Do GROWTHS Matter In Fire Emblem Engage?! ft. Mekkah - Gameplay Analysis and Discussion
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- Опубликовано: 27 июн 2024
- Since I invited Mekkah on to discuss growths back in the Three Houses days, I figured it would be a nice follow up to do it again this time for Engage. As usual, let us know what your thoughts are in the comments below!
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Timestamps:
0:00 Introductions
1:00 Discussion Starts
42:25 Conclusions and Outro
#engage #fireemblem #switch #growths #analysis 
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someone uploaded a zero % growth maddening run, and the only way it can work is if you make 90% of your characters into heroes to get brave assist, otherwise you're just doing zero damage. you're just relying completely on assists to kill and do damage.
That sounds similar to what Excelblem did on his blind Maddening run lmao, gotta watch this 0% growths video right now.
@@BlackSkarrow yeah the guy was kinda just speedrunning the game , so not much time to grow his unit lel
Truly the power of friendship , brave assist beatdown XD
Yup, I actually watched it right before this video went live and I commented on it! There is a link to it in the description!
@@LinkKing7 yeah it really puts into perspective on the idea of growths. you really must plan ahead accounting for the fact that any regular attacks would be completely useless. It feels like a very boxed in style of play without a decent attack stat. Doable? sure! fun? i guess that depends on who you ask. restrictive? most definitely.
@@takarahayashi4124 Yeah, I think it's why I prefer offsetting the difficulty into level design or skills to the stat inflation we see in engage. Level design is harder to work with in this game I imagine, since Emblem Rings give you so many options.
Frankly the fixed growths are why I’m enjoying maddening so much. Getting RNG screwed on a couple units that I’d otherwise be using always takes some of the fun out of FE games for me.
yeah there's enough RNG to go around, one less headache is always good lol. I too prefer fixed over RNG growths.
Honestly I dislike fixed because it makes gaining bld so much more punishing. Legit diamont on fixed is the only unit on maddening so far I tried who can use anything better than steel and not get out into a casket by hyper doubling lol
I love playing with fixed growths it's something I wished all fe games had an option for. Fixed growths make every 5 percent change in growth rate between units actually mean something where as in random growths you treat a 45, 50 and 55 percent growth basically the same. Also fixed growths make stat gains predictable so you can plan around what benchmarks you want to reach and how long it'll take each unit to get there which in turn can change how you feed kills to your units which I like that additional strategy component.
Literally every game in the series has been beaten on 0% growths. While this is an extreme circumstance, it still highlights just how much leeway you have even in the absolute worst case scenario, let alone two or three units getting "screwed."
Personally I think fixed is just more boring due to the predictability. You don't get the annoyance that comes from getting unlucky, but you also don't get the delightful serendipity that comes with getting blessed either, and I think adapting around the tools and outcomes the game gives you is just part of Fire Emblem. I appreciate that it's there for the optimization crowd who want consistency, especially with build growth, but playing through Maddening, it doesnt really feel that much better than random growths, just different.
@@GIR177 Yeah it's definitely down to preference. Random is fun for runs where you're not too invested in planning, and fixed is better when you're more focused on testing out what units are capable of. A lot of times with random, though, the good feeling of getting a blessed unit is somewhat bittered by the fact that RNG has made the game easier on me. It's how I am in every game, really. I never get to fully enjoy good RNG.
In this game bases are just as important as growths. Especially with how much better some of the later units are. Like most of the earlier units couldn't even catch up if they had 100% growth rates.
Is this assuming Maddening? If you are on hard can't you just spam Skirmishes until you catch up?
@@joelalexander7293 on hard you can just use Yunaka and Zelkov to solo every map
Some of the early units do though. Yunaka is a good example when compared to Zelkov. Zelkov will be much better when he joins but it doesn't last. He will end up having 7 more HP and 6 more def but Yunaka will have 15 more res and be about 1-2 points higher everywhere else as well. I personally prefer Yunaka for maddening simply because that res helps her survive better against Mystics which are really the only thing that are a threat when she is in fog from Corrin.
@@joelalexander7293 Indeed. Since I like keeping my party level, in my initial hard playthrough I caught up with skirmishes on all of my units. For instance I was reading about Kagetsu being OP here and there, and when I got him, he was a tad better than my Lapis, like +5 overall rating or so, and I was wondering what the hype was about. And never was I overleveled, except for Chapter 26 which I unashamedly cheesed. So no need for 100% growth in hard.
When I saw no skirmish at all in maddening, I just abandoned this playthrough right away, as I couldn't play it my way.
@@nehylen5738 That is quite unnatural lol, usually when lapis is level 15 the same as kagetsu she has lower stats in literally everything.
I for one thought Fogado was actually excellent as a Cupido. He is able to make amazing use out of some of the tools in your toolkit that most people will disregard as irrelevant.
I'm talking about the radiant bow. Sure it has a lot of might for a magic weapon, but all the classes that use bows have terrible base magic right? Not Cupido. Fogado will rip enemies to shreds with a radiant bow.
Have you ever actually used Ephraim's bravery? Turns out that on a fast unit that does a lot of magic damage, it is pretty good. While radiant bow will be his main weapon, if you do need to attack a high resistance unit, you can use a brave bow or a silver bow and swap to Erika to reduce its defense when you do. He can also use a Steel Blade to kill just about anything that needs killing with Twin Strike.
Very curious to see how Mekkah's opinion changes when he actually plays Maddening. Hard was a completely different experience, it was honestly a walk in the park. Maddening stat inflation and with how speedy the enemies are and how frail your units are in comparison makes it a completely diffefent ball game. Hope he does another analysis video if he does a Maddening run.
Hard to me felt like "hey this is challenging, but fair". Maddening sounds like "this is the way you play the game, do it like this or die".
@@samhall5096 you can certainly play Maddening without being boxed into solely meta things. I'm not using at female units in my current Maddening run (so no Hortensia, Ivy, Merrin, Panette) and it's still doable with subpar units like Clanne and Bunet. I think Maddening is hard but fair.
Agreed Hard and Maddening are completely different games. It’s comparable to playing a multiplayer game against bots vs real humans. Stuff that would never work in the latter can do well in the former so you get a different experience of how effective a strategy is, and many more strategies are viable in the former. For example, I felt the Corrin emblem and staves were completely unnecessary on Hard because I could completely clear out any group of enemies I ran into with a single unit but on Maddening they were invaluable for the cc and debuffing
Just the lack of skirmishes and trainings appearing on map makes maddening that much harder than hard mode. I played 15 chapter and only 1 skirmish appeared on map. Well for hard (my 1st playthrough) there was like 5-7 skirmishes/ training every day. Less maps to play with meaning less levels and resources (gold and silvers).
But I'm enjoying maddening so far.
While very different maddening is very fair and i think the speed benchmarks are not as crazy as 3h which were really insane, i find that every unit that is supposed to be fast is able to double reliably, which was not the case in 3h where like 80% of units would not be able to double most units without using a brave combat art.
You can also play in many ways in maddening and still beat it, my first run mainly focused on having a lot of chain attacks for example and due to this it was played kinda slow setting everyone up to trigger like 6 chain attacks every time someone attacks, but on my second run I'm playing classic flyer emblem, I also feel that many units have multiple viable setups that can work, so you can use the same units while building them differently.
Note on the discussion of internal levels at 6:35
If your internal level is 15, what that actually means for your experience gains is that you promoted at level 16, not at level 15. Your internal level is the count of all the levels you’ve gained, and level 1 is the base level, so internal level 15 is the same as going from 1 to 16 and then promoting.
Also, not every prepromote has an internal level of 15.
I see it more as the promotion counts as the +1 ie 15 level and a promotion=15/1 or internal level 16.
Or are you saying their international level is 17?
Promotion does NOT count as a level, so for example Ivy gets the same experience at level 17 and at 17/1 after instant promotion
If i’m not wrong… Vander/Kagetsu 15, Pandreo/Bunet 16, Panette/Merrin 18, Rosado/Goldmary 20, Lindon 23, Saphir 26, spoiler male lategame unit (effectively) 38
EDIT: Slightly fixed for Pandreo/Bunet
@@malcovich_games I thought zelkov and kagetsu promoted at level 17, because that's what level ivy joins at
@@MegaScytheman The internal level is set by a separate personal parameter than their spawning level according to the xml files (it's actually that the internal level is coded to the unit, while the level they come at is coded to the map).
This was pretty interesting to listen to.
Most of the good prepromotes in this game have some good bases to mostly hold up throughout the game, but I think utilization of Emblem Rings do make up a good amount of customization and unit performance.
Even more so for inheriting Emblem skills like Canto, Pair Up, and Dual Assist.
The difference between Sol and Luna is Luna doesn’t provide sustain, so it’s ok to give it to a high dex class. Doesn’t explain grasping void tho.
Around the 26:00 mark, Mekkah is talking about planning around benchmarks. I might consider doing this through my future FE runs. Perhaps I’ll enjoy playing the series less casually.
I Hope you like Exel
Yeah, benchmark planning has always been a big thing for stuff like 0% runs since the game is pretty much a big math problem. Go for it and let me know how that goes for you!
This is a great topic. Next 40 minutes, I will watch that.
It's awesome that Mikaiah is joining you in the video
I had to read that twice for it to register exactly what you typed 😂
Mekkiah is doing a good job
I've learned that when you go for growths in Fixed Mode, the classes which emphasize a unit's highest growths will result in a stronger unit than trying to make them a jack of all trades in terms of growths. Because units with low personal growths will never catch up to those with higher personals, unlike when you're rolling the dice in Random/usual FE leveling experience. I tried to do that with Amber>Wolf Knight, and gimped him hard in terms of his build, Str, HP, and Def.
Also, dunno why it keeps going around that the pre-promotes playable are Int.Lv.15, I've kept track of EXP gains on maddening from the start of the game to the midgame where I'm at, where my army is past the lv.20 benchmark, and Kagetsu/Bunet/Pandoro/Panette/Merrin will receive the same as a LEVEL SIXTEEN (16) base class unit against a Lv. 16 enemy, +13xp on kill. For Goldmary & Rosado, I've inferred that their Int.Lv. is 20, so +17 displayed. Easier to do since on the map there are enemy promoted@Lv.22-24, and they get +16/18/20 respectively due to the level difference, same results as my actual x-10_1-11 early game units, also at Int.Lv.20. Is it because the exp gains are so drastically huge on Hard/Normal, that those spreading this info around have made the incorrect deduction?
And if someone does have hard Evidence, code directly ripped from the game, since Mods are already going crazy online, I'd be happy to see it too cuz I want to know where the source of this conflicting info is coming from.
Internal level 15 for Kagetsu basically means he's treated as if he had been promoted at level 15, not that he should get exp like a level 15 Swordmaster.
alright, thanks, I also read Zoran’s explanation and so that clears up the concern I had. that sure is an interresting way for the devs to code this parameter, because the way I would out it is in terms of what is actually, effectively occurring during gameplay. So now whenever another FEtuber brings this up, I’ll at least be aware regardless if they themselves understand the underlying code behind the screen, they are still making a correct assertion about how the game handles these promoted recruits.
I really like fixed growths. With random growths, if i get a bad level up early in the chapter like turn one, it's incredibly tempting to just reset. You also don't get thing like Yunaka having lower than average str despite giving her the energy drops or endgame alear rocking 2 mag but like some how 15 bld
Is there a consensus on what's better on maddening, speed taker for 2000 sp or speed +4 for 1000 sp. 2000 sp feels like a lot for a skill that doesn't activate turn 1 and requires several player phase kills, especially if you are already running canter for an additional 1000 sp although i haven't been keeping track of how many kills I've been getting on player phase.
I feel it would have been nice to talk about the super growth unit (Jean) as well in this video, as well as possibilities such as having someone (such as Jean) gain some levels in a class that has its growths skewed like berserker before 2nd sealing away to a final class. Also, mentioning growths that may not seem significant but can matter (like Mag on Anna in warrior, her "base" promotion, and being able to use the radiant bow really well).
I did this on my first Maddening run. I put Jean in General for most I'd the midgame up until about Ch. 21 where his defense was higher than most of the non smash weapon enemies. It pushed his defense to be the highest of my units by a notable margin even when I reclassed him to Paladin with about 35 defense.
I think another factor with growth unit viability in engage is that the game is really stingy with master seals until pretty late into the game which means that character that could be viable if they could promote earlier fall off way harder.
I actually had to bench jean for a while because it wasn’t optimal for him to gain more levels in his base class. Grinded relays for a bit trying to get extra seals, there’s a specific “mario party” bonus that gave master seal and i went for it.
Growths definitley matter as long as you take bases into account
Nice to see these two making more quality short form content
Only the shortest and sweetest form content from us!
Mekkah mentioning that a 10% growth rate from the class is only 1 point per 10 levels on average is absolutely good perspective, to put it another way it has comparable value to a single stat booster over the course of 20 levels, not enough to overtake a bases deficit, but not worthless either.
Odd thought: If you were to (don't) try to quantify all base stats and growths into their value in stat boosters it would be interesting to see how "unit cash value" lines up with performance, I have a feeling it would be somewhat close, but diverge in some key ways (most notably "key" stats for classes and caps)
Don't tempt me
How bad is it that my Alear has 26 strength at level 11 Divine Dragon (promoted at 17 and reset once already plus 2 strength drops)?
The balance of growths on early units versus bases on later recruits was way off especially with the internal level part I just learned here for pre-promotes. It definitely makes for a disappointing first, or blind run. The first chapter where you really get a full team is Chapter 4, and at most 3 of those 10 units will be deployed when things come to a head in Chapter 10 (counting the forced deploy in Alear), the turnover only continues from there. It can make for a lot of regret on early investments made to units.
0:27 luckily you said that because when you said at the beginning that you needed to introduce Mekkah I thought to myself "does he really? I think everyone should know mr pitfall by now lol"
You never know haha, either way, it's common courtesy to introduce your guests regardless!
I think in the context of an efficient playthrough, if you can get through the Chapter 22 the game is basically over, with Chapters 13, 14, 16, 17, 19 being somewhat of a hurdle before that point (in terms of being completed efficiently, not in terms of mere completion). This is because the lategame maps are prone to being resolved down to bosskill number crunching, as Defeat Boss is the single most common objective in the game, and the game has some ridiculously powerful tools to deal with bosskills even with multiple health bars and maddening enemy stats. (Heck even earlygame, where units are very near at base, can go really fast with the correct combination of emblems and staves) 0% growths would make relevant logistics more limiting certainly (and this is the fun part ofc), but the game has some units with excellent base stats, and in principle the game with growths is capable of being completed at such a fast pace that even the best units don't end up accumulating that much EXP, and hence the absence of growths would not be the dealbreaker in the viability of these strats.
The thing about FE: Engage is that the combination of Emblem Micaiah's Augment (engage skill increasing staff distance range by 5 and area of effect range by 1), Emblem Byleth's Goddess Dance (engage ability refreshing all adjacent allies) and Dancer!Seadall is so ridiculously dominant that it turns Ch20 onwards (with the except of Chapter 22 which is a rout) into a bosskill gauntlet despite multiple HP bars and high boss stats. This is a game with 10 Rewarp, 15 Warp, 20 Rescue and 6 Entrap charges, and I'm ignoring the DLC ones, as well as inheritable Reposition for pretty low SP. Low turn bosskill positioning have already been extensively investigated in the past month, and the question is merely that of distributing them in a way that fits each individual efficient run. And this is a game with 10 Divine Pulse uses and ridiculous crit stacking potential with Engravings and skills, powerful uncounterable Engage Attacks at fixed 100% accuracy, as well as some (albeit limited) means to buff player characters while debuffing enemies, so the bosskill logistics are actually quite flexible.
Meanwhile, even the outline of a final bosskill, which is the most complex lategame bosskill, is fairly set in stone with base stats using lategame joining characters and Engage+, and the notable enemies to kill in that map all have crippling weaknesses to certain emblems, so the only question is really getting the details like deployment slots right, and Obstruct/Silence/Freeze/Entrap/Lucina Bond Shield uses for unit survivability.
TeeGee already completed a 0% growths run with Brave Assist+ spam, and Reploids is working on a 0% Growths LTC (done up to C12) which likely won't feature Brave Assist+ b/c the pace of that run is too fast to have that skill be that relevant, or accumulate that amount of SP to begin with. Given the structure of the game and tools available to the player, I believe a 0% growths efficient run would not be too different from a normal efficient run, though both would invariably vary quite a bit to a casual playthrough.
Makkah is sleeping on Panette, she isabsolutely cracked. Wrath, Vantage, crit machine paired with Ike and she just nukes everything on player and enemy phase.
Panette is great, she just didn't come to mind immediately. I know she's a great bosskiller especially.
100%, although I suppose he's been using Diamant instead. My maddening playthrough diamants damage output just could not keepup, so Ike moved over to Panette, and she completely shined with him.
@@Mekkkah you dont need panette when u already have etie - this post was made by the tomboy muscle waifu gang
@@Cryoyunjin There are people who think archer sucks because of Etie 💀
@@Neucher amusingly, I didn't realize Etie was bad, and I used her all the way through. I'm so use to archers being helpless if you let anything get close to them that I just never worried about Etie's defenses, and her strength was second on my roster behind Panette.
Great team up!
Not sure if it's patched but you can get random growth if you start at maddening then go down to hard or normal.
I think the thing that throws people off about Fogado is that Cupido is actually a magical class. Don't let the apparently low magic stat fool you. The radiant bow is ludicrously powerful. Tied with Fragarach (S rank axe) as the highest in the game of any weapon capable of follow up attacks. And refinement costs are about halfway between iron and steel weapons.
The Radiant Bow has 19 base power. Give Fogado the Radiant Bow as a Cupido without any level ups, he'll have 29 base magic attack 15 speed. Basically the same as Lindwurm Ivy with Elfire. Radiant Bow has about a third of the mineral refinement costs of Elfire, is instant death to fliers, but has strict 2 range. Ivy has 55/40 mag/speed growth and better defenses, Fogado has 30/70 and enough luck to avoid crits. Ivy gets staffs, and later Bolganone, Fogado has physical options to deal with mages better. Give them each 30 level ups, Fogado will have 12 more speed, Ivy will have 7.5 more Mag.
Given one or the other, yeah, I'd take Ivy. I thought she was the best character in the game for a while (now I think it's Chloe, you just need to get her on swords at promotion and forge an early Levin Sword.) But Fogado has been a force to be reckoned with, and one of my 5 best units for all of my runs (2 hard, 1 maddening, and a hard iron man I'm nearing the endgame on.) Always as Cupido.
19:40 I absolutely disagree that the covert doubling terrain evasion bonuses isn't a big deal.
In maddening, it's probably one of the few abilities that actually matters - Sol is useless unless you give him Roy as well, and Luna is Luna. Probably another point of discussion should be the actual stat differences between enemies on Hard or Maddening.
Edit: Also, anyone who says avoiding hits is not reliable is not using avoidance engravings and getting avoid skills, because it's completely controllable and you can indeed stack avoid to the point there is no way to hit an unit under 99% of all situations.
If the enemy has zero hit, they won't even try.
In my experience covert units have to much avoid to enemy phase.
However, being invisible comes with its own benefits. I had zelkov fog machining for a sword master Lapis.
Zelkovs avoid was so high I'd didn't have to worry about him getting killed, or even wasting enemy attacks on him, because Lapis avoid was good enough to tank but not good enough to be ignored.
Also fog stacks with other terrains.
Louis is a great tank, put him on a forest+fog and now the enemy has terrible hit rates in adition to doing 1 damage.
Covert units aren't as useful on maddening due to being too evasive, but being ignored is an excellent advantage in its own right.
If the enemy has zero hit, they won't even try.
In my experience covert units have to much avoid to enemy phase.
However, being invisible comes with its own benefits. I had zelkov fog machining for a sword master Lapis.
Zelkovs avoid was so high I'd didn't have to worry about him getting killed, or even wasting enemy attacks on him, because Lapis avoid was good enough to tank but not good enough to be ignored.
Also fog stacks with other terrains.
Louis is a great tank, put him on a forest+fog and now the enemy has terrible hit rates in adition to doing 1 damage.
Covert units aren't as useful on maddening due to being too evasive, but being ignored is an excellent advantage in its own right.
I’m still a little confused about this game. Which tends to be better for this game; growths, or bases? I’m seeing a lot of people saying that the units that come in after chapter 10 onwards are so much better than the ones you get in the beginning. But are the ones you get in the beginning still viable if you get them enough levels before chapter 10, or what?
My ironman run had 7 levels in a row with Alear getting just HP, Luck, and sometimes Dex. it was a miserable run. She even ended up being really slow, which is crazy considering her speed growth is excellent.
I like the idea that the game design is balanced around the units you eventually recruit later rather than some arbitrary stat numbers you may or may not reach like in 3H. Lapis being worse than Kagetsu for example is more ideal than the reverse as far as curving the games difficulty. And the early customization opportunities can make up for the lacking stats in some cases. Very good game design!
Agreed. A lot of people seem (understandably) upset that their early game characters become irrelevant once they get a natural replacement. I do think they could have afforded to make the early game characters a bit better though. We don't actually need Kagetsu to be better than Lapis. We just want to make sure Lapis isn't substantially better than Kagetsu.
But from a game design standpoint, this allows the developers to gauge the strength of the player's army much more accurately than other games in the series.
As a result, I think this may be the only Fire Emblem that progressively gets more difficult as the game goes on. But also, if you're playing iron man and screwed up at the beginning, you aren't punished as heavily.
It's also known exactly what Emblems you have available for each chapter, which is kind of a flat powerup across the board. Having Ike available for example means the developers can rely on you having a unit capable of tanking a bunch of hits for every chapter he's available.
Also, something I noticed during my iron man run is when a unit dies, their inventory returns to the convoy after battle. This makes it so even the amount of resources you had to invest in weapons is a known value and can be balanced around.
These design decisions are truly brilliant.
That's actually a good point, though it is kind of upsetting that early game units fall off because if you want to use them it feels like you're being punished for doing so
While its far from optimal, you can keep using some early game units throughout the whole game with some investment, at least on hard. I knew about Lapis getting outclassed by Kagetsu but I used her through the whole game with Ike (and a few energy drops and spirit dusts for Levin Sword) and she became my overall MVP. On my second playthrough Boucheron lasted in my army until I got Rosado, all thanks to using Marth in the early game, and he’s basically a meme. On hard, the game is easy enough you can get away with using almost anyone if you put thought into it
@@arikaaa69 Yeah. Units being outclassed is far more common than units being truly awful. And even the ones that are outclassed often stay relevant for several chapters until their replacement arrives.
Lapis is sadly an exception, as she's badly outclassed by Diamont, who joins the following chapter.
I do have something good to say about swordmasters, mine was incredibly good at dodging, this would sometimes hold a choke point much better than the best tank I had, I gave the guy an engraving that granted avoid, and had like natural 160 AVO, and later even without much STR with lunar bracer it was still hitting double crits and dealing a lot of damage. all of this was on maddening.
Yeah I've found dodge tanking to be way more consistent and advantageous for holding choke points on my maddening run compared to normal tanks. I have a swordmaster dodge tank, a thief dodge tank, and alear as a dodge tank. I only have one traditional tank that I use and having them all has been vital in some of the maps.
Both matters a lot in srpg. Though some earlier titles would give absurd units late to avoid soft locking. That is not the case with more modern FE. I find Engage to do a pretty well balance of the two. The late game units are definitely not gotoh tiers.
Yeah, it's interesting to see how it varies across the series though. I definitely agree that Engage had a nice balance, though I think the late game units might be a bit too strong compared to the early game ones
Even if the base stats somehow take into account their growths and do simulated level ups they still have to have base stats for level 1 so it does not really matter either way they have base stats.
lapis and panette are really good wolf knights, give panette a silver dagger with corrin engrave to make it a killer dagger
Mekkah Hype!
I've found that diamant is serviceable if you give him divine pulse to patch up his shaky hit rates
On my second playthrough and I still can't use Zelkov lol
My first playthrough on hard, all my starting characters were over-levelled due to me doing a million skirmishes before chapter 11
On my second on Maddening, Yunaka carried my whole team on the Tiki paralogue as I started it right away, so had to resort to planting her near on the heal tile at the beginning to lure the dragons... By the end of that level she was my strongest character lol poor Zelkov... One day my friend!
Random Unrelated question: Engage is my first FE game. I'm still having a blast with Engage I'm on my third playthrough. Is Fire Emblem Three houses still worth it? I've heard it's different from Engage some of the combat at least. It sounded like it had a better social aspect, which I like persona so that sounds fun. I'm just on the fence if I want to pick it up or just stick with Engage. I like the tactical gameplay I never got into Fire Emblem before because all I saw was the warriors games and I'm not a fan of that style of combat. Just wondering if it is as fun as Engage or not.
Stick with engage until it becomes fully saturated then play the older games
Hello,
The only problem that I have with fire emblem three houses is that the gameplay becomes very repetitive. There isn't that much variety of maps. But the story is miles ahead of engage. Gameplay is not bad, but it becomes very repetitive just like I said before. The social aspect is good but becomes tedious after your 3-4 gameplay attempt to complete all the different story routes.
@@MrDenHus Yea, the story was one thing I was thinking about I definitely enjoy story heavy games. I was kind of disappointed with engages story the beginning was terrible and it really only started to get better towards the end. Even then it wasn't great. The gameplay for Engage though is perfect it's so much fun. Three houses almost seems like the opposite from what I hear where the gameplay isn't as good but the story is great. Which is why I've been on the fence. Part of me mostly wants to get it for the story so I have some backstory on the Emblems like Byleth. Either way I will still play Engage. I'll probably pick it up and add it to the backlog and get to it at some point in the next couple months.
@@thebatman8957 the three houses gameplay is alright. It is just when you start your 3 playthrough you will know by now what the best classes are and it becomes very stale. But for the first blind play though it is pretty good. Also go Blue lions or golden deer in your first play through. This will give you more surprise factor later on.
The gameplay is worse in Three Houses in my opinion, but the story and the characters as well as the fluidity of the class system is better. At the end of the day, it's still a Fire Emblem game so you'll probably still enjoy it, but I find Three Houses a bit hard to replay because the first half of the game is the exact same regardless of which route you choose to play on.
Yo, there's a mistake in the title. It says "Fire Embem" instead of "Fire Emblem"
Thanks! Fixed it
Dont think ita good but on my maddening I ran pannette as wolf knight. With her passive and an admittedly invested killer axe 5 give her like a 85-92 crit percent.
did they ever
26:58 Faerghast
I am on maddening and yunaka is not replaceable considering how much I feel like thieves rely on crits mid game so far. Merrin is also doing better than my luck with Zelkov. I know his bases can be higher but outside situations where mages with meteor become an issue zelkov really isn't that good in my opinion. Most personal skills are garbage but some offer a boost that seems to do alot more than number crunchers give credit.
Best stat is hp as long as you survive the enemy phase you can shit on the enemys
Also i got 2 Olwin S after 8tries
(not abusing rng)
Claude's S tier ring is the best ring because it makes Radiant Bow 2-3 range and long bow 2-4 range, and radiant bow does way more damage than thunder and give the option for physical damage
on my first maddening run, i made anna and chloe to sage while also trying to invest in etie, lapis lol, by the end i had to change lapis into great knight, wouldnt have beaten without dodge tank yunaka, i also didnt use kagetsu or seadall
I will forever be salty about Diamant's unique class having a low Dex cap. He is my favorite Character. I reached his cap really early because I had him use Tiki who increases growth rates.
the fact that the best guy in my army is the guy whose unique class is a sniper, and who is a simpering self-loathing timid guy, is hilarious
You're not alone - looking at the rankings on basically every endgame map past chapter 20 has Alcryst very high up there with Lyn. He's hovering at the 2 or 3 spot pretty much with Alear at the very top. My experience on Maddening has been very similar. He's stolen more MVPs than I can count.
Good thing Rosado has great bases AND great growths then huh :3
Trash build tho
@@LinkKing7 it feels like everyone has trash build except like louis, it always feels like everyone else is constantly getting slowed down.
@@LinkKing7
Not trash.
Adorable build :3
Engage is the first game to make me prioritize bases and prepromotes, and I'm one of those guys who swears by growth units like Amelia 😂😂😂
It's kinda disappointing tbh because of just how skewed it gets, especially on maddening: the most optimal way to play is to replace early game units, if not for the stats, then for their lack of exp and, perhaps more importantly, SP
Of course growths matter. It's just that bases also matter.
Just finish maddening classical no DLC today, divine one tank all.
Nice video, my fav nerd boys
16:03 I’m pretty sure you can actually stack cooking and tonics. It’s cooking and strength training that don’t stack, it just takes the higher buff and applies that, and that’s only for Alear anyway. If you check the units’ profiles/stats after cooking, it might say +2 activity, but if you throw a tonic on them, it will stack and the tonic will show up as +2 effect. I THINK I’m right on this lol
I just checked they don't stack. I wish they didn't let you use tonics on the same stat units just got buffed for cooking. I would have saved so much money 😭
Unfortunately they don't stack, I've tested this a couple times and I find it weird that it all goes until the "activity" category. Well, I guess I should say they stuck up to a maximum value that you can't go above
Maxing a stat is really nice in FE, but in this game there is so many bonus that are outside of your level up that even if you are RNGed bad luck it's not that bad especially with inheriting bonus stat. For me, the fact that there is no class identity (you can change anyone into anything) is just a big loss from the old games, and those 2 things started in 3 houses that for me, make the game less interesting because you don't attach yourself to your units and that is just sad 😞 From that last game, i loved Edelgard storyline best from the 3) story was good in that game tho, IMO. You guys are so right about the promotion classes (personal skills) for special units arent has good as Game Cube or DS. Path of Radiance was one of the best Fire Emblem, IMO. (You promote 2 times (3rd level class) was the best 👌 👍 also there is no item to make flyers immune to arrows and that is sad, I don't run a flyer because of that and I love Flyers.
Engage+ give the immunity (for 4 turns)
In a way, I'm glad growths of units are not easily found if at all in game. Because I don't care how good or bad a growth is. I'm using characters I like. No exceptions. Also It isn't that big a deal because I beat maddening (casual cuz I find it fun to see if I can beat a stage even if it's down to one unit left alive). It wasn't that bad. My strongest units never got close to dying. The map reinforcements are the hardest thing honestly the thing that killed my units. Not random strong guys. And Marth bond stage is hardest map by far.
Growth’s definitely matter
My first play through I had no idea about Anna’a magic growth and that classes provided a growth percentage up, and she was really underwhelming as a warrior. But after reclassifying her into a mage about her learning about her magic growths; she’s so busted
Tiki dlc on my third play through was amazing
if you use chain attacks then nothing matters but your class, range, dual assist learned.
TeeGee did a maddening run with 0 growths, no dlc, no online and cleared it easier than most people's first times if they didn't use chain attacks... which is what i've been saying for weeks about how absurdly bullshit chain attacks are... you can even 2 turn sombron ffs.
LinkKing owned Mekkah in this convo
The thing about maddening isn't that the later characters are soooo much better but that your early game characters are "on par" but you need to invest.
Zelkov has 2 more str and 1 more speed (lots of build but daggers make it irrelevant) than yunaka at lvl 17. Mildly better.
BUT he is zero investment and debatably slightly better.
I don't feel like there are growth characters really in this game. it feels like the characters are balanced for the level they join and with such low xp gains your previous characters are going to be under leveled.
It feels really weird that they gave Zelkov so much build but stuck him in thief. Part of me wants to put him on a wyvern but he'd be stuck in B rank hell for his weapons. No brave weapons!
If you want a huge return on investment, then make anna a sage. She has the highest magic growth and massive speed. She hits harder than even ivy
Why is Mekkkah currently tesla (twitter) on RUclips
He got Hacked. Look at his Twitter/Discord for more info
@@chillstoneblakeblast3172 I don't have either
@@blankblank6214 welp, He got his channel back.
One of the boons I'd say to using the unique lord classes is also weapon rank is much higher. That was a big reason I leaned towards them.
no, since you can just reclass them til they hit max.
So what i don't understand is that Engage has Stat caps by class. So what does growth matter if you max out a units stats? Yes you can get there faster or slower, but if you are playing normal are hard you can grind to max stats and everything equates, right? So shouldn't the most important thing be a specific units contribution to the max class stats?
There's a very limited amount of them.
@@Neucher On hard if you change the date on the switch you get a new set of skirmishes so it's unlimited i think? That's what i did. That and DLC and by chap 16-18 i can max stat a team of 8 reliably.
In most playthroughs, unless you're grinding heavily, you'll almost never reach the stat caps on most units so I think the growths are important tbh
I think it's important to define what "matter" means. If every FE game can be beaten with 0% growth rates, do growths matter at all? On the other hand, if you can beat the game with the lowest base stat units, do bases matter? Personally, I think of matter as in how much of an impact they can have on the game. In Engage, everything feels so finely tuned for fixed maddening that everything matters.
Of course you raise a very interesting point. I think everything does matter, it's the the weight or gravity of how much. I use the question as a title and more of a generalization for youtube purposes because I have to, but you're absolutely right.
I'll say not necessarily. If you want to use a unit with bad growth rates, the Emblem Rings, inherited skills, forging, and supports can patch up most weaknesses for the most part. If you wanted a team of the worst growth rate units, that would be more difficult as they all can't have an Emblem Ring until late in the game assuming no DLC. Gold would also be an issue given the amount of forges you'd like to make.
This is the first I've heard of Warrior Fogado. I just gave him a forged Radiant Bow my first playthrough on hard. For most of the game, he didn't even have an Emblem Ring.
A lot of people seem to be in love with the Radiant Bow, while personally I'm not a fan haha, so I went Warrior Fogado instead because I want the raw power!
The statement about prepromote's base stats only being based off the average of their growths is completely false. Rosado has one of the highest strength growths in the game at a base 45%, 55% as a base class and 65% as a Wyvern Knight. Yet despite this he joins with only 16 strength as a level 3 prepromote while Kagetsu only has a 30% base strength growth going to 40% as both a Sword Fighter and Sword Master but he joins with 17 strength as a level 1 prepromote.
Good point, I wonder what it's based off then, I haven't cross checked the information which is why I did say I'm not entirely sure about it
GUYSSS DID MEKKAH DELETE HIS CHANNEL?!?
He got Hacked. Look at his Twitter/Discords if you have access. I am unsubscribed from him for reasons I do not wish to disclose but seeing him get hacked is not fun.
personally I like this game
This game messed up with giving out so many characters every chapter
Using Anna on my maddening no dlc ironman reconfirmed my opinion that bases >>>>>>>> growths
Holy shit, she was NOT worth the effort.
What class?
Same with Jean, he was just about equal to the late joining units despite early game staff spam + engage ring favouritism to get him more exp and sp.
Honestly Anna is getting an oldschool Nino treatment right now, although she's not THAT bad.
@@marcoasturias8520 Axe Fighter to 10 -> Sage
My run ended after chapter 16 at Lyn's paralogue. She finished as a Level 6~8 sage and I think she only had 15 fucking magic. Lower that Pandreo, that's fore sure
While she did get Mag screwed HARD, I still don't think that her mag would even be that high compared to other units, specially when taking into account the massive amount of babysitting she requires.
@@namelessbag im assuming you were playing random growths and not fixed? Anna lvl 6-8 sage would have 18 or 19 mag on fixed.
But yes i agree that shes pretty bad. Only worth using if you don’t care about turncount at all. I tried using her on one my maddening playthrough as sage and quit at ch 17 because she was so bad. She couldnt even double generals with elfire and proced her personal like twice which doesnt covers half the cost i invested into her.
Engage is by far the most balanced Fire Emblem, and growths matter, but most of the characters have the same growth values outside of 3 which are...
Vander, Anna, and Jean
Vander growths suck - Anna and Jean have amazing growths, specifically Anna has amazing growths and Jean has amazing growths depending on what class you put him on since he can be anything you want and is the best growth unit ever because he starts out as a healer so he is immediately useful and can get exp without taking exp
You can tell he hasn’t played maddening with respect to what stats he thinks are important. Speed is a huge reason why people like Louis fall off so hard, because 33+ defense is not enough to deal with getting doubled for the amount of damage that maddening enemies put out.
Slow units get eviscerated in maddening
Edit: BTW NO HATE ON HIM, just that you can tell he doesn’t have experience with maddening, so please don’t take it as me shitting on him, I just think through the lens of maddening SPD is the number 1 stat free.
Mekkah hasn't ever claimed to have experience on maddening, and he's very open about that. I however, HAVE played on maddening and so I did present that perspective here.
I don't think growths matter as much compared to 3H. One thing I think that's important to mention is Engage's combat. I think Engage's combat is one of the most flexible out of all FE. The weapon triangle and break mechanic allows for some funky combos where even a stat screwed unit can get off a heavy weapon hit for free. They made Canto/Canter is even more broken and flexible for positioning / set ups and it's no longer locked to mounts / relic / accessory. I think Chain guard is another busted mechanic that doesn't rely on stats. Negating 1 hit was often life or death for my unit on Maddening, and I actually got lucky with a Deirdre S Ring for Renewal so I had the luxury to literally spam Chain Guard every turn on Framme for the early game. Speaking of rings, I think they are the primary reason why I don't think growth matters as much in this game. Bonded Shield is stupidly broken, Eirika turns your unit into either a nuke or a unit that actually deals damage, Roy gives your weakest unit 100% Miracle with Hold Out. The list goes on.
Some things I noticed in my random growth Maddening compared to my fixed growth Maddening was that a lot of my early game units actually ended up way better compared to how they were on fixed. For example my Yunaka actually had better stats compared to Zelkov at chapter 11. Maybe it's due to my understanding of the game better and forged her an iron dagger +5 with the dlc funds to get her more kills and level ups. It definitely felt like early game units have a lot more room to catch up to the later units on random growth or maybe I'm just lucky to not see too many bad rngs.
Good podcast! I agree with a lot of the takes Mekkah mentioned. I also feel like the Maddening Mode in Engage feels a lot more fair compared to 3H Maddening but that's just my opinion.
Glad you enjoyed it! Also, it's always nice to see you commenting on every video, thanks for that!
They always mattered, ever since the first FE. The more they growth, the faster they become stronger.
Yes. Because they are in the game and help your units reach important stat benchmarks. There. Saved you a pointless 200+ hour discussion. This video is pointless.