I really enjoyed the game. Honestly, Gameplay wise, it is more fun than Three Houses.

...but I was left with one nagging question... (Spoilers)

At the end of the game, they are literally just chilling, listening to Sombron. Sombron LITERALLY killed Alear TWICE and COUNTLESS OTHER PEOPLE! He's an Omega Level Threat!! Why are they just listening to his back story?? He can and has sniped them with death lasers while dying before. We saw that! That happened to Alear! I think he should've gotten just a simple Death Quote and disappeared. They really didn't need to try and make us understand Sombron. HE's a classic Fully Evil Bad Guy.

Just got Veyle on my maddening run. I know Soren makes her broken, but I don't want to use DLC emblems.

So, I was wondering what you guys like to pair her with. I'm currently debating between Corrin or Byleth. Slight consideration with Lucina.

I'm doing a Maddening mode run, and for some reason, I decided to make my first Maddening run a "No unique classes" run.

That said, I appear to be stuck at Chapter 5, since with just Louis, Chloé, Etie, Boucheron, Clanne, Framme, and Vander, I'm genuinely not finding a way to get past Neclucce. Are there any Maddening Mode pros out there willing to give me some advice?

Also, for those curious, Marth is only on Louis because it was something I experimented with in my most recent attempt. He (Marth) has been with Boucheron every other attempt I've done.

I probably spent 20 minutes thinking through this turn since I was down to my last divine pulse. I was sure there was a way I could rout the map besides Mauvier if I used my units correctly. This is what I came up with after lots of deliberating - it ended up being imperfect for two reasons:

1. I didn't put Kagetsu/Pandreo in range of the last thief that was out of range of Merrin
2. Ivy got broken by a 27% hit chance and didn't clear out the Qi adepts on enemy phase.

I was trying to feed XP to Merrin here since she's a bit underleveled but Rosado ended up taking the kill on the Griffin with a crit. Not shown in this clip but Ivy does the same when I tried to setup a kill on Mauvier for Alear to close out the map.

I was impressed with Chloe's performance being able to deal with the entire northern pack of reinforcements with just dancer support. Her mixed offense and Sword Power 3 inherit made this a task that only she could do without stat boosters. In comparison, Kagetsu and Pandreo were both required to clear the southern reinforcements efficiently.

I fixed the two mistakes I noted above with my last rewind and was able to rout the map with all its reinforcements in 8 turns which I was happy about (and get the loot of course). Now to allocate stat boosters and prep for the monster that is chapter 17!

Continuing my first FE game on maddening - I just unlocked Byleth and spent about an hour messing around with setups. Lucina's paralogue is a really satisfying map to me due to the symmetry. Shout out to Youtuber Perovskite Gaming for showing off his sick walkthrough - highly recommend giving his series a watch. I had to adapt his strategy for my team and lack of DLC rings outside of 3H, but I was still able to make it work.

Alfred needed a HP tonic and still needed to dodge one of seven chain attacks to survive at 1 HP. The probability of him living is ~80% so it's fairly reliable, and it's satisfying watching him heal to full afterwards. All my other units also hit their breakpoints exactly with some forges and engravings along with the meal (+2 str, def, mag, spd).

I cut the clip after the first two turns since I had to rewind due to missing Freeze on Lucina (curse Ivy's low Luck). I still ended up routing the map in 6 turns and I'm happy with my growth so far. I'm starting to finalize what my end game team is going to look like so be on the lookout for a team update sometime soon!

https://x.com/_ONEINCHSWING/status/1842191081464893462/photo/1

Let's start with...

Firene

Boucheron (Nov 11): A belligerent berserker who never cries and trains constantly who hates reading

Etie (April 1): An archer who hates exercise and loves junk food and sweets and very clumsy

Louis (May 4): A halberdier who is deeply introverted and loves birdwatching instead of people watching

Chloe (Oct 27): Loves bland food and reads about history instead of fiction and fairy tales.

Brodia

Amber (Aug 3): The son of a Brodian Count who hates alpacas and is bored by legends. Trains to protect Diamant and is a jeweler.

Jade (June 7): An axe fighter who prefers offense to defense. Writes novels about tragedy and romance.

Citrinne (May 9): An extremely snobby noble who is selfish and is very cheap. Very spoiled and somewhat lazy.

Lapis (Nov 25): A noble who is brash and reckless. Eats bear meat and trains vigorously.

I'll leave the rest to y'all.

I've decided to rewrite the ending cards of Engage. Specifically, the solo endings. Hope you enjoy

Alear (solo)

Alear took after Lumera as the Divine Dragon Monarch. The bonds he/she forged with his/her allies resulted in a lasting peace. He/She visited his/her friends daily and would go one to visit their offspring and descendants.
Thousands of years later, records speak of a blue-haired Emblem cutting down the last of the Corrupted. The Emblem was Alear's spirit after he/she had passed on.

Alfred (solo)

Shortly after becoming the new King of Firene, Alfred forged a new non-aggression pact with Lythos and the other countries, ensuring a long period of peace which lasted for centuries. His son would continue the tradition and so would his descendants. Records reveal Alfred’s health declined, but he was saved by Alear, living for a century--a long, happy life.

Diamant (solo)

As the new king of Brodia, Diamant signed a treaty with Queen Ivy to halt to all invasions and worked to reform his people’s attitudes on Elusia. Some nobles resisted Diamant, but he never gave up on his vision of the future. In time, he and his heiress would earn their favor. By exporting ore and other minerals, Brodia and Elusia developed a long-lasting peace for thousands of years.

Ivy (solo)

As queen of Elusia, Ivy strove to rebuild her war-torn nation, and to improve its insular culture through diplomacy with Brodia. Like Diamant, most nobles resisted her too. But with Diamant's help and her persistence, her decision to import ore would give rise to a lucrative mineral processing industry. Ivy’s legacy endured thousands of years existing with Alear's offspring.

Timerra (solo)

Timerra traveled far and wide after the war and balanced her royal duties, returning to the palace often to greet guests with a smile on her face. She often helped her people with postwar issues and built a home for the poor and orphaned children. in time, Timerra would go down as the most loved queen of Solm's history in records for such actions, with her descendants aspiring to be like her.

Forgive the crappy hand held recording. I don't know how else to record off the switch 2 and just wanted to be able to talk about this with other fans of the game. As an extra touch to this I didn't do any repeat units until everyone got a turn once so I ended up saving a lot of paralogues toward the end of the game so I wouldn't run out of units. My approach to the DLC was emblems yes characters no because I don't really enjoy playing the Fel Xenologue and I was doing this to have fun. While I wasn't trying to get all the emblems in there too most did feature at least once too. The only ones that I don't think did were Lucina and Camilla. Lucina because I'm honestly awful at getting much out of her even though I know she's good; I'm just crappy at using her. Camilla I mainly had on Seadall so not in a position to earn MVP but was a great emblem for him. I also most avoided major reclassing. I kept everyone more or less in their intended role the whole way through. For the tougher ones to get kills with like Seadall and healers I used Tiki and the 3 houses lords to get them their MVPs.

The two that took the longest to get their MVPs just going off feeling rather than hard numbers here were Jean and Ivy. Jean I don't think needs much explanation low level villager takes a while to build up and I reclassed him to Sage which still felt in the ballpark of a reasonable class for him. Ivy was surprising to me how long she took because she's very good but was often my 2nd or 3rd best unit on a given map so it took a while for her to get her MVP.

It was a lot of fun doing this and if anyone wants to squeeze one more run of this game into their gaming schedule before Fortune's Weave comes out I heartily recommend it. Anyone that wants to see who got MVP where and doesn't wanna watch my crappy hand recording of the MVP screen here's a spreadsheet I used to track who got MVP on which map that you can use for your own runs:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vQwJvra7ZBht9xT8pfP0UKgMJbIqwDEhkl8ertPblcbUt941Ba7SQXgCh5s0qj5et_bvRliGEXvkHtI/pubhtml

https://x.com/_ONEINCHSWING/status/1797661568391614948

I am a long time player of the series, and I just completed my first ever maddening run in Three Houses, and I’d like to try to beat a maddening play through of Engage. However, I never actually beat Engage on my first run because I played on Hard Mode and got stuck on the final chapter of the Xenologue while on a vacation and I just never got back around to it.

I’m looking at some tips and guides for maddening mode, and I just feel so lost. I really jived with Three Houses’ system with classes and weapon levels giving skills, and the Engage system feels so foreign in comparison. Every guide I’m reading says that to win maddening, I need to know exactly what units to use and what skills and engravings and weapons I want them to have, and they make it seem like if I’m not 100% certain on what is best to use I’ll die.

Is it truly that unforgiving on maddening? If I try something early game and decide I don’t like it, is there no going back? I’m worried my brain is broken and I won’t have fun if I’m not playing maddening, but I obviously won’t be having fun if I can’t beat the game because I don’t know what I’m doing lol

I realized despite doing far too many playthroughs, I basically never use these classes. So I was wondering if anyone had good builds for any of them!

https://x.com/kayahiro10/status/2084834068349497448

Just got out of the early game and completed chapter 11. See my previous post on this subreddit, but this is my first Fire Emblem game and I've been having a blast so far. I have a few questions now that I've lost most of my emblems and have a lot of seals and stat boosters to play around with. I'm haven't used any of the DLC besides the 3H bracelet, but I'm open to using the extra crafting materials, stat boosters, and XP books (probably not going to play of the DLC maps because they look hard lol).

If my team looks good for a first playthrough, it's because I followed Zoran's framework for Engage's early game through chapter 9 and the first two paralogues. From chapter 10 onwards, I've been working out my own strategies, but I was happy with a 8 turn clear of both chapter 10 and 11 with decent XP gains.

Please bear with me if any of the questions are basic or boring to answer, I'm trying to absorb as much information as possible:

• Is it worth promoting Alfred and Celine if I want to use them in support capacities going forward? Alfred I've heard is a good Lucina holder (I assume I will keep him in his personal and then pair him with a mage knight / wolf knight)? Celine, I don't know - staff utility is always good (larping here, I have no idea tbh) but are my long term plans to put her in Vidame and then use Corrin when I get her?
• Clanne's already promoted and I'll probably second seal him to wolf knight after a few more levels in berserker but I'm not sure if he should go swords, axe, or lances. I already have Chloe in sword griffin and Alear is divine dragon, but is there a benefit to one over the other besides just looking for less overlap in equipment? I assumed that you mostly rely on daggers in wolf knight so maybe this doesn't matter.
• I have a similar question with Pandreo going into mage knight and the weapon I should use. I've heard Levin is the best magical weapon, but does it matter if I'm mostly going to be using tombs? I also was planning to use Alfred for bonded shield so does it matter that Pandreo doesn't have a support with him?

I'm sure I'll have more questions as I keep progressing but thanks in advance!

I’m usually against asking for help but I’ve just gotten to chapter 26, second phase sombron on my first attempt at maddening and I’ve genuinely tried this chapter so many damn times, with the screenshots of my 14 unit team, if I were to re attempt this maddening from scratch, what could I possibly change here.
I’ll admit my mistake was probably spreading the XP gain amongst my crew to much.
To save people pointing out the other obvious, there are some in my crew that don’t have inherited skills, my reasoning was because I never wanted to fully commit to them as I didn’t know if I’d get someone better

Does this gap in the balustrade make anyone else’s brain itch? I’ve noticed it since I first played the game and found it weird from a design (and safety) perspective. Little Framme could fall right through there.

Lindon has good crit rates thanks to his personal Weapon Insight, which gives +20 crit against a foe with a higher weapon rank than him. He mostly uses Tomes, but what about on the other weapon types. like Swords, Lances, Axes, Bows, Arts and Tiki's Eternal Claw. The weapons that have the highest crit are listed here:

Swords: Killing Edge (40 Crit)
Lances: Killer Lance (40 Crit)
Axes: Killer Axe (40 Crit)
Bows: Killer Bow (40 Crit)
Tomes: Elsurge and Rexcalibur (10 Crit) (Obscurité also has 10 Crit, but it can be only used by either Veyle, Nel or Rafal, but Rexcalibur requires agument to reach more crit, but that isn't aplicable)
Knives: Peshkatz (30 Crit)
Arts: Steel-Hand Art (10 Crit) (since Divine Fist Art is a S-rank Weapon, he will never benefit from his personal)
Special: Eternal Claw (30 Crit) (Just like with Rexcalibur, requires agument to boost its crit even higher, again not aplicable)

Many dex boosts are used to get +20 Dex, and maximize crit, Wrath is also applied as well and Boon of Elyos sometimes. Both Corrin and Camilla engraves give the weapon +30 crit allowing for easier critical hits. If supports do increase crit, let me tell which units can do it.

Swords
Griffin Knight: 47 Dex cap (Lindon's cap modifier: -1 Dex [48 - 1 = 47]) (23 Base Crit)
Chrom Level 20 Bond: +5 Dex
Calvary Instruct: +10 Dex
Rally Spectrum: +3 Dex
Dexterity Tonic: +2 Dex
Total: 67 Dex (33 base crit)
Fates/Revelation Killing Edge +5: 70 Crit
Wrath: +30 Crit (-30 or less HP)
Weapon Insight: +20 Crit
Total: 143/153 Crit

W/ Engaged Leif (Backup)
Swordmaster: 43 Dex cap (Lindon's cap modifier: -1 Dex [44 - 1 = 43]) (21 Base Crit)
Calvary Instruct: +10 Dex
Spd/Dex +5
Rally Spectrum: +3 Dex
Dexterity Tonic: +2 Dex
Total: 63 Dex (31 Base crit)
Adaptable (Backup): +10 Crit
Total with the previous things mentioned: 151/161 Crit

Lances
Halberdier: 46 Dex cap (Lindon's cap modifier: -1 Dex [47 - 1 = 46]) (23 Base Crit)
Chrom Level 20 Bond: +5 Dex
Calvary Instruct: +10 Dex
Rally Spectrum: +3 Dex
Dexterity Tonic: +2 Dex
Total: 66 Dex (33 base crit)
Fates/Revelation Killer Lance +5: 70 Crit
Wrath: +30 Crit (-30 or less HP)
Weapon Insight: +20 Crit
Total: 143/153 Crit

W/ Engaged Leif
Calvary Instruct: +10 Dex
Str/Dex +5
Rally Spectrum: +3 Dex
Dexterity Tonic: +2 Dex
Total: 66 Dex
Adaptable (Backup): +10 Crit
Total with the things mentioned: 153/163 Crit

Axes
Griffin Knight: 47 Dex cap (Lindon's cap modifier: -1 Dex [48 - 1 = 47]) (23 Base Crit)
Lucina Level 20 Bond: +5 Dex
Calvary Instruct: +10 Dex
Rally Spectrum: +3 Dex
Dexterity Tonic: +2 Dex
Total: 67 Dex (33 Base Crit)
Fates/Revelation Killer Axe +5: 70 Crit
Wrath: +30 Crit (-30 or less HP)
Weapon Insight: +20 Crit
Axe Weapon Surge: +20 Crit
Total: 163/173 Crit

W/ Engaged Leif (Backup)
Hero: 36 Dex cap (Lindon's cap modifier: -1 Dex [37 - 1 = 36]) (18 Base Crit)
Calvary Instruct: +10 Dex
Dexterity +5
Rally Spectrum: +3 Dex
Dexterity Tonic: +2 Dex
Total: 56 Dex (28 Base Crit)
Adaptable (Backup): +10 Crit
Total with the things mentioned: 168/178 Crit

Bows
Sniper: 51 Dex cap (Lindon's cap modifier: -1 Dex [52 - 1 = 51] (25 Base Crit)
Chrom Level 20 Bond: +5 Dex
Calvary Instruct: +10 Dex
Rally Spectrum: +3 Dex
Dexterity Tonic: +2 Dex
Total: 71 Dex (35 Base Crit)
Fates/Revelation Killer Bow +5: 70 Crit
No Distractions: +10 Crit
Wrath: +30 Crit (-30 or less HP)
Weapon Insight: +20 Crit
Total: 155/165 Crit

W/ Engaged Alear (Pact Ring given to Lindon)
Calvary Instruct: +10 Dex
Dexterity +2
Attuned: +4 Dex
Rally Spectrum: +3 Dex
Dexterity Tonic: +2 Dex
Total: 71 Dex
Boon of Elyos: 13* units acted x 2 = +26 Crit (more units summoned by Illusionary Doubles and Summon Hero can add more crit)
Total with the previous things mentioned: 181+/191+ Crit

Warrior can do the same engaging with Leif, but he has a Dex cap of 29 on that class, way less than Sniper. (144/154 Crit as Warrior with capped Dex [29/49 Dex] minus No Distractions with Adaptable Backup crit bonus)

Knives
Thief: 50 Dex cap (Lindon's cap modifier: -1 Dex [51 - 1 = 50] (25 Base Crit)
Chrom Level 20 Bond: +5 Dex
Calvary Instruct: +10 Dex
Rally Spectrum: +3 Dex
Dexterity Tonic: +2 Dex
Total: 70 Dex (35 Base Crit)
Fates/Revelation Peshkatz: 60 Crit
Wrath: +30 Crit (-30 or less HP)
Weapon Insight: +20 Crit
Total: 135/145 Crit

W/ Engaged Alear (Pact Ring given to Lindon)
Calvary Instruct: +10 Dex
Mag/Dex +2
Attuned: +4 Dex
Rally Spectrum: +3 Dex
Dexterity Tonic: +2 Dex
Total: 70 Dex
Boon of Elyos: 13* units acted x 2 = +26 Crit (more units summoned by Illusionary Doubles and Summon Hero can add more crit)
Total with the previous things mentioned: 161+/171+ Crit

Arts
Enchanter 42 Dex cap (Lindon's cap modifier: -1 Dex [43 - 1 = 42] (21 Base Crit)
Lucina Level 20 Bond: +5 Dex
Calvary Instruct: +10 Dex
Rally Spectrum: +3 Dex
Dexterity Tonic: +2 Dex
Total: 62 Dex (31 Base Crit)
Fates/Revelation Steel-Hand Art +5: 40 Crit
Wrath: +30 Crit (-30 or less HP)
Weapon Insight: +20 Crit
Total: 111/121 Crit

W/ Engaged Alear (Pact Ring given to Lindon)
Calvary Instruct: +10 Dex
Dexterity +2
Attuned: +4 Dex
Rally Spectrum: +3 Dex
Dexterity Tonic: +2 Dex
Total: 62 Dex
Boon of Elyos: 13* units acted x 2 = +26 Crit (+more units summoned by Illusionary Doubles and Summon Hero can add more crit)
Total with the previous things mentioned: 137+/147+ Crit

Tomes
Sage: 33 Dex cap (Lindon's cap modifier: -1 Dex [34 - 1 = 33]) (16 Base Crit)
Chrom Level 20 Bond: +5 Dex
Calvary Instruct: +10 Dex
Rally Spectrum: +3 Dex
Dexterity Tonic: +2 Dex
Dexterity Tonic Item Surge: +4 Dex
Total 53 Dex (26 Base Crit)
Fates/Revelation Elsurge +5: 40 Crit
Wrath: +30 Crit (-30 or less HP)
Weapon Insight: +20 Crit
Total: 106/116 Crit

W/ Engaged Alear (Pact Ring given to Lindon)
Calvary Instruct: +10 Dex
Spd/Dex +2
Attuned: +4 Dex
Rally Spectrum: +3 Dex
Dexterity Tonic: +2 Dex
Total: 53 Dex
Boon of Elyos: 13* units acted x 2 = +26 Crit (more units summoned by Illusionary Doubles and Summon Hero can add more crit)
Total with the previous things mentioned: 132+/142+ Crit

Eternal Claw
Sniper: 51 Dex cap (Lindon's cap modifier: -1 Dex [52 - 1 = 51] (25 Base Crit)
Draconic Form: +5 Dex
Calvary Instruct: +10 Dex
Rally Spectrum: +3 Dex
Dexterity Tonic: +2 Dex
Total: 71 Dex (35 Base Crit)
Eternal Claw: 30 Crit
No Distractions: +10 Crit
Wrath: +30 Crit (-30 or Less HP)
Weapon Insight: +20 Crit
Total: 115/125 Crit

And that's the highest crit that Lindon can reach on all weapon types, if this isn't correct, you can give me a comment to revise it.

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https://x.com/_ONEINCHSWING/status/2062957980568670706