When to Promote in Fire Emblem
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- Опубликовано: 20 дек 2023
- Do you promote at level 10, 20, somewhere in between? The answer is about 24 minutes long!
Edited by Misery: / @endmisery
Patreon: / mekkah
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Design by Ryn: / ryntai / spo.ink/ryntube 
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So, "when I want a new character model/sprite to look at" isn't an optimal time to promote? I've been doing it all wrong this entire time!
In echoes I always looked forward to new badass animations, that's why I try to have one of each class on my first playthrough of a fire emblem game
Your strategy is optimized, just for aesthetics and vibes
The opposite: not wanting to promote in engage because the unpromoted units' outfit looks better
Looking at you citrinne
@@cheryl9809 17 games in and we still can't choose options for outfits during downtime and outfits during battle. I think 3H had this, but not every outfit could be chosen?
@@A_Person_64I think it was only for mounted classes for characters who aren’t “canonically” seen in them (in other routes / as NPCs).
Can't believe some years back mekkah was known for low production quality. How far he's come. This is such a clean video
I miss his #1 fan...his literal fan. :c
Guess you could say he promoted into a more potent creator.
@@unwithering5313 It was a late promotion, but he's a real juggernaut now. Ironic since mekkah is largely responsible for bringing early promoting to the public attention.
Two other reasons to promote early and often in Gaiden/Echoes: 1. Your EXP gain is partially based on your level in comparison to your enemy's level, so if you grind too much your EXP gain will diminish (which is also why early game in hard mode can actually be easier than normal mode because you get higher EXP gains). 2. Mercenaries, once they reach Dread Fighter, can loop back to villager and do it all over again. But they can't do it if you wait!
The real reason to promote early in Gaiden / Echoes is because base stats worked differently for those games. Your minimum stats will always be bolstered to the promoted unit's stats, so any stats leveled up when you could have been promoted that aren't already higher than the promoted unit's stats when you can promote is a complete and utter waste of time. The same goes for Three Houses too. Promote early and promote often, that's the best way to get stronger.
@@Augestein This is true, but it was mentioned in the video. My comment was meant to be in addition to that.
I remember grinding Gray to lvl 20 villager. He still wasn't up to par with the Mercenary base stat. I remember thinking I should have promoted him early.
"Mercenaries, once they reach Dread Fighter, can loop back to villager and do it all over again." Except that they won't, unless in the post-game (Act 6, Echoes only). I got only one dread fighter to that point (level 10) just before going in to face Duma (the final boss) and would certainly not have liked to give up his anti-magic skills then.
And I'm a completionist (revisit dungeons for every side mission) who likes the combat, never considering it to be a grind (so milk each visit for max exp by hunting out every enemy group). What I won't do and didn't do is farm for gratuitous exp from endless respawns.
@@RSimpkinuk57 Grinding on the world map or in dungeons is not required to dread loop. All it takes is more careful allocation of XP. It's not that hard to dread loop a villager merc during Act 3 (in fact I believe the hard mode speed run does this with Kliff).
A wizard never promotes earlier nor does he promote late
He promotes precisely when he needs to
Listen to your heart
Your Heart: "Promote at Level 20"
This is the way.
Truth
Yes. This is the way
Whenever I start a new game I always look for the Mekkah. Someone who gives casual friendly tactical advise for those of us with an optimization kink but are also lazy. I don't always find them. Thanks for everything you do Mekkah
Fun fact about FE10 I learned recently: in the japanese version you couldn't promote to tier 3 by leveling up at 20. However, the game gave you 13 Master Crowns instead of 5.
This localization change actually lead to an oversight wherein Lucia can be given a hard focus to achieve her tier 3 class very early in the game causing her to become short haired well before the plot events that cause her hair to get cut short in the story because the crowns made promoting her this early impossible, no thought was given to giving her tier 3 promote model a long haired version like her tier 2 promote class.
This feels like one of those "Brocks onix knows Bind instead of Bide" issues. Honestly who cares @@DotsHero
Mist unique promotion item is a leftover of the jp system. Although i promote my RD units by hitting 20 and then using a master seal.
The japanese version of FE10 is pretty different in general. Leonardo, Nolan and Edward do not get personal weapons in it, and the forging system requires that you accumulate points by selling weapons before you can forge. This limitation got removed but the costs weren't rebalanced, leading to forging basic tomes being plain better than buying higher rank ones, as its cheaper with no drawback.
They also altered several plot points and removed much of the extended script normally featured on the hardest difficulty. Very, very handsy approach to localization, definitely wouldn't fly nowadays, even though many of these changes are arguably positive.
Wow, imagine IS stealing Kaga's design notes and not making them consistent from JP to EN. Oops it happened because IS are intellectual thieves.
In the GBA games, Ellen, Serra and Natasha all gain more experience than Saul, Luciua and Moulder upon promoting into bishops because there's a mechanic that gives all female bishops bonus experience in combat.
no way, that's insane
Based womanhood
iirc that only is the case for FE7, that is bishop serra gaining more experience than bishop lucius. In FE6 and FE8. male bishops also get the boost. Specifically, Rogues/Assassins, Bishops (only female in FE7) and Valkyries gain more experience on kill.
I would assume that this behaviour in FE7 is probably intended as Serra is the only staff user that promotes into bishop whereas Lucius is a combat unit before promotion. I guess it is to make up for the fact that staff users may often have to promote at lower levels to gain combat abilities as well as to encourage such an early promotion. I guess they figured that there is no reason to give Lucius such an incentive as he can already fight anyways. FE6 and FE8, on the other hand, do have male healers so they get to benefit from that mechanic as well. I guess, that makes Artur the winner of today's "mechanic nerd sunday" eposode, as he is a combat unit before promotion but *also* gets the level speed bonus afterwards. What a chad --I still like Lute more. Yes, she is a LOT of work, but they payoff is way too hilarious to pass up for me, especially when she gets 5 Def and 25 Avoid from supports--
However, knowing all this, it is worth mentioning that Valkyrie L'arachel gains more experience on kill than mage knight L'arachel. I don't think that really matters as FE8 is so short, but this can sometimes be a relevant mechanic in fan hacks as many of them are based on FE8 (and the levelling speed mechanic for these classes seems to be hardcoded so it isn't easy to change either. For examle, in Voids Blitzarre Adventure, Valkyrie Prine can easily get to level 20 whereas this is much harder to achieve as a mage knight - also, Prine with Ivaldi is friggin invincible and it is hilarious :D)
-I only wanted to quickly comment on that mechanic. How did that turn into me rambling about FE8 fanhacks? lmao-
Highly depends on the promotion system for me. In Engage or FE1 there's no reason to NOT promote ASAP, but in the GBA games I tend to train a smaller team and therefore I wait until at *least* Level 15 unless a unit is falling behind
Sadly, there's not enough promo items for all units in FE1. So it's very likely to have a lot of late promos.
@@SinNun-tx5jp oh yeah, that's why I say ASAP rather than at level 10. I didn't get my first dracowhip until caeda was already level 20
Me too, I find out that level 15 is the sweet spot for me, I'm not a top player like mekkah or dondom, so promoting level 10 for me don't work, I can't use the unit full potential, and I don't like grinding, level 20 is to much effort and boring, and it's a pitfall
One rule of thumb that tends to work for me, is to follow the enemy evolution curve.
In Awakening for instance, you have points in the game where you start seeing sages and heros a lot as more normal enemies instead of basicly minibosses. And it's usually around this time i start promoting units that either get doubled, need to be able to take hits or simply have nothing of value to contribute. Characters get their only base class skill at 10, so you have no reason to look for skills in later levels, so at least in Awakening, it's purely a numbers or utility question for me, and not a skill gain issue like mastering classes in Three Houses...
FE7 Raven and Priscilla were the ubits that made me realize that early promoting can be extremely useful and aiming for 20/20 is overkill for some units.
If the unit has better growths and bases, holding back on promoting them seems to be good choice to make endgame easier.
Early promoting average units gives you some breathing room when trying to invest some unpromoted dudes.
I always 20/20 units to max stats for everyone. ❤
Staffers are the exception to my late-promo rule.
They promote at 12, unlike the 17/18 combat units have to hit for me.
@@azurerider812
Early promote staffers means more movement and a horse
@@xxx_jim_the_reaper_xxx foot staffers dont get horses on promo tho.
My hack changes that tho.
Oh god, the video my 9 year old self needed.
I was insistent on getting to level 20 on everything before promoting. Oh wait, I still kind of do that.
Thanks Mekkah!
This video should be called "should I grind or should I grow" and open with the guitar riff of the clash song.
I think the earliest promotion we should hand out should be for Misery, considering how well edited this video is.
In awakening i like to promote Lissa and Maribel early because it lets them hold a weapon which greatly reduces how much the ai tries to attack them. The way the ai chooses targets is that it will always make the safest attack possible. So since Liss and Marrible can't counter attack the ai will always attack them with every unit that's within range.
I like to just use Libra instead, not behause I like him more or because he is inherently better, its because he doesn't need a master seal. FE13 tends to be pretty stingy with those until you can finally buy them after chapter 12(?) and Libra allows you to have a promoted healer several chapters before that which is cool. Also, rally luck is really good if you are using spendthrift as much as I do.
Or I just use Anna as my healer because Anna.
@@IschmarVI I think one of the dlc maps gives early master seals and some of the kids maps sell second seals after you complete their paralouge
A couple small details to add:
In FE4, don't worry about Returning someone to the home castle to promote as soon as they hit level 20, do it when it's convenient because them maps is huge and usually your unit can do what they need to do a little longer and they're still gaining exp.
FE8 is a short game, early promotion is better because no one is hitting level 20 promoted anyway unless you're grinding.
Slick vid for sure, the new definitive "when to promote" FE guide
Edit: When you finally get around to playing Vestaria Saga, you may need to make a promo guide vid because stats gained beyond the early cap are saved and given when you promote...also promo items are hard to get lol
This is great info for me that haven't played many of these games still. I would like to add that one very useful and somewhat cheeky use of FE3H promotion system is that a lot of units can very easily pick up armor rank D+ to promote to armor knight if they already have axes or will get them anyways (many do as deathblow is excellent). The class itself is more or less useless but this can get frail units bumped to a base defense of 12. There are a few other places where these tricks can be useful as well, notable is thief for basing speed up to 12 for slow units.
I used this trick on Lysithea, had her trained on a skirmish map using her personal skill, promoting her to the tier 3 armor class. Both promo bonuses accounted for, she nearly doubled her bulk and gained, like, 2 AS from the extra Str.
Kinda wish the video brought up one of the bigger benefits of early promotion, especially in the GBA games: the ability to start building weapon rank faster. The faster you promote your mage, the faster you can start leveling that staff rank, letting them get to Physic or possibly even Warp by the lategame. Staves are the big example but there's some other useful corner cases like Garm Gerik, too. I think this was mentioned in the old WAIFU Canas video so it feels like a bit of an oversight.
That's why I always promote classes that get nothing but an E Rank as soon as they reach 10th level - mainly Clerics and Troubadours.
it did bring that up
He did bring it up
Why not just give Gerik the S sword ? 🤔 To much effort grinding his axe rank, and hand axe are over power until the very end 👌
Having an idea of the experience formula can help a lot in deciding whether a unit should promote or not, because it can be hard to tell how much of a fall-off in exp your unit will have after promoting -- sometimes it can be drastic (like promoting ASAP in Conquest), and sometimes it can be small or insignificant.
For example, for most units in FE6 and FE7 HHM, a player unit's kill exp reaches 0 if that unit is 7 levels higher than the enemy unit killed (only gaining a relatively small amount of chip exp). So if you have an unpromoted unit that's 7 levels higher than most of the enemy units on the map, there's not much reason to hold off on promoting, because they aren't getting any kill exp anyway. Being 7 levels higher than the enemies might seem like a high number, but it can actually happen pretty easily. Enemies in Kinship's Bond (Chapter 22) of FE7 Hector Hard mode are mostly levels 7-8, meaning a level 15 unit probably isn't going to gain much more exp at that level versus if they promote.
One other small thing to mention: In FE9, in addition to staff users, mages are another good candidate to early promote with a Master Seal. In their case, it's because they gain staves, which in addition to being useful can also can often result in them gaining more exp than if you left them unpromoted, especially if your turn counts aren't super low.
EDIT: Also, one extremely pedantic correction: your math on the number of total level ups units get is slightly off. A level 1 unit that promotes at level 10 and then gets to 20 promoted should have 28 level ups (9 unpromoted, then 19 unpromoted), rather than 29 as you state. Similarly, a 20/20 unit gets 38 level ups, not 39.
Nice breakdown. I've just got a couple small things to add.
1. Promoting in (almost?) all FE games resets the exp bar. It might not seem like a big deal, but promoting a unit with 90 exp is almost the equivalent of throwing away a stat booster or two. Tossing the character some bonus exp (Tellius) arena fights (engage) or an extra round of combat or two is probably worthwhile.
2. Depending on the game, promotion may take a turn in combat, or may only be available outside of combat. You generally don't want to take a turn in combat to promote given a choice, but it may be worth doing so in the case of that 90 exp unit mentioned above.
Honestly, i'd like to see more incentive to wait for promotions, in most games it hardly feel like a tactical choice. It is the main reason why i am the only crazy person that likes how promotions work in Shining Force 1(to put in in FE terms, you lose stats but gain weapon ranks, paragon and aptitude).
Guaranteed stats > Chance of stats
Is what I would say, but really I just want the outfit change and in later games, the opportunity to reclass to other classes too
i hate the RNG in stat gains in FE games man
That graphic at the end was incredibly helpful! I love in depth content but I also love a cheat sheet with all the info in one spot. Well done!
While the world seems to change rapidly around us, it can be comforting to see some things stay the same.
Such as that no matter if Mekkah is recording a 240p video in the middle of a tornado in 2016 or or making actually high quality, properly edited content in 2024, people in the comments under his videos will ignore his arguments for early promoting and insist you should do it at level 20 anyway lol.
Hi Mekkah, I haven't been watching your playthroughs recently due to lack of time, which makes it hard to keep up with them. I was just thinking how I was missing some of these analysis videos. Thank you very much, I know they take long to make
7:12 FE3 is not effectively the same as FE1, it has fixed promotion bonuses like the later games
As alsways, FE5 getting the credit from something invented in FE3
A video I did not think I needed to have but here we are,
This is actually eye-opening to promoting, I always had a stubborn rule to myself to only promote at level 20 but you learn something new everyday : D lol
Great video dude
Also the editor went crazy on this bro
I did an FE7 run recently, LHM -> HNM and early promoted Sain in Lyn mode. Throughout the rest of the game, I used Sain and Kent, who I ended up promoting at 20 because I wanted to see how they'd compare. Even with less levels at the endgame and about the same level of usage, they ended up roughly the same statwise. Outside of the numbers though, Sain was way more useful for much longer. Haven't tried it on HHM yet since I'm burnt out on playing FE7 at the moment, but it really was cool to see that. Great video!
IMO Sacred Stones is always a toss up, you can class change at 20 due to the exp you can easily farm from the tower. Or you can class change right away due to the Secret Shop being there and you can just buy stat boost items to make up for unmaxed stats at level 20.
Never promote just sell items for funds and use pre promotes😎😎😎
i am scared of how 500 iq this comment is.
19:52 I love how you posted the Troubadour class here cause I’m trying to use the Einherjar units for my run & the fact this class gives a +20 skill growth is insane cause Trim starts off at just 20%,, & the promos have 15 & 10, & witch gives 5,, I gotta Lv 20 promote & pray I’ll end with a good end stat 🤧
I’ve already been following most of the promotion advice while playing on my own, but this is a great video to reference Mekkah!
I haven’t watched you in years, is amazing how far your videos have gone in production value.
A good video all around, but I don't know if I agree with second sealing early, then master sealing later in awakening. It sounds really broken in theory, but in practice it's never quite as good as it actually sounds.
Awakening promo bonuses are busted. Some classes have gains so broken it essentially transforms the unit into an entirely different one. The Great Knight promo from cav , for example, gives you (among other things) +7 HP and +7 Def. That's just a stupid bulk increase that you aren't going to match with the levels from a second seal. Knight to General is +10 (Yes, this game lquite literally gives you a double digit number extra in one of your stats on promo).
While the increased exp gain from early second sealing will lead to a fast increase in stats, the amount of stats you gain in the short term is nowhere close to the amount a promotion gives you. It can take a significant number of levels to actually "break even" with the second seal, especially because promotion is so consistent and gives you many key stats. If we take Hero Vaike vs Barbarian Vaike as an example, it takes 11.1 levels for Barb Vaike to reach the Def stat of Hero Vaike the second he is promoted. Sure, the rest of Barb Vaike's stats are going to be better, but the fact you have to spend more time with a weaker unit should be noted.
Adjacent to this is the weapon rank argument. While second sealing early might in theory make your unit stronger, if you end up with an entirely different weapon type, you can massively nerf your damage by being forced to use weak E rank bronze weapons. This is something you won't have to contend with if you master seal, as you'll often gain that weapon type anyway, while keeping your old weapon, so you can choose when it' a good idea to grind your E rank, or when you really need to do some damage.
There's also the case of accessing skills earlier. Many promoted classes have very good skills in awakening and by promoting earlier you can get them much quicker than if you second sealed beforehand. Sure, Barb Vaike that gets promoted at 10 to zerk might have way more stats than Hero Vaike, but Hero Vaike gets Sol earlier, so he's invincible anyway.
On top of all that, there's also some units that might want to chase a promoted second sealed class (such as Lissa wanting to reach Falcon Knight). In this case, promoting as early as you possibly can guarantees that she can rush to level 10 promoted and then go into Falcon, rather than wasting time second sealing into anything else. Yes, technically it is faster to second seal to Peg and then master seal, but now you have a Pegasus Knight Lissa, which is terrible in every capacity and does literally the opposite of what you want Lissa to be doing.
TLDR: Generally speaking Master Sealing early in Awakening> Second Sealing early because promoting has far more advantages than disadvantages. You may want to hold off on promoting a super long term carry at literally level 10 (although there are definitely some units that can still get away with that, especially on hard and below. In fact, if you're on Hard or Normal, just promote Gregor in his join map because he literally cannot die ever), generally I'd say 12-15 for juggernaut combat units and ASAP for everyone else.
Obviously there are exceptions to every rule, such as using the renown seal on Robin early because you get it 4 chapters before you can even get the master seal and Robin quite likes to go into Dark Mage anyway. In this case, there's really no downside to second sealing at all as it helps you escape the mediocre tactician line to go to a much stronger class, and helps Robin uncap their level and increase their exp gain.
But, consider that Vaike> Robin and Early Master Sealing Vaike> Early Master Sealing Robin. Therefore, via simple substution, Early master Sealing> Early Second Sealing.
Great content as always mekkah
It's always the case you see a typo right after you hit submit. Knight to General is +10 HP, not +10HP/Def, although that would be funny. Generals Def increase is a "modest" 4.
A lot of this holds true for Fates as well, not in regards to reclassing since heart seals do nothing to your level or exp gain but in regards to when you should promote. The ability to build a new weapon rank earlier, get new skills earlier and get access to better pair up stats earlier makes a big difference, to the point where I usually promote most of my units at around level 14-16, at least in Conquest.
Always a treat to see a new Mekkah video!
That editing was so clean you could eat off of it dayum!
A correction to your short bit on FE3: Only HP and weapon level stats that are lower than the class's baseline are brought up to the class base. Every other stat gains a fixed amount on promotion regardless of what it was prior to promotion.
recently I've been trying to stick to "promote when a unit hits a relevant stat cap" in gba games and it works out pretty well at least for combat oriented units. You get the benefit of not wasting levels while also waiting enough to get good xp gains There are exceptions but in a lot of cases it feels like you naturally hit the sweet spot.
Another downside to early promotion is that a unit you're thinking of promoting could fall off completely with a couple bad level ups, using up the promotion item for another unit that might be a better option. But once you've promoted the unit, you're stuck benching a promotion item in addition to the unit and might not have the option to replace it with a unit that has turned out better.
i love the gba FE games to de^th, and love all the fan mods for them
but the RNG diring stat gains just ruins the enjoyment and stresses tf outta me every time i try playing them. sometimes i wish there were a mod that just fixed the stat gains to a set number upon reaching a certain level
@@btchiaintkidding7837I like Echoes's system of having a guaranteed increase in at least one stat. Makes it feel better even in games with low growth rate.
15:44 Holy mother, I almost choked on my coffee when I read the name of that Thunder tome.
One thing I heard about in Engage is that if you promote then second seal into Thief it will tank your internal level. Since if you're second sealing as a promoted class you will reclass into a level 21 Thief. Not sure if that's true though.
I don't think that's correct, but I only have my own anecdotal evidence. I second sealed Jade into Thief at l.v 14 to save a master seal while still technically promoting her, and didn't notice any noticeable drop in EXP gains.
One thing that I personally really dislike about Awakening and fates is weapon ranks upon promotion,the always give you secondary weapon ranks E when you get then,condeming that unit into using fucking bronze weapons if you want them to use that weapon type upon promotion
Imo that is kinda lame and it really limits the diversity a unit can potentially have after promotion.
Other game can circumvent this with high exp weapons like the devil axe but 3DS FE just drags with its weapons ranks,especially in fates where you feel eternially stuck in C and b rank
D rank becoming more or less the expectation and norm is happy compromise between making you work for your weapons but also opening up for things like hand axes or javelins
And well,early promoting can help with this but it always feels like a big opportunity cost if you promote just for E rank in another weapon
All the unilaterally good weapons are in D rank.
C rank has some niche weapons.
B weaps are meme.
A has Braves, but only classes that already use a weapon get to A and S.
S are mostly bad and only classes that already use the weapon ever reach this rank.
...
Plus, the total of weapon rank needed isn't that high.
For a class that only reaches A, from E to A it'll need 160 WR points, since S is a massive gap of 90. This means, it'll take about as much effort as gaining 3 WR in the GBA, say, from C to S, both taking as much time to reach thier ultimate boost.
For B ranks, the A rank gap is 65, so they only need 95, that's 2 levels in GBA.
The system is a lot more forgiving than people believe, plus, forging a low rank weapon gives a comparable power boost to buying a stronger weapon.
1:50 small correction it is 28, 9 from 1 to 10 and 19 from 1 to 20.
The same for the other situation, it is 38,19 2 times.
He's counting the promotion as a level up.
@@Pink.andahalf which isn't, no rng there
I think the difficulty of a game matters aswell if those extra promoted stats are the deal breaker between a unit being able to perform effectively then you'll just be getting more value overall then struggling to feed them kills in difficult maps.
In FE7, I tried to promote units when they maxed out weapon ranks in a base class. This was usually about level 12-16 ish… this also ended up being the earliest possible promotions for me. Healers like Priscilla I promoted asap.
In Awakening, I try to promote asap bc of how second seals and skills are gained. I really think you should be promoting or reclassing as soon as you hit level 10 in a base class, and reclassing as soon as you hit 15 in a promoted/special class. But that’s just me.
Path of Radiance gave me little reason to promote early other than maybe Mist and Rhys… in part bc the US version only has three master seals. Even my lowest level characters wound up at like 20/17.
Thank you for the measured response to this question. It's much better than an overgeneralization.
I ran into a situation where I wanted to use Arthur in a Conquest run but he was pretty stat screwed. I wondered if the right move was try to grind some levels or to promote. So I made a save and tried both! The right answer was to use his strengths (high HP and axes) for now and bench him soon after.
He was too weak without promo and too much an exp sink after. I felt like you hit on this topic in this video.
Maybe a "when to bench 'em?" video?
I always promote around level 15,its more or less where i can see my units becoming pretty good after promo bonuses
It does depend on the game,like for example,any sage in thracia can promote at level 10 and inmediately wreck house
A very enjoyable and informative video that I definitely agree with. This coming from someone who holds the opinion that after your earlier Pitfalls video, the pendulum swung too far in the other direction when it comes to the GBA games. With, it felt like, people insisting that promoting at 10 was the ONLY way you should play and that you were foolish to ever wait.
shoutout to your awesome editor!
IMO a lot of the equation is how much a unit is struggling at the moment and how much they need their extra stats RIGHT NOW. Raven in FE7 for instance is a fantastic unit from the moment you get him, he will be one of your best units even if you don't promote him right away. There's very little difference between killing an opponent and uttelry obliterating them so he's basically the same either way. Canas on the other hand, struggles hard with his base stats but becomes a really good unit the moment he promotes, so you promote him as soon as its available.
Worth noting raven gains ever valuable axe rank from promotion, and thus hand axes and thus 1-2 range. He doesn't just destroy things more, he also destroys way more things way more efficiently. He also gains a considerable amount of bulk on promotion, which can go a long way with how squishy he is.
FE7/8 are in a weird spot where enemy quality is abysmal, so there's rarely any time when you feel that you NEED to promote units, and waiting until 20 usually results in overkill.
Great breakdown Mekkah!
For the Tellius games, I like to use Bonus EXP to cheese a bit.
In FE9, the Bonus EXP works as a normal level up, so I like to reset until I get the exact gains I want. Since I like using Mist as both a combat and healer, I like to max out or get close to maxing her strength like this. She deals plenty of physical damage when promoted to keep her relevant till endgame, and giving her magic swords (especially Rune Blade) makes her a powerhouse! She also loves to trigger Sol, so I also like to give her a Killing Edge and just let her high luck stat allow her to survive everything. Given she's the only other unit you can take to fight the Black Knight, I prefer to promote her through leveling up so she can defend herself on enemy phase and always heal Ike on Player phase!
As for FE10, I just like to use Bonus EXP after the units have capped three or more relevant stats, unless I'm trying to get the Dawn Brigade up to speed for the early promotions (because they desperately need!). That's how I get to cap most stats at third tier class in all units.
Oh, and don't waste your time putting EXP on Laguz units (except for Herons), they are not really worth the trouble, being very unreliable unless they're a Royal Laguz or use a Laguz Gem, which is only available at the end game. BUT if you insist on investing on Laguz units, I recommend putting Bonus EXP on Volug in Part 3 and giving him enough levels until he can have Paragon and Beastfoe equipped. Make him fight the Beast Laguz in his human form, as fighting untransformed gives Laguz units more EXP per battle. Make sure he's using cover that boosts his evasion and has support with Zihark, though, because he cannot handle more than two hits in this state. This is the best opportunity you will have to level him up and save on Bonus EXP later on to get the Dawn Brigade up to par on 3-13 (which you'll need).
You can repeat the strategy here and give Volug a Birdfoe as well. Just bait the cats, tigers and birds into attacking him untransformed and Volug will counter with effective damage. You can also give him Tauroneo's Resolve if you're playing the non-Japanese versions (the JP version triggers at Strength%) to keep him alive and hit harder. Do keep Zihark around him with a B or A Support, though.
Interesting video. I am a stat crazy so I have always maxed lvl a unit before levelling up but looking back I definitely see the exp drawbacks holding me back.
My playthroughs of PoR and FE Conquest, I assumed I had to select a core team to play with, in order to reach max level by the end of the game. Didn't think about promoting early.
Shadows of Valentia being one on the top of my head, where I maxed levelled the villager units for the first two class promotions (since they get 3). By the time I reached the end game, I barely get the exp to reach the 3rd class. Only reached it in the end game content.
Thanks for the video I'm doing some hard mode playthroughs on some FEs for the first time so this'll come in handy
"Sometimes promote early and sometimes don't" is a bit of a murky answer to be honest, haha. It changes so much between games and between each unit and gets even more complex with some of the newer games changing the structure of classes and promotions entirely.
I'm a compulsive 'level 20 promoter' with the occasional exceptions for slow-levelling healers (FE7 Serra for example), because I find very unpleasant the idea of hamstringing the theoretical 'maximum' power of a unit by removing potential level-ups and adding the promotion experience gain tax earlier than necessary. I don't just want to beat the game, I want to have the most powerful units I could get for that run too, since unit cultivation is what Fire Emblem is all about. You can't win the stat game without getting as many chances at the stat machine as possible.
I do think it's a keen observation that in most FE games you won't reach the level cap. But there are some where you can, either because there's just abundant exp or for other contextual reasons. I respect the rationale for pre-20 promotion even if I don't follow it myself, and either way the end result isn't always meaningfully, materially different. I find FE4 relaxing in that promotion timing doesn't matter, though. Kinda liberating to be able to promote right away with no tradeoff, even if you're still technically levelling to 20 first.
Oh hey, I remember that pitfalls video lol. Thanks to it, I promoted Raven as soon as possible at lv 10 in my FE7 playthrough...except it was normal mode and not hard mode and I didn't realize how huge of a difference that makes. As a result I ended up having to bench Raven in the end because he got royally strength screwed that playthrough. RIP.
On NM he should be fine for most things even with a lv 10 promotion, though he might have issues with some bosses (specifically Limstella)
It's crazy how much the quality of your videos has improved from the potato days.
360p squad rise up!
Huh, it was a bit surreal to see your name pop up after years on RUclips's recommended videos of all places. Hi Mekkah, good luck with your channel!
yo what up Medi
Not much, stuffing myself with Xmas food atm; playing games, cycling and working when I'm not visiting home. What about you?
I give a level 10+ unit a difficult challenge like "rush in and face those 3 Cavaliers". If they succeed I promote them
Another thing about fates reclassing is you not only keep your levels but also your XP. So you can get a unit to level 10 99XP then reclass them so you only need to gain 101xp to learn the 5/10 basic class skills of their new class instead of a full 200, letting them spend 1 map in a class instead of 2 or more. This is common to do with units that want to take a quick dip for some skills in a class they aren't well statted for, like Odin dipping for Vantage then going back to Nos tanking.
thanks mekkah, from this video I know now to promote my units at level 1 or 99 depending if I want it earlier or later!
My takes on the games i've played before watching the video.
In gba it varies, healers always promote ASAP, any class that gains staves upon promotion benefits a lot from it. But for most units you can get to at least like level 15-17 before exp gain starts to slow down to the point where it doesn't matter if you promote.
Radiant dawn I usually go all the way to max level, because of the way bonus exp works allowing you to boost your weaker stats when you've capped the stronger ones. Also since you don't get that many promotion items. Granted, I've never played hard where bonus exp is so limited that it doesn't matter that much.
Three houses, generally promote ASAP. You can always go back if you want the mastery skill.
Engage, literally no reason to wait.
I learned this lesson in Awakening. Despite being able to reset your level to 1 and thus having theoretically infinite levels, it became very very hard to get EXP. In future playthroughs I held off until 20 and had a much easier time leveling up with not much of a noticeable change in stats, other than the obvious initial boost
my philosophy is generally how serviceable a unit is before promotion compared to how much better they perform after promotion.
Using FE7 as an example, Priscilla, she's the best healer in the game. Before and after promotion. So while it would be nice to promote her early, I'd probably prioritize one of the mages first so that I can get someone like canas or lucius to use staves.
Raven is someone with amazing combat before and after promotion, but he definitely benefits significantly from gaining access to hand axes when he promotes. Compare this to Rutger in FE6, another amazing combat unit, he doesn't get the hand axes upon promotion, so I don't see a problem with promoting him later.
I generally promoted between lvl 13-15 depending on stats.
Fates, I do also think, aside from support units, there are also temporary combat units who benefit from promoting as soon as possible, at least for Conquest. If you long term know you don't want to keep using Effie or Arthur as an example, but they hit level 10 because you only have so many units, having a second "mini-camilla" to just solve problems is very helpful, although it ends up killing their long term usage. Usually find in Fates that by the time I need everyone to promote, the shops are offering infinite, or I'm nearly there, so for one or two units for Conquest its a nice boost
This is the format I love outta my Mekkah content (but all the other content is great still)
Based. I personally do not like using Lugh, but you definitely bring up good points. Saul does appreciate that early promotion if you want him to use the s rank light tome. (I forget what it's called). Clarine is also just a support bot for Rutger lol and her offense is garbage.
Having an extra E/D staff user is preferred over an extra E/D damage dealer
Aureola
I have definitely asked all of those questions.
Repeatedly.
My standard FE experience for the og games would involve me promoting a unit if their level is between 10-16. Another scenario is if I lack promo items then I'll level up all the way to 20 unless I come across a promo in between the process. There is also the fact I play in normal/classic mode so I don't get as punished for promoting early imo
I have to admit I am a sucker for maxed out stats and fat EXP gain, so I tend to promote late even if I know it's not gameplay optimal. That being said, I am still a big fan of early promotions that grant units extra utility or massive boosts. See Knoll gaining summons and staves, or Canas gaining +4 Spd (accounting for Con) and staves, or Shanna gaining swords like mentioned in the video.
The Milady example caught me by surprise as I just finished my first playthrough of fe6 and promoted her at level 18. By level 5 as a wyvern lord she already had strength and skill capped, making her levels a lot worse. If I had promoted her earlier she might have hit the same caps, but would have contributed more as a wyvern lord rather then rider.
Yeah FE6 is really crazy because skills can cap early for certain characters, like Shana’s (Sailor Mercury’s) speed. Some characters are good to promote at 10-12 and others, like Lance, are good to level up at 20, if possible. Lance is probably the overall best character in the game. Lilina is also excellent to promote at 10 because with her magic as a healer her Heal use is the same as a Mend for someone else. And then you play on hard mode and none of this crap matters because Rutger and Perceval will win you the entire game lol.
@@cd4playa1245 It's funny you say that since I benched Lance at around chapter 7. I think his base strength is 4 (or 5) and by level 9 he was still at base strength. Sue was dealing more damage to wyverns than he was. I remember this clearly because I thought the cavaliers would be as a good as Kent and Sain. First time I experienced the strength screwed curse.
Without watching the video, unless you're playing Gaiden/SoV or Engage (or 3H I guess) the only acceptable answer is 20 and anything else is *absolute heresy*
Actually i have a reason why i always promote my units very early the reason is for example if i promote my units at 10 that gets an additional weapon to use after promotion i can then use the newly gotten a new weapon to use i can then use a weapon that i just got and level up the mastery over my weapons so that in the late game i can use high level mastery weapons well in fire emblem sacred stones i always over level my units since there is the tower of valni where endless monsters are always there so i kind of use the tower of valni and maps that have been taken by monsters as like a kind of an arena to level up plus i can chose what weapon to use to level up my weapon mastery so in my personal opinion my favourite gba game is definitely fire emblem sacred stones because i can grind levels and weapon exp but if i would chose which story line is best for me its fire emblem blazing blade and binding blade
'when should I promote in fire emblem'
my whole experience playing three houses.
Amazing video!
11:45 LMFAO that animation
"Carrying an entire map by themselves."--Proceeds to show picture of Seth. 😂
So my goal this whole time was to promote at lv. 20 in all FE games.
Now let's see what Mekkah says.
Great. I've been doing it wrong this whole time.
:(
*one second in*
YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO animated Mekkah Video!
As a fan of Fire Emblem Conquest, it can be important to promote early so you can learn skills faster. Take the Sali Master Ninja w/ Sol build. This is a fantastic unit for making lunatic ch 19 easy but its quite hard to get enough experience to learn sol in time for ch 19 if you dont early promote. If you promote Salis at lv 15 instead then its pretty easy to do. Your sacrificing max possible stats in order to gain an easy clear of an otherwise challenging chapter. Thats just standard practice for anyone that consistently clears conquest Lunatic.
In any game where promoting resets your level, I avoid early promotions unless a unit is already capped on the stats I care about (or a staff user, in which case leveling without being able to attack things is just too tedious to deal with). Because yeah, you're not going to get enough exp to max out the levels on every unit... but I'm not going to *use* every unit unless I'm already grinding for infinite exp. Generally there's about a dozen favorite units I use all the time, and those ones are all going to get enough exp to hit 20 twice over, so the handful of extra points in luck and res and such are worth delaying their peak.
Of course in a game where level doesn't reset, like 3H, there's absolutely no reason to stay in a low rank class longer than you have to. Not only do advanced classes have better growth rates so you're wasting levels by getting combat exp in inferior classes, but also immediate promotion bonus only works if your stats aren't already above the minimum for the class, so they can be huge if you change at low levels and disappear entirely after you get a couple more levels.
no, the extra points are not worth delaying their peak, because they don't change anything. You only need to be 4 points faster to double, you only need to do enough damage to 2HKO and you only need to survive a couple of attacks in order to survive in general. Small differences in stats don't really do much towards the end of the game, whereas they generally do a lot more earlier on as your stats are still closer to the enemies at that point.
Now, that doesn't mean that you should promote at 10 - after all, you still want to hit all those benchmarks I mentioned throughout the game. But in order to do so, you don't need to get to 20/20. Something like a level 16 promotion is still more than enough to juggernaut through the lategame, whereas promoting earlier does help for the midgame as you get the promotion stats sooner.
Its about finding the right balance between short-term and long-term investment.
I usually advocate for promoting early. There's a good chance you'll benefit more from the immediate stat increase and weapon access in the next few maps compared to the slightly higher overall stats if you dragged the promotion out for another 5 or so chapters.
Think of Levels 11-15 as a kind of buffer zone for units who can't promote yet because you're out of items, and anything beyond for those who perform good enough that they simply don't need the stat boost yet. This way your favorite units can still contribute without making you feel like you waste ressources on them when you could use them on other units instead.
I literally looked up this question last night after my Kris got magic screwed in fe12
In FE1 in particular you might want to opt to not promote at all for cases like palla and catria where the draco whip shows up so late they might have a stat or two capped already and promoting would only cripple them (I ran into this during my full ironman of the game and didn't realize that promotion could take stats away so I somewhat crippled palla and catria)
Seems you got it wrong in Fe3, outside HP or WLV, your promotion bonuses are based the class bases so you will always get set bonuses. Still better to promote early however since often time the bonuses are even better then FE1 and since FE3 has zero exp scaling you have no disadvantages. Add in how early you get promo items in book 2 you should be promoting units ASAP.
Pegasus knights are the only ones who might not want to since they lose their res stat when promoting so if a character can hit stat caps/branch marks via leveling you might want to stay Pegasus's but that is really only a option for like one character anywat as the others really want that draco knight promo
I had played echoes, leveling yo max, it wasn’t very fun, but seeing this I am going to follow your advice, thank you
Echoes should be all about (OK that is a bit of an exaggeration) what careers to chose for the Ram villagers, so class change them at the first dungeon/shrine. In Act 3, though, Atlas can wait until Celica gets to the dragon shrine; no need to bother taking him and Jesse back to the island one. In Act 3, concentrate first on training the three-stage-career boys to promote to their second-tier class. Act 4 is for top-tier-class units as quickly as we can get the later recruits up to level.
I still refuse to Promote Amelia until she got all her levels. I like her just smashing the rest of the game as a General with really high stats everywhere that for some wild reason has access to the entire weapon triangle.
Amelia does certainly benefit a lot from a late promotion due to her jack-of-all-trades statline. This also applies to units with similar statlines (such as a lot of the cavalier units). This can change you from being "mid at everyting" to "good at everything" which makes an insane difference.
With amelia, the hard part is obviously to actually get her the levelups. But that problem exists no matter what, so I guess whatever :D
Depends on the character/game, but broadly speaking, I tend to promote between 12 and 15. Squeezing a couple extra levels out while the EXP formula is still generous, and the character can basically still work. Staffers I promote ASAP if I'm promoting them at all.
Otherwise, anomalies crop up here and there on a case by case basis. I'm gonna early promote Canas, but I'm gonna late promote Lucius.
PoR is the only broad exception to this, where I tend to use the level 21 autopromotion for most characters, and only promote via item for Rhys, Mist, or maybe like Makalov if I use him.
One thing in Awakening that I don't like is that all the good abilities (such as Galeforce) are gained by promoted level 15 units. So even if they get there, they (and their kids) won't get to use the skill for very long.
I used to be one of those "strictly promote until Lvl 20" but now I'm impatient, I promote whenever I think it's necessary but I'm still not a big fan of promoting anywhere between Lvl 10 and 15.
Lvl 15 and above, I start considering promoting people and nowdays, games with Second Seals can 'promote' back to base level of the Advanced class when they cap to Lvl 20 so the earlier I can get there, the better. 😆
Editor low key popped just saying, it’s subtle yet he dramatically upgrades the video quality.
Funny how you use an Exeguttor during the video, because in practice promotion is like evolving a Pokémon with a stone.
Would you rather have your Pikachu becoming a Raichu at level 20 already, or would you rather wait until it learns Thunder by level rather than using a TM? It all depends if you aren´t bother to wait or you really want have something strong already.
I've always based my promotions around EXP gains. If promotion is going to gank someone's growth via cutting their EXP for too long, then I put it off. This tends to have me promoting most of my units just a few maps before lords. My more heavily used units sooner than that.
It's built into me because I played through the Shining Force series where every unit promotes, and everyone can promote at the church or base. You can beat the normal difficulties in that game just promoting everyone instantly. However, the higher difficulties require you to use the Hero's "Egress" spell to retreat and reset maps. This lets you grind forever or until EXP gains dry up. It's game more about raw stats with only very mild strategies of baiting and using mages to AOE groups.
FE3 the promotion gains are the difference between the classes, but don't bother looking at what the player gains are. So if class A has 8 speed, and class B has 10 speed, and the player character has 15 speed, the promotion gain will still be +2 making the player stat 17 (so basically the same as FE6). That said FE3 you should still do it ASAP due to the experience formula and very small stat caps characters will hit quickly, or never hit short of insane orb abuse in book 2, due to FE3s odd all or nothing growths.
What a great video.
Actually interesting. It seemed to me that no one had ever thought about exp per combat encounter so I absolutely never promoted early, even in cases of capped stats. Maybe it is me clinging to my ways but even in cases like Rutger fe6, unless you really need the power spike for ltc, isn’t it technically more efficient leveling up lower priority stats? If we assume 3 unpromoted levels is equal to 1 promoted level we’re talking on average an extra 6 or so points on investment. Early promotion by this line of thinking is a form of min/max
Pretty sure there is no excusing level 20 Melady when she had 3 stats maxed out by that point though. Smooth brain moment for me for sure.
no, it isn't worth it because it makes what is already a pretty difficult portion of the game even more difficult. Plus, once rutger caps his speed, that stat can't go up anymore whereas a promotion uncaps it. So a rutger that promotes once he caps speed will be faster than a rutger that promotes at level 20 for ... pretty much close to the entire rest of the game, which means that there is even some form of long-term reward for the promotion. In the meantime, his strength growth is pretty low anyways so it doesn't really matter that much in practice. Differences in bulk do exist, but are also small because a few levelups don't really change that much in fire emblem, and are partially offset by the loss in avoid.
But most importantly, promoting rutger makes some of the hardest chapters in the game (especially 7) quite a bit easier. Later on, the game gives you so many tools that losing a few statpoints here and there doesn't really matter anymore. You have buyable killing edges, you have perceval and miledy who are ... just themselves, you have effective weaponry, the list goes on.
Healers I evolve them as soon as possible unless they can be skipped for later if they got enough def to survive hits
Lissa and moulder for example I love to max level then master seal to get a broken mage to fight with but Lissa is better for this as she gets much more time to level up
Echoes the villager units I used to max level then evolve but after remembering they loop I just so it as soon as possible to get them the extra health aside Faye to get more def as a magic user.
New game trainee units probably raise after 10 levels like donnel to get the mercenary as soon as possible or max in slow play so he can beast immediately.
Let me explain a little how it goes that second point you made. Sorry if someone else did that already.
You can have at most the 10 lvl gap from 10 to 20, that means around 3 points in each stat average. Promotion might give you those stats already and by the time you promote at lvl 20 the lvl difference gap would be lower than 10. That means the unit early promoting will be less worse in stats later on than how the unit not promoting was early on. The scenario for lvl 10 will be even worse for less levels asumming lvl 20/10 endgame.
That sweetspot of lvl 15 or so might be that, the point where you're sure the bonuses are better than the (useful) stats you could get from level ups.
The slide with seth, saying. A unit is carrying and entire map by themselves. accurate jajaja