Outside of eternity seals being expensive, is there any reason to promote at 20 instead of 10?

[napwneon]

Everywhere I look the majority of people suggest waiting until 20 to promote, and for the life of me I can't figure out why you wouldn't just promote at 10.

• With eternity seals you don't get capped. But sure, they're expensive.
  
• You get important tier2 skills faster, and you can heart/friendship seal into different classes to get their skills faster
  
• The biggest argument I've seen is that you lose out on XP. but XP gain changed in Fates - promoting at 10 now results in 'true level' of 11, not 21. Ergo, since XP gain is purely based on level difference between you and the enemy, fighting an opponent with a level 1 swordmaster promoted at level 10 results in the same XP gain as a level 11 myrmidon.
  

Please correct me if I'm wrong in any of my assumptions, but I just don't see any drawback to promoting early other than the fact that eternity seals cost of a lot of money to buy.

[Natsu_T]

I've never even heard of eternal seals. Where do you get them?

Edited March 28, 2016 by Natsu_T

[Jiac]

I've actually had the same thought.

The only thing I can see as a drawback is what you're promoting to. It only changes 5-10% of the growth depending on what class. Like if a Samurai promotes to a Master of Arms they lose 5%-10% in their Skl and Speed growths, however, increase their Strength and Defense growths. While promoting to a Swordmaster keeps the Samurai growths, but makes it better by adding a 5% to magic.

In which, this drawback is incredibly situational.

[Blade]

I've never even heard of eternal seals. Where do you get them?

Eternal Seals are seals that you use to extend a unit's level cap by 5 where you can do that until level 99 or something. They're friggn expensive to buy with a whopping price of 12,000 gold per seal.

[GoXDS]

Lvl 12 Promoted vs Lvl 10 Tier 1. I got 1 exp. meaning I was not Lvl 13 but at least 16

12/1 vs Lvl 12 I got 7 exp. this confirms I was 5 Lvls higher

Internal Lvl = Lvl + 10 + Promotion/2

an internal Lvl jump of 1 would've been fine and may mean promoting at 10 isn't that much worse than 20 (excluding extravagant costs of early Master Seals and tons of Eternal Seals). however, this is an Internal Lvl increase of 5, drastically reducing exp from 30->7 so probably not worth it

Edited March 28, 2016 by GoXDS

[Jedi]

You should promote when your stats seem right to promote, usually 14/15 is a good spot.

Swift promoting at 10 isn't usually too wise (depends on the FE and character), waiting till 20 is usually also a bad idea (depends on how you play though)

Experience gains are important things to consider, sometimes swift promotion will stunt growth because their exp gains become lame

Edited March 28, 2016 by Jedi

[gayserbeam]

But EXP gain does drop, as the formula isn't that simple (noted by the posters above me). The drop is enough that the promotion gain will roughly balance out with the stat gains of an equivalent unpremoted character after the same number of chapters.

The game is also at a length where your long-stay units like Corrin will be around 20/15 around the Endgame with a decent sized party and a few paralogues completed. If you have a party of 14 and everyone rams 20/20 at Chapter 24, do you want to spend 168000G on Eternal Seals when you very recently unlocked the final armory?

[Tribute]

Because at this point I've seared it into my mind that promoting before 20 is the scrub way

[JSND Alter Dragon Boner]

The reality is scrub tend to promote at 20 which is actually surprising for me when i first know about it

[Jayvee94]

• The biggest argument I've seen is that you lose out on XP. but XP gain changed in Fates - promoting at 10 now results in 'true level' of 11, not 21. Ergo, since XP gain is purely based on level difference between you and the enemy, fighting an opponent with a level 1 swordmaster promoted at level 10 results in the same XP gain as a level 11 myrmidon.

I don't believe in that part. I saw let's plays whose prematurely promoted units drastically drop in EXP gains even when fighting level 12-13 unpromoted.

[Radiant Dragon]

There are many FE games where promoting before 20 is a good idea (basically anything before Shadow Dragon with the exception of Path of Radiance), but I wouldn't say Fates is one of them. That being said, there are advantages to promoting a couple units early for the stats if you're having trouble with the midgame chapters, especially if you plan on replacing them with their children later on. But for anyone you plan to use all the way to the end of the game, I'd try to wait until at least 18 or so, because many of your main combat units will be getting close to Tier 2 level 20 by endgame.

[Azz]

I recommend maybe promoting units like Elise, Sakura and Azama earlier since, for me anyways, they fell behind very easily. For everyone else, I don't see the point. If they have decent stats by say level 15, then okay, but if not, I rather wait and get better units rather then sub-optimal units.

[secondworld]

This is one of the few games where reaching 20/20 is actually feasible and reasonable, which is why I do it.

[Natsu_T]

But EXP gain does drop, as the formula isn't that simple (noted by the posters above me). The drop is enough that the promotion gain will roughly balance out with the stat gains of an equivalent unpremoted character after the same number of chapters.

The game is also at a length where your long-stay units like Corrin will be around 20/15 around the Endgame with a decent sized party and a few paralogues completed. If you have a party of 14 and everyone rams 20/20 at Chapter 24, do you want to spend 168000G on Eternal Seals when you very recently unlocked the final armory?

This seems like the most reasonable answer. In my Conquest run I had everyone in my 19-man party promote at 20 between chapter 18 and 19. I still haven't reached tier 3 shops which is where I'm guessing the eternal seal is. But you are so ridiculously strapped for cash in Conquest that I would not ever rely on those things even if they were 500 G a piece. I mean, I guess I still don't understand the reasoning of promoting early. If you simply aren't struggling at all on the mid-game chapters, then what reason do you ever have to do it? It just seems like a crutch that should only be done if you are just sucking or you lost several units and need to make up lost ground.

[Lanko]

I promoted everyone at 20 on Conquest/Hard, including the healers. Unless you are really struggling with a certain chapter and need the boost to stats, I see no reason to promote before, specially in the early game, as you actually will barely gain EXP to get skills early, which was the supposed advantage. Also, you will starve other tier 1 units of EXP, because you will want to rush the skill, otherwise there will be no point in promoting early.

You also won't have money to Master Seal everyone at the same time.

I think by chapter 10 I had a lvl 14 Corrin barely getting EXP from kills (at that with 20% bonus of Nobility), would be even worse promoted.

[Refa]

I promoted everyone at 20 on Conquest/Hard, including the healers. Unless you are really struggling with a certain chapter and need the boost to stats, I see no reason to promote before, specially in the early game, as you actually will barely gain EXP to get skills early, which was the supposed advantage. Also, you will starve other tier 1 units of EXP, because you will want to rush the skill, otherwise there will be no point in promoting early.

You also won't have money to Master Seal everyone at the same time.

-Promoting Effie early (generally after whatever level you have her after Chapter 10) lets her actually do things.

-Promoting Elise early (I dunno when exactly you'd do this, but I think around Level 15 SHOULD be fine) actually lets her fight and gain some magic rank, and she'll capram all of her relevant stats anyways.

-Promoting pair up bots (most notably Arthur and Charlotte) ASAP is a wonderful idea.

Not sure if there are more examples (for Conquest, at the very least), but those are the first two that come to mind.

Edited March 28, 2016 by Refa

[Lanko]

I got Benny and his 6 SPD and lvl 10 Charlotte in Chapter 13 all the way to 20 without problems. I don't recall having problems with Effie, but depending on the team I see how that can be useful, but after chapter 10 seems way too early.

I agree with Elise, specially if you need more magic damage but I went 20 as well just because. Even with Fire she wrecks, as she caps Mag/Spd pretty much every time pretty early (could have more Skl though).

Of course, this is for Hard, Lunatic might be required some early promos.

Edited March 28, 2016 by Lanko

[secondworld]

Oh yeah I promoted Charlotte early on Conquest to immediately make Xander amazing. I didn't promote Elise early but looking back doing that probably could've been useful.

[HF Makalov Fanboy Kai]

i typically have gotten into the habit of only promoting before 20 if a unit has capped like 2 or 3 skills.

[Avalanche]

While I generally wait until 20, there's definitely some people who I can see early Promotion helping in Fates;
- Elise, specifically Revelation Elise. A pure healer joining at Lv. 7 halfway through the game is kind of idiotic from a design perspective. Promoting her at Lv. 10 lets her fling Tomes around enough to hopefully build up a Support.
- Benny really needs Wary Fighter to function, so promoting right away and picking it up can be a good idea.
- Promoting a character you want to use solely as Guard Stance fodder (Zerker Charlotte is probably the most common example) is useful, since character stats have absolutely no effect on the Bonuses they give.

Edited March 29, 2016 by Avalanche

[The DanMan]

Even ignoring everything that's been said, Eternal Seals are prohibitively expensive; I feel like that's reason enough to wait on promoting units.