I'm eager to start an FE6 Hard Mode run sometime soon. I tried planning out my units and could use some advice

[swoon]

I used a character guide from Mekkah for reference and constructed a list of planned units - I tiered the list based on the varying slots you're allowed in each chapter: 

 

 

 

 

Most chapters from what I recall allowed up to 12 units with the highest availability (Chapter 21) being 18 + Yoder. (Ah, I'm just now seeing I messed up as I included Yoder and only total up to 18 units WITH him, but that's why I said I could use some pointers) 

 

Looking at this list these are the strengths I see to this roster:

-Promotion items won't be in contention (2 Hero Crests, 2 Knight Crests, 2 Elysian Whips, 3 Guiding Rings)

-A lot of mobility to get Villages and Rescue/Drop (Milady, Shanna, Perceval, Lance, Allen)

-Selection of staff users, especially for the Restore staff for Sleep and Berserk (Clarine, Better Call Saul, Promoted Lugh, Niime, Cecilia if I need her)

-Depth for fliers (Archers in Klein and Igrene, Aircalibur users in the above mentioned)

 

 

On my Normal mode run I wasn't too impressed with Klein and I think Igrene was out-performing him. But I'm aware Klein gets Hard Mode bonuses and should be a much stronger unit.

 

This list is done in unit priority for the late game; even though he was put in 15-16, Deke is likely be in rotation for the majority of the game. It's just when we hit the late game and he'll have to compete with Milady, Perceval, Rutger, the Christmas Cavaliers? He'll likely be prioritized less - I've heard that while his bases are strong his growths are only decent. By my understanding that means he somewhat falls off? Feel free to correct me, I'm not the best with numbers and am still new to this.

 

A unit I would've liked to use is Shin, but using him risks me triggering the Sacae route and that one was already rough on Normal.

 

So yeah, feel free to give me pointers, replace and add some units if you'd like. I'm aware I likely made a lot of errors.

 

I do have one question, for Hard mode how paramount is it to plan out my supports? In Normal mode I didn't really bother with my Supports and just tried to play the game at a brisk pace without grinding them, but I'm aware the jump from Normal to Hard is quite significant so I may need to spend some chapters burning turns to gain them.

 

 

Edited September 11, 2023 by swoon

[ping]

I generally don't recommend using two of the unpromoted healers "full-time", since that'll stunt both of their XP gain. I would pick either Saul or Clarine as the primary healer and give him/her preferential treatment whenever there's only one staff use possible. Then, once Cecilia joins, she's the best second healer you can get, and eventually, Niime will be the best staff user anyway.

Do keep in mind that Lugh can't realistically get to Restore rank unless you're really slowing down you game. Weapon XP gain is bloody slow in this game. That said, I don't think you really need more than 2 staff users at any point.

You are depriving yourself of the best possible bow user by far, if you aren't using Shin. Not just because of his pretty incredible stats on HM, but it's also very nice to have a 7- (and eventually 8-) move character with strong and accurate 2-range.

If you want to make sure that you go to Ilia, you can make use of Thea - I know she pales in comparison to Milady (and iirc, Mekkah doesn't particularly like her ), but if you want a second combat-ready flyer in the later stages of the game, she's still a fair bit better than Shanna, whose low Str does hurt even after Killer Lances become buyable. With HM bonuses, Thea is a lot bulkier, too: +10 HP, +2 Def compared to a similarly-leveled Shanna.

And if you use Shanna in the earlygame (and maybe even early-promote her for the Axe Islands), she can still earn a bunch of XP to counterweigh whatever Shin is getting. You might still want to keep an eye on it, but with a 2v1 advantage, the pegasus sisters should come out ahead unless you're really overusing Shin.

4 hours ago, swoon said:

This list is done in unit priority for the late game; even though he was put in 15-16, Deke is likely be in rotation for the majority of the game. It's just when we hit the late game and he'll have to compete with Milady, Perceval, Rutger, the Christmas Cavaliers? He'll likely be prioritized less - I've heard that while his bases are strong his growths are only decent. By my understanding that means he somewhat falls off? Feel free to correct me, I'm not the best with numbers and am still new to this.

Deke does "fall off" to a degree, but it's more that he goes from 2nd best character in the earlygame to average character in the lategame. His ability to use axes is actually very nice, especially if you manage to get him to Killers (which, again, is a slow process). Basically, he's a fine choice to use the second Hero's Crest on, but other options are really just as fine - Fir, Gonzales, or even Lot all have their merits.

4 hours ago, swoon said:

-Promotion items won't be in contention (2 Hero Crests, 2 Knight Crests, 2 Elysian Whips, 3 Guiding Rings)

Keep in mind that promo items are buyable in chapter 16's secret shop, so they're never entirely "in contention". The main downside of the secret shop promo items is not the monetary investment (you have the Silver Card at this point, so buying a Guiding Ring here and selling an Elysian Whip later is a zero-cost manoeuvre), but that characters promoted after that point of the game can feel a bit underwhelming.

4 hours ago, swoon said:

I do have one question, for Hard mode how paramount is it to plan out my supports? In Normal mode I didn't really bother with my Supports and just tried to play the game at a brisk pace without grinding them, but I'm aware the jump from Normal to Hard is quite significant so I may need to spend some chapters burning turns to gain them.

Eh, support bonuses are very strong, but I don't think it's necessary to grind for them. I'd recommend trying to go for some of the Roy/Lance/Allen supports, but not by slowing down - just keep them adjacent when you can, and you should be able to get them. Otherwise, most supports are just so slow that I find it more annoyance than it's worth.

[Eltosian Kadath]

10 hours ago, swoon said:

 

This list is done in unit priority for the late game; even though he was put in 15-16, Deke is likely be in rotation for the majority of the game. It's just when we hit the late game and he'll have to compete with Milady, Perceval, Rutger, the Christmas Cavaliers? He'll likely be prioritized less - I've heard that while his bases are strong his growths are only decent. By my understanding that means he somewhat falls off? Feel free to correct me, I'm not the best with numbers and am still new to this.

The only really odd thing jumping out to me (that gnip didn't mention) is seeing both the Christmas cavs on the list. Usually you pick whichever is leveling up better to get the first Knight's Crest, and the other suffers all the way to the bench due to the deceptively long delay for the second, because you really want to wait til chapter 15 to recruit Percival for his intense Hard Mode Bonuses, so it tends to be one of the latest promotions, arriving about the same time as the Secret Shop you can buy them in. Also I am a bit surprised you aren't planning on using Fir with that profile pick of yours, as you can usually get away with a few vanity picks.

Another thing I will point out, which is probably more from this being planned for endgame, is that you really should field Marcus, and later Jerrot (or whatever his name is translated to now a days) for quite a while to make things easier on you with their prepromoted power.

 

10 hours ago, swoon said:

I do have one question, for Hard mode how paramount is it to plan out my supports? In Normal mode I didn't really bother with my Supports and just tried to play the game at a brisk pace without grinding them, but I'm aware the jump from Normal to Hard is quite significant so I may need to spend some chapters burning turns to gain them.

You probably want to get Roy a full set of supports, but otherwise, they are mostly just for fun, still useful mechanically, but not that big of deal.

 

Anyway, good Luck on the run, and have fun.

 

[samthedigital]

5 hours ago, gnip said:

If you want to make sure that you go to Ilia, you can make use of Thea - I know she pales in comparison to Milady (and iirc, Mekkah doesn't particularly like her ), but if you want a second combat-ready flyer in the later stages of the game, she's still a fair bit better than Shanna, whose low Str does hurt even after Killer Lances become buyable. With HM bonuses, Thea is a lot bulkier, too: +10 HP, +2 Def compared to a similarly-leveled Shanna.

It's worth mentioning that Shanna can build her sword rank during the western isles arc with an early promotion. It's what I would recommend since she can start using Killing Edge for some additional combat utility. She doesn't really have the stats to be a good long term combat unit, so it helps her remain useful for longer more than anything.

10 hours ago, swoon said:

Most chapters from what I recall allowed up to 12 units with the highest availability (Chapter 21) being 18 + Yoder. (Ah, I'm just now seeing I messed up as I included Yoder and only total up to 18 units WITH him, but that's why I said I could use some pointers) 

You'll want to be using Fae as much as possible. There's a trick that you can do with deployment order to have enemies prefer to target Fae, so while she will otherwise be useless she can soak up staves. You might not find yourself using every single unit in the maps with a lot of deployment slots, so you don't have to be hyper focused on constructing a team around them. You can also have plenty of success with a lot of different units, so you can pick some of your favorites if you want. I don't get the impression that you're trying to play the game optimally, and I like to use units like Fir, Lilina, and Gonzalez because it's fun. The only units that I would strongly recommend as long term carries are Miledy, Percival, Rutger, and one of Alan/Lance.

I would recommend budgeting your gold and trying to get as many sellable items as possible. That way you have more options to break the game when you access the chapter 21 secret shop. As with your team construction I wouldn't be hyper focused on it, but definitely keep it in mind.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

Have to second the Christmas Cav advice. You can use both (or even take a chance on Noah), but recognize that even with insane level ups they'll never be a Hard Mode Percival. And Cav #2 might cap at level 20 waiting for the second knights crest (it's two thirds of the way into the game, AFTER Percival). Early game isn't giving you a lot of good long term prospect units, so spreading the kill exp between the two cavs, Roy, Shanna, Dieck, Lugh, and Rutger is not going to give you any problems. Benching the lesser performing cav is just standard practice. Saul is also pretty unnecessary, just substitute Clarine for him on the desert map. 

If I have to make a case for any replacement, Gonzales, 100%. Yeah he's got hit issues, but he gets +10% hit and +30 crit on promotion. If you really don't want the headache of raising Gonzales to level 10, Garret is pretty underrated. Send Base level Garret alone to the right on Chapter 21 with a hand axe and he will solo the first squads of wyverns by just standing on a peak. This makes the map a lot easier since you won't have to split up the rest of your army. He has similarly good performance on chapter 23 - even if he's hit by a berserk or sleep staff, he's fine if he's already on the peak.

[ping]

On 9/11/2023 at 3:10 PM, samthedigital said:

You'll want to be using Fae as much as possible. There's a trick that you can do with deployment order to have enemies prefer to target Fae, so while she will otherwise be useless she can soak up staves.

Just to clarify - to make this work, you actually don't want to use Fae very often, as in, "Don't feed her kills if you want to use this strat". Enemy staffers will prioritise characters lowest in the deployment order, but they will not target anybody they have 0 accuracy against, and if I recall, Fae's Resistance with the +20 bonus from her Dragonstone can actually grow high enough that this can become an issue.

Agree with everything in your post, though. I don't know how long it takes to get Shanna to Swords (C) and if she's still relevant as a combat unit at that point, but even getting to (D) is nice, since Shanna often can eat the -5 Spd from Steel Swords and still double. And when she can't, Al's Sword is an option, too.

[samthedigital]

1 hour ago, gnip said:

Agree with everything in your post, though. I don't know how long it takes to get Shanna to Swords (C) and if she's still relevant as a combat unit at that point, but even getting to (D) is nice, since Shanna often can eat the -5 Spd from Steel Swords and still double. And when she can't, Al's Sword is an option, too.

It's been a bit, but the last time I played I got her to C at around chapter 14 I think. It gave her a handful of chapters worth of additional combat utility even if it's not that much compared to the carries.

1 hour ago, gnip said:

Just to clarify - to make this work, you actually don't want to use Fae very often, as in, "Don't feed her kills if you want to use this strat". Enemy staffers will prioritise characters lowest in the deployment order, but they will not target anybody they have 0 accuracy against, and if I recall, Fae's Resistance with the +20 bonus from her Dragonstone can actually grow high enough that this can become an issue.

I'm not sure if enemies target Fae before or after her dragonstone stat bonuses, but you're right; I should have clarified. She's useful as a staff sponge and doesn't need to see any combat.

[swoon]

On 9/11/2023 at 2:01 AM, gnip said:

Do keep in mind that Lugh can't realistically get to Restore rank unless you're really slowing down you game. Weapon XP gain is bloody slow in this game. That said, I don't think you really need more than 2 staff users at any point.

 

Well see, the biggest reason I wanted 4 endgame staff users was; say on Chapter 22 where your party is split and there's an unreachable Berserk staff. Having 2 staves on each side would be contingency for if one of my staff users got hit by it - as on Normal mode most of my resets on 22 were because one of my carries (Fir, Perceval, Milady) were Berserk'd AFTER my solo staff on one side (Clarine or Cecilia) were Berserk'd the turn before. Clearing 22 felt somewhat hollow because my win condition was purely based on Berserk:

-Is Cecilia/Clarine Berserk'd?

     Yes:

          -Do one of your archers get berserk'd? Surround them on four sides to prevent retaliation

          -Does Niime/Perceval/Fir/Roy/Milady get berserk'd? Runs dead, reset

     No:

          -Does anyone get berserk'd? Restore 

          

 

I'm guessing exceptions to your "full-time" Saul+Clarine rule would be a chapter like 11A (The one where you get Lalum) where you have 2 routes; the open path downwards and through the cracked wall to the right?

Edited September 16, 2023 by swoon

[ping]

2 hours ago, swoon said:

Well see, the biggest reason I wanted 4 endgame staff users was; say on Chapter 22 where your party is split and there's an unreachable Berserk staff. Having 2 staves on each side would be contingency for if one of my staff users got hit by it - as on Normal mode most of my resets on 22 were because one of my carries (Fir, Perceval, Milady) were Berserk'd AFTER my solo staff on one side (Clarine or Cecilia) were Berserk'd the turn before.

1. Your pick between Ellen, Clarine, and Saul
2. Cecilia
3. Niime
4. Yoder 

What samthedigital mentioned about offensive staff AI prioritisation can help here, too, even if Fae isn't involved: As long as there's a chance to succeed, an enemy staff user will target the character lowest in the deployment order first. If you make sure that it isn't your staff user, that knowledge might prevent that kind of reset, too.

And, less AI-manipulative, Yoder comes with 30 Res, which goes against staff accuracy with a x6 factor. Since enemy status staffers are a big concern, he (and Ellen out of the initial trio, actually) might look quite good for you.

2 hours ago, swoon said:

I'm guessing exceptions to your "full-time" Saul+Clarine rule would be a chapter like 11A (The one where you get Lalum) where you have 2 routes; the open path downwards and through the cracked wall to the right?

Oh, I field two of the earlygame healers at once most of the time until Cecilia joins. It's just that I find that trying to split healing XP between them doesn't make a lot of sense, since healers already don't gain that much XP to begin with. I'll have one of them heal as often as possible, down to the increased max HP from a level-up, while the other one only heals when it's actually necessary. I find that this works particularly well if Clarine is that secondary healer, since she can help out with rescue/drop shenanigans whenever her healing isn't needed. Once Cecilia joins, she then basically works the same way, but better, plus the ability to do some chip damage if that is what's needed in that particular moment. I know her stats are pretty arse as a whole, but her Mag is perfectly fine - slightly better than a 20/1 Clarine, even, and only two points lower than that of 20/1 Saul and Ellen. Her only real fault is that she can't use Physic staves unless you use her a lot.

I'll also add that the third Guiding Ring comes somewhere past chapter 16, so if you promote a second one between Saul/Ellen/Clarine, you'll probably do it with a Guiding Ring from the ch.16 Secret Shop, i.e. pretty late. I don't think that this does a whole lot for your team, with Cecilia already being present as a pretty competent staffer, and Niime not that far away anymore.

[samthedigital]

6 hours ago, swoon said:

Well see, the biggest reason I wanted 4 endgame staff users was; say on Chapter 22 where your party is split and there's an unreachable Berserk staff.

Do you plan on buying a bunch of boots in chapter 21? That will help mitigate the problem too.

[swoon]

On 9/11/2023 at 8:09 AM, Eltosian Kadath said:

The only really odd thing jumping out to me (that gnip didn't mention) is seeing both the Christmas cavs on the list.

 

Sorry for the late response. Had a lot of processing to do with the advice I've gotten haha. But I've seen quite a few threads and a comment Mekkah made on reddit (thought he might've been being sarcastic) where people tend to use both Allen and Lance, even on Hard Mode.

 

On 9/11/2023 at 8:09 AM, Eltosian Kadath said:

Also I am a bit surprised you aren't planning on using Fir with that profile pick of yours, as you can usually get away with a few vanity picks.

 

Trust me I would've loved to, but objectively if I use Fir then just like the Smash UItimate roster I would have too many Swordies in my run (Roy, Rutger, Shanna, Milady, Lance/Allen, Perceval, Deke, etc). Given my coverage of swords ESPECIALLY with Rutger on the team using Fir would spread my supply of swords a bit thin.

 

Also to everyone who's interested in critiquing again I revamped my unit list. 

 

 

I removed Yoder from the list as only his recruitment chapter allows for 18 units and he automatically joins as the 19th. As such the 18th slot is still open and I'm not sure who to slot in. I considered Zeiss but I'm thinking given the late recruitment of Niime... I could PROBABLY throw in Lilina as a vanity pick (since she recruits 2 units anyway) and it kinda just feels right to use her alongside Roy? I don't know... I'm second guessing using both Allen and Lance because I could've sworn using both was the popular option but I guess not?

 

Candidates I'm considering for the 18th pick are:

-Zeiss: Advice I've heard is give him a speedwing or 2 and he can become Milady Lite

-Thea: Though not as good as Shanna, given I'm using Shin I might as well slot in Thea alongside her sister to skew the EXP towards the Ilia route. Elysian Whips come in good supply early so I could bring her all the way. 

-Lilina: Out of 17 other units who were planned purely for meta purposes, she would be the sole Waifu pick. Given I don't plan on bringing Saul to endgame anymore, it still means I'd need just 3 Guiding Rings. I heard she struggles with speed on Hard Mode (on normal mode I found she didn't really struggle to double enemies) but still hits like a truck, which is still something. Plus it's an extra tome/staff user

-One of the situational picks: Meh, Chad will prolly be at a high enough level to be decent.

 

 

Edited September 20, 2023 by swoon

[Shadow Mir]

Honestly, I'd recommend against Zeiss. He comes too late imho.

[swoon]

1 hour ago, Shadow Mir said:

Honestly, I'd recommend against Zeiss. He comes too late imho.

Fair enough. I guess for my 18th pick it really can just be a thief or some random pre-promote since only one chapter allows 18.

 

What are your thoughts on the Christmas Cavs? Both or just one?

Edited September 21, 2023 by swoon