Balancing My Team (Throughout Story)

[Tyung]

Hey, I'd still consider myself to be a FE newbie, so excuse me if this is a silly question.

Throughout my playthroughs of this game (Two complete, one normal one hard, couple others that I quit mid-way) I've found that it gets to the point where my team becomes completely unbalanced. I'm the kind of player who likes to balance out my team, but I keep failing to do so. It always ends up pretty much like this:

Pairs that can solo everything:

- Avatar + Chrom

- Lucina + Morgan

Morgan being pretty much strong enough to solo with a pair, but less than Lucina. Chrom needing Avatar to solo.

Then like 2-4 other pairs who can hold their own against some enemies, but not all. Their partners are usually weak though.

Also, is it just me, or is Sumia pathetically weak mid-late game? She always gets killed so easily.. Even feeding her a lot, and she still can't do much. :/

I'm probably just playing the game wrong. I guess what I'm wondering is how I can balance out my team throughout the game right until the end? I'm usually fine the first half, with a couple units slightly behind, but still able to participate. Then by the time it gets near the end, there's too many enemies that I have no choice but to let Avatar and Lucina just eat them all.

Before answering, take into account a few things:

- Not LTC, but going at a decent pace preferably, no stalling

- Without Risen encounters/DLC

- Hard/Classic

- I reset on deaths, and get every obtainable character

- I go for every chest.

Any advice from you FE veterans, or anyone who's not as terrible at this game as me, would be greatly appreciated, thanks. :P

[Comet]

Chrom and Avatar are naturally good, so they can easily solo maps without getting screwed by the RNG. The same applies to Lucina and Morgan.

I've found that Cherche can also dominate if you slap a few hand axes on her and put her into the middle of the map(preferably with a support), although she'll still take noticable damage from powerful magic wielding enemies.

Donnel can also be really good because of his good growths skill, and gets nice skills once you reclass him.

EDIT: I usually drop Sumia at mid-game because her strength stat just doesn't cut it, and will occasionally get one-shotted by snipers or warriors with silver bows.

Edited May 18, 2013 by astra knight

[Tyung]

Chrom and Avatar are naturally good, so they can easily solo maps without getting screwed by the RNG. The same applies to Lucina and Morgan.

I've found that Cherche can also dominate if you slap a few hand axes on her and put her into the middle of the map(preferably with a support), although she'll still take noticable damage from powerful magic wielding enemies.

Donnel can also be really good because of his good growths skill, and gets nice skills once you reclass him.

EDIT: I usually drop Sumia at mid-game because her strength stat just doesn't cut it, and will occasionally get one-shotted by snipers or warriors with silver bows.

Is it natural to just drop characters that you've spent time leveling up? It just seems like a waste of exp, you know? Like, I'd rather not have invested experience into her in the first place. Fliers are nice, but I personally hate how fragile they are. You can't send em near archers or wind mages, and they're fragile overall in general.

I just wonder, is there a way to actually keep your team balanced? I don't know when the best time to second seal/master seal is either. I find it can differ depending on the characters. Some seem so weak that they need it early.. But then on the other hand, if you Master Seal right at 10 (or near), then they level ridiculously slow after that since they're a promoted class, and fall off even worse it seems. Bleh, I just don't know what to do.

I kind of find it boring having a third or half of my team too weak to fight. Like, they end up just being supports for their spouse. Is that how it normally is and should be? Or should they both be able to fight?

[Disco]

Is it natural to just drop characters that you've spent time leveling up? It just seems like a waste of exp, you know? Like, I'd rather not have invested experience into her in the first place. Fliers are nice, but I personally hate how fragile they are. You can't send em near archers or wind mages, and they're fragile overall in general.

I just wonder, is there a way to actually keep your team balanced? I don't know when the best time to second seal/master seal is either. I find it can differ depending on the characters. Some seem so weak that they need it early.. But then on the other hand, if you Master Seal right at 10 (or near), then they level ridiculously slow after that since they're a promoted class, and fall off even worse it seems. Bleh, I just don't know what to do.

I kind of find it boring having a third or half of my team too weak to fight. Like, they end up just being supports for their spouse. Is that how it normally is and should be? Or should they both be able to fight?

I think sometimes you just get unlucky with the RNG. There are also units (like Sumia) who are useful early on but not so much once you reach a certain point. For me, once a unit becomes too much of a hassel to keep alive I ditch them. I don't necessarily see it as a waste if they were useful to me earlier.

Cordelia is a great unit to use, IMO, if you want to have a solid peg knight. You can give her bowbreaker and tomebreaker to counter her weaknesses, and if that's too much work, I think she can be useful as a hero. Personally I think that Sumia is more useful as a healing unit as opposed to a fighter if you really want to use her. However, you can pair her up with slower units and she gives a nice speed boost/extra mobility.

From what I've observed, the value in promoting/second sealing at level 10 is that you can jump classes more often and get more skills. If you're not trying to get a bunch of skills and aren't planning on reclassing then waiting until level 20 to promote gets you better stats faster.

I can only speak from my own experience, but I usually do have some pairs where one is in more of a supporting role. But then again, I prefer to have a smaller team.

Edited May 18, 2013 by Disco

[charlie_]

I usually just do everyone at 19 or 20, when playing normally, since I'm not really too bothered about skills. Just try and distribute exp equally (Avatar shouldn't need many fights at all mind, due to Veteran and all) and you should be fine. Or do what I do, and power level him/her in the first few chapters then have them just be a pair up bot until everyone catches up.

[Comet]

If you did use Sumia up to mid-game and got her up to S support, you could just ditch Sumia for Cynthia.

[Raine]

idk... i'm not a huge fan of keeping peg knights on the team late game (unless you put them as the back unit in a pair). Even then, you could do better. The only time I'd really use a peg knight branch unit is if you needed to fly over a river or something to quickly reach a fort. Even then, there aren't any maps that require you do this so the point is moot. A perfect example of this would be when on Ephraim's story, you had to navigate the winding moat of rivers blocking your path to the boss (Ms. Valkyrie) while long-range magic artillery pelted you with spells. Seriously, some of the earlier games had much better maps that prevented you from getting in the habit of just tanking a level with a single unit or pairing.

Edited May 18, 2013 by Raine

[Shadow Mir]

idk... i'm not a huge fan of keeping peg knights on the team late game (unless you put them as the back unit in a pair). Even then, you could do better. The only time I'd really use a peg knight branch unit is if you needed to fly over a river or something to quickly reach a fort. Even then, there aren't any maps that require you do this so the point is moot. A perfect example of this would be when on Ephraim's story, you had to navigate the winding moat of rivers blocking your path to the boss (Ms. Valkyrie) while long-range magic artillery pelted you with spells. Seriously, some of the earlier games had much better maps that prevented you from getting in the habit of just tanking a level with a single unit or pairing.

I'd say that's pretty subjective, tbh. I actually like the fact that pegasi actually have the resistance to not get a huge chunk of their life blasted off by magic attacks that'd pose a huge threat to most other physically oriented units (unless the magic in question is wind magic), even if bows threaten them quite a bit.

[Raine]

Right, but why not go cavalier branch and use paladin? it's a lesser version of the same effect and they get Aegis later which halves damage from magic/bows on proc? ultimately, the major difference I would see is that peg knights have unobstructed movement while cavaliers don't. i can understand your argument in respect to res-- I just find peg knights to be weaker overall than other units that could be used. *shrugs*

Edited May 19, 2013 by Raine

[Shadow Mir]

Right, but why not go cavalier branch and use paladin? it's a lesser version of the same effect and they get Aegis later which halves damage from magic/bows on proc? ultimately, the major difference I would see is that peg knights have unobstructed movement while cavaliers don't. i can understand your argument in respect to res-- I just find peg knights to be weaker overall than other units that could be used. *shrugs*

The unobstructed movement aspect is one thing, I suppose, as other than Morgan and the Avatar, no one can get the Cavalier and Thief trees aside from children. Also, promoting to Paladin, while it helps with the low Res scores that the units who can access it tend to have, still doesn't stop them from losing a large chunk of their health to magic, and this is a game where most of the enemies I'd worry about are mages. =/

Edited May 19, 2013 by Levant Fortner