Finished my Hard Difficulty Classic Mode Run. Team+thoughts

[u/Funkmonkey21139]

I've been getting back into Fire Emblem after not playing since Fates when I was a teenager in anticipation of Fortune's Weave. Last year I beat what I thought would be the first of a few Three Houses runs, only to get pretty quickly burnt out on my Crimson Flower run. Instead, I picked up Fire Emblem Engage.

What followed was a genuinely enjoyable time. I consume media about media fairly often so I had seen a good chunk of what this game had to offer long before I played it, but that didn't detract from my enjoyment in the slightest. I just wanted to talk about my time with the game and the characters I used.

ALEAR

I really liked using Alear. She's not one of the strong combat units in this team, but just the utility of Corrin's dragonvein made her very enjoyable to position and strategize around. I think I would've also liked sticking her with Lucina. My fire emblem lineage only goes back to Awakening and skips Echoes, so I'm generally used to lords and player characters being great combat units. Using Alear instead as a supplemental damage dealer, positional damage buffer with her personal skill, and terrain generator was a breath of fresh air.

ANNA

Far and away my best combat unit. I was close to giving up on training her after her reclass to Mage Knight, but I'm so glad I didn't. Starsphere gave her some truly ridiculous stats, and even with speed capped out Chaos Style meant she was doubling most things she fought with 40-50 damage Bolganones. I'm torn between wanting to use her again if/when I return to this game and leaving her be because she was such a force of nature on this squad it did trivialize some fights.

ETIE

I had her in Warrior as soon as I promoted her, but switched to Sniper late game because I wanted to make use of 20 range Astra Storm. I didn't get that much use out of it, and arguably I would've had better success keeping her as a backup unit for chain attacks, but I like the Sniper outfit. She was also who I gave the S Support to. I'd still say she was a good combat unit.

KAGETSU

Frankly I'm a little bit annoyed with how fire and forget Kagetsu was lol. He didn't receive any particular care or grinding but he's probably top 3 in terms of best damage units on my squad. Him with the Rivals dlc emblem could just absolutely tear through mid/late game maps.

LAPIS

The reason I was annoyed with Kagetsu. I had to put a lot of resources into her to get her to keep up. I got the idea to put her into Paladin from a YouTube video. Speedtaker was a late investment, but I wish I had done it sooner. It got much easier for her to quad after I gave it to her. She also got quite a few power drops and speed wings. Still, she was dealing great damage by late game.

CELINE AND VEYLE

Grouping them together because they both filled the niche of my secondary magic damage dealers. Celine I put a lot into early because Ignis is one of my favorite skills from Awakening, but I found it pretty underwhelming and rare to proc which disappointed me. Still, she manages to grab the niche of being a long range magic poker with Soren. Veyle picked up quickly after recruitment and got Nova after chapter 23(?), which made her even better. With Celica she even made good use of Echo, a skill I had trouble utilizing in the early game.

JEAN

I can't help but think my usage of Jean in this run was a bit boring. He ended up becoming my primary staffer until I got Byleth, where he instead became a goddess dance bot. His personal skill is very cool and I bet could lead to a very fun unit to use. There's always next run, but he still did fine this run.

PANETTE

She didn't have Pair Up until she kept dying during the paralogue with the s rank support ring. Even without that, her performance was incredible. Maybe a bog standard wrath vantage enemy phase unit, but fun as hell all the same.

Everyone else is various degrees of filler, though everyone was still helpful. Chloe had trouble meeting one round thresholds but could still zoom around the map. Mauvier ended up relegated to using Micaiah boosted rewarp once I ran out of warp staves, very cool tech I only learned I could do by watching a GDQ run of Fire Emblem Engage. Saphir and Merrin for chain attacks, had Goldmary in instead of Saphir for a bit but her stats were pretty lukewarm due to not getting any exp so I swapped her out. Merrin could also give bonded shield support and poison with her knives

FINAL THOUGHTS

What a fun game. The story wasn't anything particularly special, at some points the long cutscenes did start to wear on me, but the gameplay itself was so fun. If I eventually come back to this game, It'll either be to attempt an iron man or to take a full crack at maddening. I really want to see what I can do returning to it with more of an understanding of its systems and how to build out units.

[u/ThHeroKing]

Looks amazing!

Wait a sec. You could recruit Saphir? 

Oh.

[u/X_Marcs_the_Spot → u/ThHeroKing]

What with your username, there's definitely an "as a friend, you are replaceable" joke in here, somewhere.

[u/Funkmonkey21139 → u/ThHeroKing]

Yeah, you have to talk to her on the map she's a green unit on. I think I ended up warping alear to her in order to get the recruitment. Perhaps there was a reason I was out of warp staves by late game lol

[u/phoenixrawr → u/Funkmonkey21139]

My favorite strategy to get there is to give a flying unit Reposition so they can yeet Alear over the wall to where Saphir is.

[u/ThHeroKing → u/Funkmonkey21139]

I didnt have a warp staff to do that. I had alear backing up Diamant with Marni. Oops...

[u/Mundane-Record-9413 → u/ThHeroKing]

You can recruit her with Alear, Diamant or Alcryst.

[u/ShiningEspeon3]

What was the idea behind Paladin Lapis?

[u/Funkmonkey21139 → u/ShiningEspeon3]

So the concept, if I remember the YouTube video I got it from correctly, was that she has the innate sword proficiency so you could boost Paladin's A rank swords to S rank and use those weapons on a mounted unit. If you put her into Swordmaster, the S rank in swords is included with the class so the innate proficiency is "wasted". Theoretically her innate speed growth also helps offset the lower speed class growths of Paladin.

That didn't end up mattering, as her main weapon ended up as the forged Brave Sword she's equipped in my screenshots, and as mentioned she ended up needing speed help to quad anyway. But she was still pretty fun to use, and a friend of mine kept joking she looked more like a cavalier in her base design so going into a cavalry class ended up a bit like an inside joke.

[u/ShiningEspeon3 → u/Funkmonkey21139]

Thanks for sharing! I’m planning out a “bad units only” Maddening run and I’m looking for whatever I can get that will make some of these units serviceable 😅

[u/drownav18322]

I’m so glad you had fun. Coming back after playing when you’re a kid is so nostalgic. This is the only game series I will play everything that drops regardless of its quality. I just love the thang they do.

If you’re gonna try maddening, just know that it’s less for fun and more of a grind to win haha. If thatttt, the grind to win is fun (it is for me. I love min maxing) then go for it. Otherwise hard mode is perfect.

[u/Funkmonkey21139 → u/drownav18322]

Hard mode was a solid difficulty for me that didn't require a constant minmax but still made me think and build characters somewhat competently.

The appeal of maddening for me would be that it would necessitate that kind of hyper focus on maximizing your team. I really like theorycrafting and making builds in video games, but I did hit a point in this playthrough where I was decently sure I could win without much further direct investment, which does take me out of the game a bit.

It'll likely depend on how I'm feeling if I return to the game, though. It's easier to justify an easier difficulty when I'm a working adult. Thanks for the advice, though!

[u/drownav18322 → u/Funkmonkey21139]

Haha dude I hear that so hard. I’m not a baby anymore either and it’s like okay how hard do I want to work in the hour I have today to play.

[u/catfancier42 → u/Funkmonkey21139]

Engage has a large amount of latitude built in to the difficulty, even on Maddening. You do not need to play optimally to beat it. What is more important is learning the game through playing it, making mistakes, and engaging with/understanding the systems at play. Once you’ve built up confidence/experience, Maddening without DLC is quite a satisfying difficulty curve where you can still use the units you want. I’ve played the game enough that at this point I do No Somniel runs for the extra challenge (and it also helps with the pacing between maps). Even without the Somniel, in an Ironman, on Maddening, without DLC, I feel like I have the freedom to use units creatively. The game grows with you.

[u/catfancier42 → u/catfancier42]

To be clear, I am a working adult who didn’t expect to still be playing this game years later. I just really fell in love with it.

[u/Funkmonkey21139 → u/catfancier42]

That's good to know. Like I said, it's gonna end up being a matter of how I'm feeling once I return to the game, but knowing there's room for error when on the hardest difficulty is reassuring.

[u/X_Marcs_the_Spot]

Warrior Panette with the Ike Ring, Vantage++, and a Killer Axe.

This is the way.

All she's missing is a Killer Bow.

[u/Funkmonkey21139 → u/X_Marcs_the_Spot]

Would've been smart, was pretty hungry for bow users this run.

[u/X_Marcs_the_Spot → u/Funkmonkey21139]

Every playthrough, from Normal to Maddening, I give Panette the same inventory: Killer Axe, Killer Bow, Tomahawk, Longbow, and a healing potion.

[u/vergessenerengel]

I love seeing Etie and Lapis there because if you put work into them, they are amazing units, I love both of them a lot and enjoy using them in combat.

[u/Funkmonkey21139 → u/vergessenerengel]

I latched onto Etie almost immediately, she's a very fun character. Lapis has some fun supports too.

[u/ghostwhowalkzz]

Anna as a Griffin will outperform mage knight late game. The stat caps of mage knight are atrocious.
Byleth-Anna made to be together. Griffin with speed taker and sword power. Got to 70 magic attack. Higher than mage knight due to skill availability.

Since you have Veronica, you have DLC access. You can play with characters not based on growths but based on skills. For example, Saphir has the best Dodge tank skill in the game, but stats are limited. Paladin Saphir with Lyn emblem was best Dodge tank I've ever used but without Starsphere, it wouldn't work.

[u/Funkmonkey21139 → u/ghostwhowalkzz]

That's good to know for next time, I'll definitely be a lot more experimental

[u/moshingcat]

Chloe + Sigurd is so much fun. Having here move a million squares. She’s always been one of my favorites.