Supports - How do you Pick 'em?

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

So, I've been replaying Path of Radiance lately. While it does quite a few things differently from the GBA games, one aspect which it brings along is the support system. Namely, a support system wherein each unit can have up to five "ranks" with other units, and the specific boosts they provide are determined by each unit's affinity. This leaves me wondering - which supports do I pursue?

Let's start - where else? - with Ike. As the main Lord of the game, he has a whopping seven options! ...That was a lot back then... These include fellow members of the Greil Mercenaries; a few of his laguz allies; and of course, the Princess who put her trust in him. But several of those partners (Reyson, Ranulf, Elincia) are relatively late-joiners - do I really want to go the full first half of the game with no supports on Ike? Conversely, Oscar and Soren are basically there from the start (as is Titania, but I had other plans for her). Lethe, I wasn't planning to deploy long-term.

So, I wound up supporting Ike with Oscar (it's available early, and double-Earth gives insane boosts) and with Soren (it's available early, the dialogue is stellar, and Soren has few other options). I went for an A-rank with Soren, even though A-rank with Oscar was available earlier, because I'm hoping to access their "secret conversation" in Radiant Dawn via transfers. ...Even though these are usually the support partners I pick for Ike. Apparently, I'm not very adventurous in this regard.

But anyway, how do you pick your support partners? Is earlier always better? Do you care about captivating conversation? Are you a sucker for stats? Or maybe you're keen on filling out the support log? Let me know by voting, and in the comments, if you so choose!

[lenticular]

In the GBA games: whichever ones show up first. Or rather: whichever ones show up. Supports are slow, I'm not grinding them out, and odds are that I'm not going to get anyone up to 5 total supports anyway.

In Radiant Dawn: the ones that give the best stat bonuses. That is to say, the ones that give the best stat bonuses right now this second. If that means, for instance, having Nolan support with Edward to start with but then dropping him like a bad habit the second Volug shows up, then so be it.

For Path of Radiance: the ones I haven't seen before. Provided I remember. Which I probably don't. But the game is easy enough that I don't feel the need to worry about the mechanical benefits and the writing is strong enough that I would at least vaguely like to try to see all the different ones at some point.

For S supports in Awakening and Fates: whichever ones give me the best inheritance for any kids I'm planning to use, but then anyone else just thrown together piecemeal without much thought.

[Fire Emblem Fan]

I usually go with which characters I think pair well together as people, which I guess is a fancy way of saying I go by who I imagine would get married together, lol. Lyn/Rath, Hector/Florina or Farina, Eliwood/Ninian, Chrom/Sumia, Sylvain/Ingrid, Dorothea/Ferdinand, etc. If there are no marriage options, I go with who I think has the best dialogue together.

Of course, if there's a support log, I want to fill it out. But aside from that, yeah, just by my metric stated above.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

When they show up, easily. Because I think it'd be a big waste to leave ranks on the table at the end of a run, and the sooner I do it the more battles I get to benefit from it. Just like it's a waste leaving stat boosters unused in the convoy or hoarding them all for the final map. If I know the units in question are likely to be part of my long term crew, then supporting is a no brainer no matter what letter rank it is. And even if the units aren't part of my long term design, some of them make sense anyway. Like Roy and Marcus C rank. Alan and Lance even if I'm just going to bench the weaker of the two, all to make early maps easier.

 

 

[Jotari]

Supports are just a cheap tactic to make weakly characterized units appear to be characterized strongly!

Nah, for real, I think @lenticularhit the nail on the head. Each game is different and those are the exact criteria each game pushes.

[Metal Flash]

If there is a support limit, I pick the ones with the best dialogue. A paired is preferred but not strictly necessary. If there isn`t, I just pick whichever ones are easiest to obtain and try to get as many as possible.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

7 hours ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

Because I think it'd be a big waste to leave ranks on the table at the end of a run, and the sooner I do it the more battles I get to benefit from it.

Yeah, I think this is the biggest thing for me. I'd be more inclined to try lategame supports, if they could "overwrite" pre-established ones. Kinda like how RD does it. But chances are, by the time latecoming potential partners arrive, I've either filled up my lists (in PoR) or don't want to bother grinding turns this late (in GBA).

12 hours ago, Fire Emblem Fan said:

Of course, if there's a support log, I want to fill it out. But aside from that, yeah, just by my metric stated above.

If I recall, I made pretty decent progress on my Support Log in Sacred Stones. Like, over 50%. I'd try to finish it out, but the cartridge now freezes randomly, so that's "fun".

5 hours ago, Metal Flash said:

If there is a support limit, I pick the ones with the best dialogue. A paired is preferred but not strictly necessary. If there isn`t, I just pick whichever ones are easiest to obtain and try to get as many as possible.

I didn't mention this, but I do find myself preferring "build up to higher ranks on supports I already have" over "C-rank with as many people as possible". Even if the latter can technically come sooner. I hold each unit to two, rarely three, support chains on a given playthrough.

6 hours ago, Jotari said:

Supports are just a cheap tactic to make weakly characterized units appear to be characterized strongly!

"You guys I swear Renault is a compelling and well-written character, you just have to bring him to the map with a Magic Seal and leave him glued at the hip to another unit for 50 turns to find out why."

12 hours ago, lenticular said:

For Path of Radiance: the ones I haven't seen before. Provided I remember. Which I probably don't. But the game is easy enough that I don't feel the need to worry about the mechanical benefits and the writing is strong enough that I would at least vaguely like to try to see all the different ones at some point.

I think in this case, I wanted the "early supports" because I'm trying to "Ironman Tellius". And losing Ike because he failed to dodge early on would be an inauspicious start.

Regarding the writing, I find myself bewildered by the number of supports that just... end. Like, they're in the middle of a conversation, and just stop talking to one another. Not "one character storms off in anger" or "both characters have business elsewhere", but ones where it really felt as though the conversation should've kept going. I daresay it's the one crippling weakness of otherwise largely-solid support dialogue in PoR.

[lenticular]

47 minutes ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

I think in this case, I wanted the "early supports" because I'm trying to "Ironman Tellius". And losing Ike because he failed to dodge early on would be an inauspicious start.

Yeah, ironman runs are their own thing, and any considerations other than purely mechanical ones get thrown out of the window. I've never done a PoR ironman, but if I did then I'm pretty sure that I'd be nailing Ike and Oscar together without a second thought.

[Jotari]

1 hour ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

"You guys I swear Renault is a compelling and well-written character, you just have to bring him to the map with a Magic Seal and leave him glued at the hip to another unit for 50 turns to find out why."

Five times over!

1 hour ago, lenticular said:

Yeah, ironman runs are their own thing, and any considerations other than purely mechanical ones get thrown out of the window. I've never done a PoR ironman, but if I did then I'm pretty sure that I'd be nailing Ike and Oscar together without a second thought.

Truly there are two types of Fire Emblem fans, those who view Ike's supports as a map to his sexuality and those who view it as +30% avoid. That there seems to be utterly zero* Oscar-Ike slashfics suggests these two groups do not overlap.

(I'm sure there probably is some Oscar-Ike ships, don't show it to me, I treasure my innocence)

[Imuabicus der Fertige]

Eugenics into whatever pops up first. Haven´t ever bothered to find out, much less do I see a reason to do so, which supports I´d like to see... naturally? Don´t think there´s a difference between reading them on a site or in the game, not like there´s gonna be much variation in supports, depending on when you unlock them, methinks.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

3 hours ago, Jotari said:

That there seems to be utterly zero* Oscar-Ike slashfics suggests these two groups do not overlap.

cracks knuckles

Welp, it looks like it's time for me to be the kind of change I wish to see in the world.

Picks up pen

4 hours ago, Jotari said:

Truly there are two types of Fire Emblem fans, those who view Ike's supports as a map to his sexuality

I just finished PoR (for like the seventh time) a few minutes ago, and got Soren's line that "at your [Ike's] side is where I belong". Like, I think there's some gray area in terms of Ike's sexual orientation, and his feelings for Soren. But y'all're fooling yourselves if you don't see how bad Soren's got it for Ike.

...Now I kinda wanna do Ike's support with Ranulf, since he's the only other character with whom he shares a paired ending in RD. Which seemed to come outta nowhere, IMO.

5 hours ago, lenticular said:

Yeah, ironman runs are their own thing, and any considerations other than purely mechanical ones get thrown out of the window. I've never done a PoR ironman, but if I did then I'm pretty sure that I'd be nailing Ike and Oscar together without a second thought.

They definitely went pretty well together! I got Ike to a point where he was able to clear out almost the whole north room in Nados Castle on his own, since nobody could hit him. And in the Endgame, even Ashnard was just barely above 50% hit rate.

My only "regret" with the pairing was, Oscar actually turned out to be one of my "flunkies". Guys I was bringing to some chapters, but not all of them. Had I the option to "overwrite" his Oscar support with a Reyson, I might've done so. Since Reyson was coming to every map.

2 hours ago, Imuabicus der Fertige said:

Eugenics into whatever pops up first. Haven´t ever bothered to find out, much less do I see a reason to do so, which supports I´d like to see... naturally? Don´t think there´s a difference between reading them on a site or in the game, not like there´s gonna be much variation in supports, depending on when you unlock them, methinks.

There are quite a few supports that I've only seen through online scripts, or videos on YouTube. Astonishingly, I don't have the time or interest to play FE7 a full seven more times.

...Actually, new speedrun idea just dropped: Support Log%. How fast can you fill the support log, from empty, for a given game? I'd love to see what depraved strategies the speedrunners adopt.

[Lemmy]

Usually I pick supports based on curiosity, I already know the conversation Stahl and Sully are going to have just based on their introduction, but what would Sully and Harry talk about has me intrigued. 

 

[Eltosian Kadath]

I feel like there is a bit of a priority system to how I chose supports. Highest priority is those that I think work best narratively, followed by the novelty of a new support, followed by having a support being better than a unit never supporting at all. The mechanical question only comes into play for me with the thing Radiant Dawn pretends are supports, and with having children, at which point they do have a higher priority, but I wouldn't necessarily say I am always going for the mechanically best children.

 

1 hour ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

 

...Actually, new speedrun idea just dropped: Support Log%. How fast can you fill the support log, from empty, for a given game? I'd love to see what depraved strategies the speedrunners adopt.

There are some well known tricks for such things. I still remember this old GameFaq guide for maxing the Path of Radiance supports here:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/gamecube/920189-fire-emblem-path-of-radiance/faqs/75321

and I seem to remember the old trick to maxing FE8 support log was to reach late game with few supports, and no A supports and use the tower to save scum all the A supports onto a single run. Similar sort of idea with Fates where you wait to lock in any S support until you can save scum the lot of them (admittedly pulling off all the Kana sibling supports would make for a tricky endeavor).

 

[KMT4ever]

For characters I like as actual characters and not just because of gameplay, my first priority with supports is always whether I like the relationship, whether it be platonic or romantic. Yes, it's incredibly inefficient, but I will have my Hector-Farina A-support as soon as I can! I also have a bias towards paired endings, if for no other reason than to flesh out the "where are they now?" part of the epilogue. Otherwise I tend to just squeeze in whatever other supports fit the team after the ones I specifically want are settled.

For Awakening and Fates I still prioritize the relationship over eugenics for characters I like, but otherwise I will try to at least make sure the children aren't actively hindered. In the case of Awakening specifically I also have a bugbear about pairing Robin up with someone who will make Morgan start as a Tactician because I find anything else to be ridiculous. Luckily I do like Lucina a lot, so that's not a problem for me.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Neat topic! For me as well, this one varies by game a bit:

GBA: I get the fast ones, by and large. While I'm aware that you can grind supports, I choose not to for two reasons: it's dreadfully boring, even if it doesn't take that long in real time, and it feels like an unintended exploit and I tend to dislike using those in games. As such, I mostly end up with the same few supports most playthroughs: e.g. in FE7, I usually get Lyn/Florina, Eliwood/Hector, and Raven/Lucius, assuming I'm using the characters in question. I've read a bunch of the others either from oddball playthroughs or online, but to be honest I don't have a super high opinion of GBA-era support writing on average.

PoR: These are much easier to plan, which I appreciate. Of course there also aren't very many of them: aside from Ike, it's actually fairly unlikely that I willI use more than two support partners for any one character, or maybe three at most, and usually it's very easy to decide what my support chains are. For Ike, I agree that Oscar + Soren usually makes the most sense (if both characters are being used) for reasons already stated.

RD: Yeah, "the best bonuses right now" is a good summary. I try to find +Atk supports for units who need that, and make sure any units benefitting from earth are ones who actually care about dodging (e.g. Mia will probably get one of Ike or Oscar, Mist will not).

Awakening/Fates S supports (since the other supports have no limit): Based on which female (Awakening) or male (Fates) characters I'm using in gen 1 (whether this is planned before the playthrough or decided spontaneously during it) I'll try to aim towards getting the kids both promptly and with statistically suitable second parents.

[Integrity]

i let God sort 'em out

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

On 9/15/2024 at 1:27 AM, KMT4ever said:

For characters I like as actual characters and not just because of gameplay, my first priority with supports is always whether I like the relationship, whether it be platonic or romantic. Yes, it's incredibly inefficient, but I will have my Hector-Farina A-support as soon as I can! I also have a bias towards paired endings, if for no other reason than to flesh out the "where are they now?" part of the epilogue. Otherwise I tend to just squeeze in whatever other supports fit the team after the ones I specifically want are settled.

I do like the idea of getting each of the "Lord pairings" in FE7, since each of the "romantic" ones has its own ending CG. Kind of in a similar vein, I'll go for a different partner for Teach on every playthrough of 3H (professional ethics be damned!).

On 9/15/2024 at 9:07 AM, Dark Holy Elf said:

and it feels like an unintended exploit and I tend to dislike using those in games.

See, this is one of those head-scratchers for me. What did the developers actually intend with these supports?

Did the developers think that players would naturally take twenty or so turns every chapter, thus giving the supports time to blossom? But if so, why create a support growth system that stands in such stark contrast with the ranking system, which rewards efficient play?

Or, did the developers see the supports as a "secret" mechanic that, outside of the few fast ones, would only be seen by the most "hardcore" time-wasters? But in that case, why provide the player with a list of all possible supports, and give them a "support log" to fill out?

Or or, were the supports conceived as "achievements in their own right", which players would go out of their way to acquire via sub-optimal play? But even then, why incorporate a stat boost at all, if anyone going for supports has already given up on "good gameplay"?

So I think that, even on a conceptual level, the growth system for GBA supports doesn't work. Hardly the most daring take, I know.

On 9/15/2024 at 9:07 AM, Dark Holy Elf said:

PoR: These are much easier to plan, which I appreciate. Of course there also aren't very many of them: aside from Ike, it's actually fairly unlikely that I willI use more than two support partners for any one character, or maybe three at most, and usually it's very easy to decide what my support chains are. For Ike, I agree that Oscar + Soren usually makes the most sense (if both characters are being used) for reasons already stated.

It's interesting how the low number of supports affects decision-making. Like, take Soren. He can only support with Ike and Stefan. So if I've already resolved to use Soren, then getting him to at least B-rank with Ike is a no-brainer. In this context, even though Ike has 6 other potential support partners, I've essentially constrained him to just 1, assuming the player wants him to get an A-support.

Thinking on it, it's actually a bit peculiar how much of a "pass" PoR gets for its relatively small assortment of supports. In a game with 41 playable characters, it has 68 total support chains. Compare tgis to Sacred Stones, with 33 playable characters and 83 total support chains. While the average FE8 character gets 5 supports, the average for FE9 is barely over 3. In that light, it's not the greatest shock that Radiant Dawn did away with support conversations, in all but the barest sense.

On 9/15/2024 at 9:07 AM, Dark Holy Elf said:

RD: Yeah, "the best bonuses right now" is a good summary. I try to find +Atk supports for units who need that, and make sure any units benefitting from earth are ones who actually care about dodging (e.g. Mia will probably get one of Ike or Oscar, Mist will not).

What, you've never gone for "dodgetank Mist" before?

All told, I agree on RD. Right now, I'm struggling with whom to pair Leo with. Eddy x Nolan is pretty obvious, and I don't want to break Micaiah x Sothe up (yet). So for Leo, it's kinda just been "whoever I'm bringing who can also boost his Attack and Hit I guess", which isn't the broadest pool.

[Jotari]

7 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Thinking on it, it's actually a bit peculiar how much of a "pass" PoR gets for its relatively small assortment of supports. In a game with 41 playable characters, it has 68 total support chains. Compare tgis to Sacred Stones, with 33 playable characters and 83 total support chains. While the average FE8 character gets 5 supports, the average for FE9 is barely over 3. In that light, it's not the greatest shock that Radiant Dawn did away with support conversations, in all but the barest sense.

I have two theories in that. 1)Nobody has played Path of Radiance 2)The supports are different if people are dead! The supports are different if people are dead! Sure it's only like a singular line of altered dialogue and we'd never naturally see it anyway since we reset after each death and even in ironman you need to lose specific characters and then get specific supports. But it's so cool!

Edited September 18 by Jotari

[Dark Holy Elf]

11 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

See, this is one of those head-scratchers for me. What did the developers actually intend with these supports?

Did the developers think that players would naturally take twenty or so turns every chapter, thus giving the supports time to blossom? But if so, why create a support growth system that stands in such stark contrast with the ranking system, which rewards efficient play?

I have two thoughts about this.

One is that it's best not to think of "the developers" as a group that operates in lockstep on every gameplay concept. Someone on the dev team thought that supports which build by spending turns beside each other (vaguely similar to Genealogy's love system) would be a cool thing to implement. Someone else thought it would be cool if the player were ranked by a variety of metrics, one of which is speed. Each implemented their vision, even though the goals do conflict somewhat.

The other is that Binding Blade and its sequel have more generous turn requirements for rankings than you're probably kneejerking. Especially if we throw out Hector Mode (since its 0-turn requirements are presumably unintended by the devs), there's time to get 5-star tactics while building plenty of B and A supports in both games. Admittedly not all of them, in the case of the likes of Renault, but a lot. I used to do Blazing Blade ranked runs back in the day and I definitely have some 5-star tactics files where several characters have got their full compliment of 5 supports.

12 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

It's interesting how the low number of supports affects decision-making. Like, take Soren. He can only support with Ike and Stefan. So if I've already resolved to use Soren, then getting him to at least B-rank with Ike is a no-brainer. In this context, even though Ike has 6 other potential support partners, I've essentially constrained him to just 1, assuming the player wants him to get an A-support.

Thinking on it, it's actually a bit peculiar how much of a "pass" PoR gets for its relatively small assortment of supports. In a game with 41 playable characters, it has 68 total support chains. Compare tgis to Sacred Stones, with 33 playable characters and 83 total support chains. While the average FE8 character gets 5 supports, the average for FE9 is barely over 3. In that light, it's not the greatest shock that Radiant Dawn did away with support conversations, in all but the barest sense.

I definitely agree. The number of supports in PoR always struck me as weirdly low, coming to them from the GBA games. It's quite easy to construct teams where multiple characters have zero potential supports, which happens much more rarely in other games, and that feels bad. It's interesting to watch the history of supports in the series; you can definitely see their presence trending downwards throughout the 2000's, until Awakening brought them back with an exclamation point. And of course that game was phenomenally successful, so they've become a huge part of every subsequent game.

12 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

What, you've never gone for "dodgetank Mist" before?

All told, I agree on RD. Right now, I'm struggling with whom to pair Leo with. Eddy x Nolan is pretty obvious, and I don't want to break Micaiah x Sothe up (yet). So for Leo, it's kinda just been "whoever I'm bringing who can also boost his Attack and Hit I guess", which isn't the broadest pool.

I never have, but I respect the game of those who have.

For Leo I'd put it the question the way around. I don't really care what Leo gets; he's barely taking hits, is reasonably accurate, and isn't doubling until he gets the Brave Bow, so he gets relatively little out of anyone else's support affinity. But a lot of people appreciate the combination of Def and Atk, in particular getting +1 of each regardless of their own affinity. Who needs that most, short-term? If you're already going for Micaiah/Soren and Eddy/Nolan (at least for the earlygame), then I'd look at who else wants his water affinity. Which, since the answer is "not Laura", means probably Aran or Meg.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

12 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

I definitely agree. The number of supports in PoR always struck me as weirdly low, coming to them from the GBA games. It's quite easy to construct teams where multiple characters have zero potential supports, which happens much more rarely in other games, and that feels bad. It's interesting to watch the history of supports in the series; you can definitely see their presence trending downwards throughout the 2000's, until Awakening brought them back with an exclamation point. And of course that game was phenomenally successful, so they've become a huge part of every subsequent game.

It's funny to think of, but since my first two games were Shadow Dragon and Radiant Dawn, I made it three games in before I even met a support conversation! Even as they're now a series standard, to the point of being retrofitted into a remake of Gaiden.

13 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

I used to do Blazing Blade ranked runs back in the day and I definitely have some 5-star tactics files where several characters have got their full compliment of 5 supports.

Ooh, this gives me an idea for something of a spinoff thread...

13 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

If you're already going for Micaiah/Soren and Eddy/Nolan (at least for the earlygame), then I'd look at who else wants his water affinity. Which, since the answer is "not Laura", means probably Aran or Meg.

That's another way to look at it. I've been rotating Leo through partners, which isn't the best feeling while I'm considering making him one of my "investment projects" for the run. But hey, it's an Ironman. So maybe he'll just die, and I won't have to worry about it anymore!

18 hours ago, Jotari said:

I have two theories in that. 1)Nobody has played Path of Radiance 2)The supports are different if people are dead! The supports are different if people are dead! Sure it's only like a singular line of altered dialogue and we'd never naturally see it anyway since we reset after each death and even in ironman you need to lose specific characters and then get specific supports. But it's so cool!

That part is pretty cool. Also the dialogue changing if, say, Oscar and Boyd die before you rescue Rolf. The sadistic completionist inside of me is now hyping up for a "genocide run".

If I recall, I think some of the supports might also change slightly, depending on when you first activate them? To make sure they match with the outside story beats.

[Jotari]

5 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

It's funny to think of, but since my first two games were Shadow Dragon and Radiant Dawn, I made it three games in before I even met a support conversation! Even as they're now a series standard, to the point of being retrofitted into a remake of Gaiden.

Ooh, this gives me an idea for something of a spinoff thread...

That's another way to look at it. I've been rotating Leo through partners, which isn't the best feeling while I'm considering making him one of my "investment projects" for the run. But hey, it's an Ironman. So maybe he'll just die, and I won't have to worry about it anymore!

That part is pretty cool. Also the dialogue changing if, say, Oscar and Boyd die before you rescue Rolf. The sadistic completionist inside of me is now hyping up for a "genocide run".

If I recall, I think some of the supports might also change slightly, depending on when you first activate them? To make sure they match with the outside story beats.

Yeah, I vaguely remember Most and Jill's support being different depending on wether or not you've fought Shiharam.