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Lapis has a great Qi-Adept or Lucina ability for chain-guard stuff. Slightly weird on a cannon backup unit, but backup also need to be around allies, and it can also be turned off if she runs under the same conditions to activate Atk/Spd Solo in FEH, which is trivially easy to pull off. Having no allies adjacent in the 4 nearest tiles is the easiest condition outside of >25% max HP, and still lets her toggle between a gambling with crits or gambling with Avo. Diamant sure is slightly above average in Str/Spd/Def, no argument with his weird shift from Hard to Maddening there. That said: Diamant's Prf skill only works during his own Player-Phase, which is pretty easy to play around. If targets are broken it's a free +15% hit. if he breaks a target it's a free +15% hit. If he acts during enemy phase with Ike or w/e: he doesn't give any bonuses to enemies. As an axe user in a game were axes are consistently ~20% less hit vs. swords, having +15% hit is also nice to toggle with for a cheeky Tomahawk or Killer Axe. .................... As far as abilities go, I do like Diamant and Lapis's a little more than the rest. Solid bonus but penalty is interesting and creates a dynamic if nothing else. And the capacity to disable the ability to circumvent the downside is a nice switch to have.

Uhh...how about taking a que from Everquest? All story chapters involve reading the text and typing in a key-word to progress dialogue along.

I'm fine with the skills being weak. Also a fan of storytelling through tooltips, or tutorials on obscure mechanics through tooltips, so weak stuff that's interesting elsewhere doesn't bother me too much, even if it's stuff like Bunet's free lunch that'll only proc ~1 time in an entire playthrough. ---------- That said: there are a few abilities that aren't that interesting/helpful that could use a tune-up. ........................ Jade's Meditate could easily be boosted to +6 Res for waiting over +2. ATM it's usually the difference of getting doubled for ~26 rather than 24, which isn't useful at all unless she re-classes. ........................ Fogado's ability could also be improved. I like the flavor, but the effect is pants. It already requires him and his opponent to survive a combat, and all for -10% crit for just him if he enters combat against the same foe again? For what's essentially +10% Dodge, something ~about as valuble as +1 Atk, it's a lot of hoops to jump through. It should apply -10% crit on the foe as a global debuff all of his allies benefit from. Or make him immune to crits, though I like a team-support angle a little more. ........................ And...Etie's ability I don't hate TBH. I just wish she pulled a Dorcas/Bartre/Garcia with her HP+Str+Con instead of being ~half-Rinkah. It's not like the 1st axemen even have a good stat-spread in the first place, by mid-game those are often slower than the resident armor knight, there Def stats getting shakey for a front-liner, and they're often tied for the worst Luck and Res stats as well. But at least HP lets them have something resembling an Enemy Phase, in case, IDK, their personal ability only works during enemy phase.

Man, there's a lot of stuff in this game to talk about. Here what I've got: ........... ........... ........... ........... ........... Plot stuff: Avatar Unit: -2/5 Would like FE to go back to Lyn+Hector+Eliwood. Give me proper main-characters to follow. Did like Alear being a proper character this time, but "Alear" never being spoken outload is awful. Naming the MC is something that shouldn't come back. It's a cute touch in ~silent games like the OG Pokemon, but when you're hiring professional and very capable voice-actors for a game, naming the protag takes away more than it adds. After spending 2+ hours having a ton of fun in character creation in various other games only to get stumped by the final "name" field, seeing a gender selection and then "name" also feels pretty awful. Retainers: 5/5 Cool to see the return of this, like the dynamic. Organizes characters into memorable social groups. Would be neat if they started with some support bonus, but it's a good system nevertheless. ........... ........... ........... ........... ........... ........... ........... ........... ........... ........... General Gameplay stuff: The Engage Mechanic: 4/5 Seen some comments on this being the best Laguz transformation system we've gotten. I agree with that. Cool 1-time use ability, thematic stat-bonuses, new transformed weapons, all around pretty cool. Certainly needs to be tweaked for future entries, but it's a solid foundation I'd like to see return in some form or fashion. The outfit change based on Backup/Covert/Dragon/w/e could also be mapped to Dragon/Tiger/Lion/Demon or w/e in future entries, and has a lot of fun baseline stuff going on. Smash, Break: 3/5 I'd like to see these 2 return in some form. One of my issues with Fire Emblem is x2 > x1 in pretty much every scinario, so there's not much a heavy-weapon like a great-sword or great axe brings to the table, and it drags down ~strong but slow classes. Break feels good and Smash feels like it's on the right track here. Both need a little tweaking, but have some potential. I do want the GBA weapon-triangle back though. Break for WT is an interesting mechanic that rewards good play without RNG messing it up, but it's also lacks any points of adhesion for skills/abilities to interact with. Or something like S tier weapons being boosted to +20% WTA bonuses from +15%, which could have helped Swordmasters/Berserkers/Snipers/Halberdiers, along with making everyone's innate weapon talent a little spicier. Auto-Hit (Surge), no follow-up (Thunder). 5/5 Solid boons and banes of weapons that I'd like to see continue. Weird that Long-Bow can double and Tomohawk and Spear don't have any meaningful drawbacks though, kind of preferred Fates system there were those are like, good ~25% of the time rather than ~80% of the time. Class roles: 5+/5. Would be real sad if these didn't come back in some capacity. They add a much-needed reason to run with infantry classes instead of the more mobile alternatives. Also adds some interesting flair to classes like Sniper with the Engage Mechanics that would otherwise be worse warrior 10/10 times. +20 Astra-Storm range is pretty Neat. Fel-Dragon tag: 0/5. Hope this goes the way of the Dodo. Why are Wyrm enemies immune to Wyrm-slayer damage? Fel-Dragon being a special tag makes sense in Awakening or Echoes were it's reserved for Grima, but on generic enemies it's so overwhelmingly bad and unintuitive I hope to never see it again. Re-Class System: 1/5. Engage's re-class system is largely saved by class roles adding a ton of balance to the classes, but the core system isn't great. Fates was a lot better. Also Sacred Stones, which locked everyone into a set class-line and allowed supports to talk about unit's jobs and how they got to this particular soldiering profession over being oops just the character quirk. When the axe-fighters are lumberjacks making the best of the situation rather than a horney mage trying to pick up fighter skills, adds more texture to the unspoken story-elements playing in the background. WPN rank based on classes: 2.5/5 Pretty nice to upgrade to Warrior and not be stuck for ~7 chapters training Garcia's Bow rank, or spamming staff ranks on Lute, or just being stuck perpetually in the Bronze age in Fates. Still; some tiers like D and S never really matter in Engage as a weapon rank, and ~50% of Engage's meaningful weapon options being locked to the Engage mechanic and agnostic of Weapon Rank doesn't leave much for this system to interact with. Pretty much everything worthwhile is Engage or C as well, which means classes like Swordmaster get nothing from a mono-S, were Warrior's C rank Bows may as well be S. Not sure how I feel about this one. Could use more fine-tuning. With infinite durability, I also get the sense that class (prf) weapons would be better, like GBA's Wo-Dao being Myrm/Swordmaster/Lord only, Fate's Nosferatu being Dark Mage/Sorcerer only, Rapier usually being lord-only, Long-Bow is Sniper-only, etc. Forging: -1/5. Feels ok to interact with and is the main thing I check in Somniel, but it casts an ugly shadow over a ton of aspects in any FE game. Renders a lot of Engage weapons obsolete, limits correct options to 1~2 weapons, kills a lot of weapon variety, favors spoiling a small handful of good units over raising a large team, makes new loot less interesting, makes new shop options less appealing, etc. Honestly hope the next FE doesn't have a forge system at all, it's core effect is reducing meaningful options. Engravings: 4/5. Cool system, getting a ton of Hit% or Avoid% or Ddg% on a weapon is fun. Kinda hope this takes the place of equipable ~rings (or Delphi shield or Hoplin Guard type stuff) in a future entry over having to fiddle with an offshot of the forge system though. Or have good bonuses tethered to interesting weapons, Sunrise Katana is pretty dope with +20% Avoid and is one of my favorite weapons there, and Fates playing around with weapon bonuses like Avoid, Dodge, Def, Res, and Spd is one of the main reasons it's my favorite set of weapons. Time Crystal: 4/5. Pretty cool. 10 Charges feels super excessive though. Kinda wish this was a staff, like Tear Ring Saga's Save State staff, which I find very amusing. Or just like, 3~5 charges. ........... ........... ........... ........... ........... ........... ........... ........... ........... ........... Map stuff: Cannons/Ballistae: 2/5 Good visual indicators for what enemies are going to do, but these are never especially satisfying to fight against, and often not that satisfying to use either. They have too many uses on enemies and too great of range, and for the player the range is so comically short of doing anything worthwhile it's difficult to get 2 uses out of these. I Prefer Bolting/Meteor (or Astra Storm) just being a reliable every-map tool TBH, and kinda wish Ballistae were just an A~S rank bow Snipers got, with maybe some added visual flair so it's not awful when an enemy busts out the big guns. Skirmishes: 0/5 I get the appeal, but the best incarnation this has ever had is the Tower of Valni paired with other post-game content (beach, ruins), were everyone benched can easily be raised in their own C-team training-arc. The auto-leveling+ aspect of these makes them a challenge-booster for anyone trying to "just be a higher level" then the story chapters, and their constant spawning and re-spawning makes them a nuisance every time the overworld map is loaded for anyone who just doesn't want to bother with them at all. Seeing the colors of each nation's troops from Firene to Brodia and Solm training battles is the best thing these have going for them, but that could be implemented better. Story Chapters 4/5: Really wish we saw a return to the Chpt 10 + Chpt 10x form of the GBA games, or more 2-part maps without the Somniel option like when running away from Veyle after the forced ring re-set. For one: a Somniel or menu-sequence is always going to eat up a fair bit of time, and it'd be nice if the game spent a little more time being a game. Also just awkward with all the paralogue maps in here. Same flavor of a lot of Final Fantasy playthroughs. The apex of the story happens and...oh hey the airship and every relevant side-quest is now available, you should do all of those at your leisure and forget what the main story was. Most of the maps themselves are pretty ok to quite good though, save that one Timerra Fog of War one that makes Timerra and Panette look awful. Miasma, various terrain: 3/5: Limiting most terrain to just Avoid is an interesting change of pace. I don't love it, I don't hate it. Miasma is all around interesting, and screw Avoid, +20 Dmg, -20 Dmg taken is pretty hard to ignore. Do wish Fire Emblem finally went all Tear-Ring-Saga and actually listed every classes noteworthy interactions with each terrain type though. It's the most needlessly obscure class information in every single Fire Emblem game, and learning stuff like Nine-Tails treat Lava Tiles as a 1 move tile like forests were everyone else has their forest-tile interactions ~7 years after the fact is such a weird mood. Doors/Chests: 5/5 Being opened by anyone is a welcome change. As cool as Locktouch/thief utility is for making the rogue or urchin archetype do anything meaningful, in most games it's just a "put the cube through the square-hole" kind of puzzle. Especially in the GBA era, and kind of falls to pieces compared to something like the Pirate or Berserker. on one hand there's a unit that interacts with ~5 specific pre-set tiles every-other map in the blandest way possible. Doors, Chests, Traps, Desert, ~2 steal-item side quests. On the other: there's a unit with interesting and dynamic interactions with a lot of tiles different tiles that consistently appear in ~90% of the maps, it's fun to play around those tiles for long-term strategies that change the way a map is approached, they're fun to adapt to on the fly, and overall they increase player agency and give a ton of options. Thief utility in FE has never been particularly interesting or engaging, most the time it's annoying and tailor-made to have the Thief stop ~2 tiles off from a door or chest that's also going to stagger their movement, and as a side-objective it also tends to take various units out of the fight for ~3 turns in Engage anyways. Fog of War: 1/5 I like the on-map torches, I like how most of these maps open, I don't hate that Fog restricts movement. Torches and especially the Illume staff are just butts for dealing with this though, and overall the player options for dealing with fog just seem really underwhelming. Or Underwhelming 9/10 times, they let me find Griss on turn 1, which felt good. Torch + Thief eyesight or Illume staff felt uniquely bad relative to GBA Thief+Torch or Torch Staff combos though. Compared to games like Starcraft II, League of Legends, DotA, or Warcraft III, among a variety of other RTS and strategy games: I also have to wonder how Fire Emblem keeps getting this so wrong. Turn-based obviously has it's own unique draw-backs vs. real-time, and real-time fog exploration is certainly more satisfying, but still. Making use of Fog-of-War walls like tall brush or steam vents to create various sight barriers while allowing for comfortable sight beyond that, doing stuff like (!) marks with ~nearby enemies in Fog of War that reveal enemy locations but no other information, having a feather effect with fog were it's not a binary see everything/see nothing, having footprints or visual breath ques... When Fog of War comes back in future entries, I'd like a lot more attention spent on making it not suck. ATM it's peak water-level or sewer-level were the dramatic shift in becoming functionally a different game isn't given the respect of functionally becoming a different game. ~Monsters: 1/5. They get 1 for the animation team knocking it out of the pack with fun poses. Really can't stand jobber monsters that exist as Exp bags and have no art direction besides "generic bad guy" though. Like, Goblins and Skeletons have a lot of personality if nothing else. These are pretty forgettable. Sacred Stones had the right idea of making a ton of visually distinct monsters with their own monster-weapons while not just retaining the clear strengths and weaknesses of all the standard classes, but cranking that up to further extremes. Here I can't really tell a Paladin or Royal Guard or Great Knight apart on the mini-map. Gotta mouse over them to see their distinct portrait pose and read the class name, which is annoying. Outside of the (again, pretty solid animation/poses), these are some Sonic Unleashed tier generic shadow-monsters. ........... ........... ........... ........... ........... ........... ........... ........... ........... ........... Somniel Stuff: The Somniel: 4/5: I like the Spyro the Dragon aesthetic, like the general size and look of it, like that most of the relevant stuff is in the central courtyard and it's basically a 3D menu (at least in Hard were I can ignore a lot of the stuff), like the shinny objects to collect, like that a lot of the stuff can be easily ignored at negligible expense. Some of the paths are a little obnoxious (the spot were Nuts spawn overlooking the orchard is particularly annoying to loop back too), and wish I could interact with the chairs or lean on the fences/bridge. I don't need Wakfu levels of animations were it's like ~8 unique animations for each style of sitting (would be dope), just any interactivity with the world over walking/running and pressing A would be nice. Also comparing this to Spyro does reveal the movement and exploration in Engage is much worse and less fluid, as is the collectables acquisition quests. Collecting shiny objects in Spyro is like, the most satisfying thing in the world with how movement, sound-effects, Sparkx zooming towards them when they feel just out of reach, the visual chimes, and numbers going up happens together. In Engage, Somniel exploration kind of has a...undergrad A- Unity project feel? It's not terrible, but it's also not especially polished or refined, and no Jump button is weird. Sommie/Dogos: 3/5 Let me pet them anywhere rather than having to go to some out-of-the-way nook Gosh Darn it! I want to give him little head-pats when I hear the funny little noise of him walking after me 😧 (6/5 if this is implemented. Also the animation for backing out of the head-pats mini-game shouldn't take 10 seconds). Donations, Fishing, Cooking, Flea Market, Strength Training, Bond Ring Gacha: 1/5 These all suck. If I want to waste my time with silly little mini-games, I'm going to Newgrounds and seeing what passion-projects someone's managed to cram into a ~30 minute experience. I'm not spending ~$60 on an AAA title for half-baked tech demos. Like: Come on IS. commission a specialized team to make fun mini-games or don't have these. The 3D models for the food are weirdly impressive though, I do wonder how many of the food items correspond to a unique model. And if that time would have been better spent doing something like modeling, let's say, better B~A rank bows for the Sniper to use? Better default outfits for the Warrior/Griffin Knight/Hero so they didn't look like butts? Giving abbs on the desert-themed outfits for Etie? Making any of the purchasable outfits a tempting option over being near unilaterally worse and less appealing than everyone's much better default Somniel outfits? Some of that food does look tasty though. Arena: 1/5 Rather than modeling 100+ unique food dishes, why not modal some wooden swords for a good training-arc? Weird seeing allies go at-it with their most lethal options. I like the core idea behind this (and Tellius's Bexp, or 3-Houses classroom WPN Exp); just... really would be nice to have a satisfying way to help units out during down-time. If only IS put any effort into it being satisfying to interact with in a meaningful capacity over let's have 1,000 unique models for food. Also no SP if a unit had an Emblem ring is needlessly tedious to work around. Support Activities (Orchard, Horses, Swimming), and the Photo-Shoot Post-Card stuff: 4/5. Accomplishes what it set out to do. Wouldn't mind seeing this stuff again, it's pretty harmless, doesn't chew through time, and is easy to ignore if I want to jump into another map. Wishing Well: 5/5 I love satisfying ways to get rid of clutter. Neat mechanic, would like to see something like this come back.

Interesting that Veronica has a summoning deal. My guess is she'll do the boss mechanic of Dark Emblems if that's the case, which would allow the devs to recycle content they're using and training the player to interact with already. Also plays into Veronica's year-1 role as the primary antagonist in FEH, were she's summoning heroes and binding them in some dark contract to fight the player. Which is admittedly a pretty hand-wavy story element to justify a Gacha pitting all the new content against the player, but still. No real idea for the rest of Veronica's kit though, she doesn't really have any signature mechanic in FEH. Her OG form is still (weirdly) not playable, and her main incarnation in her Brave alt is technically based on her brother Bruno.

Alfonse's Bond Ring is a lot of fun. Had it glued to Alear for a while, which combos with their passive to grant +5 Atk to allies rather than just +3, which is really satisfying. My Alear sure is doing what happens to my Eliwood or Roy though, in that getting XP on them is becoming a struggle, lol. ................... Also made a chart to get an idea of what Bond Rings I want to go for, with their numbered position for the purposes of save-scumming the Gacha: Most look pretty fun to play around with, and even with several being a fairly minor or niche effect, most deployed characters aren't running an Emblem ring for a good chunk of the game, so it's one of these or some w/e +stats rings for the purposes of SP. ............................ Do wish these weren't such an unholy mess to acquire though. What is the drop rate for S rings, 1%? A lot of these effects are nice to have, but frustrating to go out of the way for. ............................ Alm's is pretty hilarious though. A Dex% chance to accomplish what the Break mechanic ultimately does. But only for the user, and it doesn't extend the broken status to allies, because it's Dex% enemy can't counter. And because it's Dex% it's never worth counting on. Also it's Player-Phase only and only works with Swords, lol. What a terrible ring.

Canter is certainly changes the way the game's played, though getting ~10 levels of SP on anyone worthwhile is fairly steep. Only got there with my Yunaka on my Hard playthrough before the cutoff. Hit+10 and Avoid+10 (500 SP for either) are surprisingly solid fall-back options though. With Engravings, Avoid can be boosted by +50% over whatever Spd is contributing (usually just +10% above enemy Dex for a fast class), and there's a big difference between dropping enemy hit from ~30% to ~20%. Nearly the difference between getting hitting 1/3rd vs. 1/5th of the time. Access to Avo+10 also goes away for quite a long while, and can give characters like Chloe or Lapis or Yunaka a bit of an edge vs. later recruits. Hit+10 s also nice because even a lot of accurate characters are in the 89~94% hit range, and everyone else is in the ~80% range. Even if the plan is dropping them eventually, spending their SP so they're more consistent leading up to the revolving door of deployment slots can be worthwhile. And Healing Light (200 SP) is pretty solid on Framme or Jean; being able to Chain-Guard then Heal then Chain-Guard without needing to spend a turn action on getting them to 100% HP again specifically adds a lot to their utility. Chain-Guard is great when it's up, but needing to spend 2 separate turns. Can free up Vulnerary slots on a Griffin Knight as well, though that's more down to missing the right SP thresholds to get Canter or Canter + Avoid+10. Staff Master 1 (100 SP) is also super cheap, and adding +10% hit for Freeze can certainly make it more worthwhile. Also can make Silence useable at all, seeing as anything worth targeting with it is also pretty difficult to hit with it.

Lapis is a bit of an awkward pick. Main perk of Halberdier is being able to double things regardless of a Spd stat, and Lapis... She's a Swordmaster through and through with her bases and growths. Spd is the 1 stat she's not having trouble with. ............. Which I guess is a good segue into the core issue of Halberdiers: The Pincer Attack functionality is only as valuable as it's user's Spd is bad. On someone like Jade, Louis, Bunet, or Vander were they're ~15+ points off from doubling foes: the Pincer Attack is worth a pretty consistent ~15 Spd (at least for the purposes of offense). If it's used by someone like Lapis that's already running into 0x2 problems and only going to miss Spd thresholds to double ~maybe ~15% of the enemies in Maddening, she's not going to get much value from the feature. Or ~any, given us players usually has enough control over the combat situation to target Armors with Mages or Fliers with Archers. Obviously in Maddening there's going to be a crunch with positioning/ORKO potential fairly often were easy-buttons are challenged, but for the most part I'd want to maximize Str/Def for a Halberdier. ............. Halberdier's base stats are also pretty middling. It's Str and Def are ok, but overall it maps pretty closely to the Paladin but slightly slower, and Paladins in most FE games are just the definition of average everywhere at everything, so that isn't a great start for an infantry unit. Going back to Spd value: Ideally someone that's a Halberdier want's to min-max their Str/Def vs. their Spd, as offensively Spd is largely wasted on them. Defensively it can be nice to only loose the Spd check by 4 points vs. stuff like Wyverns that still hit fairly hard. But Halberdier's stats aren't helping any here, so it's placing a ton of stress on who goes into Halberider. And what Emblem they're using. Ike, Roy, Leif, and Sigurd all offer some respectable defensive properties, so those are worth considering for general use in 6 of the 7 key turns in a map over just going Eirika go brrr. Similar to all the auto follow-up stuff in FEH; the best users are ones with massive Str and Def pools and non-existent Spd. Louise, Jade, Bunet, Panette, Goldmary, Diamant, Amber, Alfred, Saphir, this is probably the crowd I'd look to for the best general results. Swordmaster's Run-Through can be a fun way to set it up, but there are several other ways to achieve the auto follow-up condition. Pivot or Rewarp also work if you don't want to eat a counter-attack, as do Pass, Flight, Cavalry Mobility, and especially Canter. Growths? Louis. Dude is 40% Str, 50% Def, and those are the 2 stats that really matter for cheating the Spd war. 5/4 base Str/Def also isn't bad given his joining time, and even with Maddening XP restrictions; he probably should surpass just about everyone else in solid tanky derp stats by the time they join. Probably worth keeping him in Armor for the first ~1/3rd to ~1/4 of the game for a bit of key stats Halberdier really wants, as being stuck in the same half-paladin, half great-knight spot Alfred's at were it's mostly the worst of both worlds is going to be a bit of a concern. Though TBF here, if Alf could consistently double a lot of his problems would go away.

So.. Every time I re-play a Fire Emblem, I find out something like Noomadic Troopers can move through River tiles or Kitsune treat Lava Tiles as 1-move tiles like they pass through woods. Really wish FE was like Tear Ring Saga in this and just had a page for all the interesting terrain-type interactions for units, can really add a lot of value to various picks for certain maps 😕 For engage: I can't find any tile move-cost charts for the classes, so I'm wondering: What weird movement interactions have you guys and gals found in your play-throughs?

Not really. Prince Joshua in Assassin garb would be pretty cool to see, and it is weird an interesting dagger or two never found it's way on any of the Engage inventories. Especially with all the potential WPN options Byleth gives, and the class-role synergies of various Engage options. Would be neat if Micaiah or Celica offered something like the Golden Dagger. Or like, throw the Soldier's Knife on Ike, or like a Combat Knife. Also yeah, Wakazashi and oops 3 swords is a weird direction for Corrin. Could a gone a ton of direction with her. Otherwise: I'm a little unsure about no Assassin Emblem being a sad move. There aren't a ton of options for an Assassin pick (even with Feh's take on sword thieves = totally dagger thieves). Also my favorite Emblems are ones that have interesting options for multiple classes over honing in on one particular playstyle, and I'm not sure how well an Assassin Emblem would play into that. Especially given how ~half-baked daggers are in this game (and several others). That said: Would be nice to have more meaningful dagger options over Iron/Steel/Silver (or honestly just forged Silver). Some options like Prince Joshua as an Assassin, a Jackob+Felecia duo, or half-ninja/half-samurai Ryoma could be fun. I do wonder why the forge system keeps getting carried over from game to game. It doesn't add new and interesting choices so much as it renders obsolete the vast majority of choices 😕 At least the engravings are a little spicy this time.

Lol. That sword is such a potato. It's +3 Mt, +5% Hit, -1 Spd vs. the Silver Sword. Regal Blade and Hagakure Blade are miles better, and it's not like Blazing Sword or Fates are well-known for having good S rank weapons.

Man, answering the best pairings normally is a crazy difficult question. There are a ton of moving parts and different reasons to want a pair-up. It certainly helps me with pairings when I rank my priorities for what I want in my pairing. Usually it's something along the lines of: I want to field both parents already Both parents work well side-by-side. The kid gets a neat hair-color Recruiting the kid offers something valuable to my run (The new unit, a useful niche on the team, upgrading an already solid unit, having more of a solid unit, new skills, neat capturable enemies, useful items, more 1~2 forges, items, gold, Exp). The kid will have above-average Atk The support pairing offers useful re-class options for the parents I can pass down a useful set of abilities for the kid I can pass down a funny re-class option for the kid (if both parents have the same class set, you get an opposite-army option) I can pass down an actually useful re-class option for the kid The kid can get above-average Spd, Def, and/or Res The pairing results in a good set of backpack stats for the kid (I found a use for Hishame and Seigbert!) Above average HP, Skl, or Lck for the kid ------------------- Anyways: it can be worth figuring out exactly what you want from the pairings. If hair color is all you care about, I wouldn't fault that decision. Str or Mag is the only stat I'd recommend needs to be checked as well. If a kid has decent enough Atk they'll be useful and useful in any class that uses that Atk stat. if they don't they won't. ------------------- Looking at the Fates section under the Main Page of this site can certainly help with a lot of the stat-checks. Or the heart-seal classes and what other heart-seal classes you can rig a situation to get. The Fire Emblem Wikis are the main place to search for useful enemies, map treasures, etc. Under the Paralogues section most of this is laid out on the same page. Though on neat treasure with the maps: BR kids have basically nothing for them, aside from Caeldori with her free Swordcatcher. Both-paths kids have a few neat things here and there. Nohr kids have a ton of amazing loot. Even in Revelation I'd recommend getting to those. ------------------- All that said: My RV file only gives me free chapters from the last ~3 story-chapters (or any kid paralogues) crammed into that space. If you want to make a forever-grind end-game file, could be worth finding the most aesthetic kid paralogues and holding off on those until you're on chapter 25, so they can keep comming up there. I'm ~70% sure this is how the map selection works.

Sure. And shades of that logic are a good enough reason to use %active skills and take a chance every now and then. In the context of your perfect front-liner build (or really any build for that matter), Pavise and Aegis do have 3 major flaws with this line of thinking though: ................ 1) The cost. Pavise and Aegis are level 35 skills and require re-classing (and an S or A+ support) to access; which coincides with a point in the game were feasibly ~any skill is accessible and ~any build could come online. If a unit can run better skills at this point, they have no excuse to do otherwise. ................ 2) The weak effect. Pavise and Aegis only block 5 damage against 10-damage attacks, and that happening 30% of the time is the rough equivalent of ~1.5/1.5 Def/Res spread over 2/5ths of a unit's skill-slots. Even at 50% activation: these work 1/2 of the time to block 1/2 damage against 1/2 of the weapons in the game for a 1/8 boost in overall power. Which is like...+5 HP for a unit with 40 HP. Or like ~1.8 Strength or Magic on a unit that's doing 15 damage. Or like +0.625 Spd on a unit that's 5 Spd off from doubling or denying a follow-up attack. ................ 3) The wager. What do these skills risk and what do they gain? Best case scenario these wager 1 healer/vulnerary turn spent healing that might get to be used for something else, but 50% DR means a unit is taking damage even when these activate. More powerful skills (or skills that more directly save a turn healing) can all save a turn healing as well. Otherwise the wager is "this unit dies" in exchange for maybe being able to EP 4 dudes instead of 3. A lot is on the line for very little. This later wager also has massive issues in consistency. Assuming Pavise and Aegis have a 50% activation rate somehow and a unit only needs 1 activation during the 4-foe enemy phase; This has an ~88% chance of working the first time it's tested. But make the gamble twice in a run and we're looking at a ~77% chance of success. Then ~67% for 3. 59% for 4. ~51% for the 5th ~45% for the 6th. ~39% for the 7th. ~34% for the 8th. ~30% for the 9th. ~26% for the 10th. This is also the fundamental problem with Avo tanks, a units going to eat to many consecutive hits sooner or later or even sooner, being a surefire recipe for disappointment. ................ Anyways: Pavise and Aegis are bad skills. Being able to survive double the damage if a unit's super-duper lucky is also such a weird mood in a game were units can get infinitely durable with enough Def, Res, or Avo. Also they're level 35, in 2 different fully promoted end-game class-lines, and you can run pretty much anything else when they're available.

The S rank weapons are kind of a let down. At least Waterwheel and Hagakure Blade are good. Stuff like Arms Scrolls for Levin Sword Ophelia is usually were the Arms Scrolls fun is at for me though. Gives a smooth transition for a lot of solid skill pick-ups were she can still feels like a pretty solid unit over the journey. Corrin mostly takes hits well by out-leveling things. Like most lords (or Cavaliers), Corrin's stat spread is super average at everything. If most units are favored as much (or slightly more, given +20% Exp), they'll wind up pretty similar in terms of overall bulk. Boons/banes can certainly shift this around, but Class + Weaponry + Level-leads can allow for a lot of units to be bulky. ................. Orochi is also an interesting case of weirdly average Def on the personal bases/growths side, so put her in a class with a Def stat and she'll have a Def stat. Her Spd is still an issue, but Spd being one of the most impactful stats in +1 increments also makes it one of the easiest stats to patch-up and stack. Especially for a BR character, spoiled for choice in options there. Her awful Spd sure does make it easy to bully her though. ................. And yeah: Benny-tier bulk is pretty unrealistic on most units, but his bulk is also overkill for most situations. A solid bolt-weapon spamming hybrid unit can do a lot of work while still falling ~7 Def short of Benny-tier. They're part of the core game everyone is going to experience. It's also hard to take competitive Pokémon too seriously, Gamefreak's done a lot of self-sabotage with their PvP to insure it takes a back seat to their PvE. If an ORKO is there with Steel it's obviously Steel. Or if you want more combats for WPN Exp or supports or w/e. Fairly difficult to get in a situations were a unit needs a 3-man pile up to get taken out though, especially with low %active reliance strategies. If a Killer Weapon only does 40%~50% to a foe, following that up with Steel on the inevitable not-crit should take them out. And hey, ~25% of the time it's a free ORKO with killer and a free unit action is on the table. Worth the 1/5th inventory capacity for a good chunk of units, I like improvements to my action economy.

Hard to beat Fire Emblem without massively favoring someone. Anyone who really needs the ranks. Staff users on promotion are in a pretty rough spot, especially considering their best option is ~usually a Bolt weapon. Anyone who wants to use a Bolt weapon really wants C rank either way, so they're usually my top priority. Otherwise the vast majority of Fate's roster is pretty OK with the E~D rank options. Bronze, Brass, Iron, Nosferatu, Horse, 1~2 range, 1 range bow, all effective weaponry (including vs. sword/lance/axe, which is a weird mood), ~80% of what most units need to function is readily available enough. ~half of the Mag characters are frail because there base class has garbage stats. Get them into most hybrid classes and they get some bulk on-par with a generic Cavalier or Paladin. Sure. But if you miss an OHKO in pokemon: 0 damage is dealt, nothing happens, you go directly to jail and don't collect $200, the L is plastered to your forehead. If you don't crit with a killer weapon in FE: Iron weapon damage still happens. And if an ORKO with a silver weapon or iron forge or w/e wasn't happening either way: using a killer weapon gambles a loss of nothing meaningful to gain something. Like: are we going to pretend being ~5 damage off from a KO should be followed up by leaving an opponent with 1 HP instead of 5? They're dead if they're hit by my next guy either way, if there's no next guy they do the same damage regardless of what their HP is.