Fire Emblem: Awakening

Wow, I'm planning on filling the libraries with several playthroughs since I'll definitely have more than one file/to get all the S supports. If you can't decide how you want to pair them up from supports alone, I'd say rule which are most useful on the battlefield together- so they'll actually get used. And I'd recommend pairing up the units who have a limited pool (Chrom and Sumia) first, the going on to your MVPs.

For your Avatar, might I ask if you like Gaia's supports? I dunno if they're the same as the fan-translations I read, but if they're anywhere near them, you're striking gold. Also Libera's S support is pretty darn funny too.

Still trying to get hold of the game since Nintendo screwed the pooch. I refuse to buy it on the eShop unless I have no other choice because Nintendo online-related is a joke.

I played a little of Sacred Stones because I'm one of the suckers who got a launch 3DS and Nintendo bought my silence with old games. Not very much, though. Right now I'm on that fog of war map with the spiders and it's pissing me off because I can know full well where the enemies are and my characters will still be "surprised" and oh god how am I going to rescue those people in time there are enemies everywhere.

So, going into this won't be my first Fire Emblem game, but it's gonna be close. Consequently, I have some questions:

• Sacred Stones has the support thing but it never explained it or told me what it meant or how to use it. What exactly is is about and am I fucked if I haven't used it?
  
• Am I supposed to use everyone or can I just use the characters I like/who seem useful?
  
• I'm told that every Fire Emblem game has one guy like Seth who is a baller but has no significant growth potential and I should avoid giving them any kills if possible to avoid wasting experience. Does FE:A have one of these and if so who is it
  
• Does FE:A have characters like Garcia's son (is it Ross?) who suck at the beginning but if nurtured have more than normal growth potential? Should I do this in FE:A? Ross is annoying.
  
• Promotions: when do I do them? Is this a standard thing for all FE games? I'm scared of screwing myself by promoting too early.

Basically Fire Emblem seems to have a lot of standard tropes that are as natural to veterans as breathing, but to a newcomer like me they're confusing and overwhelming in their number and complexity. Help me not to flail too much because if a game doesn't explain itself well enough to me I'm likely to just stop playing the fucking thing forever.

As an aside, shouldn't this thread be in the games forum? I get that the romancing and whatnot has a large following in this forum, but it is inconsistent and weird for the rule to be "games go over HERE unless a bunch of this subset of people likes them in which case they go over HERE." We aren't that mean. We just say "fuck" a lot. As you can see in this thread.

Done.

This is my character...

this is my 2nd time leveling through tactician, I really need to go bow knight and pick up 50% evasion skill vs arrow then go dark flier.. magic is awesome.
game got to the point where I just send my main character forward, and she kills everything on counter attack..

really do wish experience is shared between support units and attacking units, so far they are only shared if support deal damage, which is never.

Gaius's was so fun to read. One of my favourites for sure. But I ship him sooo hard with Maribelle. Sooo hard. I would have paired up Maribelle + Gregor together (would explain Brady's... looks), but Gaius and Maribelle are like my 100% for sure OTP. And yeah, I paired up Chrom and Sumia already because of story reasons. >_< Well, it was either Sumia or Olivia, but I already did Olivia the first time, so I got Chrom and Sumia hitched the second. Less effort is nice.

I would have liked several playthroughs, but my sister is planning to play as well, and the other file I may need for extra saves for supports and stuff, so not too much flexibility for me.

Hahaha, I ship Gaius and Panne probably just as hard as you ship him and Maribelle (Fuck me, I keep wanting to type their japanese names) and I stick Donny with Maribelle. This is all based on the fan translated japanese supports. With the exception of Gaius and Panne (seriously, baby bunny with Beastbane and Lethality? Instant badass!).

And the files... I have one for just my own play, I'm going to use one for my LP here, and finally, one for a male runthrough for support reasons.

Oh jeez, I wasn't intending to splinter the conversation. I was thinking more that everyone could discuss it there. Sorry everyone!

Don't sweat it, I was planning on making a thread in the Games section anyway if no one else did. This thread seems to be more about shipping and fandom, so I figured one more focused on the gaming and strategy might be nice.

I didn't want to buy it off the eShop but the game is pretty much impossible to find otherwise unless you get lucky. And that even goes for people who preordered like me, a lot of people who preordered didn't get their game. ANyways...

1. Supports work differently. In 6-8 you would have to have certain characters stand next to eachother for a long time and then have conversation on the battlefield. In 9 and 10 the conversations would take place outside of battle in the support menu. This game is kind a mix of both, where you gain invisible "points" toward support when they battle together and have conversations in the support menu. In both cases they grant stat bonuses when the characters are near eachother, and in this one also makes the supporting character more likely to defend and attack when they are paire up.

2. If you try to use everyone it makes the game harder because you're sharing the EXP between a large pool. It's good to have a variety of units for different situations but I'd advise against using literally everyone. I mean you can if you want to, both sacred stones and this game allow you to grind so it's not as much of a problem as it was in the other games.

3. In this game it's Frederick. You can tell who it is right away because they are always promoted units who you get at the very beginning and get less exp. That's not to say not to use them ever, but if I want to use them what I do is hold off on it until my other units have caught up a little bit.

4. Yeah, Donnel. It's not worth using him IMO though.

5. This game works a little differently because you can change class and such so you technically have unlimited levels. The general idea though is to wait until level 20 to promote.

I'd imagine this game does fit here though due to it being heavily anime influenced and such.

Am I supposed to have everyone support everyone? Or just particular people? Does it matter who?

Should I just choose the Support command if I wind up next to someone and I don't need them to take any action?

Fuck Paralogue 2. I hate having "Allied" units. especially ones that don't have a way to heal.

What's that? I've got 2 turns to get from one corner of the map to the other, alive, to help defend you? Or else you get slaughtered by archers? Wonderful.

Ugh and my only other choice is chapter 7, which is just "Hello, Dragonknights".

This always happens in my FE games; I get to a point where the units I have are good stuff, but not specialized for a specific fight, and then that fight comes up and i'm just stuck.

I feel bad if this sounds like bragging, but I accidentally had my Stahl almost solo (though paired with Sully) Chapter 7 with a Javelin. He grew 4 levels in two turns. I had accidentally placed him in the very spot where almost every enemy could get a shot at him and do no damage with the exception of the Steel axes that did two. I still had to kill some of the DragonRiders with my other units, but my Stahl just massacred everyone else... I was actually sort of freaking out when it happened.

my stahl is lvl 2 and he can't even get a wife...

^ My Stahl is a stud.

In Sacred Stones terms, supports will give battlefield bonuses, and reveal backstory/characterization- but the part my FE friends and I tend to like most is how A Supports influence the epilogue cards at the end of the game. Ex: who Ephriam takes as his queen vs. is forever alone and his death leaves no heir and starts a bloody civil war, ect. It lets you control a character's interests/future to a certain point.

There is no downside to choosing that command in those circumstances EXCEPT that you are blocking other Support possibilities- becuase one given character has five allotted Support points, meaning you can get one A support and one B support, or Five C Supports, ect.

Sacred Stones is one of the easiest FE games to grind out supports in because of random monster battles, where you can burn countless turns having units stand near each other outside of the monster's agro range. Edit: You can also do this in that Tower in Frelia, I can't remember what it's actual name is.

Also while trainee characters like Ross start uber fragile, they also tend to have skyrocketing growth stats, and in Sacred Stones specific, they have 10 more levels than every other unit if optimally leveled (which can make a huge difference). In my own FE:SS playthrough I chose to make Ross into a Pirate then Bezerker, and he had TWO HEALTH BARS, or rather he had so much health that it spilled over and looked like two. Yeah, nothing could kill him or his girlfriend, Amelia the Wallmaster General.

I've read that Stahl is one of the most optimizable units, say, if you change him to the myrmidon class with his high speed growths he makes one of the fastest Swordmasters

Okay, that's it, I'm no longer clicking spoiler tags related to this game until I play it.

It takes great willpower to resist looking at spoilers. I know I have succumbed to it's temptations many times before...

They taunt and mock me. "Read me, you know you want to know~" Which I do, but through playing the game myself. Ah, this thread is going to be a test of willpower, but it's a challenge I shall meet with pride!

And by meet with pride, I mean I am just going to pretend this thread doesn't exist for the next while.

Also, is anyone else just having absolutely shit luck with level ups? Chrom's highest stat is magic right now.

I want to say I hate you except you're absolutely right so I can't blame you for my own nature.

Every so often. Sometimes I'll get spectacular level ups, most of the time I just get 3-4 stats, rarely will I get less than 2. My Chrom and MU are horrendously broken. As is my Stahl.

Married Chrom and MU can solo everything ever.

Hell, with Lifetaker you don't even really need Sol.

Question: What should I reclass my MU to next? I've done Pegasus Knight, Tactician, Dark Flier, and Dark Knight. I've hit the speed and skill caps for DK so I'm looking to reclass again.

Hmmm.... Speed, skill... myrmadon/swordmaster maybe? Or Mage/Sorcerer? Hmm.... wait did you ever promote to Grandmaster when you were a Tactician?

I'm quitting Sacred Stones forever. Most of it has been no problem but this fog of war map is more than I'm willing to put up with. A billion enemies, you can never see any of them so you can never tell if you're safe (you're never safe) and anyone except Seth and Gilliam can be one-shotted by an enemy you couldn't see before. Fuck this game.

Oops, forgot to include Grandmaster. I got the Grandmaster skills already. The thing is, I want to end as a Grandmaster, because I really like swords + sorcery, so I'm getting all of the skills that I want before going back.

Okay, I'll either go for Swordmaster (Astra) or Sage (Tomefaire). It'll be hard to give up a mounted unit's Mov though.

Especially flyer. They can go everywhere without movement penalty (I think minus sand areas though? Since that's the mages vantage? I don't remember.)

Nope, they don't get a penalty on sand either. *sigh* I miss my Dark Flier MU. To compensate I reclassed both Cordelia and Sumia as DFs, but they're way squishier than Robin was.

I just got to Chapter 16. Cervantes looks like eggman.

Also Laurent is adorable. He will be mine~ Heheheh.

Laureeeeent~~! (●´∀｀●) He's one of my faves.

Oh my god

Yesssssss

So many characters....so few save slots..."orz

So, I finally managed to get this game after several days of checking online to find it and calling various stores. I think I managed to get one of the last (if not the last) copies in about a 25 mile radius of my zip code. XD

I'm trying to figure out who I want to pair together and I'm having a lot of trouble deciding. Right now I'm thinking...
Chrom x Sumia
Lon'qu x Sully (Cause come on, how could that not be both hilarious and heartwarming? Can you imagine that confession? It'd be a total trainwreck!)
Gaius x Lissa
Donnel x Maribelle (The commoner and the noble snob? Yes, please!)
Libra x Tharja
Gregor x Nowi
and either Frederick x Miriel or Henry x Miriel

I haven't decided on a pairing for Panne, Cordelia, Olivia, or Cherche (I've yet to recruit those last two) yet.

I'm thinking my character (Eliora) might get together with Stahl this time around. I'm interested in Laurent, but you get him so late in the game that I'm not sure I can wait that long on my first playthrough.

What pairings are you guys going for?