Exp rank in Hard mode

[BBHood217]

I've completed two EHM runs.

And in both runs, my Exp rank is a measly 1 star.

What the hell gives? Am I expected to level up everyone evenly and promote no one until Final or something?

Or is my game somehow bugged?

[Balcerzak]

If you're promoting before Battle Before Dawn, you're probably promoting too early.

[Paper Jam]

The HM experience ranking expects you to fight nonpromoted enemies with nonpromoted characters, and it punishes you much more severely for using overleveled units (e.g. promoted characters to kill nonpromoted enemies) than NM.

In short, yes; it expects you to use EVERYBODY, right up to the final chapter.

And if your average Experience ranking ever dips below 5 stars, it will never go back up.

I had to try and retry EHM about three times for this reason, and I still dropped down to 4 stars in chapter 29x because I used only promoted characters from chapter 27 onward.

Edited March 5, 2012 by Paper Jam

[Sunwoo]

I had difficulty with the experience rank in EHM as well. When I actually tried to rank as high as I could (A-ranked it, if I remember correctly), I think I still ended up with 4 (or maybe 3) stars in experience despite my best efforts.

[BBHood217]

Man, and to think I get 5 stars easily in the Normal modes just by playing normally.

It really is that stingy? Wow.

[Sunwoo]

Man, and to think I get 5 stars easily in the Normal modes just by playing normally.

It really is that stingy? Wow.

Yep. The experience gain just CRAWLS to <10 per kill for units that are too highly leveled. And this is when they're unpromoted.

[Tangerine]

You don't have to use every character like an earlier poster suggested, although you will have to use a fair amount of them. Ideally you will save a lot of turns by playing quickly early on so you can arena abuse with Ninian, staff users and horse units. This can get you a pretty huge chunk of EXP and gold per turn, and is really the only comfortable way to do things.

Also skip the 1 or 2 0 turn chapters in the game, as doing them only counts against you.

Edited March 8, 2012 by Tangerine

[Balcerzak]

Also skip the 1 or 2 0 turn chapters in the game, as doing them only counts against you.

Eliwood mode doesn't have 0 turn chapters, and regardless, 0 turn chapters are also 0 XP chapters, and since the struggle is with the XP side of the ranking, that means anything you acquire for XP directly makes up for your deficits elsewhere, and is a highly profitable endeavor, often moreso on a turn-by-turn basis than Arena abuse, as you can feed mutliple units to your whole team, instead of 2 units to one unit (sometimes 3 or 4 with creative rescue chains).

[Tangerine]

Eliwood mode doesn't have 0 turn chapters, and regardless, 0 turn chapters are also 0 XP chapters, and since the struggle is with the XP side of the ranking, that means anything you acquire for XP directly makes up for your deficits elsewhere, and is a highly profitable endeavor, often moreso on a turn-by-turn basis than Arena abuse, as you can feed mutliple units to your whole team, instead of 2 units to one unit (sometimes 3 or 4 with creative rescue chains).

Oh oops, didn't realize this was an EHM S rank thread. When I see "rank" I think HHM .

I dunno if you can get enough EXP per turn in 19xx to make up for what you could be using that turn for in the arena, although it largely depends on what you're matched up against and who the character is. And I was talking about using rescue chains for it, yes. Plus arena abusing instead offers you a chance to massively improve the performance of a few units and increase your actual funds, which will make the tactics rank that much more comfortable. But I haven't S ranked in a while, and like you said this is for EHM and it doesn't have 0 turn chapters. So the discussion is pointless and off topic.

Edited March 8, 2012 by Tangerine

[Paper Jam]

I don't think you can get more than 100 EXP per turn from arenas, and even that is pushing it; you need to fight and defeat a character 1 level higher than yourself, three times per turn.

Chapter 16x is a bad place to abuse the arena, because you don't have Ninian yet. Chapter 20 is okay, but you only have enough deployment space to deploy two characters for arena abuse. (Hence three arena battles, if Ninian invigorates one of those two characters.)

If you're serious about abusing the arena, the best map to do it is probably chapter 23 (Linus), as you're allowed 22 turns to complete the chapter and a more reasonable number of deployment slots than chapters 16x or 20.

And touche... I was exaggerating about using everybody, but in all seriousness, once you start benching characters for good, it can quickly become a slippery slope. In one of my playthroughs, I determined early on not to use Dorcas, Lowen, or Kent. By the time I got to chapter 21 and realized that it really would help me to give them some experience, it was too late; the enemies were already too powerful for them.

So in the early game, it's best to use everyone of low level to fight and gain combat experience. Maybe later in the game it becomes necessary to bench one or two characters, but the fewer you bench, and the later you bench them, the better.

Edited March 8, 2012 by Paper Jam