Have you ever promoted anyone early?

[Aquilae]

I don't promote when I can gain more stats with increased EXP gains, but I do promote early in some cases, such as for Thracia Sages and whatnot. Mostly the lack of stats hurt unless your growths aren't great or the enemies suck (FEDS NM)

[Integrity]

I almost always promote at 20 except for a bare few:

Mist is an early promote in both PoR/RD because Canto + Healer = Boner.

Priscilla I tend to promote immediately upon reaching 10.

Knoll is always immediately promoted to Summoner.

That's all I can think of for now.

[Life]

Promoted Serra at about 17.32 on my HNM S Rank run so that she could start killing like everyone else. But usually, I don't.

[Ike-Mike]

I did that all the time before PoR showed me the benefits of Lv20 promotions.

[AceNoctali]

Only in Fire Emblem Gaiden. At first because I was a noob and didn't knew about the level cap (this was my first FE, FE4 being my second, and there wasn't a possibility to promote early in there), then because the EXP gaining system is shitty and I don't have the patience to go through completely.

[Anouleth]

I generally promote healers early, unless it's Clarine and I can turn her into an indestructible map-soloing goddess by waiting. I promoted Rutger early as well so he could rape Scott. But other than that... I prefer to wait. Unless there's a strong advantage to promoting early, I don't bother. Maybe I should early-promote more often... but I always feel like I'm wasting opportunity. I know it's irrational, but whatever.

I want to experiment with Sealing Ilyana in 1-5 in FE10, though. Many people seal her anyway for the extra skill capacity, so there's really no reason to wait instead of cashing in on the extra offense and access to Fire tomes and movement.

[whase]

never done that.

oh wait, just thought about this.

I usually use oswin(FE7) as protection for merlinus, and for nothing else since I think he's too slow.

I promote him at the moment I can so that I can use him a little longer (and I have knight crests enough, I never use any cavaliers (Amelia excluded) or armors except for oswin)

[Killer Poleax]

usually I don't until they get to lvl 20. only the characters with forced promotions that I don't like using or ones that I forget to lvl to 20. besides the main lord type characters, I've only done it with FE10 Gatrie when he capped his speed. I might have done it with Priscilla one time cause I couldn't wait for her to get to 20. if I have an extra seal I'll promote Laura (to 2nd tier) in part 4

Edited May 29, 2010 by Killer Poleax

[Sir Ilpalazzo]

In my first Book 2 playthrough, I really needed an on-foot Gradius user, so I got Doga to level 10 in chapter 19, promoted him, and gave him a few stat-boosting items.

Of course he ended up being garbage, but with Gradius, he did barely hold off the mage dragons in the first part of the final chapter.

[Colonel M]

Usually I'll promote early with a few exceptions. I'll attempt to get Alan / Lance to Level 20 if possible, for example. Probably should with Shin too. In other games, like FEDS, I don't promote often at Level 20; mainly because it's a chore to reach it.

[Gergeshwan]

I usually promote early if I have the items to do so. In most cases, the promotion gains at an earlier chapter are worth a minor drop in stats in the lategame. Some problems that pop up are the Hero Crest shortage in FE6 (Rutger and Dieck eat those up) and the Knight Crest shortage in FE7 (3 excellent cavs and Oswin, 2 crests), which usually results in some characters getting leveled to 20. There's also a more general bottleneck in FEDS after the 3 early seals.

[Parrhesia]

Usually promote early. Always have, always will. Originally I promoted at 10-12, (and I have no Wallace excuse, as my first FE was Sacred Stones) but nowadays I aim for around 16, or whenever they cap something important. I'm also a big fan of promoting random level 10s if I have the things to spare and using them as bait.

However, I'd probably usually wait til 20 in,say PoR with no promotion items needed. Although, I (well, my mate. I advised, though) once had a 16/Whatever Rolf who was probably everything-blessed, seeing as he was one of our best units.

[Shadow Mir]

I don't promote early. I just don't see any strong advantages to doing so.

[Narga_Rocks]

I don't promote early. I just don't see any strong advantages to doing so.

fe5 and fe10. Really really strong advantages for certain characters. Everything but hp caps at 20 in fe5 anyway and the mag/spd bonuses on anything that can become a sage are amazing. Like, 5 or 6. Also, they get staves earlier and it takes forever to build up staff rank in that game (at least, E to D and D to C). As for RD, think speedwing Haar after he caps spd and think Gatrie after he caps speed. 24 stops doubling in HM pretty quick (3-5/3-8) so promoting Haar at whatever level he may be at the time is a great idea. 23 never doubles the tough enemies at all so Gatrie really needs the promotion.

fe6 has another example if you want to make Rutger able to take a crit from the chapter 9 boss.

Other than that, I tend to like going to 20 as well, but that's my paranoia. I'm afraid if I promote too early some unit won't be as good later on as I need it to be. But I'm pretty sure there are many other times where I should have promoted but didn't.

[Shadow Mir]

fe5 and fe10. Really really strong advantages for certain characters. Everything but hp caps at 20 in fe5 anyway and the mag/spd bonuses on anything that can become a sage are amazing. Like, 5 or 6. Also, they get staves earlier and it takes forever to build up staff rank in that game (at least, E to D and D to C). As for RD, think speedwing Haar after he caps spd and think Gatrie after he caps speed. 24 stops doubling in HM pretty quick (3-5/3-8) so promoting Haar at whatever level he may be at the time is a great idea. 23 never doubles the tough enemies at all so Gatrie really needs the promotion.

fe6 has another example if you want to make Rutger able to take a crit from the chapter 9 boss.

Other than that, I tend to like going to 20 as well, but that's my paranoia. I'm afraid if I promote too early some unit won't be as good later on as I need it to be. But I'm pretty sure there are many other times where I should have promoted but didn't.

Haven't played FE5, so no comment there. All of my RD runs are normal modde, and I'm rather indecisive about stat boosters. However, I do see what you're getting at.

As for that I go with ranged attacks and rescue chains, since I'd rather leave nothing to chance against bosses like Scott. (Especially since Scott, and pretty much every boss in FE6, for that matter, can attack at range one way or another. Scott doesn't start with his Hand Axe equipped, and I'd rather not risk a unit by provoking him into using it.)

I see.

Edited May 30, 2010 by Ein Lanford

[Phoenix Wright]

Not at all on the console versions (or DS, for that matter), and only sometimes on the GBA games. I don't see any advantage, or any necessity in promoting them early, unless it's a speed run and the extra power is needed.

[Thor Odinson]

I pretty much earlypromoted everyone on my most recent FE8 run, though, but only because it's Sethskip and getting Seth to the boss, kill it, then getting Eirika in to seize is all that matters.

It worked best for Artur and Natasha, since Artur gains C staves upon promotion and Natasha gains offense. Also Gerik gets instant axes, since he actually has good hit with it and it improves his dodge with the lancemen.

[RNG Princess]

Recently I promoted Ilyana on my hard mode playthrough at level 17 and Tormod was virtually useless, although she had less hp he had less everything else. I did it because she had capped speed and fire on 1-E is a good tome ;).

Sothe never gets past level 7 for promotion, I really dislike him so I neglect him as much as I can.

other early promotions were Nolan and Aran because I needed more meatshields.

Edited May 30, 2010 by Queen_Elincia

[Junkhead]

I think early promotions was something pretty common to FE newcomers or begginers to the series.

My first early promotions were on Colm, Franz and Arur. The promotion item's description didn't help at all ("Use this on a unit of level 10, or higher")

My Colm was lvl 14 when I promoted, he actually wasn't bad at all, he had capped Str, and +1 Str than averages.

Franz was decent, I promoted him to a Great Knight at lvl 11 and he was still rockin'

Same with Artur, he went Sage and was just great.

[Balcerzak]

Gaiden. Everyone promotes early. Everyone. Not promoting villagers immediately has left my Alm team crippled compared to my Celica team.

[RNG Princess]

I think early promotions was something pretty common to FE newcomers or begginers to the series.

My first early promotions were on Colm, Franz and Arur. The promotion item's description didn't help at all ("Use this on a unit of level 10, or higher")

My Colm was lvl 14 when I promoted, he actually wasn't bad at all, he had capped Str, and +1 Str than averages.

Franz was decent, I promoted him to a Great Knight at lvl 11 and he was still rockin'

Same with Artur, he went Sage and was just great.

That is true :P