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Considering how busted some rings can feel, I'm not too upset by the dlc. As stromg as tiki and edelgard are, putting corrin on yunaka or ike on diamant is just as if not more insane. They help out a lot on Maddening, but don't ruin the difficulty. Dual strike and brave assist are the only thing that gets close to that so far for me
@@Yangblaze11 aparently you wuld use the Art to attack twice Then dance and attack And then use beyleth to reset your Attacker and dancer And then tiki + marth to fill up you engage meeter Then fallen star to attack twice And dance to attack I forgot where the 7 attack came from Also do Note i am not shure if this actually works out
I am playing on maddening without dlc or any stuff like that and putting corrin on merrin has basically turned every boss fight and enemy charges into a joke.
it's a set of tools and resources that wouldn't be there otherwise. it gives you 2 superpowerful emblem rings with the best availability in the game for 30 real irl dollars. of course its going to make the game easier. Difficulty will always be incredibly subjective. For some, it will "ruin" the difficulty and their fun. For others, it will be an invaluable tool for them. I didn't use the DLC in three houses, and I dont intend to use DLC engage because i think it will benefit my perspective on the game if my experience isn't being colored by optional resources that were added day 1 to increase the game's sales margin. I gotta give the 3 Houses DLC props for how the characters and classes felt well balanced amidst the economy of the base game.
@@paperluigi6132 The emblems that are going to be added have already been leaked. I actually can't wait to see what they do, as one of them is a character I had hoped would get one, but didn't think there was any real chance of him getting one.
I'd also add that in Tiki's case, you at least have to earn it in a mission that isn't exactly a cakewalk, a nice reward for some extra effort. yeah you just GET edelgard and co but really like you said this game's pretty hard. Plus trying to break units is my favorite part of these games anyways so more options is good in my book
Yeah that was one of the hardest maps I’ve ever played. I only had two rings at the story time I did the side chapter. It was worth the reward and I couldn’t get the silver card
For me it's less that the DLC Emblem rings are broken; it's that emblem rings are very powerful themselves and the DLC simply gives you more of them which is huge. I've actually had a lot of fun using the 3H bracelet, especially when Chloé says Edelgard's after battle quotes, but I would be lying if I said it doesn't make the game a lot easier. I also found that using them during chapter 11 would cheapen the experience a bunch so I refrained from doing that, but the game absolutely lets you do that if you want to. I just wish they didn't mix "hey look at these cool characters you remember" with "hey they also make the game a lot easier pay us extra for that."
I personally don’t mind being able to trivialize one of my least favorite maps in the series, but I do think that complaints about lowered difficulty and/or gameplay/story segregation could’ve been addressed by simply locking you out of the DLC Emblems until after that specific chapter.
ye I also felt like it would be cheap to use the 3H emblem in chapter 11 so i took it out - if i got my rings stolen then it mustve been all of them :D
@@AzureGreatheart They shouldn't lock you out of anything imo. If the player feels it cheapens the narrative of Chapter 11 and/or makes the map too easy, they can just not use them for that map. There's no need to punish the players that do want to use them.
I mean that doesn't change the fact that you can use them. If a game has to ask you to not use all of its features in order to maintain its atmosphere then the game has inherently failed. The dlc chips away at the point of that chapter, and it should be up to the game to maintain the story that it's trying to tell: not the player.
I think all the DLC emblem's will have a powerful gimmick, gotta get people's money's worth. I'm planning a Maddening Iron man run when it's all released, the DLC will be the only way I get through with any units still alive, I just the time crystal enough on hard mode lol
I've never cared much if DLC or some other feature makes the game "easier". A player can always set their own rules (e.g., no DLC, swords only, no rings, blue haired units only, etc.) to make the game harder if they want. At the end of the day, difficulty can be put into the hands of the player. If something is too strong, you aren't required to use it. In my opinion, DLC should just be more about adding new features that people may find fun, silly, or hype. Personally, I just like turning Jean into a big chicken...
Agreed. Fun is all that matters and whether or not they break the game is simply not a concern as long as the game isn't designed around people owning DLC.
I'm fine with Edelgard. She's strong, but until you unlock Failnaught, she's not outright busted, free movement from Byleth aside. But Tiki is just too good. Her every skill is broken, all of them are inheritable, she's able to give out a revive that doesn't expire, and for some reason they decided to give the breath attacks AoE damage, AND made one of them freezing. Armies are so much easier when you can just dance a dragon a few times and stop literally all of them from moving.
The only time the revive expires is if you do the divine blessing on another unit, one is only allowed to have one auto revive active at a time. Learned this the hard way
I put Tiki on my Anna. As a Thief class she solos entire maps on Hard difficulty. Tiki’s bracelet gives more level up bonuses and Anna starts pretty low. And that’s not even the most broken part. If she does get surrounded and takes a bunch of chain attacks, all I need to do is Wait on her turn. This heals her for a massive amount. So all I do is park her in a bush (or equivalent) and wait. She kills everything with counter attacks and completely heals every single turn.
yes they're broken especially tiki's starsphere, make broken units more broken and mediocre units usable xd that's why i decide not use dlc on my maddening run. unless i want to use something like vander LOL
Personally the biggest impact they provide at some points of the game is that you have a potent extra emblem when you are supposed to have one less. But overall they are too good. They don’t exactly provide what I want out of dlc Ie potent new strategic tools that don’t immediately trivialize the game. I will be playing without on my maddening playthrough
Well, i inherit Tiki's Starsphere on my 7 top units (and i was planning on doing it on every unit i use), and to be honest it's kind of broken. I'm on maddening, and 15% growth in every stat is just overpower and the way it affect low growth rate stats is just too strong. Tiki mean you will get +1 in every stats every 7 levels. Let's take Chloe as a Griffin Knight as an exemple, it pump her speed growth from 75 to 90, which is already kind of broken, but when you already got 75 growth in a speed, gaining more isn't that important. Her speed will go over the roof anyway (but you will go over the roof faster, and will almost always be ahead of the game). Same goes for every of her high/middle growth rate stats. Where it shine is on low growth rate stats : it also modify her build growth from 5 to 20, meaning that you will gain stats up in build every 5 levels insteed of every 20 levels. So this mean that after 20 level up (with Starsphere inherited/Tiki's ring equipped), your Chloé will have a +4 build insteed of +1, putting her at 9 insteed of 6 and making possible to use heavy weapons without loosing that much speed (like using killer lance with very little/no drawback). Build kind of convert to Atk and Speed, and Speed convert into Avoidance and Dmg (with double). So yeah, for me it make all the difference. Of course Starsphere cost 1500SP, but for me it's by far the strongest skill in the game. and if you had Lineage from Eldegard on top of this for 150SP, you will level up 20% faster, snowballing the game.
My plan with this game as with all strategy games is to play through it first using all the tools that are available to me, no matter how broken, and then in the second playthrough start to remove the most overpowered ones. It's always going to be much more difficult the first time round just because you don't know the full arc of the mechanics, and the fact that growths are currently fixed for the first maddening playthrough already makes me feel like the difficulty is warped even without the introduction of DLC. As always, if you have the self-restraint, it's almost always possible to subtract things from a playthrough, so I don't really get too riled up against 'overpowered' dlc.
I was thinking about this the other day, the game has been challenging at times, and I can definitely see how having Tiki and Edelgard makes the game easier. Like, Diamond and Ana are using them and they are my two most busted units.
From my time playing the game, coming from gba era as the only ones i play. I think a lot of the classes have been generalized and things we would see before as a standard class feature is now locked into emblems. The easiest one is how the max general MOV is 6, 4 to 6. Compared to how the older games were 5-8. And i personally dont think this was done due to map sizes. The general idea of being able to dart across the battlefield with cavalry doesnt feel as safe anymore to rely on as a strat. Also, the different between General and Great Knight is negligible why choose general when u can have a General with 1 less defense point able to move 2 more spaces
This argument is kind of a waste though. Many will hang on to the fact that it was released day 1 but when breaking down their complaints it’s clear that the release timing was irrelevant. If the tiki ring was released now it would still have the same effect on the game. It’s not possible to add new powers and abilities to a game and not have it affect the balance the game was built around. And since it’s purchased for money there’s a level of access to the content that they need to allow. So if you payed for it but then the dlc was locked alongside other rings in key story sections then people would be crying foul. This is a non issue and most of the people with any sanity have already come to terms with it. You simply don’t use or buy it if it’s not your thing, or you just use it and enjoy the cool new ways to play. It’s that simple.
The DLC gives you access to powerful emblems that you otherwise would not have and you get them early on too. Not to mention the free XP you have access to. This compounds over time, especially with a ring like Tiki that essentially puts your units on roids. It makes the game much easier imo.
I'm doing classic maddening blind run. Chapter 11 gave me a run for my money. If I had known what to expect, it would be a lot easier. Like more bond rings, bring good units, buy staves and stat boosters. It was maddening, literally. And it's really cool to be put in a tough spot. I went around wanting to see others' reaction and most youtubers with dlc rings legit lol'd. And I understand, because it's hilarious that their Tiki and Eldegard rings are still there. Kinda ruined the dire mood though.
I hadn't gotten Tiki at that point and hadn't deployed Louis and Edelgard the map before, so I had to make do without (yes, I could've put Edelgard on another unit, but believe it or not, I so often forget to take a look at the ring menu, even after doing a paralogue I always forget that I have to re-equip the ring) Did give me a nice incentive to finaly get Tiki tho
The rings are undeniably good, the Edelgard ring seems better tha Tiki. The most OP thing about the rings though is that they're 2 good emblem rings that you can use the entire game. For the vast majority of the game you don't have enough emblem rings to go around. So even if Edelgard/Tiki were just okay, they'd be good just for the availability, the fact that you never lose them, when for many chapters you might only have anywhere from 2-6 rings without them
There are bond rings that people choose to use even when they have 14 emblem rings. Like the double thunder bond ring. Though if you want any realistic chance to get it you either need to grind or exploit since they're insanely expensive and rare.
Some unmentioned things: Edelgard can let you inherit Lineage for 150 SP and since SP scales of XP earned (either half with a bond ring or full on an Emblem Ring), you get both of those boosted by 20 %. Bond 6 gives you Axe proficiency which you normally can't get until you get Leif. ----- (Ignore the axe proficiency, you can't get Second Seals until you get Leif anyway) Tiki is probably even more busted since whoever wields that ring gets +15% to all growths which is inheritable albeit expensive. Tiki also gives Arts proficiency in early game which you normally can't do without the Byleth ring. From a unit planning perspective, these fundamentally change the game. Units like Jean and Anna can inherit Lineage to get themselves going, and Tiki enables builds like High Priest Anna for higher Luck (ie more money procs). A DLC player with those tools will have a better economy and easier time making builds with those tools.
I’ve only played maddening and yeah, endgame is so brutal that I feel absolutely no shame in using these (especially Tiki’s, whose huge chapter took me 24 turns to beat when I average from around 7 - 13 on most maps) Falling Star is definitely the standout ability of my run though, 3 range + high crit + effectiveness against dragons + the avoid has come so clutch throughout the game, and putting it on Chloé not only shores up her weaker offense but also makes it so much easier taking out other fliers.
Something I feel is very important about Tiki is that she's the only emblem that comes with a drawback to engaging as she forces you to use dragonstones as your weapon. Dragonstones being range 1 has ruined many attempts to draw aggro without dying to chain attacks because of a backup spear unit.
The key thing that makes Tiki broken is the first inheritable skill that increases your growth rate on everything. My unit's growths are disgusting because of her. I literally level up almost every stat every time
Put that on Jean for the majority of the game because of losing Micaiah and now he's disgusting, combining that skill with his personal. His magic is higher than Ivy's and Clanne's and it's almost a shame that he is reduced to being a healer, but I have no other trained healers so I have to keep him in a supportive role, even if I find that during some of the tougher bosses with their insanely high defense I have one mage too few lmao
3 Houses DLC made Maddening much easier as well. Unfortunately most DLC includes pay to win elements these days so the best thing to do is skip the DLC.
There is no pay to win in a single player game. I'd argue that for most people the DLC is only making the game slightly less hard and only people who care about internet browny points are mad about it making the game easier. I'd just wish they give us the content for free and only the DLC campaign as a payed product.
As far as the DLC existing, in this case the game is complete and thus you can justify having the DLC. That being said it is still a crutch to some degree which I know some people "need". As far as plot integration goes it completely utterly ruins the tone of ch 11 for obvious reasons.
im playing the game to have fun, and maddening is still incredibly hard even with the dlc. it didnt ruin the difficulty for me, just gave me more options for deeper strategies which is exactly what i wanted, plus both the bracelets feel so good to use.
i specifically stopped myself from using the DLC in maddening due to the stat boost they provide. In maddening everystat count. so yeah this made it a bit a tad bearable but you still need to optimize your team
I don't think it's the power of rings that make them op. Even if you got 2 dlc rings that are on par or even slightly weaker than main game rings, it is still a huge power boost that you have 2 more rings (especially in the mid game when you have few). That plus tiki's paralogue is a Whole extra level to play that will earn you tons of exp
Tiki almost feels like cheating to me. I’ve mostly just been using her to make farming with Anna less tedious and I used her to help some weak units I wanted to use for their character play catch up to the rest of my army (like Framme).
The one thing it does do is make grinding 10 times easier, you can level your low level units up so fast and with great stats if you have edelgard, byelth and tiki. It's great cus you can't grind low level maps or at least I don't know how to.
I think the DLC makes it more fun, because Engage is a pretty challenging game. Not to mention that the paralogue to unlock Tiki is incredibly challenging.
Agreed. Fun is all that matters and whether or not they break the game is simply not a concern as long as the game isn't designed around people owning DLC.
the fact that you can even rewind at all makes this game easy. there's no strategy in just throwing shit at a wall and if it doesn't stick ill just back up and fix it
I'm not using any of the dlc stuff or skirmishes on my first playthrough (classic maddening). You're pretty clearly not intended to have access to emblems outside the ones the story provides you, I see them as a for-fun thing.
I will say on Maddening Classic all the stages before you get Edelgard were easy. So not sure if the difficulty spikes up without the DLC at some point but overall I would say it's way easier than 3 houses just across the board. 3 Houses the difficulty was very front loaded and I am also not past the half way point of the game yet so both of those could be factors. Also, on Hard you can solo the entire end game with just Yunaka and Corrin no Edelgard necessary. I will say that 1 thing you can do the second you get Edelgard is give all of the units that you plan to keep using +20% XP just by spending some bond fragments and you should have more than enough. I think I had enough to do all of my characters but I only did the 5 that I planned to keep using as I got further and recruited new people to replace the others. At first I wasn't that impressed by the weapons, it's just like getting 3 silver weapons early. However, then I realized that they're really light weapons which actually makes a big difference and if you put them on the right characters it opens up options that would've been restrictive for them previously such as being able to double with a "silver" weapon.
Oh boy you aren't ready for the last part of the game on maddening. I found 3H maddening easy imo. (That's maybe because I played Lunatic) but I can def say this title is harder than 3H around the last 3rd of the game
Despite purchasing the DLC I did my first run-through without it (except for just playing the tiki map for the sake of experiencing it). That is to say even if you purchased the DLC you can always just ignore it for the sake of a challenge, and if you want to use the DLC to build better units than go right ahead their's nothing wrong with that either. Tbh despite engage being up there in terms of difficulty for FE games I'd love to see a higher difficulty released for the game in the future just like maddening for 3H
They add a lot more content bringing more fun and variety to the game and that's what matters and what people pay for. Play the game however you find it most fun. If you don't like them, don't use them. It's not like the Turnwheel mechanic in 3H where the game is designed around it. It's fine not using the DLC since the game isn't designed around them. It is simply not a concern whether they're broken or not.
you're the only person I've seen praised the 3H bracelet lol, it's pretty trash to me, after 40hrs of using it, the only use I get out of it is inheriting Lineage. everything else just feels super whatever.
Huh? Houses Unite is basically a guaranteed one shot on most strong enemies (including a boss health bar) and Raging Storm basically allows you to potentially kill two high value targets. Dimitri's shield also makes you tankier because you're guaranteed to not take damage from one ranged attack. Claude's poison is just ok but it's a free additional poison on a non dagger user with literally no drawbacks or conditions. And Lineage (bonus 20% exp) is an extremely cheap skill you always have access to, you can get it on literally everyone and benefit from it if you wanted. At higher bond levels you also get three different weapon proficiencies for class changing. Like it's funny how much lower damage Lucina's engage attack does in the vast majority of situations compared to 3H engage attack. And it basically guarantees you have weapon triangle advantage against most melee so you can break most enemies due to combat arts. And even beyond it's own merits, having DLC rings available when you don't have a full roster of them means your army is much stronger than it would be normally. Like the difference between the 3H ring and Tiki ring is that the Tiki ring is extremely busted and the 3H ring is actually strong but balanced.
I'll do a separate comment just for Tiki, you're looking at Tiki completely wrong, Tiki is meant for tanking and survivability, the breaths are decent, but really you can ignore it completely. Lifesphere and Starsphere are the two main reasons why Tiki is busted.
I'm loving the base engage maddening difficulty so far, feels a lot harder than 3H. Not touching the DLC until maybe my 4th or 5th playthrough because I know it'll make the game significantly easier
Something you forgot to mention, if tiki is adjacent to Marth when using revival stone she also refills health or refills engage meter or restores engaged turns depending if they’re synced or engaged
Hi Adam! Could you please make a guide about classes and class upgrades in this game? I had only played Three Houses before Engage and it’s quite different. Is there a reason for not upgrading a unit until they reach a certain level in a basic class? They don’t seem to keep the levels gained after upgrading and also require a second seal to get the class again. I suppose Engage’s system is more traditional and veteran players are used to it, but I bet there are many ThreeHouses-babies like me who would like to hear your recommendations. You also used to say “everyone can be good in TH” and now I think I get… if a unit falls off with the chapters, should I try to keep them trained or is it a waste of resources? Thanks!
Maybe I'm either bad at the game or I'm trying to level everyone equally but ever since they took all the rings, I'm kinda struggling, and I'm playing in normal difficulty.
Nah this is fair, I was on hard and went back to normal because it seemed like the units that have a "canon" ring were made with the intention of keeping that on them. My Alfred was completely useless until I got Sigurd back and Diamant only became capable of withstanding incoming attacks until I got to re-equip him with Roy.
Yes, fire emblem games are generally not designed for you to use everybody in one run. There simply isn't enough exp or deployment slots for it to be worth it unless you heavily in grind to outside of the main story (like in Awakening famously with DLC). Having too many characters is how the game 1) allows people who get a lot of of people killed to finish the game and 2) encourages replaying the game
@@Dragonboy55564 I managed it in 3H (which was kinda my first FE game) since I only recruited like 6 extra people so the group managed to stay small. But in this game they keep giving you unit after unit every chapter, lol. And even grinding seems difficult as the skirmished seem to keep scaling so they will always be a few levels ahead of my team.
yeah unfortunately engage (and most fire emblem games) are just built that way so it isn't really your fault. you're kind of pushed to set a team up out of a select few and stick with them, benching your other units. its even worse since skirmishes are scaled to your highest units and not the map in question which is like what past games such as Awakening did. the rosters just too huge and the game progresses too rapidly to allow everyone to be levelled equally unfortunately so i would recommend taking some of your best units and focusing on training them up.
I'm not very good, so I started on normal/classic. I used Edelgard and Tiki for a while when I got them but ended up stopping because they feel too strong.
You're describing how it breaks the difficulty by just telling us what they can do, but completely missing the fact that rings are even more broken. In my experience in Maddening, the bracelets did not serve to raise the power ceiling of my overall army significantly and the bracelets had more drawbacks (Edelgard's Axe is terrible and the good skills force you to equip it, Tiki's Dragon Form locks you out of your main class options) that made them less desirable to use on my main units than the rings. All the bracelets do is provide you with more fun options that aren't necessarily stronger than what you're already given.
As someone without the dlc, I'm still chugging along the story on hard mode. Difficulty seems just right for me. Definitely struggling a little but making it through a bit at a time. Feels a lot like how I felt trying to get through Sacred Stones for the first time without letting anyone die.
Well the Edelgard bracelet can give everyone lineage for pretty cheap and Tiki is just... Stupid strong. I got Tiki on Boucheron and he's got so much HP I don't think anything can take him down.
i played my first playthrough without dlc simply because i didn't have the money yet to buy it and to me hard was chalenging enough while normal is really easy. so now that i have the dlc i wonder how i feel about i would say my skill in the game is good but not like amazing or anything like just a bit above average to average i think.
I paid $30 for them, so I want them to be good. Although, I just finished chapter 11 and I feel like they kind of defeated the purpose of the chapter. I did try to avoid engaging with them until the end, at the very least.
I straight un equipped them lol. Hilariously tho I put the 3H one on yunaka, so I saw absolutely little to no difference from her production Solo Queen Yunaka 🤣🤣
@@yukotrey9422 I put Tiki on Alear since I want her to actually be a manakete. But when they gave me Lucina, they just took Tiki off Alear, so I couldn't use her for the rest of the map. I originally put Marth on Yunaka, but once I inherited some avoid skills from him, I just haven't bothered to put another ring on her since she's so good even without one.
These rings are pretty busted. I think these + that silver card are a bit unfair, I've been trying to do a maddening run and I didn't buy the dlc because I found them incredibly scummy and I don't wish to support these businesses strategies. Not saying they're required, but I am saying it's be very hard finding guides for maddening runs that DON'T use dlc. You don't know how many guides became null cause integral steps involved needing something from this dlc. For fairness I wanna say the Maddening mode wasn't balanced around them, but sometimes man... Sometimes.
The fact that the most units you can bring is 14 means that On-Field, as more dlc is released, they will have diminishing returns. It really depends on the skills that you can inherit from them out of combat that decides just how OP these become.
Tiki's level 1 bond skill(that is inheritable for 1500 sp) is absolutely busted on lower difficulties. Taking Jean High priest gives him(with personal and tiki skills) the growth rates of 65 hp, 35 str, 85 mag, 50 dex, 65 spd, 40 def, 95 res, 100 luck, and 20 bld. Making him an incredible anti mage and anti armor unit
I dont see the DLC as being op. Tiki turned my framme into a usable frontliner to transition her from the early game to the midgame and keep her relevant. The revival stones rarely mattered or got broken, so tiki was mainly useful for geosphere. I never used unite+ but on hard/classic i did not need it by that point in the game because i would have all of my units engage to 1 round the boss thanks to goddess dance, seadall, and good positioning (namely using Chloe with Lynn, Louis with Leif, yunaka with 3H, alear with lucina/marth, anna with byleth, throwing in some mages to soften up bosses like corrin’s hex on celine
@@zate5355 Well I mean mostly that I got a whole set way for free way before they're available in game. I'm sure silver weapons are way better. Maybe that difficulty spike at chapter 10 will put me in my place 😅
My self-imposed criteria for Engage (and something similar for most FE games) is "no deaths, no dlc/online, no trials/skirmishes". DLC pretty much ruins the difficulty of every FE that has had it.
The rings themselves are less busted then the two key skills they let you inherit. Starsphere and lineage. Other than those skills tiki is pretty bad and only serves to allow weaker units to survive one enemy phase with the bulk added by the engage form. And the 3h ring is only really useful at bond 15 plus other than the Claude weapon art. Yes you get to keep them when the other emblems are gone, but what of it? They were gonna add more rings down the line so that was inevitable. Launch dlc or not adding new rings would always end up this way unless they made them intentionally garbage. By the end of the games life there will be like 6 plus extra rings. What are we supposed to complain every few months when this happens because ch11 won’t be spoopy anymore? Come on guys.
See, I can accept that for Edelgard. She's only really broken when Engaged, but so is every other ring to some degree. Tiki though, is entirely busted. Starsphere makes units better, lightsphere increases survivability from crits, and some of the breath attacks are stupid. I made a unit a general and just sat him in front of an army of enemies, engaged and clicked Ice Breath. Hits 4 enemies on player phase, freezing all of them, provided they survive the half Def blast. And can still counter attack, so half of them just died attacking into him on Enemy phase. Then rinse Repeat. The only enemy it didn't work on was Zephia, and that was only because she couldn't be frozen. Even ignoring that, Lifesphere is busted. In a game where money is a premium, you'll never need to waste a healing item on whoever is using Tiki's ring. Why bother? Just click wait and you can get 40 hp and heal status without even being engaged. Geosphere gives you up to +5 Def and Res to Tiki and adjacent allies, again, not limited by engage. For reference +5 is what Ike gives you (Resolve), but only to the equipped unit and only when below 75% hp. Tiki does it for up to 5 units, no cost, no restriction Just start next to someone and boom, take less damage. That's up to a potential +50 in stats to your army at no cost. Absolutely disgusting. And if you somehow still can't believe she's busted, let's just give an unit a revive stone that doesn't expire (unless you give someone else a stone before it procs), and throw in reduced damage from special weapons like breath attacks, and Hp/Luck +10 for good measure. I don't even think it's necessarily a bad move to make DLC broken, but you can't deny Tiki is outright stupidly busted. The only thing she doesn't do is give every proficiency.
@@PhantomNull13 most of what you described your tank doing was already achievable without tiki and in fact I’ve done it without her. Ike ring alone let’s a general face tank entire hallways. Geosphere is also nice but requires you to be clumped for several turns to continue to get value often leading to the only beneficiary being the wearer and one other unit. And her inheritable skills are all stupidly expensive. Starsphere is 1500. You aren’t getting that without grinding or a late game pre promote that starts with that or more. The revival stone is nice but calling it busted is overblown when it’s an engage ability. Like the full on super move of the engage. Literally all of them have some crazy effect. It also won’t save you from getting one turned in enemy phase either so while strong it’s just another tool. And back to the prices. +10 hp luck is so wildly expensive you literally can’t ever get it unless in hard or lower and grinding. So why is it a factor? Like I said before the rings are strong but claiming their “disgusting” is hyperbolic. If these weren’t paid dlc no one would be discussing it. They would just be some more cool rings that do a thing.
@@SH1NK1R01 you don't necessarily need to inherit them onto every unit though. Geosphere isn't even that expensive (500 for regular, 1000 for +), and given to a few central units will massively increase your army's survivability. LifeSphere is more expensive, but also completely eliminates the need for any kind of healing support. Even at base level, it's not only more health back than a vulenary, for free, but also heals any statuses such as Silence on Mages or accumulated poison on Generals. And at higher levels, it's an infinite elixir, and you don't even need to engage for it. Maybe you don't need lifesphere++ on every unit, but given how low the HP on some of the mages can be, Lifesphere providing half health back for free is easily worth 1000 sp. You also get the bonus of the breath attacks, such as freezing stronger enemies in place to safely advance your army or setting up fog to allow Yunaka to run wild in the middle of a room. Finally, for divine blessing, I actually find it easier to use than a lot of engage attacks. With Lyn, for example, I have to decide whether to Astra Storm or use every possible turn to get insane chain attacks with doubles. For Ike, sometimes it's not ideal to just stand and let them attack you. For Corrin, sometimes your allies are in the line of fire, or Lucina is all on her own. But for Tiki? Use it at the start, give it to somebody and forget about it until later. You don't even really need to think about it. Just find someone who tends to die alot (seadoll, for example) and give it to him turn one. If he dies, you're safe. If he doesn't, well, you weren't going to attack turn 1 anyway, so you effectively lose nothing. He doesn't lose it until it's used, and given tanks tend to take alot of hits, it's not like you'll only be able to engage at the start of combat, so if you need it later, do it later too. And yes, I do feel like disgusting is a fair description. Every emblem is powerful in its own right, that's true. But Tiki makes it entirely possible to solo levels on Maddening. I literally put it on Jean, as a General, on Chapter 11, and he held back the entire top of the map long enough to escape. No other emblem in the game could've done that, under any circumstance. The only thing balanced about Tiki is that it'd be expensive to put them all on another character, but even one good unit with Tiki is worth 3 other Emblem Rings in my eyes.
@@PhantomNull13 I did that with Yunaka with no emblem. So again. It’s not a big deal. I agree it’s strong that’s not up for dispute but listing all the good things about the ring doesn’t prove it’s disgusting, it just proves it was worth it. Think of the alternative. Either no rings are ever added at all or they all suck. It’s not worth fussing over at all.
@@SH1NK1R01 oh, I'm not complaining. I like the fact that they're powerful, and I don't have any problem with them being a bit stronger than average. Tiki is, in my opinion, the strongest emblem in the game, largely due to how strong and, frankly generic, her abilities are. They have no downside, and every unit can fully utilize her abilities. That's why she's broken. And given how well she's designed, I'd say Yunaka is just as broken as Tiki. Any forged knife is all she'll ever need. It is Yunaka Emblem Engage, after all.
I've been playing on hard and using edelgard but not Tiki. I felt like the game had a comfortable difficulty. But yeah as I get further and start playing these paralogs with like... all silver weapon enemies lol. Might need to start using her.
@@TheHipHopTrucka getting crit multiple times by 3 percent chances after missing my 90+ hitrate hits i really doubt the time crystal makes anything easier. It just makes the frustrating moments less frustrating, especially because this game is a bitch with Conquest Rn system.
@@darkgrundi9543 what do you mean lol you get 10 times to redo a fuck up or bad rng, that objectively makes it easier it’s not an argument, but yes maddening is definitely a bitch it’s fun that way you have to come up with real strategies to win
just more creating a problem to sell a solution, IntSys really losing it the endless push of casual favoring leads to easy manipulation of sell them everything cause they won't care game makes players feel powerful so they think its good but its just broken systems that a broad casual crowd won't mind by being so new in the fandom, lack of foresight this always ends the same, more sold outside the game than in it and more and more of the design sacrificed
I really don't see how 2 completely over the top rings that you get throughout your whole run (even on chapter 11, where the whole purpose of the chapter is destroyed) is not considered busted.Basically in every single chapter in the game you have two broken tools more than you normally would have (5 even if all of them are released i think). In the early game you basically double your squads power. That's nuts.
hey, hope you don’t mind me saying but maybe you should have more of an outline or script for your videos because the energy gives off the feeling you are unprepared/less knowledgeable on what you’re talking about.
Yes, it makes maddening mode easy. I started on Hard mode for the story and after chapter 16 i just started over on maddening because it got so easy once my units got buff it was boring.
Girl I had to put the difficulty down to normal because I had to retry every other map about three times. Everytime I had an easy time with a map, the next one was difficult as fuck, especially once bosses start having two of those annoying revival stones. The game is actually very difficult in my opinion. I mean I like a challenge, but this was just plain frustrating (especially when I miss 70% crits and 89% hits, and then get crit at a 4% chance or don't dodge a 34% hit). Now that I turned the game back to normal instead of hard, I find the game is bit too easy, but it's still more enjoyable to me than hard lol Then again, I do have trouble figuring out what ring would work best on which unit. Most rings are still with their initial wielder, only recently I have started switching up corrin and micaiah, putting corrin on zelkov and micaiah on Jean. I will also replace Lyn with Celica on Ivy when the time comes, because aside from speedtaker and the skill that turns you attack in a brave attack, there is not much there for Ivy due to her low strength and I can just inherit those skills. I do have to agree that the DLC bracelets are very strong. My Louis is unstoppable with Edelgard, but tbh I haven't found Tiki's niche. I put her grant def/res skill on louis cuz hes always on the frontlines so now he gets an extra buff and supports the other frontliners, and put Tiki on Seadall cuz he's always surrounding by other units and now he can grant extra boosts, along with the boost from special dance once i get it
Why retry a map when you have literally 10 uses of the time rewind mechanic? Like if you're regularly using all 10 you probably should look again before you act because that should be enough to even brute force most mistakes. The extra health bar can catch veterans off guard but it just means you need a lot more people (like probably 5+) prepared to fight the boss on the same turn turn, not just 1-2 like most FE games. Also Tiki is a monster - she basically lets you tank and kill anything on any unit, like it's funny how busted she is when engaged. Putting it on your dancer feels like a waste.
They should be ashamed for releasing this dlc. It is incredibly anti-consumer and I refuse to purchase it. 1. The content was 100% made during the development of the base game. When you buy it for MSRP, you are not getting all the work the devs created during this development period - you need to pay another $40 for it! 40 Dollars! That's 50% of the game's price in Canada! To add these rings, you would need artists and animators, programmers, voice actors, level designers, etc. to make them. They did not do this after the game went gold! 2. You cannot buy the future story content separately from the dlc. So if you don't want unbalance your game but want to play the story, you are forced to buy it anyway. 3. According to posts I've read, you cannot turn off the dlc features if you want to play a pure run of the game. They were too lazy to add an option to enable/disable it for 40 dollars?!? I shouldn't have to discard the stat boosters if I don't want to use them and ignore the Paralogues and not pick up the Silver Card (or however you get it). 4. The stat boosters, the silver card and the rings 100% make the game easier. These items don't need to cost money either - they probably hired an intern at minimum wage to add those in. This is Ubisoft levels of gross. Could they not restrain themselves to cosmetics at least??? 5. The rings ruin the integrity and immersion of Chapter 10-11. Nobody can argue that this isn't the case. You're supposed to feel helpless and terrified you lost all of your broken abilities. But oh wait - you got an S-tier Tiki ring the enemy seemed to forget about! Imagine that! This is inexcusable. I saw Mangs playing Chapter 10-11 and without the Tiki ring, he would have died in Chapter 11. It really aggrevated me that he wasn't punished for his misplays because nothing else other than that Ring would have saved him given the moves he made.
@@Byakurenfan That's not an answer. For 40 dollars, you think it's not reasonable to have a Yes/No option at the start of the game to enable/disable dlc content, especially when it affects the balance of the game? Even if you don't equip the Tiki ring, the paralogue still gives you experience you should not have had. I shouldn't have to work harder to ignore the dlc. People are paying 40 dollars for it. Ubisoft has trained you well. It reminds me of Assassin's Creed Odyssey where my character was level 70 and I was nowhere near upgrading the boat despite having beat the game and everything. Someone told me that if I bought the $15 material and booster pack, I would have had the resources. These companies have trained you guys well, I swear.
@@Katie-hb8iq Just don't do the paralogue, just ignore the loot boxes, microtransactions are optional and offer more 'player choice', or they're 'just cosmetics'. Now where have we heard this song and dance before? If even the most milk-toast critiques elicit corporate endorsed and reinforced justifications for such practices, then we're in trouble.
The game has infinite grinding in the form of skirmishes; even if they scale with your level, that doesn't matter. It has infinite level-gaining in the form of Second Seals, which become fully renewable in Chapter 16 or so. Difficulty is entirely within your control. As for "40 Canadian Dollars for all this is scummy": - it's a game expansion, with the nostalgia stuff thrown in first to sell it better. Let's see what else is added in the coming months, okay? 3H didn't get a significant fourth wave, but it's been a week for Engage. - The Tiki Paralogue is actually difficult to even clear, let-alone get everything from, and Mangs said it was very well-made. Those whining about how it's an extra level that grants extra EXP have missed the point that it's optional. Extra content is extra content. - Story-wise, the bracelets are extraneous and irrelevant to the bad guys, not being the rings that grant god powers if you have all twelve together. It's not like they can be stolen as easily as rings, anyway; someone would have certainly noticed Veyle trying to pull them off of their wrists. - IS decided to give everyone 5,000-10,000G worth of gear for free a couple of hours after launch, they don't seem very set on keeping things difficult. This isn't like Ubisoft selling EXP boosters to reach level-gated content in their Assassin's Creed games without grinding; you can still attempt the challenge here without spending money, or just turn down the difficulty.
Considering how busted some rings can feel, I'm not too upset by the dlc. As stromg as tiki and edelgard are, putting corrin on yunaka or ike on diamant is just as if not more insane. They help out a lot on Maddening, but don't ruin the difficulty. Dual strike and brave assist are the only thing that gets close to that so far for me
I agree being able to dance a character three time in a row is way more busted.
@@Yangblaze11 i read online another comment how you culd use the 3 houses bracelet to get a total of 7 attacks
@@theonesithtorulethemall How?
@@Yangblaze11 aparently you wuld use the Art to attack twice
Then dance and attack
And then use beyleth to reset your Attacker and dancer
And then tiki + marth to fill up you engage meeter
Then fallen star to attack twice
And dance to attack
I forgot where the 7 attack came from
Also do Note i am not shure if this actually works out
I am playing on maddening without dlc or any stuff like that and putting corrin on merrin has basically turned every boss fight and enemy charges into a joke.
Falling star is so effective in this game. 10x better than in 3 houses
It feels that way because 3H has a lot more defensive options available. Also the general power level as been scaled down significantly.
it's a set of tools and resources that wouldn't be there otherwise. it gives you 2 superpowerful emblem rings with the best availability in the game for 30 real irl dollars. of course its going to make the game easier. Difficulty will always be incredibly subjective. For some, it will "ruin" the difficulty and their fun. For others, it will be an invaluable tool for them. I didn't use the DLC in three houses, and I dont intend to use DLC engage because i think it will benefit my perspective on the game if my experience isn't being colored by optional resources that were added day 1 to increase the game's sales margin. I gotta give the 3 Houses DLC props for how the characters and classes felt well balanced amidst the economy of the base game.
And it’s $30 and we’re getting like 5 more (if the Ring Chamber is anything to go off of).
@@paperluigi6132 The emblems that are going to be added have already been leaked. I actually can't wait to see what they do, as one of them is a character I had hoped would get one, but didn't think there was any real chance of him getting one.
I'd also add that in Tiki's case, you at least have to earn it in a mission that isn't exactly a cakewalk, a nice reward for some extra effort. yeah you just GET edelgard and co but really like you said this game's pretty hard. Plus trying to break units is my favorite part of these games anyways so more options is good in my book
Yeah that was one of the hardest maps I’ve ever played. I only had two rings at the story time I did the side chapter. It was worth the reward and I couldn’t get the silver card
the mission itself break maddening. all my units got like 3 level ups giving players an edge especially early.
For me it's less that the DLC Emblem rings are broken; it's that emblem rings are very powerful themselves and the DLC simply gives you more of them which is huge. I've actually had a lot of fun using the 3H bracelet, especially when Chloé says Edelgard's after battle quotes, but I would be lying if I said it doesn't make the game a lot easier. I also found that using them during chapter 11 would cheapen the experience a bunch so I refrained from doing that, but the game absolutely lets you do that if you want to. I just wish they didn't mix "hey look at these cool characters you remember" with "hey they also make the game a lot easier pay us extra for that."
I personally don’t mind being able to trivialize one of my least favorite maps in the series, but I do think that complaints about lowered difficulty and/or gameplay/story segregation could’ve been addressed by simply locking you out of the DLC Emblems until after that specific chapter.
@@AzureGreatheart You see the thing is that's one of my favorite maps in the series, but yeah I don't know why they didn't just do what you suggested.
ye I also felt like it would be cheap to use the 3H emblem in chapter 11 so i took it out - if i got my rings stolen then it mustve been all of them :D
@@AzureGreatheart They shouldn't lock you out of anything imo. If the player feels it cheapens the narrative of Chapter 11 and/or makes the map too easy, they can just not use them for that map. There's no need to punish the players that do want to use them.
I mean that doesn't change the fact that you can use them. If a game has to ask you to not use all of its features in order to maintain its atmosphere then the game has inherently failed.
The dlc chips away at the point of that chapter, and it should be up to the game to maintain the story that it's trying to tell: not the player.
I think all the DLC emblem's will have a powerful gimmick, gotta get people's money's worth. I'm planning a Maddening Iron man run when it's all released, the DLC will be the only way I get through with any units still alive, I just the time crystal enough on hard mode lol
Enough with the "runs" already. Get a life
U good?
@@Kensterrrrr Isaiah 3:11: Woe unto the wicked! it shall be ill with him: for the reward of his hands shall be given him.
I've never cared much if DLC or some other feature makes the game "easier". A player can always set their own rules (e.g., no DLC, swords only, no rings, blue haired units only, etc.) to make the game harder if they want. At the end of the day, difficulty can be put into the hands of the player. If something is too strong, you aren't required to use it.
In my opinion, DLC should just be more about adding new features that people may find fun, silly, or hype. Personally, I just like turning Jean into a big chicken...
I agree let people have fun in their one player game.
@@Yangblaze11 right? People act like this is a mmo pvp
Agreed. Fun is all that matters and whether or not they break the game is simply not a concern as long as the game isn't designed around people owning DLC.
I'm fine with Edelgard. She's strong, but until you unlock Failnaught, she's not outright busted, free movement from Byleth aside. But Tiki is just too good. Her every skill is broken, all of them are inheritable, she's able to give out a revive that doesn't expire, and for some reason they decided to give the breath attacks AoE damage, AND made one of them freezing. Armies are so much easier when you can just dance a dragon a few times and stop literally all of them from moving.
The only time the revive expires is if you do the divine blessing on another unit, one is only allowed to have one auto revive active at a time. Learned this the hard way
The game is still pretty hard not Radiant Dawn difficult but still pretty hard
I feel like the Tiki Emblem FAR outclasses the Three Houses one.
Feels like the Tiki luck bonuses were made to pair her with Anna for farming gold
Wouldn't surprise me in the fing slightest
I put Tiki on my Anna. As a Thief class she solos entire maps on Hard difficulty. Tiki’s bracelet gives more level up bonuses and Anna starts pretty low.
And that’s not even the most broken part. If she does get surrounded and takes a bunch of chain attacks, all I need to do is Wait on her turn. This heals her for a massive amount.
So all I do is park her in a bush (or equivalent) and wait. She kills everything with counter attacks and completely heals every single turn.
yes they're broken especially tiki's starsphere, make broken units more broken and mediocre units usable xd that's why i decide not use dlc on my maddening run. unless i want to use something like vander LOL
Personally the biggest impact they provide at some points of the game is that you have a potent extra emblem when you are supposed to have one less. But overall they are too good. They don’t exactly provide what I want out of dlc Ie potent new strategic tools that don’t immediately trivialize the game. I will be playing without on my maddening playthrough
Well, i inherit Tiki's Starsphere on my 7 top units (and i was planning on doing it on every unit i use), and to be honest it's kind of broken. I'm on maddening, and 15% growth in every stat is just overpower and the way it affect low growth rate stats is just too strong. Tiki mean you will get +1 in every stats every 7 levels.
Let's take Chloe as a Griffin Knight as an exemple, it pump her speed growth from 75 to 90, which is already kind of broken, but when you already got 75 growth in a speed, gaining more isn't that important. Her speed will go over the roof anyway (but you will go over the roof faster, and will almost always be ahead of the game). Same goes for every of her high/middle growth rate stats.
Where it shine is on low growth rate stats : it also modify her build growth from 5 to 20, meaning that you will gain stats up in build every 5 levels insteed of every 20 levels. So this mean that after 20 level up (with Starsphere inherited/Tiki's ring equipped), your Chloé will have a +4 build insteed of +1, putting her at 9 insteed of 6 and making possible to use heavy weapons without loosing that much speed (like using killer lance with very little/no drawback). Build kind of convert to Atk and Speed, and Speed convert into Avoidance and Dmg (with double). So yeah, for me it make all the difference.
Of course Starsphere cost 1500SP, but for me it's by far the strongest skill in the game. and if you had Lineage from Eldegard on top of this for 150SP, you will level up 20% faster, snowballing the game.
My plan with this game as with all strategy games is to play through it first using all the tools that are available to me, no matter how broken, and then in the second playthrough start to remove the most overpowered ones. It's always going to be much more difficult the first time round just because you don't know the full arc of the mechanics, and the fact that growths are currently fixed for the first maddening playthrough already makes me feel like the difficulty is warped even without the introduction of DLC.
As always, if you have the self-restraint, it's almost always possible to subtract things from a playthrough, so I don't really get too riled up against 'overpowered' dlc.
That's a really nice strategy. I like it. I play with made-up rules too. The game is as difficult as you choose to
i think the edelgard and tiki rings are good while still fitting right in with the rest of the rings tbh
I was thinking about this the other day, the game has been challenging at times, and I can definitely see how having Tiki and Edelgard makes the game easier. Like, Diamond and Ana are using them and they are my two most busted units.
From my time playing the game, coming from gba era as the only ones i play. I think a lot of the classes have been generalized and things we would see before as a standard class feature is now locked into emblems. The easiest one is how the max general MOV is 6, 4 to 6. Compared to how the older games were 5-8. And i personally dont think this was done due to map sizes. The general idea of being able to dart across the battlefield with cavalry doesnt feel as safe anymore to rely on as a strat. Also, the different between General and Great Knight is negligible why choose general when u can have a General with 1 less defense point able to move 2 more spaces
This argument is kind of a waste though. Many will hang on to the fact that it was released day 1 but when breaking down their complaints it’s clear that the release timing was irrelevant. If the tiki ring was released now it would still have the same effect on the game. It’s not possible to add new powers and abilities to a game and not have it affect the balance the game was built around. And since it’s purchased for money there’s a level of access to the content that they need to allow. So if you payed for it but then the dlc was locked alongside other rings in key story sections then people would be crying foul. This is a non issue and most of the people with any sanity have already come to terms with it. You simply don’t use or buy it if it’s not your thing, or you just use it and enjoy the cool new ways to play. It’s that simple.
The DLC gives you access to powerful emblems that you otherwise would not have and you get them early on too. Not to mention the free XP you have access to. This compounds over time, especially with a ring like Tiki that essentially puts your units on roids. It makes the game much easier imo.
I'm doing classic maddening blind run. Chapter 11 gave me a run for my money. If I had known what to expect, it would be a lot easier. Like more bond rings, bring good units, buy staves and stat boosters.
It was maddening, literally. And it's really cool to be put in a tough spot. I went around wanting to see others' reaction and most youtubers with dlc rings legit lol'd. And I understand, because it's hilarious that their Tiki and Eldegard rings are still there. Kinda ruined the dire mood though.
I hadn't gotten Tiki at that point and hadn't deployed Louis and Edelgard the map before, so I had to make do without (yes, I could've put Edelgard on another unit, but believe it or not, I so often forget to take a look at the ring menu, even after doing a paralogue I always forget that I have to re-equip the ring)
Did give me a nice incentive to finaly get Tiki tho
The rings are undeniably good, the Edelgard ring seems better tha Tiki.
The most OP thing about the rings though is that they're 2 good emblem rings that you can use the entire game.
For the vast majority of the game you don't have enough emblem rings to go around.
So even if Edelgard/Tiki were just okay, they'd be good just for the availability, the fact that you never lose them, when for many chapters you might only have anywhere from 2-6 rings without them
There are bond rings that people choose to use even when they have 14 emblem rings. Like the double thunder bond ring. Though if you want any realistic chance to get it you either need to grind or exploit since they're insanely expensive and rare.
is it three rings with one house leader each or one with all of them?
Some unmentioned things:
Edelgard can let you inherit Lineage for 150 SP and since SP scales of XP earned (either half with a bond ring or full on an Emblem Ring), you get both of those boosted by 20 %. Bond 6 gives you Axe proficiency which you normally can't get until you get Leif. ----- (Ignore the axe proficiency, you can't get Second Seals until you get Leif anyway)
Tiki is probably even more busted since whoever wields that ring gets +15% to all growths which is inheritable albeit expensive. Tiki also gives Arts proficiency in early game which you normally can't do without the Byleth ring.
From a unit planning perspective, these fundamentally change the game. Units like Jean and Anna can inherit Lineage to get themselves going, and Tiki enables builds like High Priest Anna for higher Luck (ie more money procs).
A DLC player with those tools will have a better economy and easier time making builds with those tools.
The DLC emblems 100% make the game way more easy. Especially when you lose you rings, but get to keep the DLC.
I’ve only played maddening and yeah, endgame is so brutal that I feel absolutely no shame in using these (especially Tiki’s, whose huge chapter took me 24 turns to beat when I average from around 7 - 13 on most maps)
Falling Star is definitely the standout ability of my run though, 3 range + high crit + effectiveness against dragons + the avoid has come so clutch throughout the game, and putting it on Chloé not only shores up her weaker offense but also makes it so much easier taking out other fliers.
Something I feel is very important about Tiki is that she's the only emblem that comes with a drawback to engaging as she forces you to use dragonstones as your weapon.
Dragonstones being range 1 has ruined many attempts to draw aggro without dying to chain attacks because of a backup spear unit.
The key thing that makes Tiki broken is the first inheritable skill that increases your growth rate on everything. My unit's growths are disgusting because of her. I literally level up almost every stat every time
Play maddening stats are set
Put that on Jean for the majority of the game because of losing Micaiah and now he's disgusting, combining that skill with his personal. His magic is higher than Ivy's and Clanne's and it's almost a shame that he is reduced to being a healer, but I have no other trained healers so I have to keep him in a supportive role, even if I find that during some of the tougher bosses with their insanely high defense I have one mage too few lmao
3 Houses DLC made Maddening much easier as well.
Unfortunately most DLC includes pay to win elements these days so the best thing to do is skip the DLC.
There is no pay to win in a single player game.
I'd argue that for most people the DLC is only making the game slightly less hard and only people who care about internet browny points are mad about it making the game easier.
I'd just wish they give us the content for free and only the DLC campaign as a payed product.
It definitely made chapter 11 easier 😂
As far as the DLC existing, in this case the game is complete and thus you can justify having the DLC. That being said it is still a crutch to some degree which I know some people "need". As far as plot integration goes it completely utterly ruins the tone of ch 11 for obvious reasons.
im playing the game to have fun, and maddening is still incredibly hard even with the dlc. it didnt ruin the difficulty for me, just gave me more options for deeper strategies which is exactly what i wanted, plus both the bracelets feel so good to use.
Tiki and Edelgard are fine, although they do have significant power in chapters where you don't have access to rings (lorewise and gameplay).
i specifically stopped myself from using the DLC in maddening due to the stat boost they provide. In maddening everystat count. so yeah this made it a bit a tad bearable but you still need to optimize your team
I don't think it's the power of rings that make them op. Even if you got 2 dlc rings that are on par or even slightly weaker than main game rings, it is still a huge power boost that you have 2 more rings (especially in the mid game when you have few).
That plus tiki's paralogue is a Whole extra level to play that will earn you tons of exp
Tiki almost feels like cheating to me. I’ve mostly just been using her to make farming with Anna less tedious and I used her to help some weak units I wanted to use for their character play catch up to the rest of my army (like Framme).
The one thing it does do is make grinding 10 times easier, you can level your low level units up so fast and with great stats if you have edelgard, byelth and tiki. It's great cus you can't grind low level maps or at least I don't know how to.
it really does make maddening pretty easy. Especially with tikis starsphere
Don't use them if you don't like them. Easy peasy
I think the DLC makes it more fun, because Engage is a pretty challenging game. Not to mention that the paralogue to unlock Tiki is incredibly challenging.
Yeah getting tiki is hard as it is lol
Agreed. Fun is all that matters and whether or not they break the game is simply not a concern as long as the game isn't designed around people owning DLC.
I mean you can just not use them if you want but I think their there for fun really
the fact that you can even rewind at all makes this game easy. there's no strategy in just throwing shit at a wall and if it doesn't stick ill just back up and fix it
I'm not using any of the dlc stuff or skirmishes on my first playthrough (classic maddening). You're pretty clearly not intended to have access to emblems outside the ones the story provides you, I see them as a for-fun thing.
If it's fun to use i don't mind at all
I will say on Maddening Classic all the stages before you get Edelgard were easy. So not sure if the difficulty spikes up without the DLC at some point but overall I would say it's way easier than 3 houses just across the board. 3 Houses the difficulty was very front loaded and I am also not past the half way point of the game yet so both of those could be factors.
Also, on Hard you can solo the entire end game with just Yunaka and Corrin no Edelgard necessary.
I will say that 1 thing you can do the second you get Edelgard is give all of the units that you plan to keep using +20% XP just by spending some bond fragments and you should have more than enough. I think I had enough to do all of my characters but I only did the 5 that I planned to keep using as I got further and recruited new people to replace the others.
At first I wasn't that impressed by the weapons, it's just like getting 3 silver weapons early. However, then I realized that they're really light weapons which actually makes a big difference and if you put them on the right characters it opens up options that would've been restrictive for them previously such as being able to double with a "silver" weapon.
Oh boy you aren't ready for the last part of the game on maddening.
I found 3H maddening easy imo. (That's maybe because I played Lunatic) but I can def say this title is harder than 3H around the last 3rd of the game
I threw Tiki on Alear as soon as I got her and haven't looked back lol
I have my on Yunaka and it really is Yunaka Emblem
I have tiki to Jean so that he gets double the % boost at each level up
Despite purchasing the DLC I did my first run-through without it (except for just playing the tiki map for the sake of experiencing it). That is to say even if you purchased the DLC you can always just ignore it for the sake of a challenge, and if you want to use the DLC to build better units than go right ahead their's nothing wrong with that either.
Tbh despite engage being up there in terms of difficulty for FE games I'd love to see a higher difficulty released for the game in the future just like maddening for 3H
They make certain chapters that should be really hard a lot easier
Corrin!Alear exists in the base game so it’s fine imo. Does help a ton on Retreat though
Excited to see what the next dlc emblems will do to be more broken than edelgard
They add a lot more content bringing more fun and variety to the game and that's what matters and what people pay for. Play the game however you find it most fun. If you don't like them, don't use them. It's not like the Turnwheel mechanic in 3H where the game is designed around it. It's fine not using the DLC since the game isn't designed around them. It is simply not a concern whether they're broken or not.
you're the only person I've seen praised the 3H bracelet lol, it's pretty trash to me, after 40hrs of using it, the only use I get out of it is inheriting Lineage. everything else just feels super whatever.
Huh? Houses Unite is basically a guaranteed one shot on most strong enemies (including a boss health bar) and Raging Storm basically allows you to potentially kill two high value targets. Dimitri's shield also makes you tankier because you're guaranteed to not take damage from one ranged attack. Claude's poison is just ok but it's a free additional poison on a non dagger user with literally no drawbacks or conditions.
And Lineage (bonus 20% exp) is an extremely cheap skill you always have access to, you can get it on literally everyone and benefit from it if you wanted. At higher bond levels you also get three different weapon proficiencies for class changing.
Like it's funny how much lower damage Lucina's engage attack does in the vast majority of situations compared to 3H engage attack.
And it basically guarantees you have weapon triangle advantage against most melee so you can break most enemies due to combat arts.
And even beyond it's own merits, having DLC rings available when you don't have a full roster of them means your army is much stronger than it would be normally.
Like the difference between the 3H ring and Tiki ring is that the Tiki ring is extremely busted and the 3H ring is actually strong but balanced.
I'll do a separate comment just for Tiki, you're looking at Tiki completely wrong, Tiki is meant for tanking and survivability, the breaths are decent, but really you can ignore it completely. Lifesphere and Starsphere are the two main reasons why Tiki is busted.
Just don't use the dlc if it's too easy
Do you recommend Maddening or Hard on classic?
I'm loving the base engage maddening difficulty so far, feels a lot harder than 3H. Not touching the DLC until maybe my 4th or 5th playthrough because I know it'll make the game significantly easier
Something you forgot to mention, if tiki is adjacent to Marth when using revival stone she also refills health or refills engage meter or restores engaged turns depending if they’re synced or engaged
Hi Adam! Could you please make a guide about classes and class upgrades in this game? I had only played Three Houses before Engage and it’s quite different. Is there a reason for not upgrading a unit until they reach a certain level in a basic class? They don’t seem to keep the levels gained after upgrading and also require a second seal to get the class again. I suppose Engage’s system is more traditional and veteran players are used to it, but I bet there are many ThreeHouses-babies like me who would like to hear your recommendations. You also used to say “everyone can be good in TH” and now I think I get… if a unit falls off with the chapters, should I try to keep them trained or is it a waste of resources? Thanks!
Maybe I'm either bad at the game or I'm trying to level everyone equally but ever since they took all the rings, I'm kinda struggling, and I'm playing in normal difficulty.
Nah this is fair, I was on hard and went back to normal because it seemed like the units that have a "canon" ring were made with the intention of keeping that on them. My Alfred was completely useless until I got Sigurd back and Diamant only became capable of withstanding incoming attacks until I got to re-equip him with Roy.
Yes, fire emblem games are generally not designed for you to use everybody in one run. There simply isn't enough exp or deployment slots for it to be worth it unless you heavily in grind to outside of the main story (like in Awakening famously with DLC).
Having too many characters is how the game 1) allows people who get a lot of of people killed to finish the game and 2) encourages replaying the game
@@Dragonboy55564 I managed it in 3H (which was kinda my first FE game) since I only recruited like 6 extra people so the group managed to stay small. But in this game they keep giving you unit after unit every chapter, lol. And even grinding seems difficult as the skirmished seem to keep scaling so they will always be a few levels ahead of my team.
yeah unfortunately engage (and most fire emblem games) are just built that way so it isn't really your fault. you're kind of pushed to set a team up out of a select few and stick with them, benching your other units. its even worse since skirmishes are scaled to your highest units and not the map in question which is like what past games such as Awakening did. the rosters just too huge and the game progresses too rapidly to allow everyone to be levelled equally unfortunately so i would recommend taking some of your best units and focusing on training them up.
I'm not very good, so I started on normal/classic. I used Edelgard and Tiki for a while when I got them but ended up stopping because they feel too strong.
You're describing how it breaks the difficulty by just telling us what they can do, but completely missing the fact that rings are even more broken. In my experience in Maddening, the bracelets did not serve to raise the power ceiling of my overall army significantly and the bracelets had more drawbacks (Edelgard's Axe is terrible and the good skills force you to equip it, Tiki's Dragon Form locks you out of your main class options) that made them less desirable to use on my main units than the rings. All the bracelets do is provide you with more fun options that aren't necessarily stronger than what you're already given.
As someone without the dlc, I'm still chugging along the story on hard mode. Difficulty seems just right for me. Definitely struggling a little but making it through a bit at a time. Feels a lot like how I felt trying to get through Sacred Stones for the first time without letting anyone die.
Using bows when Edelgard is around? Ask Bernie how that worked out for her.
Well the Edelgard bracelet can give everyone lineage for pretty cheap and Tiki is just... Stupid strong. I got Tiki on Boucheron and he's got so much HP I don't think anything can take him down.
Also, with Edelgard you can give a 1.2 experience modifier to every unit for a few bond points and SP
i played my first playthrough without dlc simply because i didn't have the money yet to buy it and to me hard was chalenging enough while normal is really easy. so now that i have the dlc i wonder how i feel about i would say my skill in the game is good but not like amazing or anything like just a bit above average to average i think.
I love Edelgard. Tiki is adorable. Strong and fun rings. It's ok for maddening. I added some rules, like Tiki only on Anna and skipping the Dancer.
Well this aged like fine wine.
Being a fan of this channel sucks when you have poor hearing... And eyesight for subs lol
This is why Im not buying the DLC yet. I have the FEH weapons but the game is still difficult on maddening. Ill buy the DLC for 2nd playthrough.
I paid $30 for them, so I want them to be good. Although, I just finished chapter 11 and I feel like they kind of defeated the purpose of the chapter. I did try to avoid engaging with them until the end, at the very least.
I straight un equipped them lol. Hilariously tho I put the 3H one on yunaka, so I saw absolutely little to no difference from her production
Solo Queen Yunaka 🤣🤣
@@yukotrey9422 I put Tiki on Alear since I want her to actually be a manakete. But when they gave me Lucina, they just took Tiki off Alear, so I couldn't use her for the rest of the map.
I originally put Marth on Yunaka, but once I inherited some avoid skills from him, I just haven't bothered to put another ring on her since she's so good even without one.
I find that I’m hoarding my engage uses, I didn’t engage with Tiki or Edelgard whatsoever in chapter 11 , not sure I’d need to unless on Maddening
These rings are pretty busted. I think these + that silver card are a bit unfair, I've been trying to do a maddening run and I didn't buy the dlc because I found them incredibly scummy and I don't wish to support these businesses strategies. Not saying they're required, but I am saying it's be very hard finding guides for maddening runs that DON'T use dlc. You don't know how many guides became null cause integral steps involved needing something from this dlc.
For fairness I wanna say the Maddening mode wasn't balanced around them, but sometimes man... Sometimes.
The fact that the most units you can bring is 14 means that On-Field, as more dlc is released, they will have diminishing returns. It really depends on the skills that you can inherit from them out of combat that decides just how OP these become.
Tiki's level 1 bond skill(that is inheritable for 1500 sp) is absolutely busted on lower difficulties. Taking Jean High priest gives him(with personal and tiki skills) the growth rates of 65 hp, 35 str, 85 mag, 50 dex, 65 spd, 40 def, 95 res, 100 luck, and 20 bld. Making him an incredible anti mage and anti armor unit
Of course they are broken, they are meant to be broken, they are paid premium. Specially on the maps when you have few emblem rings.
I dont see the DLC as being op. Tiki turned my framme into a usable frontliner to transition her from the early game to the midgame and keep her relevant. The revival stones rarely mattered or got broken, so tiki was mainly useful for geosphere. I never used unite+ but on hard/classic i did not need it by that point in the game because i would have all of my units engage to 1 round the boss thanks to goddess dance, seadall, and good positioning (namely using Chloe with Lynn, Louis with Leif, yunaka with 3H, alear with lucina/marth, anna with byleth, throwing in some mages to soften up bosses like corrin’s hex on celine
Man I already feel like I've cheesed the game just with the Steel weapons I got for some reason. Not a very maddening maddening mode
Wild. I feel like forged silvers and effevctives are the only way to get good damage. And thats just on my juggernaut unit.
@@zate5355 Well I mean mostly that I got a whole set way for free way before they're available in game. I'm sure silver weapons are way better. Maybe that difficulty spike at chapter 10 will put me in my place 😅
I am hesitant to use the DLC in my upcoming iron man run but I never even used it for my first run so I can't really know how broken it is lol
My self-imposed criteria for Engage (and something similar for most FE games) is "no deaths, no dlc/online, no trials/skirmishes". DLC pretty much ruins the difficulty of every FE that has had it.
What about stuff like Hidden Truths and Heirs of Fate that only give you an item, class and one or two skills with preset units?
The rings themselves are less busted then the two key skills they let you inherit. Starsphere and lineage. Other than those skills tiki is pretty bad and only serves to allow weaker units to survive one enemy phase with the bulk added by the engage form. And the 3h ring is only really useful at bond 15 plus other than the Claude weapon art. Yes you get to keep them when the other emblems are gone, but what of it? They were gonna add more rings down the line so that was inevitable. Launch dlc or not adding new rings would always end up this way unless they made them intentionally garbage. By the end of the games life there will be like 6 plus extra rings. What are we supposed to complain every few months when this happens because ch11 won’t be spoopy anymore? Come on guys.
See, I can accept that for Edelgard. She's only really broken when Engaged, but so is every other ring to some degree.
Tiki though, is entirely busted. Starsphere makes units better, lightsphere increases survivability from crits, and some of the breath attacks are stupid. I made a unit a general and just sat him in front of an army of enemies, engaged and clicked Ice Breath. Hits 4 enemies on player phase, freezing all of them, provided they survive the half Def blast. And can still counter attack, so half of them just died attacking into him on Enemy phase. Then rinse Repeat. The only enemy it didn't work on was Zephia, and that was only because she couldn't be frozen.
Even ignoring that, Lifesphere is busted. In a game where money is a premium, you'll never need to waste a healing item on whoever is using Tiki's ring. Why bother? Just click wait and you can get 40 hp and heal status without even being engaged. Geosphere gives you up to +5 Def and Res to Tiki and adjacent allies, again, not limited by engage. For reference +5 is what Ike gives you (Resolve), but only to the equipped unit and only when below 75% hp. Tiki does it for up to 5 units, no cost, no restriction
Just start next to someone and boom, take less damage. That's up to a potential +50 in stats to your army at no cost. Absolutely disgusting.
And if you somehow still can't believe she's busted, let's just give an unit a revive stone that doesn't expire (unless you give someone else a stone before it procs), and throw in reduced damage from special weapons like breath attacks, and Hp/Luck +10 for good measure.
I don't even think it's necessarily a bad move to make DLC broken, but you can't deny Tiki is outright stupidly busted. The only thing she doesn't do is give every proficiency.
@@PhantomNull13 most of what you described your tank doing was already achievable without tiki and in fact I’ve done it without her. Ike ring alone let’s a general face tank entire hallways. Geosphere is also nice but requires you to be clumped for several turns to continue to get value often leading to the only beneficiary being the wearer and one other unit. And her inheritable skills are all stupidly expensive. Starsphere is 1500. You aren’t getting that without grinding or a late game pre promote that starts with that or more. The revival stone is nice but calling it busted is overblown when it’s an engage ability. Like the full on super move of the engage. Literally all of them have some crazy effect. It also won’t save you from getting one turned in enemy phase either so while strong it’s just another tool. And back to the prices. +10 hp luck is so wildly expensive you literally can’t ever get it unless in hard or lower and grinding. So why is it a factor? Like I said before the rings are strong but claiming their “disgusting” is hyperbolic. If these weren’t paid dlc no one would be discussing it. They would just be some more cool rings that do a thing.
@@SH1NK1R01 you don't necessarily need to inherit them onto every unit though. Geosphere isn't even that expensive (500 for regular, 1000 for +), and given to a few central units will massively increase your army's survivability.
LifeSphere is more expensive, but also completely eliminates the need for any kind of healing support. Even at base level, it's not only more health back than a vulenary, for free, but also heals any statuses such as Silence on Mages or accumulated poison on Generals. And at higher levels, it's an infinite elixir, and you don't even need to engage for it.
Maybe you don't need lifesphere++ on every unit, but given how low the HP on some of the mages can be, Lifesphere providing half health back for free is easily worth 1000 sp.
You also get the bonus of the breath attacks, such as freezing stronger enemies in place to safely advance your army or setting up fog to allow Yunaka to run wild in the middle of a room.
Finally, for divine blessing, I actually find it easier to use than a lot of engage attacks. With Lyn, for example, I have to decide whether to Astra Storm or use every possible turn to get insane chain attacks with doubles. For Ike, sometimes it's not ideal to just stand and let them attack you. For Corrin, sometimes your allies are in the line of fire, or Lucina is all on her own.
But for Tiki? Use it at the start, give it to somebody and forget about it until later. You don't even really need to think about it. Just find someone who tends to die alot (seadoll, for example) and give it to him turn one. If he dies, you're safe. If he doesn't, well, you weren't going to attack turn 1 anyway, so you effectively lose nothing. He doesn't lose it until it's used, and given tanks tend to take alot of hits, it's not like you'll only be able to engage at the start of combat, so if you need it later, do it later too.
And yes, I do feel like disgusting is a fair description. Every emblem is powerful in its own right, that's true. But Tiki makes it entirely possible to solo levels on Maddening. I literally put it on Jean, as a General, on Chapter 11, and he held back the entire top of the map long enough to escape. No other emblem in the game could've done that, under any circumstance. The only thing balanced about Tiki is that it'd be expensive to put them all on another character, but even one good unit with Tiki is worth 3 other Emblem Rings in my eyes.
@@PhantomNull13 I did that with Yunaka with no emblem. So again. It’s not a big deal. I agree it’s strong that’s not up for dispute but listing all the good things about the ring doesn’t prove it’s disgusting, it just proves it was worth it. Think of the alternative. Either no rings are ever added at all or they all suck. It’s not worth fussing over at all.
@@SH1NK1R01 oh, I'm not complaining. I like the fact that they're powerful, and I don't have any problem with them being a bit stronger than average. Tiki is, in my opinion, the strongest emblem in the game, largely due to how strong and, frankly generic, her abilities are. They have no downside, and every unit can fully utilize her abilities. That's why she's broken.
And given how well she's designed, I'd say Yunaka is just as broken as Tiki. Any forged knife is all she'll ever need. It is Yunaka Emblem Engage, after all.
I've been playing on hard and using edelgard but not Tiki. I felt like the game had a comfortable difficulty. But yeah as I get further and start playing these paralogs with like... all silver weapon enemies lol. Might need to start using her.
Just my two cents before watching the video. While I do think the DLC makes the game easier, I think the game itself is still pretty difficult.
It is difficult if anything the time Crystal makes it to easy lol
@@TheHipHopTrucka getting crit multiple times by 3 percent chances after missing my 90+ hitrate hits i really doubt the time crystal makes anything easier. It just makes the frustrating moments less frustrating, especially because this game is a bitch with Conquest Rn system.
@@darkgrundi9543 what do you mean lol you get 10 times to redo a fuck up or bad rng, that objectively makes it easier it’s not an argument, but yes maddening is definitely a bitch it’s fun that way you have to come up with real strategies to win
just more creating a problem to sell a solution, IntSys really losing it
the endless push of casual favoring leads to easy manipulation of sell them everything cause they won't care
game makes players feel powerful so they think its good but its just broken systems that a broad casual crowd won't mind by being so new in the fandom, lack of foresight this always ends the same, more sold outside the game than in it and more and more of the design sacrificed
Can u make a class guide vid??
does the silver card work with the forge? If so, yeah, it absolutely makes the game WAY easier for that alone
Silver card only works for the Item Shop and Armory. Unfortunately the Forge and Boutique don't get the discount.
(spoilers) when we lost all our emblem rings and only have lyn and lucina i was thank god we still have edelgard and tiki
Tiki and Edelgard rings are useful, but they ended up not on my main units. That makes me think they aren't as broken as they seem.
I really don't see how 2 completely over the top rings that you get throughout your whole run (even on chapter 11, where the whole purpose of the chapter is destroyed) is not considered busted.Basically in every single chapter in the game you have two broken tools more than you normally would have (5 even if all of them are released i think). In the early game you basically double your squads power. That's nuts.
Tikis map is ridiculous if you attempt it at the earliest possible time.
hey, hope you don’t mind me saying but maybe you should have more of an outline or script for your videos because the energy gives off the feeling you are unprepared/less knowledgeable on what you’re talking about.
It’s more fun but kinda feels like cheating so I’m doing two runs. with and without
Yes, it makes maddening mode easy. I started on Hard mode for the story and after chapter 16 i just started over on maddening because it got so easy once my units got buff it was boring.
nah
So don't buy the DLC - easy
I completely agree.
Girl I had to put the difficulty down to normal because I had to retry every other map about three times. Everytime I had an easy time with a map, the next one was difficult as fuck, especially once bosses start having two of those annoying revival stones. The game is actually very difficult in my opinion. I mean I like a challenge, but this was just plain frustrating (especially when I miss 70% crits and 89% hits, and then get crit at a 4% chance or don't dodge a 34% hit). Now that I turned the game back to normal instead of hard, I find the game is bit too easy, but it's still more enjoyable to me than hard lol
Then again, I do have trouble figuring out what ring would work best on which unit. Most rings are still with their initial wielder, only recently I have started switching up corrin and micaiah, putting corrin on zelkov and micaiah on Jean. I will also replace Lyn with Celica on Ivy when the time comes, because aside from speedtaker and the skill that turns you attack in a brave attack, there is not much there for Ivy due to her low strength and I can just inherit those skills. I do have to agree that the DLC bracelets are very strong. My Louis is unstoppable with Edelgard, but tbh I haven't found Tiki's niche. I put her grant def/res skill on louis cuz hes always on the frontlines so now he gets an extra buff and supports the other frontliners, and put Tiki on Seadall cuz he's always surrounding by other units and now he can grant extra boosts, along with the boost from special dance once i get it
Why retry a map when you have literally 10 uses of the time rewind mechanic?
Like if you're regularly using all 10 you probably should look again before you act because that should be enough to even brute force most mistakes.
The extra health bar can catch veterans off guard but it just means you need a lot more people (like probably 5+) prepared to fight the boss on the same turn turn, not just 1-2 like most FE games.
Also Tiki is a monster - she basically lets you tank and kill anything on any unit, like it's funny how busted she is when engaged. Putting it on your dancer feels like a waste.
Can we talk about how Tiki is both a bond and an emblem ring?
So are the house leaders
And I’m assuming Chrom will also eventually have both when he’s added.
But does Nintendo/IS care…?
No.
They should be ashamed for releasing this dlc. It is incredibly anti-consumer and I refuse to purchase it.
1. The content was 100% made during the development of the base game. When you buy it for MSRP, you are not getting all the work the devs created during this development period - you need to pay another $40 for it! 40 Dollars! That's 50% of the game's price in Canada! To add these rings, you would need artists and animators, programmers, voice actors, level designers, etc. to make them. They did not do this after the game went gold!
2. You cannot buy the future story content separately from the dlc. So if you don't want unbalance your game but want to play the story, you are forced to buy it anyway.
3. According to posts I've read, you cannot turn off the dlc features if you want to play a pure run of the game. They were too lazy to add an option to enable/disable it for 40 dollars?!? I shouldn't have to discard the stat boosters if I don't want to use them and ignore the Paralogues and not pick up the Silver Card (or however you get it).
4. The stat boosters, the silver card and the rings 100% make the game easier. These items don't need to cost money either - they probably hired an intern at minimum wage to add those in. This is Ubisoft levels of gross. Could they not restrain themselves to cosmetics at least???
5. The rings ruin the integrity and immersion of Chapter 10-11. Nobody can argue that this isn't the case. You're supposed to feel helpless and terrified you lost all of your broken abilities. But oh wait - you got an S-tier Tiki ring the enemy seemed to forget about! Imagine that! This is inexcusable.
I saw Mangs playing Chapter 10-11 and without the Tiki ring, he would have died in Chapter 11. It really aggrevated me that he wasn't punished for his misplays because nothing else other than that Ring would have saved him given the moves he made.
You can disable them throw out the stat enhancers and don't equip tiki or the 3 lords
@@Byakurenfan That's not an answer. For 40 dollars, you think it's not reasonable to have a Yes/No option at the start of the game to enable/disable dlc content, especially when it affects the balance of the game? Even if you don't equip the Tiki ring, the paralogue still gives you experience you should not have had.
I shouldn't have to work harder to ignore the dlc. People are paying 40 dollars for it. Ubisoft has trained you well. It reminds me of Assassin's Creed Odyssey where my character was level 70 and I was nowhere near upgrading the boat despite having beat the game and everything. Someone told me that if I bought the $15 material and booster pack, I would have had the resources. These companies have trained you guys well, I swear.
@@Katie-hb8iq just don't do the paralog.
@@Katie-hb8iq Just don't do the paralogue, just ignore the loot boxes, microtransactions are optional and offer more 'player choice', or they're 'just cosmetics'. Now where have we heard this song and dance before?
If even the most milk-toast critiques elicit corporate endorsed and reinforced justifications for such practices, then we're in trouble.
The game has infinite grinding in the form of skirmishes; even if they scale with your level, that doesn't matter. It has infinite level-gaining in the form of Second Seals, which become fully renewable in Chapter 16 or so. Difficulty is entirely within your control.
As for "40 Canadian Dollars for all this is scummy":
- it's a game expansion, with the nostalgia stuff thrown in first to sell it better. Let's see what else is added in the coming months, okay? 3H didn't get a significant fourth wave, but it's been a week for Engage.
- The Tiki Paralogue is actually difficult to even clear, let-alone get everything from, and Mangs said it was very well-made. Those whining about how it's an extra level that grants extra EXP have missed the point that it's optional. Extra content is extra content.
- Story-wise, the bracelets are extraneous and irrelevant to the bad guys, not being the rings that grant god powers if you have all twelve together. It's not like they can be stolen as easily as rings, anyway; someone would have certainly noticed Veyle trying to pull them off of their wrists.
- IS decided to give everyone 5,000-10,000G worth of gear for free a couple of hours after launch, they don't seem very set on keeping things difficult.
This isn't like Ubisoft selling EXP boosters to reach level-gated content in their Assassin's Creed games without grinding; you can still attempt the challenge here without spending money, or just turn down the difficulty.