FE4 Experience rank

[chrysalid]

So it's common knowledge that if you're interesting in ranking with FE4, XP is by far the biggest pain (tactics being fairly tight). You need 1000 total level increases, and by my count there are only about 1150 total level-ups possible in the game (I wrote down 606 for gen 1, can't find what I wrote down for gen 2 but it's like 550). I am probably not ever going to actually sit down and attempt a ranked game because it would be 50% staff spamming, but I am interested in it theoretically.

I think gen 1 is the main problem - by gen 2 if you have done all the twinking to get amazing units and all of the important items transported you have a huge amount of leeway, and there are no units that vanish after 1-2 chapters.

Basically all the hardass units that show up by the middle of chapter 2 and don't disappear until chapter 5 like Sigurd, the swordmasters, Fury, Lex, Levin will be high 20s by the end of chapter 5 if you always have them finish the arena (which they can almost always do) and use them normally. Eking out the last couple of levels would require some kind of system to pass the elite ring around. Lex minus the pursuit ring is still one of these guys because of elite.

Anybody that has at least C staves before promotion is taken care of by a hideous amount of staff spamming including Diadora and her 1.5 chapter lifespan. If you give them Sylvia, a C-rank staff user gets .7 levels per turn (spending 1000 gold per turn on repairs), a B-Rank 1.2 levels (2000/turn), and just forget Claude. You get Lachesis as a master knight by late chapter 2, etc. All of them can easily get to 30 but you have to figure out a gold supply chain for them via overleveling them relative to the arena, romances and Deu. Levin and Tiltyu can let other units get kill XP after they promote into staff cheesing.

Then you have the B-teamers like Noiche, Alex, Beowulf that will usually fail to finish arenas and can't be thrown around stupidly but that do contribute to map clearing. Midir and Jamke are better in arenas because of the awesome killer bow, but they're basically in this spot. Playing normally I usually get them to low 20s in chapter 5 which is pretty unacceptable for the 1000 level threshold I guess. These are the guys that want the stat-up rings the most to cover their bad spots. Tiltyu comes later and underlevelled but at least you can use her as a wrath'd Tron paper cannon (in arenas especially). Briggid is deadly but she also tends to be in this low 20s zone in chapter 5, mostly because she's underleveled and foot troops are so unwieldy.

Cuan, Fin and Ethlin leave at the end of Chapter 3, and I've usually got Ethlin near the cap at that point because I contrive to put the Elite ring on her in Chapter 2 so she can promote quickly and take out the Chapter 2 arena, and she'll get the last couple of problem levels out of staff abuse. Cuan gets low-mid 20s and I don't know what more I could do with him that wouldn't be screwing other units out of XP. Fin has plenty of time to cap out eventually so you can hold him back slightly in Chapter 2/3, but it's minor.

Then you have the fails and superfails - Azel, Deu, Arden, Sylvia. Each one is so bad they get their own paragraph.

Sylvia: There are about 200 turns in gen 1 with tactics rank in mind, and Sylvia exists and should be dancing for about 125 of them, so that's level 12-13. If she's in the home base for an entire chapter she can let herself get injured and get turn-by-turn healing so she can slowly progress through the arena fights with 1-2 HP prayers until she gets to the ranks that OHKO her, so add 3-4 levels I guess? People seem really big on the prayer skill for the arena but it's a pretty unwieldy tool unless there's a trick I don't know.

This is a pretty damn boring use of a dancer but hey it's a stupid rank. If you use her the tactically superior way with a leg ring/knight ring after chapter 3 she's amazingly useful for tactics but her XP won't improve.

Deu: If Deu gets Ethlin's light sword and the pursuit ring at the beginning of chapter 3 he can be another crappy foot unit and then do pretty well in the pirate section of the chapter. Maybe if he gets the elite ring during pirate time he can promote and do the arena before you finish, and end up as a mid 20s type by end of chapter 5? A lot of bother, but he's not a wasteland, like...

Azel: This is the most miserable unit. You think he's gonna be useful from the prologue... no sir. It's depressing to pace out his sad 5 move every turn and watch him get blicked in the arena. He might get a few tactically legitimate kills in prologue, early chapter 1 and late chapter 2, and maybe once in chapter 3, but that's it - any other time you are babying him disastrously. If you finally get him promoted he can be useful-minus if you pass him a tome that isn't idiotically heavy - he doesn't even get the automatic 10 levels a measly C-rank staff would give him. I have no idea what to do with him if turncounts mean anything.

Arden: Less depressing than Azel because he is an intentional gonk joke unit. His pretty good str and defense and the fact that he has access to light weaponry and the hero sword means he might be able to twink out enough to get near the top fights in the arena I guess. He could get the bargain ring in Chapter 2 after the hike to the pursuit ring to let him spend less of Deu's money buying rings and stuff. He can easily be like level 9 the end of 5 if you don't do everything possible to help him.

Am I mis-characterizing any units or missing anything obvious there?

[Mekkah]

I did this, except with giving everyone Elite, to get the feel but not the pain of a ranked run. I finished with about 16, might even be 20 turns to spare for tactics, and I overkilled EXP as well. It's not anything to measure by though. But either way, I managed to cap nearly everyone's level. Even Ardan.

Your theory all sums them up pretty well. You're right that Prayer isn't an auto-win in the arena, but if you're sitting on your ass all chapter long you should be able to abuse it in a way to get into Prayer range for the arena. Let's not forget that sitting inside the castle auto-heals you as well.

You know, I do actually agree that Ardan is less of a hopeless case than Azel. Ardan's str/def are better, and until Azel gets Wind/Elwind (Ch4/promo) he is faster...you'd think Azel would at least win against mages in the arena, but Ardan probably kills them quicker. Other than those nasty Dark Mages, I don't think either stands much of a chance.

I never really thought of Pursuit Ring Dew vs Pirates, though you'll want to lure them so that they're fought off the bridge, so Sigurd can kill the Leg Ring boss and walk through. Other ways to raise Dew's level are abusing his Give command (gives 10 EXP...20 for weaklings like me), and having him attack brigands/pirates that do nothing but burning villages. 5000G is a worthy sacrifice for a bunch of levels for a guy as weak as Dew. I had Dew do this in Ch3 AND Ch4, and then I also had to give him a civilian in Ch4 to get him to L20.

[Narga_Rocks]

I never really thought of Pursuit Ring Dew vs Pirates, though you'll want to lure them so that they're fought off the bridge, so Sigurd can kill the Leg Ring boss and walk through. Other ways to raise Dew's level are abusing his Give command (gives 10 EXP...20 for weaklings like me), and having him attack brigands/pirates that do nothing but burning villages. 5000G is a worthy sacrifice for a bunch of levels for a guy as weak as Dew. I had Dew do this in Ch3 AND Ch4, and then I also had to give him a civilian in Ch4 to get him to L20.

Don't thos pirates/brigands have 5000 gold anyway? Dew gets the 5000 and if Dew manages to kill the thing before it finishes its destruction then he also gets at least 500 more.

[chrysalid]

I need to get a playthrough to a chapter 3 save to see exactly how nasty pursuit+magic ring Dew is with the light sword or maybe thunder sword. I also forgot Fury gets C staff after promotion, too, so that's another easy cap unit.

[Mekkah]

You could use FEA and the Gen 1 enemy stats to determine Dew's prowess. Or lack thereof. He's lucky to proc Mag more than once in his entire unpromoted career, so with a Magic Ring you're looking at a 6 mag dude with a 14 mt weapon at range. Up close, he's lucky to have 6 str (his L8 average, approx), and you don't even have a Power Ring yet, so that's 18 mt.

Orgahil

- The army that goes to raid Augustria

- Pirate L12, 47/8/0/3/10/0/8/1, Iron Axe, -8 (6)

- Pirate L14, 49/9/0/4/11/0/9/1, Hand Axe, -9 (5)

Man, a def/res gap of 7-8 about covers the str/mag gap for an L17 Dew, lol. Dew is so sad...up close, you're looking at 2x10 or so, not even 50% of their HP. At range, 2x13, or 26 hp which is in fact a 2RKO.

[chrysalid]

I think the hand axe pirates won't even try to attack him in enemy phase since the FE4 AI understands evasion. I think I need to really play the chapter.

[Mekkah]

Yeah, I suspected that, but then again at range Dew doesn't have WTA (+20 hit for them, which is the difference between Hand and Iron Axe hit)...but I do recall the Iron ones attacking Silver Sword Fury, but not the Hand Axe ones for some reason.

[Narga_Rocks]

I think the hand axe pirates won't even try to attack him in enemy phase since the FE4 AI understands evasion. I think I need to really play the chapter.

Yeah, I suspected that, but then again at range Dew doesn't have WTA (+20 hit for them, which is the difference between Hand and Iron Axe hit)...but I do recall the Iron ones attacking Silver Sword Fury, but not the Hand Axe ones for some reason.

I suppose you aren't still talking about the ones that attack villages. Anyway, I remember them being willing to attack high evasion units. Sometimes even 0% hit. It's weird. I found them more willing to attack something that was guaranteed to take no damage and ORKO them back than they were to attack something with more def than their attack even though there is a min damage = 1 thing here and they had a good hit rate and weren't guaranteed to die on the counter.

But other times they would stay away, I think. Like, Tinny on a castle in chapter 9 against the dragon riders. They basically just moved around side to side while she stood there with 0% hit rates against. I had a couple units in the castle basically walk out to the front door, kill something, and go back inside. They never attacked Tinny on enemy phase. Enemy AI is just unpredictable that way.

[chrysalid]

I have a inchoate idea that maybe they only check base+wta+terrain evasion, not charisma/love bonus/leadership, although I'm not sure of that at all.

[Salad Utensil]

The general strategy is to go as fast as possible, but still save turns to boss abuse. You might be better off just forsake tactics a little in the first gen and make it up in the second generation. And you have to reset until everyone who can finish the arena can. I actually think Cuan should get the elite ring in chapter 2, but thats just me...

What you are willing to do for Deu is probably the easiest way to raise him. If he gets the light sword in chapter 2 he can snipe at those knights that come out of Agusty? in chapter 2. Have him buy the elite ring and if possible the pursuit ring for use during chapter 3 and hopefully he can reach a high enough level to promote by the start of chapter 4. Unfortunately you still have to set up kills for him even with a magic sword, it just makes things a bit easier.

Azel has a chance to steal kills in chapter 2 if you position him on that ledge near that last castle, for some reason they all want to target him with thier heavy ranged weapons so he has a chance to gain a couple levels. The easiest way I've been able to raise Azel was saving up his money and letting him win a couple rings from bosses, hopefully have him reach ~14-16 by chapter 4 and have him buy wind and the elite ring because it seems that is the only arena he has a remote chance to win in.

For Arden I tend to let him handle those lance knights that Elliot comes with in chapter 1. He gets 3 hit KO I think at high hit rates, but he gains a lot of EXP from them. Arden also need to the slim sword to do well in the first arena too. I tend to just swap weapons with Ethlin and him so she can still gain EXP from counters. I basically ignored him until the final chapter and he went from level 15 to 23 from fighting those mountain thieves with a broken sword.

Sylvia is impossible to raise to level high 20-30 unless you want to tank your tactics. Prayer isn't as useful in the arena in 1st generation, since you don't have the sleep sword yet. The best you can do for her is to keep her defense sword, take a defense ring and hope she hits prayer range in the arena and get as many level ups as possible. I tend to just have her take the elite ring in chapter 5 and later sell it when she can and Sigurd can buy it and let Celice inherit it.

For your B sword users and Arden I recommend you finish chapter 3 as fast as possible until you reach the final boss and give them iron/slim swords to boss abuse that Warrior that drops the power ring. I think I spend 15 turns just doing that and letting Sylvia dance for them. Also you can abuse those level 30 mountain thiefs in chapter 5 for all their worth since money is pointless at that point and the villages don't drop items. So don't even seize until Alec, Noish, Arden and Beowulf reach at least level 25, though with Beowulf, he actually might have a chance at finishing in the high 20s.

Tiltyu needs a magic ring to 1HKO critical the arena enemies, but Diadora is also good in the chapter 2 and 1 arenas too if you give her the magic ring and let her 1HKO the enemies or fall into prayer range.

For Lex you don't want him to ever kill an enemy unless absolutely necessary (say defending Lachesis in chapter 2).

If for staff users you want Diadora to level cap first by chapter 3 and give her the warp staff and all of Sigurd's money. You want Ethlin to level cap in chapter 2 so you can give the return staff to Lachesis. You want Aideen to level cap by the start of chapter 4 and Lachesis to be able to promote by chapter 4 as well. If Fury and Levn reach promotion by then, Tiltyu can have all the B staves for chapter 5 and level cap as well.

Thief sword for those who can use it is your best friend and I recommend Fee inherit it. This lets you get more money for sword users to buy the elite ring with...

Edited March 17, 2010 by Brighton

[Mekkah]

For Arden I tend to let him handle those lance knights that Elliot comes with in chapter 1. He gets 3 hit KO I think at high hit rates, but he gains a lot of EXP from them.

They're L1 iirc, why would he get high EXP from them?

What you are willing to do for Deu is probably the easiest way to raise him. If he gets the light sword in chapter 2 he can snipe at those knights that come out of Agusty? in chapter 2. Have him buy the elite ring and if possible the pursuit ring for use during chapter 3 and hopefully he can reach a high enough level to promote by the start of chapter 4.

Really really doubt Dew can get to L20 in Ch4 without considerable abuse of some kind. I can see him get to L3 in Ch1, and getting more than 2 kills and, say, 5 weakenings in Ch2 is downright insane. Where's the other 16 levels coming from?

[chrysalid]

Awesome tips, thanks Brighton. I'm not quite sure how to let Ethlin staff abuse in chapter 2 because I'd feel short on healing already from leaving Diadora/Aideen/Lachesis out of commission. I was letting elite ring Ethlin use the return staff to send Sylvia back to base then selling it in the northern castle to let Lachesis abuse it (she walks home from her castle and spends a turn or two healing her paladins in the meantime). On the last couple of turns she uses the Return ring to get home, promote and run the arena and ends up at like 26 from that and doing 40 xp Relifes for a long time. She'll cap in chapter 3 from the arena and almost-normal use without the elite ring. I guess the final cost ends up being 2-3 levels on Cuan?

Aideen is so slow I don't see the point to let her out until she can get Libra, even if she can only slowly staff spam with Live - is it better to go at her pace and let Chapter 2 turn into something like a 45 turn chapter and then make it up in gen 2?

Is your chapter 2 Azel trick getting him up on the northeastern plateau where all the villages are? That's pretty slick.

I'm really not looking forward to having him trudge up there through forest for 35+ turns. Is there time to get the bargain ring/visit some villages?

Can Arden finish the chapter 1 arena if he has the speed ring and gets a few stat ups from killing a couple of those knights? I know he can barely kill the second-to-last wind mage with a steel sword 2HKO without getting into one-in-a-million odds even without the speed ring.

[Salad Utensil]

Note: my grammar in this post, is pretty bad due to being too lazy to fix it

They're L1 iirc, why would he get high EXP from them?

Arden was level 2...so he gained almost 2 levels from killing some of them...I guess high exp is an exaggeration, but it was basically free since usually, Eltoshen and his knights would have stolen it anyways...Besides its hard to get him much exp to begin with and 2 levels can be significant. Not that he ever gains what he needs most-skill.

Really really doubt Dew can get to L20 in Ch4 without considerable abuse of some kind. I can see him get to L3 in Ch1, and getting more than 2 kills and, say, 5 weakenings in Ch2 is downright insane. Where's the other 16 levels coming from?

He is able to steal kills in chapter 1 due to someone leaving enemies just in kill range. He gains 1.5 levels from hiding in that village and takes on the army that Gandalf send to him (yes its risky, but its only 3% chance of death). He kills whatever he can with the light sword and somewhat is able to damage those armor knights that are like everywhere. He later makes him way to the ledge where the agusty knights come out and snipes enemies and occasionally kills (for some reason they target him a lot). The hits rates are in the 10s-20s, but he gets 2HKOed so I send Aideen with a live staff to back him up (and Azel too). The key word is bolded, in chapter 3 is that he gets the Elite ring for the entire chapter and is set up kills for and even gets a little boss abuse. As long he he reaches that magically number level 18 he can usually win the first few matches in the arena provided he gets the need rings for the right matches and promote and finish the rest of the arena provided he gets a good sword.

Awesome tips, thanks Brighton. I'm not quite sure how to let Ethlin staff abuse in chapter 2 because I'd feel short on healing already from leaving Diadora/Aideen/Lachesis out of commission. I was letting elite ring Ethlin use the return staff to send Sylvia back to base then selling it in the northern castle to let Lachesis abuse it (she walks home from her castle and spends a turn or two healing her paladins in the meantime). On the last couple of turns she uses the Return ring to get home, promote and run the arena and ends up at like 26 from that and doing 40 xp Relifes for a long time. She'll cap in chapter 3 from the arena and almost-normal use without the elite ring. I guess the final cost ends up being 2-3 levels on Cuan?

Aideen is so slow I don't see the point to let her out until she can get Libra, even if she can only slowly staff spam with Live - is it better to go at her pace and let Chapter 2 turn into something like a 45 turn chapter and then make it up in gen 2?

Is your chapter 2 Azel trick getting him up on the northeastern plateau where all the villages are? That's pretty slick.

I'm really not looking forward to having him trudge up there through forest for 35+ turns. Is there time to get the bargain ring/visit some villages?

Can Arden finish the chapter 1 arena if he has the speed ring and gets a few stat ups from killing a couple of those knights? I know he can barely kill the second-to-last wind mage with a steel sword 2HKO without getting into one-in-a-million odds even without the speed ring.

In chapter 1 for Ethlin I have her get all of Cuan's money, talk to Aideen ASAP and have her send a random overleveled unit that I don't want to gain more EXP that chapter like say Cuan and abuse that return staff for all its worth...of course she also has to return home after Aideen gets that warp staff from Dew. Meanwhile those units can try their best in the arena and Ethlin has like ~30 turns to gain 35EXP a pop...In chapter 2, you have to use her at the beginning, but later you can send her home and use Diadora to heal for the rest of the chapter after the second castle or first if you are down with that. In chapter 3's start she should be really close to level capping and she probably didn't need to the elite ring to be honest, but I guess she puts it to good use.

I only recommended Cuan because he leaves and misses out on the chapter 4 and 5 arena and he relies more on the arena and combat than Ethlin, you might have missed out on a lot of levels with him, since he might leave at level 20 when he might have made it to say 25 IDK, I never was able to use Cuan very effectively...

Also because I was too lazy to set up that kill on that forest knight boss for someone weaker and Cuan just HAD to have a ridiculously overpowered silver lance that he got from Elliot.

I recommend giving Aideen that bargain ring for Rana and the fact that she basically become the staff trading center so to speak in the first Gen, since she has to sell off a lot of her staves and buy them back later...don't worry too much about Aideen in chapter 2 try to get her some live heals where she can, but let her buy the libro for chapter 3 and abuse the heck out of it...Since in chapter 1 I gave her all of Deu's money the turn she was recruited she had a lot of gold to work with due to the bargain ring and could repair things as needed. After Diadora is done with the warp staff (remember to sell it or you lose it for all of first gen), she can take that and abuse it for a while when you need to get your army back to home castle for the Eltoshen's army invasion.

Even if Azel is slow you can still get him to the ledge in time and snipe at the mounted units when the penultimate castle is seized and he can still help here and there to finish off a few armor knights where needed too. If nothing else he'll only be a liability with his bad evade if you leave him behind to deal with those sword fighters and archers

I've never had Arden finish any arena before, but I once got ridiculously lucky and killed the wind mage with a slim sword. I actually gave the speed ring to Fin I think so he was able to double the archers in the prologue and had a better chance at finishing the ch. 1 arena. Oh and this goes without saying, but in chapter 2 whoever you plan to give the elite ring to: don't have them do any of the arena before getting the elite ring.

It also is generally more helpful to rush the 1st three chapters so you have more time to do the later chapters with more characters and allow for more boss abusing for your mounted units (Canto FTW)

BTW what pairings are you doing?

Edited March 17, 2010 by Brighton

[chrysalid]

Yeah, that's all very cool. I haven't really started this, all my previous play in FE4 has been using lots of cheats and save states and skipping around in the chapters because I can't get into playing a storyline-heavy tactics game "seriously" until I know all the BS like when characters vanish with no warning. I haven't thought of pairings with XP ranking in mind, I'd probably just do the easiest ones and skip Sylvia. Maybe be mindful of sticking Lex with someone who will have kids that are hard to level?

[chrysalid]

Posting to confirm that hand axe pirates won't bother to attack magic sword Dew, unfortunately. They actually can hit but I think the AI assumes it has WTD even though it doesn't at range and they can counter his magic sword at about 10% hit (OTOH javelin armor knights prefer to attack Dew from range, even though they lose WTA and he 2RKOs them instead of 1000RKO - there is an exploitable enemy squad in early chapter 3 because of that). Iron axe pirates will try to melee him if he doesn't have a terrain bonus, at something like 8-9% hit.

[SuperTroll Maxim Lapierre]

There is no excuse for Sigurd and Lex not reaching level 30 by the end of chapter 5. Sigurd's attack power can be deliberately lowered while he's frontlining so that weaker guys can take the kill instead of him. Also, guys who have enough monies can pass around the Elite Ring while going to the arena, i.e Sigurd finishes the arena and then passes it on to the next guy until and on and on until the Ring reaches that last guy in line.

Jamka and Briggid can easily get up to the high 20s if not level 30 and Tiltyu can easily gain ten levels off the pirates.

I've played this damn game waaaaaay too many times.

[chrysalid]

Yeah, the elite ring passing thing is a big deal. You can cap Tilt by warping everyone down from that beach in Chapter 3 after Aideen gives Briggid Ichival, then have Dew give her enough cash to buy the magic ring, which she can then clear the 3 arena with and have enough money to buy a turn with the elite ring in the Chapter 4 and 5 arenas, which will promote her, and she can then cap pretty easily by spamming Warp in chapter 5. She just kills 2-3 pirates in her entire career that way and leaves everything else for people that need the kill XP.

I've been working on this and there are a million tricks like that, particularly once you learn to be anal about moving money around with Dew/Patty (aside: if you put the knight ring on a thief, they can do "give" commands after taking a normal action and re-moving). The XP rank is much softer than I thought it was. Tactics is also no big deal, I played a mostly-legit trial run (sometimes I'd cheat if I forgot to do a "talk" command I could have easily done at some point, or to give someone the return staff when I forgot to buy it or something, that kind of thing) like an FE7 ranked game where you want to make serious progress towards seizing every turn and I beat the tactics rank by like 40 turns. It's really the combat (<4 losses) rank that's the mind-killer for me. With the 1 RN system and weird AI of FE4 I don't know if I can be bothered. It might just be a matter of getting into the right obsessively defensive frame-of-mind I guess, you can definitely go soft on the turncounts.

[SuperTroll Maxim Lapierre]

For the combat kills, dealing initial damage with the best DEF/Res unit(s)(Sigurd/Lex/Cuan in gen 1) and then ganging up with the rest of your team is the strategy one's to use a lot. Frontlining with Holsety/Shanan will be a necessity in a few other situations, such as Lamia's mercs, Leptor, and Muhammad. Keeping units with Charisma around the front-lining characters also helps a LOT.