted by Claude, nice that he searches for truth, but I don't like his motives. As for Church people, I surprisingly ended up liking most of them, exceptions being Cyril, Flayn and Manuela. Vote goes to Jeralt, I like his attitude. Also those month intros are amazing.

I don't think anyone understood that design choice tbh, someone's saying that her final battle needed to be against Rhea because she's her final enemy, but I don't agree with that at all. Rhea is her political enemy, the enemy of her goals, TWSITD are her personal enemies, so it would've been a lot more fitting to have a closure against them, to complete her character arc. My theory is simply that they didn't finish it in time and had to write it off tbh, let's not forget that this game was delayed a fair bit so development didn't go as smoothly as initally thought (and the first build they've shown was very very early stuff), I think they needed a bit more time but couldn't do it because 1) Nintendo needed this release to "fill up" the months leading to bigger stuff and 2) delaying two times is not good marketing. It's not even just the route, Edelgard's paralogue is a copypaste of Hilda's, which makes me think is the reason they had to remove Hilda from her route (she has endings coded in for CF).

Thank you Well RIP, I don't have online (nor intend to get it), but thanks for the info.

Also I'm trying to collect Battallions, but I can't find Essar Research Group and Empire Youths, anyone know where to get those? (btw it's really annoying that they give me duplicates in NG+, sorting through them to sell is hell, UI is not at its best there)

What do you mean? Haven't used Seraphim ever I think, so I'm not sure. Do you mean the targeted tile goes from full yellow square to nothing in one hit (without broken square phase)? Or that it literally breaks the whole barrier in one shot? Because if it's just that it breaks one square you can achieve the same with any gambit (plus half breaking the other with AoE), so I'm not sure how relevant it can be.

Pretty sure that's wrong. It's definitely not that simple, people would've figured it out a lot sooner otherwise. It's based on hidden support points, and if there's a tie it apparently goes off internal order.

It does make a difference though. Move in, dismount, kill Move out, mount, kill someone else If you make it be the turn's action you have: Go in, dismount Kill Move out, mount Yes you could kill on the counter attack, but assuming you're dismounting to deal with archers they're going to shoot at 3 range, so you'd need a Longbow, and you're still taking the damage instead of killing in PP. You're also probably missing the second kill. Now is it a big difference? No, but it can definitely be something to consider, especially if they increase the amount of archers and give them CC, you're going to have to think before blazing in and ransacking everything with Wyverns.

Well this confirms it, you can recruit her regardless of literally anything then. I assumed it needed Byleth since you need him to spare Claude and her dialogue speaks directly to the professor (I guess it's just another one of those "let's talk while there's a giant battlefield between us"). I assume it'll be the same for the other 2 chumps then.

I don't doubt it, but promising to marry and live the rest of your life with someone (who says it back) and doing the same 5 seconds later with someone else is a bit much, you know?

She changes if you go against her (which you've already seen by going GD), if you go with her she stays sane and mostly acts like a good protagonist, so yeah, you could say a bit bland. You do get the chance to know her backstory/personality/motives though, so it's still a very interesting experience, but you surely don't get the flip that Dimitri has. If you want to see characters go crazy do Blue Lions, it's definitely the path where both Dimitri and Edelgard change the most (and not for the better).

Yes they're always been hidden, except when there's a conversation. That's the point, in Fates/Awakening you can tell who's going to get paired with whom because the fact that they get S lets you know that they have a certain amount of points, and activating the conversation locks them into that ending. That's kind of what I'm hoping we'll go back to, without necessarily having the mostly awkward S conversation. Just, once I get enough points for A+ let me click a button and lock that ending, so I don't have to manage units around for the rest of the game trying not to screw up a pair. But my biggest hope is that we can remove romance from non locked ranks. It doesn't make sense that I can get someone 3 A ranks if said A ranks are explicitly romantic. Either make the A rank non-romantic (and add in the choice for the endings) or lock characters to one A rank only, otherwise it's just very weird.

I'd say she's straight up better. She joins just a chapter late with the best weapon type almost maxed out and basically ready to get into BK. Catherine's proficiencies on the other hand are just bizarre, I get that you can work her towards Falcon, but Shamir is just much more natural, and the fact that she uses Bows instead of Swords also means that she's going to be more useful (though the sheer power of Catherine gives her the advantage for the first couple chapters you get them I guess).

If they can get A rank they can have a paired ending. And yes, you can see who's going to be by looking at the closest allies list, though obviously it's a bit tricky since not everyone will have the respective other person as closest ally. I think people are still trying to figure out how it exactly works, but if you can manage to get the pairs you want to have each other on top of the list you should get what you want (it worked for me at least). Byleth is obviously out of this whole deal, at some point lategame you choose whoever you want (if you have A with them). You can even choose to not choose and he'll have a solo ending.