Grinding & Overall Endgame Enjoyment

[Tyung]

Hey, I only recent joined these forums and haven't actually posted yet until now. I've been reading a lot and learned some interesting things. It's nice being able to read different perspectives on a game we all enjoy spending hours of our life playing. :P

WARNING: WALL OF TEXT!

Anyways.. I've got a question regarding how I should go about playing my next save file. Currently, I have two saves, both Normal/Classic. The first one I didn't know anything about skills and such, but the second one I had a little better idea.

However, I do want to make a third once I finish my second playthrough (Ch.21-22 atm), but I'm not sure how I'd like to go about it. One thing I do know, I'd like to be able to max my characters eventually and be able to enjoy and endgame. Although from what I've heard, and throughout personal experience, even before being maxed out you can have ridiculously strong characters. I mean, Avatar and Lucina are essentially unkillable, for me at least. That's for both playthroughs (both Avatar Lucina). Granted, I haven't tried out much or all of the DLC yet (though I have access to them all). I did finish the free post-game paralogues though.

Knowing myself, I probably wouldn't want to do Lunatic, as it'd frustrate me too much. I tried Hard mode briefly before starting up my current second save file, but I didn't really like it (I didn't want to have to use Fred at all, but now I don't mind). I also just wanted to repeat my first save, but with different pairings and such, to try it out more. Thus, just went with normal.

Alright.. Well I've been rambling a bit much now. I'll get to the point now. Should I play Hard on my next playthrough? From experience and what I've read, I'm thinking normal will be too easy once my characters are maxed (or close). I wouldn't want to grind out some characters, only to be able to clear the whole map super easily with just that one character. Don't get me wrong, I like having uber characters.. I guess what I don't like mostly is having two characters that could solo a map, and everyone else average-below average. Maybe I'm just bad at sharing exp and play favourites too much. :P

Thanks to anyone who took the time to read this, and even more thanks to those who reply with any advice or comments. I'm probably not gonna start my file immediately afterwards, cause I'll be bored reading the story again so soon. (I find it more boring when you just skip through it)

[eclipse]

Dude, it's your game. Go nuts! If you want to play Hard, go for it! The story can be a bit difficult in places, but if I can bumble my way through blind, I think you'll be fine!

With enough love, everyone can be (relatively) insane. They can also be completely and utterly uncooperative (like my 14 Speed 16/11 Great Knight Stahl). There's infinite stat boosters, so the sky's the limit!

[Tyung]

I want to grind out my levels. But should I do this on hard mode, rather than my normal file? Might get bored if the difficulty is normal, is what I'm thinking.

I just mean.. I'm not gonna spend time grinding out both files. :P So which is worthy of my time investment of the two? :P

Edited May 11, 2013 by Tyung

[eclipse]

I want to grind out my levels. But should I do this on hard mode, rather than my normal file? Might get bored if the difficulty is normal, is what I'm thinking.

Grinding will get boring, period. On my Hard file, I've done stupid things like have Owain solo a skirmish (freshly recruited and Second Seal'd to Barbarian).

[Tyung]

Grinding will get boring, period. On my Hard file, I've done stupid things like have Owain solo a skirmish (freshly recruited and Second Seal'd to Barbarian).

Yeah true enough, I'll have to grind in small doses. Balance it out with some fun stuff too. That's kinda why I haven't tried much of my dlc content yet. Was hoping to grind, then challenge it on the side for something new once I got bored.

[eclipse]

Yeah true enough, I'll have to grind in small doses. Balance it out with some fun stuff too. That's kinda why I haven't tried much of my dlc content yet. Was hoping to grind, then challenge it on the side for something new once I got bored.

Some of the DLC stuff can be pretty hard. In my current file, I'm going to attempt to grab the legendary weapons, despite the fact that my team ranges from OMGAWESOME (Chrom, Panne) to WTF (Stahl/Frederick have serious Speed issues).

[Tyung]

Some of the DLC stuff can be pretty hard. In my current file, I'm going to attempt to grab the legendary weapons, despite the fact that my team ranges from OMGAWESOME (Chrom, Panne) to WTF (Stahl/Frederick have serious Speed issues).

I feel your pain haha. In my current file, my Chrom has pathetic speed. I think like 16 or something.. And I'm at Ch.21-22. Even my healers are faster than him.. He gets double hit by people occasionally, and never double hits the enemy (unless paired). Just bad luck with level ups I guess? I hadn't really been watching it until I noticed near the end how slow he is.

[HeroMystic]

I want to grind out my levels. But should I do this on hard mode, rather than my normal file? Might get bored if the difficulty is normal, is what I'm thinking.

I just mean.. I'm not gonna spend time grinding out both files. :P So which is worthy of my time investment of the two? :P

I'm gonna be honest. Do it on Hard Mode, and use it as your Endgame file. Hard Mode is just the right difficulty for Awakening. Normal Mode is too easy, and Lunatic should only be done if you figured out the game pretty handily (Lets not talk about Lunatic+). I haven't checked out the DLC enemies in Normal Mode, but they are affected by difficulty. If you're looking to keep a constant challenge, I'd place my money on Hard Mode above any other difficulty.

[Tyung]

I'm gonna be honest. Do it on Hard Mode, and use it as your Endgame file. Hard Mode is just the right difficulty for Awakening. Normal Mode is too easy, and Lunatic should only be done if you figured out the game pretty handily (Lets not talk about Lunatic+). I haven't checked out the DLC enemies in Normal Mode, but they are affected by difficulty. If you're looking to keep a constant challenge, I'd place my money on Hard Mode above any other difficulty.

Hey thanks, that helps a lot. Hard mode is what I was leaning towards. I figure if I'm going to spend a lot of time on endgame, it should be on there.

Also, how many characters would you recommend using during the playthrough? I've found that I end up wanting to change my team so often.. I'd be giving up leveling on characters that I had been working on previously.. And I don't want to do that. I'd rather balance them more too, as I keep ending up with like 2-3 ridiculous ones and the rest kinda weak/subpar.

Thanks for your input.

[HeroMystic]

The reason why you end up with 2-3 super units is because the Enemy phase is the part where you do the most fighting, so durability matters. The ones who will be fighting during Enemy phase will easily get ahead of the curve.

Since you're planning on Endgame, I'd focus on pairing units that can get to S-Support so they can have children, and this'll easily take full deployment slots each time. If you wanna change your team later on, it shouldn't be a problem. Every character is usable on Hard Mode, though some will need assistance via skirmishes.

[Tyung]

The reason why you end up with 2-3 super units is because the Enemy phase is the part where you do the most fighting, so durability matters. The ones who will be fighting during Enemy phase will easily get ahead of the curve.

Since you're planning on Endgame, I'd focus on pairing units that can get to S-Support so they can have children, and this'll easily take full deployment slots each time. If you wanna change your team later on, it shouldn't be a problem. Every character is usable on Hard Mode, though some will need assistance via skirmishes.

Ahhh that's true, though it never really occured to me. When pairing characters, should I only be focusing on leveling up/reclassing/working on one of them? Like, should the other one just be used for support bonuses and nothing more?

[paladin21]

Ahhh that's true, though it never really occured to me. When pairing characters, should I only be focusing on leveling up/reclassing/working on one of them? Like, should the other one just be used for support bonuses and nothing more?

No, switch them as needed to keep them both at similar levels (or at least getting similar stats if one gets blessed and the other doesn't). Having two strong characters supporting each other grants you more benefits (higher bonuses, the supporting character can deal greater damage and the most important, if the front one gets severy injured and you cannot heal him right away, you can always switch to the other one to take him to safety).

Knowing myself, I probably wouldn't want to do Lunatic, as it'd frustrate me too much. I tried Hard mode briefly before starting up my current second save file, but I didn't really like it (I didn't want to have to use Fred at all, but now I don't mind). I also just wanted to repeat my first save, but with different pairings and such, to try it out more. Thus, just went with normal.

You don't really need Frederick to beat the first five maps on HM, since you can pair up from the start. To beat the first chapters you just have to follow the instructions in easy, pair up any two characters in hard and pair up Fred with someone else and pray in Lunatic...

[Tao]

Dude, it's your game. Go nuts! If you want to play Hard, go for it! The story can be a bit difficult in places, but if I can bumble my way through blind, I think you'll be fine!

With enough love, everyone can be (relatively) insane. They can also be completely and utterly uncooperative (like my 14 Speed 16/11 Great Knight Stahl). There's infinite stat boosters, so the sky's the limit!

This is pretty much what is true...

I'm gonna be honest. Do it on Hard Mode, and use it as your Endgame file. Hard Mode is just the right difficulty for Awakening. Normal Mode is too easy, and Lunatic should only be done if you figured out the game pretty handily (Lets not talk about Lunatic+). I haven't checked out the DLC enemies in Normal Mode, but they are affected by difficulty. If you're looking to keep a constant challenge, I'd place my money on Hard Mode above any other difficulty.

That's still your opinion though. Normal is definitely really easy, but it's also good if you wanna enjoy the game more than anything. For DLC enemies on Normal mode, well, they don't get any forged weapons. Well... I think sometimes random enemies got one or two in skirmishes? or it might have been one of the children's paralogues. t's been a while since I encountered it. But for DLCs, there's nothing illegal or hax about the enemies there.

Anyway, while I do agree Normal is too easy, one can't say Normal isn't the right difficulty for Awakening. Hard mode can be tough too... at least in the beginning chapters.

For myself, I actually grinded for a long time on my first main file, which is also Normal/Classic. Grinding is definitely gonna be tedious on probably every difficulty mode. Just that Lunatic+ is completely ...well, let's not bring that in lol. but I do agree Hard is a good way to keep a good challenge to your game and you can still kinda enjoy the game too. I'm probably not enjoying as much because I've done it already on Normal. But just keep in mind the usual stuff about Hard mode, like how reinforcements move (and attack if in range) on their spawn turns.

Although Hard mode can start becoming...not so hard if you start grinding early on. But remember, that's with grinding. Also, if you're gonna be using skirmishes or a lot of Reeking Boxes, better abuse the Golden Gaffe... I don't think it's too bad, if you go slowly first and then when you get stronger, you can kill the stronger enemies for more gold.

So yeah. If you want more challenge than Normal, then go ahead for Hard. Lunatic will be too much of a jump of difficulty if you started on Normal.

[Thor Odinson]

HM is honestly pretty easy nogrinding if you don't try to spread out your exp too thin. I trained 3 dedicated combat units (i could've trained more but really they're just my favs who joined early enough) from the parent gen and had their kids support MU's children and they made a fine enough team to steamroll HM ingame.

I'm actually the opposite of a lot of people on grinding, my support runs are done on Normal because I don't play Normal for challenge anyway so I might as well dick around there and grind to fill support library at a leisurely pace, and I like my challenging difficulties to be, well, challenging, so I play nogrind on hard and higher when I get to it. It's up to you how you want to play, though. I'd say grinding in HM takes away the challenge but I haven't played the postgame dlcs on hard yet so I can't really judge the difficulty of that.

[Jediabiwan]

I doubt you'll have any problems with hard mode if your grinding, and there's still a good chance it could end up being too easy if you grind a lot. And don't put off too much DLC to the end. R&R and some of the spotpass chapters are probably the only DCL that is challenging for and endgame team, but some of the other ones can be a really fun challenge if you do them earlier on.

In the end just have fun. Do enough grinding and the game will be way to easy on any difficulty, but all that matters is that you enjoy playing.

[BlueFire]

If you find Normal mode isn't too challenging, I recommend giving Hard a try because if a chapter does become too hard to beat, then you can use SpotPass/DLC to make it somewhat easier. Also you can show people you encounter through StreetPass that you're on Hard instead of Normal (displaying your difficulty and classic/casual is togglable).

15 is a good maximum number of units to focus on because very rarely can you use more than that many units, and when you can, then it is unecessary. However, a much lower number of units is actually better. And if you want to make a strong StreetPass team for other players battle, then you'll want to have 10 trained units.