Shadow Mir

Umbral Steel is gotten from fully breaking Demonic Beasts. To do this, you need to hit their barriers twice (once if your weapon or combat art is effective). Also, breaking them paralyzes them for that turn. Incidentally, anyone with a Crest avoids taking damage from using relic weapons. If the unit's attack stat is not enough relative to the Prt (or Rsl if magic) of the attacked unit, they deal no damage. This can be mainly seen with armored knights and Fortress Knights: attacking them with weapons that aren't anti-armor will likely accomplish a fat load of nothing. Generally, you should avoid him. But eventually the game expects you to defeat him. Not much, really. Not really. Those are Sacred weapons. Not really. The real reason to do paralogues is for the battalions tied to them, among other benefits. Aside from those, I mostly only do quest related battles. As to your last question, you're right that there are only 3 classes. But as to there being 4 routes... the specifics of that are a big spoiler.

What about Kikwis?

If they did that more, they wouldn't make facepalm-worthy decisions. I mean, seriously, one dude blindly had Cormag charge an enemy... and right into bow range. And another had Vanessa engage a gargoyle without bothering to check if she could survive the other one and the one she attacked. His genius strategy? Rescue her with Tana. Which worked well enough... if you wanted to senselessly sacrifice a unit.

Am I the only one who thinks players need to get into the habit of checking enemy stats and weapons? Because the players I was talking about seemed to neglect that part of the job description...

He's also too heavy to be carried, meaning he has to get around on his own two feet in one of the most move-centric games.

Perhaps, but I don't think one can make any excuses for losing two ironman runs in the freaking prologue. In a row. It gets better: they apparently cleared Maddening on Engage. Which makes this level of tactical incompetence all the more inexcusable.

Spoiler alert: you cannot use it there. Only one space can be accessed from melee range.

I've been watching peeps play Sacred Stones ironmans as of late. I have been having to re-evaluate how easy it really is because the peeps in question make moves that are just plain stupid. Like allowing someone who gets doubled to face Valter. No prizes for guessing how that ended. And putting Neimi and Lute out in the open... in a fog of war map... when they were already damaged... and not bothering to heal.

Out of the other level 5 skills, the only notable ones imo are Draconic Hex, Seal Speed, and Renewal. That's one exclusive skill and two others from Hoshidan classes...

About the one time I could see Sure Strike being useful is against Carlyle in Eirika's route because the bastard is a swordmaster on a throne... and even then you're looking at single digit activation rates because it's tied to the unit's level; just how many levels is Innes going to get between Revolt at Carcino and then? Also, I'd consider Careful Aim (the Bow Knight class skill in Engage) almost as big a joke. A hit boost is generally not thought highly of already, but this one adds the condition that you must initiate combat without moving, to which I can only say "what the hell?"

How much speed does the thief have? Because you can just steal it back.

1. That's not necessary (also, the fact you're asking about her implies you didn't pick the Golden Deer). Also... imho, she isn't that much better than the other mages. If she is even better than them at all, which I am NOT sold on. That being said... she has a chance to ask to join your class at B support. This can be used to recruit most other students, too (except Ferdinand and Caspar, that is). 2. There is one chapter where you are forced to use the students of your initial class. It's particularly notorious. 3. Weapons in many games of this series have durability. Once a weapon's durability hits zero, it breaks. In most games, this would mean it disappears... but this game allows you to repair weapons. Also, if you can help it, try not to have your weapons break on Enemy Phase. Unlike in most games, you are still stuck using the broken weapon, which is bad. 4. It's kinda easy, Maddening aside... until you get past the halfway point. Then the gloves come off. 5. I wouldn't put much stock in reviews, honestly. It's still perfectly playable. On the older games: you will prolly have to emulate them. Though honestly, anything from before Blazing Blade (the seventh one, for the GBA) prolly ain't worth investing time into playing.

That's... kinda unreasonable and unrealistic, to be frank. How many of those do NOT have them equipped to start??? Also, you're assuming you steal them fresh... which is ALSO unrealistic. Third, the obvious flaw with relying on silence and sleep for this is that they can just... you know, miss since you're targeting high res units. Esp. Silence. And this is ignoring all the exp Volke needs.

I never had any issue with him myself. He wasn't a star player, but he still got the job done.

What about the fact they get exclusive Longbow use?

On the flipside, I'd say having 1-2 means little if you cannot reliably kill what you're luring in. Look at Binding Blade (yeah, this is the PoR forum, but still). Expecting everything to die to hand axes and javelins will only get you so far.

Neither am I. It isn't worth it. You must be talking about RD specifically, though shades of this came up in PoR. Case in point: Tornado. It's A rank magic... but it has the might of an iron bow. What the hell. Oh, and as an extra kick in the nuts, effective in PoR is only double might, meaning wind magic in general isn't even that much better than thunder vs fliers.

I thought light was isolated from the trinity of magic?

lolol God, wind magic is ass here.

What the buck?? Unbelievable.

What chapter was this in?

Unfortunately, not only does Seth exist, Gilliam (the one armored knight you get) is also pretty bad. Also, Great Knight is good for Gilliam alone. That's a laugh. Last I checked, you yourself said that walls crumble easily in Fates. Now you're just contradicting yourself by turning around and trying to say Fighters can function as a wall. If knights have issues functioning as walls according to you, how the hell do you think a Fighter will do as a "wall"? Spoiler alert: Even worse, because their high HP does jackshit to make up for their poor defenses. Also, many of the other stuff you say they can do? They're bad at it thanks to two words: Crippling Overspecialization. I'm not gonna choose Arthur or Charlotte for my bosskiller or wallbreaker when Camilla is RIGHT THERE (to say nothing of the abundance of other units that are prolly gonna be better at one or the other than either). About the only thing they're good at is being pair up partners... but that isn't something I consider to be that much of a positive. Rather, I see it as more of a damning indictment, because for them to be "useful" I have to waste two units' turns at once. Now, you're right about Benny being hard to get to the point he can double... but Wary Fighter makes that moot. And even if one did try, the slowest enemies you see in Conquest tend to have Wary Fighter as well. On Blacksmith: It's bad, I agree, but to be honest, the Oni Savage class line was an afterthought.

How are knights better in Sacred Stones? Because I find that to be one of their worse outings: Anyway, I'd consider Fighter a downgrade for both, but more on that later. I also find it hard to agree with knights being good in Thracia. I find it the other way around, tbf. Other than certain edge cases (and breakers, which come really late), it's hard to knock enemy hit rates down low enough to make dodging reliable. What do Fighters have to work with? High Strength and little else? That's something to work with, all right. Too bad it's meaningless when it's not backed up by much of substance. They're too slow to double, and their weapon and skill makes them a crapshoot on the battlefield; I'd go so far as to say they're an active liability. Also, Sol sucks ass (and is unreliable anyway), and Berserker is the worst promoted class in the game. That's ignoring that because of their hit issues, Fighters have a difficult time leveling up. And the fact that Arthur and Charlotte are both among the worst units in the game.

Mostly stuff that's either slow or fragile. Also, at that point, I already have a good team, meaning it'd be a tough sell for me to bench someone else for Duessel, especially since doing so might not even improve my team by enough to make it worth it, if at all... Well, which games do you think armored units are better in? Anyway, I'd think they're better than Fighters there, as Fighters not only have lackluster units, but still suffer from many of the issues that have hounded them in past games. Also, I'd disagree on it discouraging tanking. If anything, it ENCOURAGES it because evasion is unreliable. I also think ninjas are overrated, but that's neither here nor there.

To be fair, it isn't as evident in 3-12 because of its layout, and because he's starting away from the real action. You lost me at the "she has potential" part, honestly. She feels more like a joke character. FFS, Fiona offers more in the long-term despite having a rockier start. That makes one of us. As I see it, he suffers from late character syndrome in Eirika route, and he's still bogged down by Great Knight being a dumpster fire in Sacred Stones.