Aethelstan

Violence and sexual content that is considered "deviant" are not treated remotely the same in America. America has always been fine with gratuitous violence with no one batting an eye. Look at violent works that are hugely popular in America like Dragonball Z, Scarface, and Call of Duty. Now try to think of widely popular films, games, shows, etc in America that prominently features incest. It's way harder because that stuff doesn't really fly here. Japan just has a less reactionary culture around that stuff. I'm not speaking my personal preference. I adore FE4, I think it's the best narrative of all FE games. I wish they would remake it. But it's not an accident that Nintendo put it on the e-store in Japan and didn't mention it here while they went out of their way to localize FE1 for the US despite us just getting a remake a few years ago that didn't even sell that great. They don't want to deal with the firestorm FE4 would lead to here. Only way I see it happening is if it's not on the nintendo store and is some small physical release. But that's not been Nintendo's style recently.

Those mods look sick! I'm a little disappointed in how few choices there are for Fodlan, but other than that it's a really cool idea. Do these mods also contain a unique unit and ability for each civ? I voted Jugdral and Elibe. I personally would play Agustria as Ares

I generally agree with you that most of the ambush spawns are fine. I would only add one more example to your one of Miklan's being annoying. Felix's paralogue has a spawn point that puts out some decently fast rogues right in the path the villager's AI will take to their escape point. Your units are usually pretty spread out on that map so you may need to divine pulse way back to set people up who can intercept them. I usually find ambush spawns annoying in some older games because you can do everything right and only lose becasue it's your first time playing the map and you didn't know they would be there. But I think it's uniquely fine in 3H because of divine pulse. I think that's mainly what the developer intended it for.

Three Houses has a dynamite story. But I wouldn't say most narratively intensive by far. I gotta plug FE4. I think it's better than the VW, SS, or CF routes of Three Houses and rivals AM. Path of Radiance is also up there. I also don't think the FE7 plot is thin once it gets to Bern and if you put in the time to learn Nergal's backstory. Shadow Dragon, Sacred Stones, and many others are nothing special narrative wise though. My biggest gripe about the lower difficulties is I don't think Intelligent Systems is good balancing them and that makes a lot of new players think the game is just poorly designed. On the harder difficulties you are forced to use all the tools at your disposal to get by. Some franchises are really good at encouraging you to do all that stuff even at lower difficulties so you always get the full experience but FE is usually not because that's never been IS' forte. On lower difficulties in casual mode there is just no reason to worry about inventory management, learning skills outside the most obvious class tree, or even something as basic as unit placement on maps because no matter what you choose your unit will likely be able to kill whatever it comes across. I think casual mode is part of the problem. The maps in the series are partially balanced around the enemy being able to use kamikaze tactics while you cannot, so even if you have better stats than them like on lower difficulties, the computer still has an advatage you lack. But with casual mode there is never a negative consequence to just bum rushing the boss with all your units regardless of the map. So that's the only strategy many players ever pursue. On higher difficulties, casual mode can still be challenging and fun for some players, but it kills the exeprience completely on lower difficulties in my opinion. All that said, I prefer the franchise making lots of money to it not doing that because that's how we get more games. So if the cost of that is some people falsely believing the games are two dimensional it's a very small price to pay.

For me what has distinguished him the most on my team and why I say he's one of my better units now is Deadeye. I think it's unique to him and Bernadetta. It's not that useful right when you get it. But after Death Blow, Bowfaire, Hit+20, and an accuracy ring he regularly has about ~75 hit chance on the most distant units he can reach and it's strong enough to one shot many mages and archers, removing them before they ever have the chance to become annoying. That makes it much easier to advance with fliers and low res units. Also good for weakening some units that charge in from outside your reach like cavaliers making them easy to one round when they reach you. That's something only he is capable of on my team. And it was easy to build it all before the time skip.

For me what has distinguished him the most on my team and why I say he's one of my better units now is Deadeye. I think it's unique to him and Bernadetta. It's not that useful right when you get it. But after Death Blow, Bowfaire, Hit+20, and an accuracy ring he regularly has about ~75 hit chance on the most distant units he can reach and it's strong enough to one shot many mages and archers, removing them before they ever have the chance to become annoying. That makes it much easier to advance with fliers and low res units. Also good for weakening some units that charge in from outside your reach like cavaliers making them easy to one round when they reach you. That's something only he is capable of on my team. And I was able to build it all before the time skip.

That's one of the good points of the Sniper line. Since all he needs is bows I spent the extra time building up his authority. He's already at B

Welcome! We can always use more Sylvain fans here. I'm newish myself. FE7 was also my first Fire Emblem and the one I've played the most times. I never grow tired of that story. Happy posting!

Giving an update for whoever still cares. I've made it to Chapter 10 and haven't lost anyone. I took everyone's advice and narrowed my team down to all the Blue Lions except Dedue, plus Ferdinand, Leonie, Lysithea and Caspar. I'm debating switiching Seteth into my main team when I get him. I made Ferdinand my Dancer and he's been broken. Using him feels like Lewyn from FE4. Everything except a few assassins have less than a 20% chance of hitting him. I also got Seal Speed from his budding talent so he was great at helping Ashe and Leonie get kills after weakening units on enemy phase. I used to always use Dorothea as my dancer for the linked attack boost with meteor but in terms of utility I now think Ferdinand is more valuable. Being able to dance frontline fighters in dangerous locations and not have to worry gives you much more flexibility. Also Ferdie looks godly in the dancer outfit. I know many people recommend getting Mov +1 for Dancer Ferdinand but I just gave him the movement stat booster and I'm interested in hearing what other skills might be useful. I'm kind of thinking Alert Stance to help with the few enemies Ferdie is still struggling to dodge. But not sure it's best because I almost always find it more useful to dance another unit rather than wait. Please give me suggestions. Also do people usually make Annette a WR before the timeskip? I don't have a Bolt Axe or Crusher yet but she does know Lightning Axe and can kill with it, she would just be useless/vulnerable on enemy phase having to rely on her bad strength if I lost access to her magic right now. But I know flying movement can be useful for Chapter 13. That was my original idea behind WR Ashe, I'm just less worried about him now. I get why people dislike Ashe. He certainly took a lot of investment. But A) His chip damage was an absolute necessity for me many times in the early game where many units could not afford to take damage on player phase but could kill in one hit with a combat art after chip damage and B) After getting Death Blow and Bowfaire from Sniper he's become of my better units. He would really appreciate having Hunter's Volley but I don't think he's bad without it, just not amazing. Appreciate all the help thus far!

I want remakes of the Elibe games. Particulary one where Lynn is worth using on harder difficulties. There should also be one more game in the style of three houses, though it probably won't come out for years. But it seems to be IS' style. (Binding Blade then Rekka no Ken, Awakening then Fates, PoR then Radiant Dawn) FE4 is among my favorite games of any franchise but there is no way in hell it would ever be released in America and put on the Nintendo store here. I don' think it's the gameplay at all. I think it's the incest. America is far more conservative about that stuff than Japan. If it was released here there would be tons of Kotaku and Polygon articles about it and it would generate lots of negative attention for the franchise they don't want. They took great pains over the last few games to give the series more mainstream appeal, they wouldn't throw that away for FE4 for just the most hardcore fans. I'd be happy to be proven wrong but I don't think I will be.

Okay you've all given me a lot to think about. I've only played Maddening NG+ with BE and VW before. This is my first Maddening NG on any route. Blue Lions I've only played on Hard so I've never had to worry too much about optimizing these units. I guess I'll drop all my extra units from the main party except Dorothea, Lysithea, and Caspar. Might consider others if I bench Dedue or Ashe after Chapter 13. Because I won't be using Lin, I definitely will want Mercedes as a Gremory since she will do the bulk of the healing. I'm going to take a lot of the other advice on classes. So I'll do Sniper Ashe and keep Slyvain as a paladin. But I still feel a little weird giving up on Annette's magic altogether. What are people's thoughts on her as a Dark Knight wielding magical weapons? Does it dramatically underperform her as Wyvern Lord? Who do you think its the first, Ferdinand or Marianne? I always use Dorothea as my dancer. She gives me great results everytime. But I adore Ferdinand and if he's viable it'd be cool to try something new.

Part of why I wanted to recruit everyone I could and unlock as many paralogues as possible is because I thought it would provide enough exp to keep more than 11 units up to speed for the main game. Do most of you believe that's not feasible even with all the paralogues? I will definitely adjust my long term strategy if that's the case. I have to admit Annette as a Wyvern Lord feels very weird but it would be nice to use Crusher properly.

Thanks for all the tips so far! They've been very helpful. What's the optimal class path for Dimitri if I don't go for brigand? I want to raise all the blue lions characters. I don't want a bad time in Chapter 13. Plus I genually like most of them. The characters I want to recruit and use in the main game are Lysithea, Linhardt, Leonie, Seteth, Bernadetta (if she doesn't get screwed), Dorothea, and Caspar (I know he's not as optimal as units like Petra but I just love the little guy and will probably want Byleth to marry him. He's my favorite member of the cast) but like I said I'm trying to recruit everyone I possibly can. I haven't settled on class paths for everyone but final classes will likely be as follows: Dimitri - Great Lord (open to Holy Knight for Aura but realistically don't want to train faith that much and it's hard with his slump mid game) Byleth - Wyvern Lord Annette - Valkyrie Ingrid - Falcon Knight Ashe - Wyvern Lord Sylvain - Dark Knight Felix - Trickster or Assassin depending on his MAG Dedue - War Master Mercedes - Gremory Lysithea - Gremory or Valkyrie Lindhardt - Bishop Leonie - No idea, I've always done Bow Knight, open to ideas. Seteth - Wyvern Lord Bernadetta - Bow Knight Dorothea - Dancer Caspar - War Master, I have enough Wyvern Lords. Open to any tips on class paths or better final classes. Thanks again!

I think there's a lot of good ideas here. Something that falls between Hard and Lunatic would be the perfect challenge without grinding and you'd still be able to use any character you want pretty much. I agree with most of the changes, especially nerfing ambush units who are cheap as hell in some chapters. I'm really excited to check it out. I cannot get enough of Awakening though I recognize it's flaws. I agree with others about giving dark magic to other classes. Having it for sorcerors forced you to use them. Nosferatu still needed to be nerfed anyway though and the cost was a really interesting way to do it. I agree on taking away away wind magic's effectiveness to flyers. It made wyvern's feel too weak to me. That might just be becasue my first FE games were the GBA ones.

I'm putting in my vote for Julia. Her high MAG lets her silence or sleep virtually anybody. She's a great user of Psychic as well. And you don't need to be worried about her placing much because she can defend herself rather well with Nosferatu. The only issue she has is lack of a mount but if you aren't playing LTC I don't think that's a huge deal

I'm on Chapter 3. I'm trying to recruit as many units as possible to get all the relics. I'm doing BL since they seem strong early game. Aux battles seem to give so little exp. Should I just be doing monastery stuff every week instead? I'm planning on recruiting the DLC characters. What's the best chapter to do it? I'm trying to train everyone physical in axes to reclass to brigand for death blow. Other than that are there any must have skills I should be going for?

It varies a lot. Some like Owain's are quite easy and can probably be handled as soon as you unlock them. Others like Inigo's are very difficult and should be handled when you are around end game levels. Noire's is definitely on the harder side. Here's my own ranking Easy - Owain, Brady, Kjelle (if your staff user has enough MAG to rescue her quickly), Morgan Moderate - Gerome (easier if you have good fliers, dark fliers especially do well here), Laurent, Yarne (if you side with one faction, decently hard if you fight both), Cynthia Hard - Nah, Inigo, Noire, Severa (easier if you have enough cash to burn through multiple rescue staves, very hard without that)

FWIW I was able to emulate Path of Radiance on my phone and it ran very smoothly. Haven't tried Radiant Dawn yet but I doubt it's different.

I'm a big fan. Without it I don't think there's much value to units gaining new weapon types by promotion or class switching. Archers also were a little better (and they need all the help they can get) when they were outside of the weapons triangle and could never be disadvantaged. I liked magic having it's own triangle as well. I hope they bring it back.

I mean if you've fed all your early game exp to just Frederick and Chrom it's totally possible your other units are now very badly underleveled. I have no idea what you could be doing that has Vaike's hit so low. The only people that should be happening against are myrmidons and other speedy people with swords, who you should never try to attack with Vaike anyway. In first few chapters after you get him he should have an easy time hitting the axe and lance wielders especially paired up with Chrom or Lon'qu. And with the hammer you are basically fed the exp for all the early knights you come across. I have never used a forged weapon during the main campaign ever. I've only done that for Lunatic post game DLC runs. You don't need to solo the game with Robin. I actually tend to hold Robin back a bit because veteran means she needs way less kills than the others to shine. If you listen to what we are telling you, beating hard mode with no grinding, no tonics, and no forging is very doable and flexible enough that any unit you recruit can be a main part of your army. Absolute musts: Avoid letting Frederick kill as much as possible. Other people need the exp much more than him. When people start promoting is when it's safe to start letting Frederick level a bit. But still don't go crazy. He's not that great long run Use pair ups a lot. Not everyone all the time, but a lot. Robin should *never* be unpaired early game because of Veteran. Focus on pair ups that give stats to the leader they really need. Do not move units too deep into enemy range. You want one or two enemies in range of counterattacking at a time. Sometimes that means letting a treasure go or a village get destroyed. You can go for those on a future playthrough when you feel more comfortable with the game. I promise they are also possible with no grinding, just challenging. For that Anna paralogue with the village, Chrom/Sumia is usually how I do it but that's not the only way.

If this is happening to you repeatedly, you are moving your units in range of too many enemy units at once. You can see the total enemy attack range and individual enemy attack ranges. In the early game, except for specific choke points, it's very easy to never be in range of more than two enemy units at once because enemies are pretty spaced out. The Valm campaign is different and throws a lot of people at you at once but you should be pretty well leveled by then. In Awakening you often need to progress through chapters slowly, until most enemies are cleared out. Sometimes that's moving just one or two spaces at a time so only one or two enemies can reach you. Sometimes you need to move backwards if fliers are on their way. Never go deep into the enemy range where several can attack the same unit and over. Most will not be that durable until you learn skills like Aegis and Pavise. Press x to see the enemy attack range and move characters so they are just barely one tile into the range. When that happens just the very closest enemy should be able to reach your unit. In Awakening you should spend more time letting enemies come to you than the reverse. Frederick should get very little exp. You want to use him to bait and weaken, not cast the final blow. Giving him bronze weapons can help if he's too strong otherwise and they are cheap. I mostly don't use the tonics (again Donnel is the exception because he is truly annoying to train until he starts to snowball). They can certainly help but aren't necessary. Neither is forging, though again it helps. I just prefer saving as much cash as possible for promotion items and some of the more expensive staves.

Pair up absolutely has uses beyond defense and defense is not even the most imporant use. The most important use is speed. Pair up can move units out of the threshold where they would be double attacked or sometimes move them over the threshold to double attack enemy units. It also makes units more dodgy. Chrom/Sumia or Sully/Sumia should dodge most early games enemies more often than not. As I said before Vaike benefits a lot from extra skill, Sumia usually wants someone buffing her strength, all the early game magic users benefit from Robin in particular. If someone is holding a chokepint ever, you almost always want them paired so they can be a strong as possible while they hold it. The list of combat uses goes on and on. You also bring up another use for pair up in your post. Many units struggle to kill in the early chapters of the game but pair up can increase their damage output until they are strong enough to be useful on their own. Frederick and Chrom are both great for this. Chrom in particular because he's usually the unit that does the recruiting and he can pair with them immediately after the conversation, giving big buffs to speed and strength. The game expects you to be using the mechanic and it's balanced around that. If you pair up your units, they will be strong enough to get their own exp from campaign and you won't need to grind. I have beaten Awakening on Hard with no grinding multiple times. There are even people on this fourm who have done it on Lunatic. I promise you it's possible. But it requires using pair up liberally. I think this sums it up pretty well. Choosing to not use pair up is like choosing to never deploy Frederick or something. It's an extra layer of difficulty you put on yourself.

First, when we say pair up, we don't mean two units standing on two seperate tiles next to each other. You can have two units occupy the same tile as a kind of super unit with one person leading and one person supporting. This raises the lead's stats based mostly on the supporting character's class. If two characters are next to each other but not paired up, they can still dual strike and dual guard each other but there is no stat boost for either of them. If you aren't pairing up that may be why it seems like the enemy's stats are so high, they are meant to compare to the stats of paired units, not individual ones. Especially on harder difficulties. The game assumes you are using pair ups a lot. So that two tile wide hallways should be choked up by four units. For Chapter 6 I personally usually open the southern door to Emmeryn's room myself and barracade everyone in there. Chrom blocking the left entrance so he is close to Gaius and Lon'qu/Vaike and another pair blocking the southern entrance. I rescue staff Marth into the room so he's out of the way. When you get a new character that's too weak for direct hits or just low on HP after fighting, you can have them be the support in a pair up so they aren't exposed to attack directly. If you pair up Vaike and Lon'qu and have Lon'qu lead, there will be no way for Vaike to get hit as long as Lon'qu is alive. Same for new units. Pair them to someone stronger immediately. Or if you have a new unit lead the pair up with say, Frederick or Kellam supporting, they may get enough defense for them to be fine as a lead for a bit. The trade off is now for those two units, you only get one action per turn between them. For Lon'qu/Vaike specifically, if Vaike is leading he will get a lot of skill and speed stats from Lon'qu which helps fix his low hit and avoid rates. You don't have to use Lon'qu with Vaike, that's just one I like. Vaike can get the extra skill and speed he needs from Chrom or Sumia in pinch (Sumia can't support with him but she still gives a lot of speed to whoever she is paired with). If you use pair ups you shouldn't have to grind anyone on Hard mode except maybe Donnel.

What difficulty are you playing on? You shouldn't be having those hit rate disparities as the standard for your army even on lunatic. Weapons triangle is a huge deal in Awakening, try never attacking with a physical unit unless you are at least neutral towards the weapon they are using. This is particularly true for Vaike. Also a lot of new recruits need to be hand held for a bit but grinding isn't necessary on Normal or Hard unless you want to. And some units like Cherche are very capable in their join chapters They often won't be able to one round enemy units by themselves the chapter you get them, but if Frederick, Chrom, or Robin is able to leave an enemy weak, use the new unit to deal the final blow. Another tactic you will have to lean on heavily in the early game is keeping your units in range of as few enemy units at the start of the enemy turn at a time as possible. Sometimes this means progressing through chapters very slowly or even retreating back from your starting position in some chapters like 6. Awakening is meant to be played somewhat more conservatively than many other games in the series. You need to worry more about surviving an enemy phase than necessarily having a great player phase. I don't think that dual stirkes are conceptually different from criticals. You have a small chance to do more damage than usual. It's something you have to factor in. Some really good early game pair ups are Lon'qu/Vaike (they give each other speed/strength which the other desperately wants), Chrom/Sully, and Frederick/Sumia. Robin also pairs well with magical units.

I'm pumped to play it! I used to have no interest in anything before FE7. But I recently played through Awakening, that got me a little interested in the older lore. And reading all the love for FE4 here and on reddit got me to try a playthrough of that. I absolutely loved it and I want to tackle all the older games now (maybe not Garden. I hated Shadows of Valentia, the only recent game in the series I did not enjoy). Playing on the switch is better than phone or computer imo and the game is super cheap. I can't wait to play it