(Corrections and additions pinned in this comment) hey all! Hope you found this guide helpful. If you did please leave a like to help boost this video in searches. Let me know in the comments below what your thoughts on this guide! And please subscribe if you haven't yet! Corrections below: Yes, Speed+'s description is Canter's, editing fumble :( I didn't add starsphere because I didn't even know it existed I don't have DLC I was just asking friends who had it LOL. I'M SORRY
why did you not talk about Starphere in the DLC skills? I have that skill on nearly every unit this playthrough around bc of more stats/better level ups ? Been getting it as early as possible so i'm suprised you didnt even mention it
@@Faerghast Oh okay, then here: Description of the skill ingame is "grants unit enhanced stat growth when leveling up." The skill can be aquired at level 5 (so 500 bond fragments) and costs 1.500 SP Its wasnt known how much it influences stat growth but people theorized that the state growth percentage is like a 10% to 20% growth rate boost. a reddit user named vincentasm did the math/testing on ~200 levelups and it is determined it to be a 15% increase
I would like to mention Micaiah's staff mastery. It increases healing amount but more importantly increases your staff accuracy with staves that target enemies. This is the ONLY way to increase your accuracy with offensive staves, your stats won't increase it. I recommend getting it for whoever you give the Micaiah ring to so they can hit their multi-target offensive staves like Freeze as you roll accuracy against each target.
@@ungabungus01 It's more accurate to what is intended by the Japanese term 最高動 ("move again" or "re-move"); cantering is something horses do to move, while canto is a type of singing. The only reason we have Canto in the English fandom is because of a weird Tellius translation fail. FE9 Reyson's singing skill was fittingly called Canto in English, and "move again" (最高動) in Japanese. These both fit. But in FE10 the same term 最高動 was changed to be the name of the mounted unit's move again skill, which was now visible to players for the first time in the series (aside from a FE7 tutorial window which did translate it as "move again"). Herons' ability got changed to "song" (呪歌謡い) which was translated to "galdrar," and their refresh song kept nearly the same term 再動 ("move again") which was translated as "vigor." But because it was the same Japanese term and translators often work without the context of what they're translating, the English cavalry "move again" skill became Canto despite that not making any sense, since that was how the prior translation handled that same word.
@@ungabungus01 there's a difference between canter and canto. Canto u use your remaining mov to reposition, while Canter is always 2 mov (3 with Canter+)
Staff Mastery is very underrated the extra heal is nice to save on users BUT staffs like freeze and entrap are so powerful on maddening that giving them reliability is big. Shout out to Hortensia.
I cannot understate how amazing Canter and Canter+ are to the point where they're kinda broken. I gave it to both Ivy and Chloé and they can pretty much hit and run just about anything and rush back to safe with reposition and Sedall with Canter as well. Broke pretty much the entire game but in a good way
I have canter+ on yunaka, along with its other uses, she can use to to reach terrain. And Canter also helps set up goddess dances, and pairs well with backup attacks too, and there’s essentially no unit that doesn’t benefit from it, especially because unlike actual canto, if you have short move, it doesn’t matter.
@@Stanley557 yeah, the only skill I feel that is as important as canter is duel assist. Cause it can be stacked and brave assist heroes do 20% of an enemy’s hp for free per hero, so with like 3 or 4 brave assist duel assist heroes theres a good chance that they can do like most of an enemy’s hp in damage before the combat really even begins, you can shred basically everything with them. Canter lets you be more flexible with your positioning, while duel assist lets you be more much more lenient with your positioning, while still being much more dangerous. but it only matters for backup units, so canter is definitely better on most units.
I'm honestly shocked they didn't limit canter to only horseback/Pegasus units, especially considering there are other skills that only work for a single unit type.
Yeah, I feel like the cost to inherent canter should have been at least 2000 essentially forcing people to have to get it down the line. It's certainly a fun skill and I can see things like no canter (other than Sigurd)/Lyn ring/DLC runs in the future if they ever get boring to watch. That is the beauty of this game. You can make it as easy or as hard as you want to with the inventory alone. Nothing is forced to use and there are always alternatives if you want ignore any of the mechanics that feel a little too broken.
Thank you so much for posting this, every FE game brings new mechanics and there can be so much to learn it is often overwhelming videos like these help a lot! Any future videos that get into the nitty gritty details of analyzing units, emblems, and mechanics are much appreciated!
I have Momentum on all of my mounted units and it's working wonders. Kind of expensive, but I found that a lot of my units just needed a bit more damage to one-round enemies, and Momentum gives just that
I find Alacrity pretty useful on Maddening since it allows my faster units to kill the enemy without having to take any damage, the enemy thunder mages can be quite a pain and they hit pretty hard too.
I feel like it’s super expensive and not many units are 9 speed above I imagine there’s a better version of this tho which makes it more viable in the endgame but rn I’m in mid game maddening and I feel like it’s way too expensive but what do you think about that
Pretty sure most of my units are more than 9 speed above thoron mages. Chloe makes very good use out of it. It's also extremely useful against Corrupted Wyrms and there's quite a few of them later on.
@@notcyfhr I think it is definitely more niche than anything listed but on the units who can use it, it is a great skill. Especially since it pairs PERFECTLY with Speedtaker.
Roy's Blazing Lion is so good. It basically puts up a 3x3 "quicksand" moat that hurts anyone inside for a turn. The damage is cool, but the fact that it blocks enemies from advancing through it quickly is a lifesaver!!
@@aninymouse1651 Corrins synchro skill on a mage or alear creates a 3x3 + 1 tile of fire, infinitely on demand. They really made the most recent protagonist rings + sigurd busted.
This was the surprise for me too. Sounds really really good! It's the only AOE damage skill in the game outside Sigurd. Also: Draconic Hex for Sigurd users! Though that's much more situational.
As a new player, I wasn't sure if one could justify spending on Canter when it's so expensive and Canter+ exists that's better. It's good to learn that the amount spent on canter actually contributes to canter+ so that you don't need to waste points. Also, new enough to not know that the higher level stuff is tied to late game. Glad I watched this vid.
Just a quick correction, Skirmishes aren't disabled on Madenning they are still present but very rarely show up. I'm sitting at chapter 18 and only have seen two.
@@mapmap7998 Sadly a lot of early characters fall off if you don't use them properly (Alfred for example) The Emblem Paralogues really help. I would suggest doing them to grind out some other units. I had to in order to get passed chapter 21 which was for me the hardest chapter thus far. But even the emblem paralogues are difficult.
@@Blood_Ronin Hey Matthew do you remember the 3 Skirmishes that showed up? Since level ups are predetermined in Madenning, I'm wondering if the Skirmishes are as well. My first Skirmish showed up in the cathedral stage(chapter 10 IIRC), it was a fog of war map against a gold corrupted boss. The second one is the map where you have to run away as Alear and it's against just wyvern riders with mostly Brave weapons.
Love this so much! Was literally thinking to myself what skills (other than Lineage) I needed/should use, and this helps me figure things out for the latter half of this current playthrough and my subsequent ones. Thanks a bunch!
Mentorship went straight on Alear as soon as I got Byleth, pairs nicely with his personal as I was already trying to get him next to everyone and sometimes it’s even required for kills
The strategy of using Corrin's Dragon Vein and Quality Time was something I didn't even think about for Support grinding. I usually just did it the usual way of standing and fighting next to the characters I want to build the support of. Thanks for the useful tip.
Huh, i haven’t gotten to that point in the game yet but I’m surprised lyns speed stat increases are so cheap compared to the other stat boosts. Yeah it definitely seems worthwhile
for those who like breaking FE games or being op in them, inheriting Starsphere from Tiki emblem and doing "retry from beginning of battle" in either non-training type skirmishes(best place to do so) to reset all rng including level ups is da best way to grind a unit on hard, even if its unoptimal to reach level 20(second seals is why since we have infinite levels like awakening. and the exp gain doesn't slow down if promoted at 10-12 at the earliest) granted this only works on normal&hard in Engage as skirmishes are more plenty there and its easier than maddening. training type skirmishes are very unoptimal for this cuz of end of battle exp in "training!" type skirmishes actually leveling you up. Starsphere's deff unoptimal for a first maddening playthrough since its literally useless due to forced fixed growths.but the Tiki Emblem itself is still very useful cuz dragon form and revival stone. but on random growths mode that unlocks after beating the game once, starsphere technically has its uses, but due to the lower skirmish rate and skirmishes being really hard, its not worth inheriting. so I find its best to use Tiki emblem on someone you want to make strong due to the innate Starsphere, and the best action is to not inherit Starsphere at all on maddening's random growths. Engage on maddening most deff has the "even if you max your stats you can still die" like Radiant Dawn's normal(hard) mode(for RD battle-save abuse for max stats actually makes the game harder than intended due to Dawn brigade vs Greil mercs, and you can still die cuz of it, which I love.) and also 3 houses. I've always liked RD for that reason, its legit one of the few FE games where maxing stats is both detrimental and also doesn't matter at all since your units can still die during the final parts of that game. 3 houses too where maxed stats on maddening technically doesn't matter since you can still lose units. interestingly Engage's maddening can be broken apart via avoid strats by funneling exp into Alear at the beginning so he gets marth bond 10. enemies won't attack or move on maddening if they have 0% hit against a unit. with corrin's pair up skill it prevents chain attacks entirely+free avoid terrain on thieves so you'd basically have free reign to solo the entire game with him or even Yunaka/Zelkov/Alcryst(due to Thief/Archers avoid bonus.) there's actually a video someone did on this too I'm deff curious about lots of crit builds and usage of Lyn's doubles alongside Leif's Vantage++ skill. its too bad some of these skills are so expensive with no way to gain the sp resource fast enough as Micaiah's great sacrifice method pretty slow yet one of the only options available. I deff wish we had an sp farm map since a lot of skills are so expensive, but all we can do is pray for a dlc grind map aside from using micaiah's great sacrifice farm/silver corrupteds
It's utterly insane just how varied the skills are in terms of cost/benefit. Roy in particular is atrocious. 500 SP for Str +1, 1000SP for Str +2, 6000SP For Str +6, 1000 SP for Sword attack Power 1, +2 attack and -10 avo with a sword (which is strictly wosre than Str+2 unless you're using a Levin Sword.) Lyn can give Speed+1 for 100SP, Speed+4 for 1000, and Speed +5 for 2000. I'd consider speed to be roughly as good as strength (depending on character.) Ike can get you up to Defense +5 for 2000SP, which is on the right unit, the most useful stat. As incredibly well designed as the gameplay is in Engage, there are a few areas which really stick out as not well designed. The skill inheritence system really sticks out as a way to punish players that just pick what sounds good without bargain hunting. When I went over the skills after my first playthrough planning for future ones, I came to mostly the same conclusions as the video. I noted some others that I think are a very good idea for some specific characters and builds, Dodge +10 for Ivy so she doesn't get critted, and Pair Up for tanky units to avoid being taken down by chan attacks for example. But I think the video got all the skills that are going to be good on over half the cast.
Honestly dodge really doesn't seem like a worthwhile investment; yes enemies can crit and if the character has high natural avoid rate it may be okay, but on Hard I rarely see crits. You may just need to focus down enemies carrying Killer weapons.
@@majnuker I'll agree with you in almost all cases. But if you've got a character with luck so low, enemies wielding regular weapons routinely have a 3-7% chance to crit them, it's just a matter of time before it happens. Ivy starts with 4 luck. She's an absolute beast of a unit, best in the game I'd argue. But any enemy with 10+ skill will be able to crit her. You can shrug it off with time crystals if that's your thing, but a simple Dodge+10 will patch up that Achilles heel and keep her crit immune from enemies under 30 skill wielding normal weapons, even if she doesn't gain a single point of luck. Rosado starts at 8 luck, but that went up fast enough that he could get by crit free. I don't think there are any other characters worth using most of the game that would really benefit.
With the Three Houses lords DLC bracelet, packed lunch refilling is insanely good. With combat arts you can burn thru engage turns to quickly get another special move. Raging Storm combat art allows you to act again while using 3 engage turns and houses Unite let’s you move again after the attack if next to Byleth. I’ve found them to have significant impact in the battle when one unit can do so much alone.
I've found a good mix being a soft stat of some kind and one of the focus skills/precision skills for the weapon that character is using. It's cheap and good all round, and you don't need to invest much bond to unlock them. Helps to elevate nearly every character effectively and has no risk (such as using an emblem and not being able to stack bonuses). Especially after a -certain- point in the midgame. Glad you mention Lineage as well; I got it on every character until about chapter 20. In terms of raw stat skills: Defense and Dexterity have been the most useful for me. Criticals, avoidance, and reduced damage. Yes, Resistance is a concern, but there are fewer mages than everything else on each map and mages are squishy and good positioning can eliminate them as a threat. One good attack from nearly any weapon (outside tomes) is usually enough to oneshot them. (Though I am running an anti-mage dexterity/resistance build on Ivy for dealing with mages). One of the paralogues in particular has a ton of them. Avoid is another skill that's useful on everyone except for tanks and there's a (non-spoiler) VERY good reason to get it early in the game. Avoiding attacks is easier early game, and key for maddening runs. You'll run out of heal options/positioning options very quickly. For one-off skills, here's a few that I think are fantastic: Pair up - pretty much a requirement on tanks, it removes chain attacks as a threat. Marth's paralogue is a nightmare without it. Resolve - This combos well with Unyielding and Hold Out, which you mention at the end of the video. The three combined make you much more tough to kill than at first glance. But by itself, it's a fantastic defensive skill as it triggers at 75% hp and gives you +5 to both Defense AND Resistance. It's just really strong for what it is. Dual Strike - This lets any unit act like a backup unit, so if you want to run a chain gang, bring this along for guaranteed chip damage. Bonus points for using Lyn on top of this; you can easily hit 10+ chain attacks this way. Momentum - This is really good on flying units or horsemen as they can cover a lot of ground. Break defenses - Some characters have multiple weapon types they can use, and can even get full coverage. Break defenses ensures an extra attack for these characters.
I defaulted on my first play through to just give all my units canter, my staff users healing light, and my other units quality time. on units who already had these skills, we invested in speedtaker for last skill. it made things easier so I didn't have to think too hard about individual skills while learning the game, and gave my team great movement and survivability throughout the run.
If you've got the DLC expansion, then getting Tiki ASAP and grinding out her Starsphere skill for 1500 SP. Getting a decent boost to all possible stat growth early on is ungodly helpful. On average each unit equipped with the skill gets no less then 4 stat ups per level and usually get 6 or 7 each level.
Since I’m just going normal casual I just went with stuff related to movement like Canter, Advance and Repo. But I say Duel assist is probably a must have on IF your have a Warrior as they can use bows as a backup unlike others so their range with Duel assist is crazy. And supports I admit don’t bother with other than my favs bc I could look those up on RUclips
I remember using Ike's skill that gave you increased resistances under 75% hp along with Tiki. It made for some nearly unkillable characters, Also Tiki's Geo on a martial character with Lucina to protect everyone around them while buffing them for next round.
I’d like to share my main pet project which is making enemy phase viable. I am running Diamant with Lief, and I currently have Mentorship and Resolve on him, but I plan to give him Wrath over mentorship. The whole idea is that Wrath, Vantage from Lief, and Resolve all get activated from taking damage. All three together gives him first hit on enemy phase, +5 def/Res, and increased crit. Combine this with his personal class skill Sol, and he can remain at good health. Now further add in Engage mode and he gets Adaptable to almost always have the most effective weapon type, arms shield always active for 7 true damage reduction, and since he’s a backup, another +10 crit. The idea is to be an absolute monster when below 75% health with drastically improved survivability, and Sol which may see anti synergistic, but I think it makes the set far safer than this being run in anyone else.
Try running Lyn with a Lucina/chain guard character to swap in for the archer and protect the dopples. Suddenly, you have an insane aggro squad that's well defended. You can even use Rescue; send the archer into a chokepoint, pull them back, then chain guard/Bonded Shield in the center.
@@majnuker so I have used a similar version of this strat on chapter 17. I have Lyn in Kagetsu and his speed is ungodly. Since Avo is based on the speed stat, he can dodge tank to great effect, and that extends to his doubles. So I used his doubles to body block and they got multiple enemy phase kills
@@tristanbowles7258 That's hilarious I had no idea the avoidance rate transfers to the dopples haha. Another thing to note is that they chain attack from any distance, so you can dopple up a corner somewhere and now you have 4x chains for a few turns. Again, you can rescue the character who summoned them to quickly get them back in position, then maybe Seadall dance them for immediate benefit.
Favorite food is hilarious when used with Bunet passive skill. He has a lck% to duplicate a packed launch he eat. Add to Favorite food and he will constantly have his engage meter up
One skill not mentioned that I found very useful was Momentum off of Sigurd. All of my combat units had it and I don't know how many times I was short just 1 or 2 points of damage to kill something and by moving just slightly farther to attack got me the kill.
The bond ring effect that lets you double with thunders and canto+ speed taker sounds like a disgusting combo. And with Sigurd and bond ring exploits you can have all 3 for the price of one.
You dont need speedtaker, your always doubling anyway then. Ofcourse your avoid will still raise. But there are better combos, it is actually a counter combo. Agree with canter though.
I haven't considered corrin mechanic for support grinding and since I was looking for a fast way to grind supports before the final chapter I'll definitely give this a shot for all the unit I had to bench
I’d argue Marth’s Break Defense skill could be useful on someone with Leif equipped, since that way you can just demolish people you have weapon triangle advantage against, and Adaptable ensures you’re never at a disadvantage.
only watching this now when ive almost finished the game, so im not gonna benefit from this too much right now but turns out I had the right idea anyway with the skills i ended up inheriting. I used most of the skills you mentioned and CONSIDERED using most of the other skills so I think ive done well enough
Great guide, I'll keep it in mind when I get those Emblems! Up until now (I'm still relatively early in the game) I've been saving for Canter because yeah, it's just that good.
lol learned a lot here, but most importantly I didn't know you can buy lower grade versions first (+1/2 speed etc.) and then the higher version is discounted. Some of my units still don't have Canter because I felt like I can save up for Canter+. Now I'll get Canter and upgrade when I can.
Canter normal version might be completely fine by itself. You could blow the 1000 SP saved from skipping canter+ on another good skill. Paying another 1000 SP just to upgrade canter from 2 spaces to 3 might not be necessary
I did not know this untill halfway in maddening, after finishing hard. So, haha. There are a lot of important things that arent that clear. Another important one, use dogs in your farm, they give metals.
@@timm8998 yeah, funnily enough I wanted to stay spoiler free for quite some time and therefore avoided content on this game. In one engage video title I saw "dogs" before I removed the video. It was enough for me to raise my own little dog farm.
i think we need to talk about the "normal rings" skills, for example the claude skill for alcryst is insane, he's basically shooting from narnia with a long bow
I think Avoid+ should really really be on here. Yeah, it's mentioned as a combo with Pair Up, but it's still extremely good throughout the entire game as a stand-alone skill. -Weapon triangle doesn't really affect hit/avoid in this game. This means you won't really have to worry about getting guaranteed hits from weapon triangle disadvantage, and furthermore, avoiding the attack prevents you from being broken which really helps for enemy phase. -It's available at the earliest possible time, so you'll get great value out of picking it up early. It does benefit a lot from combining with Pair Up, but that only really matters in late game where the game actually throws a lot of Backup type enemies at you. -I don't really like the argument that because someone else did something well, that everyone else should follow suit, but it does deserve mention that a Maddening Alear Solo run was busted completely open thanks to this skill specifically.
Corrin's Quality Time and Byleth Mentorship are my go to confy setup when the unit doesn't need anything else. Mentorship will eventually make the effect of Stat+ sooner or later, Quality Time heals chips damage that some units are bound to take (like Diamant with his personal skill) and building relation is tedious without that. Both skills are cheap and come kinda early, and you only need lvl 5 with the emblem, so fighting the Emblem for it in the Arena is only one round, which matters if you want something on (more or less) all your characters
Honestly, I've just been putting Starsphere on almost everyone. SP grinding to create the truly powerful combinations is very time consuming, but having units with all-around better stats and the right emblems for their roles seems extremely viable given how powerful individual emblems can be on their own.
I played the game relatively casually but I would personally recommend getting Avoid+10 from Marth kind of early for some units can practically become untouchable (Lapis) But also keep in mind of my comment I mean casually a bit literally. But I plan on eventually doing a more difficult playthrough of the game at some point later.
Oh my god, thank you for this! I've been so torn as to whether or not some of the skills I was investing in were worth it or not. I knew Canter and Reposition were good, but I wanted to make sure I wasn't wasting my time with the rest.
I think Alacrity should be on this list. Any fast unit can really benefit from striking twice before the enemy counter attack. I think the impact of that is reduced a little bit by Break with weapon triangle advantage. But it can still be really beneficial if you're attacking with weapon triangle disadvantage or even weapon triangle neutral.
The amount of dragons reduced to nothing by an errant Diamant is staggering.. Marth and Lucina could learn a thing or two from Diamand and his trusty Wyrmslayer. :D (Andf Lyn in his backpack)
You need to kill 5 units on player phase to get the full benefit though. Some maps will be over when you get it unless you use a dancer. I'd rather have +5 speed all the time. Good for doubling bosses, though.
I had a lot of success going avoid+ on alear and getting sigurd's enchant on their weapon to have pretty nuts evade quite early. I'd be able to throw them to a side and distract all the enemies if I needed some pressure relief.
I am a big fan of Lyn's Alacrity, base version is 1000SP, but being able to attack twice before a slower opponent is amazing. It is even better if you combine it with the speed+ skills, or Speedtaker. Although speedtaker will set you back 2000 SP
Agreed. Everyone is using Corrin and Yunaka, but Yunaka+Lyn is a wild combo. Great for finishing off bosses and mage killing. Much better for player phase too.
I think Leif's +Build is a great early game boost. I agree, Lyn's +speed is better in the long term, especially since BLD has a chance to increase at level up unlike in FE games of past, but keep in mind - you get Leif a few chapters earlier than lyn and you likely want to have a character like Chloe up her ranks with Leif for new weapon proficiencies anyways. I think the +Build is a natural for her and other characters with her build deficiency early on, to wield javelins and other weapon types such as axes or swords without taking the speed hit.
Wait, BLD can increase on LvLups? What about on Maddening with Fixed growths? I swear I haven't seen it level up but I'm not certain. My units are around level 10-12 just getting promoted. when I replay on hard I'm def gonna endlessly reset until I get level ups in that if it's true lol
@@omgstopturd6566 I don't know all the mechanics behind it, but yes units can have an increase in BLD on very rare occasions. I haven't played on Maddening yet - I did a quick blast through normal (and didn't really understand skills until pastt he halfway point.....so I didn't see Leif's +BLD skills until I had Lyn and everyone didn't need it anymore. Oops!) and I'm working through hard now.
@@1mealer Agreed. It'd be different if it was only an *attack* speed penalty, but since it is a speed stat hit, you can get the +4 BLD at bond level 6, while Lyn needs her paralogue completed to get the equivalent in speed at bond 16. But the cost in SP is the same so for a character like Louis you might as well just shoot for the +Speed for the long term.
@@omgstopturd6566 Serenes Forest has the full character/class growth charts, but the TL;DR is that BLD is a stat like any other, it just has a really low growth rate. Most characters have 0-5% BLD growth and most classes have 0-5% growth, so at max you can usually just get a 10% chance to get BLD. On Maddening, since stat growths are fixed, this would mean that you'd get 1 BLD every 10 levels. Jean, however, breaks the synergy because his personal skill Expertise doubles class growths. Berserker is one of the few classes with a 10% BLD growth, so since Jean has a 5% personal growth he'll have a 25% BLD growth if you make him a Berserker (he also gets a 110% health growth and an 80% strength growth). If you plan to use Jean extensively and you can spare the funds for a Second Seal it's not a bad idea to make him a Berserker for 5-10 levels. Most other characters, however, will only level BLD once in a blue moon if they ever level it at all.
Divine pulse gives more effective hit rate than hit +15 and is way cheaper even with 0 luck. Hit rate is 60%. Hit +15 takes it to 75%. Divine pulse+ with 0 luck. Means on the 40% to miss there is a 50% to hit. So a 20% chance of failure resulting in hit rate of 80. Hit +15 is only better if it takes you to a 100% or really high rate of hit but it costs 2 times as much
Interesting point to bring up! Fun fact though. This game uses Fates hit RNG so 75% is actually 85%. But that isn't considering that unless "high luck" means something besides "luck stat" you would only need 6 luck to fill the gap. Which is doable obviously lol. I never considered that DP+ is the cheaper and more reliable option if you have a shaky rate in that range. I guess you're just trading availability at that point.
Draconic Hex and Echo, especially on Ivy is a rather nasty combo I've found as well. Didn't know about Draconic Hex with Roy though, that one seems real cool
The arena is helluva useful for skill inheritance, more so if you want someone to inherit "X" skills but don't want them to have the Emblem equipped for a good while. Just purchase the level you want unlocked with the unit that needs the skill in Arena and they should get access to it even if they fail horribly vs the Emblem in combat (don't forget Lv5 bond is the minimum for anyone if they wanna inherit stuff tho!)
Best Skill Combinations Perceptive and Speedtaker (Gaining more speed) Unyielding and Solar Brace (Restoring Health) Break Defenses and Momentum (For Strength) Arms Shield and Gentility (For Defense) Quality Time and Lost & Found (Gaining more supports) Mentorship and Lineage (Leveling up fast)
10:52 I just want to add that Dual Assist from Lucina actually works on all class types and not just Backup. My Alear is a Griffin Knight, and he's been able to trigger Dual Assist with Lucina on him. And also, I gave Lucina to Seadall (Qi Adept) and he was able to trigger Dual Assist as well.
with the lower movement all the movement skills are just really desirable now, more so than if we still had 8 mov mounts. but man I do wish we didn't need QoL skills like quality time. what's next? A DLC that comes with Emblem Anna for gold drops every map? I think in the long run of grinding for SP though dual assist is going to be really desirable for whenever we get that last DLC. the extra chip damage is very valuable and can save lives.
Ghast it would be super helpful if you could publish a video or short with some best ways to get SP. I find that there are lots of skills I want to inherit and not enough SP to do it most of the time
Its kinda expensive for 2000 Sp but if you put Pair up on a general they basically will never be killed besides from magic attacks i used it on Louis and it does wonders
i pretty much went for assist boost on every backup. and canter on most melee fighter. When each attack triggers 3+ assists, the battles get a lot easier! :)
Arms shield cuts damage on Qi Adepts by Tomes, Bows AND Knives bro. It’s really good on them as those are the main enemies gunning for your dancer/squishies most of the time.
You don't get a packed lunch if you fall at cooking, like if you try to make something the people like but that the cook is bad at. I think this cuts into the ability that gives you engage refill a bit because you won't always have a box lunch at hand.
6:07 Does anybody know what bonuses support gives in combat ? I've had units with supports fight near eachother like in the GBA/Tellius games but haven't noticed an impact in combat such as more hit/avoid/dmg ect. I'm hoping they didn't remove support bonuses for Engage and I just haven't noticed when it's in effect.
They have to be directly adjacent to one another to give each other their support bonus. Every character falls into one of 5 types of support they give, Balanced, Hit, Critical, Avoid, or Dodge type. For example Framme is a Hit type support and Clanne is a Critical type support. When standing next to them Framme gives her A support partners +20 Hit and +5 avoid whereas Clanne will give his A support partners +10 Hit, +6 Crit, and +5 Dodge.
Surprised you didn't add Hold out. (Not cheap by any means) but it can really save units, espcially if they are rocking the Erika ring with self healing
Combo favorite food with Micaiah engage skill to use great sacrifice twice in a battle for an easy full heal on the team or an easy way to get more XP on weaker units
For me the best combination for any character is: Starsphere Lifesphere++ From here you can pick any skill to replace starsphere when you reach stats cap
I really hope that they add New Game+ sometime because I'd totally be down to play the game on Maddening if I didn't have to do all of the grinding for support ranks and skill inheritance all over again
I hope NG+ gets added since makes 100% the game easier since youre not grinding as much. As has been the fate of my 6th run of 3Hopes (430 achievements completed, 20 to go)
Yeah I'm hoping it lets you keep your S rank rings, bond levels and inherited skills. Paralogues would still need to be completed to get back the higher bond levels though
Great video Ghast, I hadn’t thought of doing the support grinding method you showed off. I do hope in the next dlc wave they add a good and exp map to help with grinding as well as better ways to get supports between everyone who isn’t Alear. In the meantime do you have any tips on how to get more gold? Besides Anna’s skill and gold skirmishes I have no idea.
Pannette+Hector with Wrath and vantage++ combined with her blood fury a +5 tomahawk engraved with ike on a storm eye turn is beautifully disgusting and by far my favorite combo in the entire game
So I beat the game on Maddening and I put build +3 on everyone,and everyone with 3+ range attacks I gave draconic hex especially on your Celica unit with echo, since the games final maps like to try multiple units at you from all sides to force you to kill the boss quickly being able to drop the stats of people nearby you aren't able to finish off because some of the bosses really do require your hardest hitters focused, build 3 enabled my hard hitters to double more often with silver weapons I made lighter and it almost felt too easy,not as easy as three houses but I didn't have to reset at all for the last few maps
Yeah this game definitely makes you work for this stuff, SP, Fragments and Gold, its like they don't expect you to get everything on your first playthrough, I haven't beaten the game yet but I would assume new game plus (if there is a new game plus) will keep things such as your donations and emblem bond rings, I would hope it would also keep the skills you inherited. Part of me is hoping future updates will fix this issue such as designated maps that give a lot of SP, Exp, and Gold and not just one or two gold corrupted that gives chump change. I know 3 houses didn't exactly have exp or gold maps but enemies dropped bullions that you can sell for money.
I have just learned that Break Defenses with a brave weapon gives you both hits of that brave weapon, so you can basically get a free full hit instead of a half
Stack speed from Lyn and build from Leif on Timera to make a speedy, speedy girl who can double almost anyone. Sigurd gives her the much needed canto anyways.
odd that you would mention the tiki skills without mentioning the one that gives 15% to all growths. I would actually argue if you are choosing between build and spd, you should just go star sphere instead and get both, since most classes and even units dont get innate build growth
I just finished my first playthrough yesterday and Mentorship was my cheese strat. I unlocked it for everyone and by the end of the game enemies could barely touch any of my units even though I avoided all skirmishes. I've started a Maddening playthrough now so maybe it will be less effective there.
(Corrections and additions pinned in this comment)
hey all! Hope you found this guide helpful. If you did please leave a like to help boost this video in searches. Let me know in the comments below what your thoughts on this guide! And please subscribe if you haven't yet! Corrections below:
Yes, Speed+'s description is Canter's, editing fumble :(
I didn't add starsphere because I didn't even know it existed I don't have DLC I was just asking friends who had it LOL.
I'M SORRY
why did you not talk about Starphere in the DLC skills? I have that skill on nearly every unit this playthrough around bc of more stats/better level ups ? Been getting it as early as possible so i'm suprised you didnt even mention it
Must have missed it. I don't have DLC.
@@Faerghast Oh okay, then here:
Description of the skill ingame is "grants unit enhanced stat growth when leveling up."
The skill can be aquired at level 5 (so 500 bond fragments) and costs 1.500 SP
Its wasnt known how much it influences stat growth but people theorized that the state growth percentage is like a 10% to 20% growth rate boost.
a reddit user named vincentasm did the math/testing on ~200 levelups and it is determined it to be a 15% increase
Hey editing note. Speed description has canter's
@@Jamstaro1 LOL oops
I would like to mention Micaiah's staff mastery. It increases healing amount but more importantly increases your staff accuracy with staves that target enemies. This is the ONLY way to increase your accuracy with offensive staves, your stats won't increase it. I recommend getting it for whoever you give the Micaiah ring to so they can hit their multi-target offensive staves like Freeze as you roll accuracy against each target.
Divine Pulse can turn staff misses into hits.
@@samkeiser9776 divine pulse is lame
@@alosha4321 the ability
@@alosha4321 I never miss when I have it though so you're wrong.
@@alosha4321 the byleth emblem ring skill, not the turn wheel
I'm so glad you put canter on here first. It is so useful on literally every unit.
As usual movement is king in squad strategy games
Especially with abusing Alear's personal skill.
It angers me they named it canter and not canto
@@ungabungus01 It's more accurate to what is intended by the Japanese term 最高動 ("move again" or "re-move"); cantering is something horses do to move, while canto is a type of singing.
The only reason we have Canto in the English fandom is because of a weird Tellius translation fail. FE9 Reyson's singing skill was fittingly called Canto in English, and "move again" (最高動) in Japanese. These both fit. But in FE10 the same term 最高動 was changed to be the name of the mounted unit's move again skill, which was now visible to players for the first time in the series (aside from a FE7 tutorial window which did translate it as "move again"). Herons' ability got changed to "song" (呪歌謡い) which was translated to "galdrar," and their refresh song kept nearly the same term 再動 ("move again") which was translated as "vigor."
But because it was the same Japanese term and translators often work without the context of what they're translating, the English cavalry "move again" skill became Canto despite that not making any sense, since that was how the prior translation handled that same word.
@@ungabungus01 there's a difference between canter and canto. Canto u use your remaining mov to reposition, while Canter is always 2 mov (3 with Canter+)
Staff Mastery is very underrated the extra heal is nice to save on users BUT staffs like freeze and entrap are so powerful on maddening that giving them reliability is big. Shout out to Hortensia.
I can't stand Hortensia but that personal skill is really good.
Diamant and Ike are quickly becoming my favorite combo because of you pump up Diamant’s dex, Sol and Ike make him so hard to kill
Inherit Hold out from Roy for potential immortality as well.
yep he is my tank after i found out smash weapons can break armored, and i pumped him with some res and he is a god of war lol
what is dex use for ? does it increase damage ? sorry i'm newbie
his dex caps at 23 in his prf class, so you really need to boost him with an engraved weapon
@@mapmap7998 It affects hit and crit rate as well as used for the activation rate of some skills
I cannot understate how amazing Canter and Canter+ are to the point where they're kinda broken. I gave it to both Ivy and Chloé and they can pretty much hit and run just about anything and rush back to safe with reposition and Sedall with Canter as well. Broke pretty much the entire game but in a good way
I have canter+ on yunaka, along with its other uses, she can use to to reach terrain.
And Canter also helps set up goddess dances, and pairs well with backup attacks too, and there’s essentially no unit that doesn’t benefit from it, especially because unlike actual canto, if you have short move, it doesn’t matter.
@@samkeiser9776 yeah, it got to the point where once I got Sigurd back it was a cafeteria line to give the rest of my units canter
@@Stanley557 yeah, the only skill I feel that is as important as canter is duel assist. Cause it can be stacked and brave assist heroes do 20% of an enemy’s hp for free per hero, so with like 3 or 4 brave assist duel assist heroes theres a good chance that they can do like most of an enemy’s hp in damage before the combat really even begins, you can shred basically everything with them. Canter lets you be more flexible with your positioning, while duel assist lets you be more much more lenient with your positioning, while still being much more dangerous. but it only matters for backup units, so canter is definitely better on most units.
I'm honestly shocked they didn't limit canter to only horseback/Pegasus units, especially considering there are other skills that only work for a single unit type.
Yeah, I feel like the cost to inherent canter should have been at least 2000 essentially forcing people to have to get it down the line. It's certainly a fun skill and I can see things like no canter (other than Sigurd)/Lyn ring/DLC runs in the future if they ever get boring to watch. That is the beauty of this game. You can make it as easy or as hard as you want to with the inventory alone. Nothing is forced to use and there are always alternatives if you want ignore any of the mechanics that feel a little too broken.
Thank you so much for posting this, every FE game brings new mechanics and there can be so much to learn it is often overwhelming videos like these help a lot! Any future videos that get into the nitty gritty details of analyzing units, emblems, and mechanics are much appreciated!
Thanks for adding time chapters on your video!
Canter + Quality Time on almost all my units ... so easy to heal up everyone.
I have Momentum on all of my mounted units and it's working wonders. Kind of expensive, but I found that a lot of my units just needed a bit more damage to one-round enemies, and Momentum gives just that
I find Alacrity pretty useful on Maddening since it allows my faster units to kill the enemy without having to take any damage, the enemy thunder mages can be quite a pain and they hit pretty hard too.
I feel like it’s super expensive and not many units are 9 speed above I imagine there’s a better version of this tho which makes it more viable in the endgame but rn I’m in mid game maddening and I feel like it’s way too expensive but what do you think about that
Pretty sure most of my units are more than 9 speed above thoron mages. Chloe makes very good use out of it. It's also extremely useful against Corrupted Wyrms and there's quite a few of them later on.
@@laprayprey well if you got room for it mine as well it is a good skill
@@notcyfhr I think it is definitely more niche than anything listed but on the units who can use it, it is a great skill. Especially since it pairs PERFECTLY with Speedtaker.
I like your arguments for Reposition and that Quality Time strat for support is busted, thanks Ghast!
I gotchu bro
I didn't even think of draconic hex + roy's blazing lion. I can see the use for that in so many maps
Roy's Blazing Lion is so good. It basically puts up a 3x3 "quicksand" moat that hurts anyone inside for a turn. The damage is cool, but the fact that it blocks enemies from advancing through it quickly is a lifesaver!!
Pretty much what I did with Goldmary.
@@aninymouse1651 Corrins synchro skill on a mage or alear creates a 3x3 + 1 tile of fire, infinitely on demand. They really made the most recent protagonist rings + sigurd busted.
This was the surprise for me too. Sounds really really good! It's the only AOE damage skill in the game outside Sigurd.
Also: Draconic Hex for Sigurd users! Though that's much more situational.
As a new player, I wasn't sure if one could justify spending on Canter when it's so expensive and Canter+ exists that's better. It's good to learn that the amount spent on canter actually contributes to canter+ so that you don't need to waste points. Also, new enough to not know that the higher level stuff is tied to late game. Glad I watched this vid.
Just a quick correction, Skirmishes aren't disabled on Madenning they are still present but very rarely show up. I'm sitting at chapter 18 and only have seen two.
I think the skirmishes are like the invasion maps in conquest, where there is a limited amount per playthrough.
I'm on chapter 22. I had 3 in total so far on maddening
wow, guess we need to decide best 12 char beforehand. otherwise the exp just wasted
@@mapmap7998 Sadly a lot of early characters fall off if you don't use them properly (Alfred for example) The Emblem Paralogues really help. I would suggest doing them to grind out some other units. I had to in order to get passed chapter 21 which was for me the hardest chapter thus far. But even the emblem paralogues are difficult.
@@Blood_Ronin Hey Matthew do you remember the 3 Skirmishes that showed up? Since level ups are predetermined in Madenning, I'm wondering if the Skirmishes are as well.
My first Skirmish showed up in the cathedral stage(chapter 10 IIRC), it was a fog of war map against a gold corrupted boss.
The second one is the map where you have to run away as Alear and it's against just wyvern riders with mostly Brave weapons.
Love this so much! Was literally thinking to myself what skills (other than Lineage) I needed/should use, and this helps me figure things out for the latter half of this current playthrough and my subsequent ones. Thanks a bunch!
This is SPOOKY! I looked at your channel like... 6 mintues ago thinking, "I bet Ghast will have something out soon..." 5 minutes later...
This part of the game is so confusing for a new player like me. Certainly on classic hard. Thanks for explaining
Mentorship went straight on Alear as soon as I got Byleth, pairs nicely with his personal as I was already trying to get him next to everyone and sometimes it’s even required for kills
The strategy of using Corrin's Dragon Vein and Quality Time was something I didn't even think about for Support grinding. I usually just did it the usual way of standing and fighting next to the characters I want to build the support of. Thanks for the useful tip.
Huh, i haven’t gotten to that point in the game yet but I’m surprised lyns speed stat increases are so cheap compared to the other stat boosts. Yeah it definitely seems worthwhile
for those who like breaking FE games or being op in them, inheriting Starsphere from Tiki emblem and doing "retry from beginning of battle" in either non-training type skirmishes(best place to do so) to reset all rng including level ups is da best way to grind a unit on hard, even if its unoptimal to reach level 20(second seals is why since we have infinite levels like awakening. and the exp gain doesn't slow down if promoted at 10-12 at the earliest)
granted this only works on normal&hard in Engage as skirmishes are more plenty there and its easier than maddening. training type skirmishes are very unoptimal for this cuz of end of battle exp in "training!" type skirmishes actually leveling you up.
Starsphere's deff unoptimal for a first maddening playthrough since its literally useless due to forced fixed growths.but the Tiki Emblem itself is still very useful cuz dragon form and revival stone. but on random growths mode that unlocks after beating the game once, starsphere technically has its uses, but due to the lower skirmish rate and skirmishes being really hard, its not worth inheriting.
so I find its best to use Tiki emblem on someone you want to make strong due to the innate Starsphere, and the best action is to not inherit Starsphere at all on maddening's random growths.
Engage on maddening most deff has the "even if you max your stats you can still die" like Radiant Dawn's normal(hard) mode(for RD battle-save abuse for max stats actually makes the game harder than intended due to Dawn brigade vs Greil mercs, and you can still die cuz of it, which I love.) and also 3 houses.
I've always liked RD for that reason, its legit one of the few FE games where maxing stats is both detrimental and also doesn't matter at all since your units can still die during the final parts of that game. 3 houses too where maxed stats on maddening technically doesn't matter since you can still lose units.
interestingly Engage's maddening can be broken apart via avoid strats by funneling exp into Alear at the beginning so he gets marth bond 10. enemies won't attack or move on maddening if they have 0% hit against a unit.
with corrin's pair up skill it prevents chain attacks entirely+free avoid terrain on thieves so you'd basically have free reign to solo the entire game with him or even Yunaka/Zelkov/Alcryst(due to Thief/Archers avoid bonus.)
there's actually a video someone did on this too
I'm deff curious about lots of crit builds and usage of Lyn's doubles alongside Leif's Vantage++ skill. its too bad some of these skills are so expensive with no way to gain the sp resource fast enough as Micaiah's great sacrifice method pretty slow yet one of the only options available.
I deff wish we had an sp farm map since a lot of skills are so expensive, but all we can do is pray for a dlc grind map aside from using micaiah's great sacrifice farm/silver corrupteds
It's utterly insane just how varied the skills are in terms of cost/benefit.
Roy in particular is atrocious. 500 SP for Str +1, 1000SP for Str +2, 6000SP For Str +6, 1000 SP for Sword attack Power 1, +2 attack and -10 avo with a sword (which is strictly wosre than Str+2 unless you're using a Levin Sword.)
Lyn can give Speed+1 for 100SP, Speed+4 for 1000, and Speed +5 for 2000. I'd consider speed to be roughly as good as strength (depending on character.)
Ike can get you up to Defense +5 for 2000SP, which is on the right unit, the most useful stat.
As incredibly well designed as the gameplay is in Engage, there are a few areas which really stick out as not well designed. The skill inheritence system really sticks out as a way to punish players that just pick what sounds good without bargain hunting.
When I went over the skills after my first playthrough planning for future ones, I came to mostly the same conclusions as the video. I noted some others that I think are a very good idea for some specific characters and builds, Dodge +10 for Ivy so she doesn't get critted, and Pair Up for tanky units to avoid being taken down by chan attacks for example. But I think the video got all the skills that are going to be good on over half the cast.
Honestly dodge really doesn't seem like a worthwhile investment; yes enemies can crit and if the character has high natural avoid rate it may be okay, but on Hard I rarely see crits. You may just need to focus down enemies carrying Killer weapons.
@@majnuker I'll agree with you in almost all cases.
But if you've got a character with luck so low, enemies wielding regular weapons routinely have a 3-7% chance to crit them, it's just a matter of time before it happens.
Ivy starts with 4 luck. She's an absolute beast of a unit, best in the game I'd argue. But any enemy with 10+ skill will be able to crit her. You can shrug it off with time crystals if that's your thing, but a simple Dodge+10 will patch up that Achilles heel and keep her crit immune from enemies under 30 skill wielding normal weapons, even if she doesn't gain a single point of luck.
Rosado starts at 8 luck, but that went up fast enough that he could get by crit free.
I don't think there are any other characters worth using most of the game that would really benefit.
Pair up on tank is their most important skill imo.
Break defense, while very expensive is useful for units for all melee units that can hold more than one type of weapon.
With the Three Houses lords DLC bracelet, packed lunch refilling is insanely good. With combat arts you can burn thru engage turns to quickly get another special move.
Raging Storm combat art allows you to act again while using 3 engage turns and houses Unite let’s you move again after the attack if next to Byleth. I’ve found them to have significant impact in the battle when one unit can do so much alone.
Turn Panette into a Warrior as soon as she joins, get her Wrath + Hold Out+/++ + Solar Brace and there you have your immortal berserker
I did this with goldmary instead. Just favoritism for her. She carried my ,3rd maddening run
For a FE game the developers kept saying was made to be simple and new player friendly. There is actually alot to the gameplay
They made entry simple for new players, they didn't say they'd simplify the game.
I've found a good mix being a soft stat of some kind and one of the focus skills/precision skills for the weapon that character is using. It's cheap and good all round, and you don't need to invest much bond to unlock them. Helps to elevate nearly every character effectively and has no risk (such as using an emblem and not being able to stack bonuses). Especially after a -certain- point in the midgame. Glad you mention Lineage as well; I got it on every character until about chapter 20.
In terms of raw stat skills:
Defense and Dexterity have been the most useful for me. Criticals, avoidance, and reduced damage. Yes, Resistance is a concern, but there are fewer mages than everything else on each map and mages are squishy and good positioning can eliminate them as a threat. One good attack from nearly any weapon (outside tomes) is usually enough to oneshot them. (Though I am running an anti-mage dexterity/resistance build on Ivy for dealing with mages). One of the paralogues in particular has a ton of them.
Avoid is another skill that's useful on everyone except for tanks and there's a (non-spoiler) VERY good reason to get it early in the game. Avoiding attacks is easier early game, and key for maddening runs. You'll run out of heal options/positioning options very quickly.
For one-off skills, here's a few that I think are fantastic:
Pair up - pretty much a requirement on tanks, it removes chain attacks as a threat. Marth's paralogue is a nightmare without it.
Resolve - This combos well with Unyielding and Hold Out, which you mention at the end of the video. The three combined make you much more tough to kill than at first glance. But by itself, it's a fantastic defensive skill as it triggers at 75% hp and gives you +5 to both Defense AND Resistance. It's just really strong for what it is.
Dual Strike - This lets any unit act like a backup unit, so if you want to run a chain gang, bring this along for guaranteed chip damage. Bonus points for using Lyn on top of this; you can easily hit 10+ chain attacks this way.
Momentum - This is really good on flying units or horsemen as they can cover a lot of ground.
Break defenses - Some characters have multiple weapon types they can use, and can even get full coverage. Break defenses ensures an extra attack for these characters.
Hope your feeling better man, and thanks for the guide I’ve been waiting for this
I defaulted on my first play through to just give all my units canter, my staff users healing light, and my other units quality time. on units who already had these skills, we invested in speedtaker for last skill. it made things easier so I didn't have to think too hard about individual skills while learning the game, and gave my team great movement and survivability throughout the run.
for player phase speedy units Alacrity from lyn is useful, it allows you to do follow up attacks before your opponent counters
If you've got the DLC expansion, then getting Tiki ASAP and grinding out her Starsphere skill for 1500 SP. Getting a decent boost to all possible stat growth early on is ungodly helpful. On average each unit equipped with the skill gets no less then 4 stat ups per level and usually get 6 or 7 each level.
Since I’m just going normal casual I just went with stuff related to movement like Canter, Advance and Repo. But I say Duel assist is probably a must have on IF your have a Warrior as they can use bows as a backup unlike others so their range with Duel assist is crazy. And supports I admit don’t bother with other than my favs bc I could look those up on RUclips
I remember using Ike's skill that gave you increased resistances under 75% hp along with Tiki. It made for some nearly unkillable characters, Also Tiki's Geo on a martial character with Lucina to protect everyone around them while buffing them for next round.
I’d like to share my main pet project which is making enemy phase viable.
I am running Diamant with Lief, and I currently have Mentorship and Resolve on him, but I plan to give him Wrath over mentorship.
The whole idea is that Wrath, Vantage from Lief, and Resolve all get activated from taking damage. All three together gives him first hit on enemy phase, +5 def/Res, and increased crit. Combine this with his personal class skill Sol, and he can remain at good health.
Now further add in Engage mode and he gets Adaptable to almost always have the most effective weapon type, arms shield always active for 7 true damage reduction, and since he’s a backup, another +10 crit.
The idea is to be an absolute monster when below 75% health with drastically improved survivability, and Sol which may see anti synergistic, but I think it makes the set far safer than this being run in anyone else.
Try running Lyn with a Lucina/chain guard character to swap in for the archer and protect the dopples.
Suddenly, you have an insane aggro squad that's well defended. You can even use Rescue; send the archer into a chokepoint, pull them back, then chain guard/Bonded Shield in the center.
@@majnuker so I have used a similar version of this strat on chapter 17. I have Lyn in Kagetsu and his speed is ungodly. Since Avo is based on the speed stat, he can dodge tank to great effect, and that extends to his doubles. So I used his doubles to body block and they got multiple enemy phase kills
@@tristanbowles7258 That's hilarious I had no idea the avoidance rate transfers to the dopples haha. Another thing to note is that they chain attack from any distance, so you can dopple up a corner somewhere and now you have 4x chains for a few turns. Again, you can rescue the character who summoned them to quickly get them back in position, then maybe Seadall dance them for immediate benefit.
@@majnuker the Dopples also take part in Lucina’s All for One attack
@@tristanbowles7258 Yes exactly, they're amazing haha.
Favorite food is hilarious when used with Bunet passive skill. He has a lck% to duplicate a packed launch he eat. Add to Favorite food and he will constantly have his engage meter up
kinda like Alcryst's haha funny Luna meme damage just casually exploding generals with a +5 killer bow
One skill not mentioned that I found very useful was Momentum off of Sigurd. All of my combat units had it and I don't know how many times I was short just 1 or 2 points of damage to kill something and by moving just slightly farther to attack got me the kill.
I glad this video was made so I know what skills are worth spending my SP on.
Totally going to use the quality time strategy now that I've finished the game and I'm trying to get the supports of my team :D
The bond ring effect that lets you double with thunders and canto+ speed taker sounds like a disgusting combo. And with Sigurd and bond ring exploits you can have all 3 for the price of one.
This would work well on a Mage Knight.
You dont need speedtaker, your always doubling anyway then. Ofcourse your avoid will still raise. But there are better combos, it is actually a counter combo. Agree with canter though.
I haven't considered corrin mechanic for support grinding and since I was looking for a fast way to grind supports before the final chapter I'll definitely give this a shot for all the unit I had to bench
I’d argue Marth’s Break Defense skill could be useful on someone with Leif equipped, since that way you can just demolish people you have weapon triangle advantage against, and Adaptable ensures you’re never at a disadvantage.
only watching this now when ive almost finished the game, so im not gonna benefit from this too much right now but turns out I had the right idea anyway with the skills i ended up inheriting. I used most of the skills you mentioned and CONSIDERED using most of the other skills so I think ive done well enough
I'm really happy you are feeling better. Great content as usual!
Great guide, I'll keep it in mind when I get those Emblems! Up until now (I'm still relatively early in the game) I've been saving for Canter because yeah, it's just that good.
lol learned a lot here, but most importantly I didn't know you can buy lower grade versions first (+1/2 speed etc.) and then the higher version is discounted. Some of my units still don't have Canter because I felt like I can save up for Canter+. Now I'll get Canter and upgrade when I can.
Canter normal version might be completely fine by itself. You could blow the 1000 SP saved from skipping canter+ on another good skill. Paying another 1000 SP just to upgrade canter from 2 spaces to 3 might not be necessary
@@unhingedmanchild I fully agree, I'll only go for Canter+ on units I have the other skill I need already. Canter+ is last priority.
I did not know this untill halfway in maddening, after finishing hard. So, haha. There are a lot of important things that arent that clear. Another important one, use dogs in your farm, they give metals.
@@timm8998 yeah, funnily enough I wanted to stay spoiler free for quite some time and therefore avoided content on this game. In one engage video title I saw "dogs" before I removed the video. It was enough for me to raise my own little dog farm.
i think we need to talk about the "normal rings" skills, for example the claude skill for alcryst is insane, he's basically shooting from narnia with a long bow
I think Avoid+ should really really be on here. Yeah, it's mentioned as a combo with Pair Up, but it's still extremely good throughout the entire game as a stand-alone skill.
-Weapon triangle doesn't really affect hit/avoid in this game. This means you won't really have to worry about getting guaranteed hits from weapon triangle disadvantage, and furthermore, avoiding the attack prevents you from being broken which really helps for enemy phase.
-It's available at the earliest possible time, so you'll get great value out of picking it up early. It does benefit a lot from combining with Pair Up, but that only really matters in late game where the game actually throws a lot of Backup type enemies at you.
-I don't really like the argument that because someone else did something well, that everyone else should follow suit, but it does deserve mention that a Maddening Alear Solo run was busted completely open thanks to this skill specifically.
Corrin's Quality Time and Byleth Mentorship are my go to confy setup when the unit doesn't need anything else. Mentorship will eventually make the effect of Stat+ sooner or later, Quality Time heals chips damage that some units are bound to take (like Diamant with his personal skill) and building relation is tedious without that.
Both skills are cheap and come kinda early, and you only need lvl 5 with the emblem, so fighting the Emblem for it in the Arena is only one round, which matters if you want something on (more or less) all your characters
Now we need a SP farming guide!
@@Jhit123 Too bad you dont have micaiah half of the game.
@@Jhit123 I mean, he’s not wrong…
1 XP = 1 SP if using an Emblem Ring, 0.5 SP if using gacha rings
Cool video, i'm using speedtaker yunaka and it's killng everything
Honestly, I've just been putting Starsphere on almost everyone. SP grinding to create the truly powerful combinations is very time consuming, but having units with all-around better stats and the right emblems for their roles seems extremely viable given how powerful individual emblems can be on their own.
wooooo, Faerghast guides are finally coming out for FE Engage! Really excited for more Engage content from your channel.
Since I am playing on Maddening, I think cost-effective is pretty much my only options
I played the game relatively casually but I would personally recommend getting Avoid+10 from Marth kind of early for some units can practically become untouchable (Lapis)
But also keep in mind of my comment I mean casually a bit literally. But I plan on eventually doing a more difficult playthrough of the game at some point later.
its kinda eh in maddening. enemies ignore your avoid tank if they have 0 hit on them, so too much stacking is bad.
Oh my god, thank you for this! I've been so torn as to whether or not some of the skills I was investing in were worth it or not. I knew Canter and Reposition were good, but I wanted to make sure I wasn't wasting my time with the rest.
I think Alacrity should be on this list. Any fast unit can really benefit from striking twice before the enemy counter attack. I think the impact of that is reduced a little bit by Break with weapon triangle advantage. But it can still be really beneficial if you're attacking with weapon triangle disadvantage or even weapon triangle neutral.
The amount of dragons reduced to nothing by an errant Diamant is staggering.. Marth and Lucina could learn a thing or two from Diamand and his trusty Wyrmslayer. :D
(Andf Lyn in his backpack)
@@Aurirang Uh, you do know what weapon is exclusive to Lucina and what it does, right?
Will say speedtaker is really good. You can get a max of plus 10 speed and you only have to have bond level 5 to get it
You need to kill 5 units on player phase to get the full benefit though. Some maps will be over when you get it unless you use a dancer. I'd rather have +5 speed all the time. Good for doubling bosses, though.
@@SerpenTyx even getting 2 speed for a single enemy phase is with it
I had a lot of success going avoid+ on alear and getting sigurd's enchant on their weapon to have pretty nuts evade quite early. I'd be able to throw them to a side and distract all the enemies if I needed some pressure relief.
Very informative good work! Also that 22% hit at 3:46 was infuriating
I think I pretty much put Canter on everyone, it's just too good.
I was working on getting everyone in my team Canter, and then I got to chapters 10 and 11 in the main story. Now I'm on chapter 17.
I am a big fan of Lyn's Alacrity, base version is 1000SP, but being able to attack twice before a slower opponent is amazing. It is even better if you combine it with the speed+ skills, or Speedtaker.
Although speedtaker will set you back 2000 SP
Agreed. Everyone is using Corrin and Yunaka, but Yunaka+Lyn is a wild combo. Great for finishing off bosses and mage killing. Much better for player phase too.
Been looking for this video. Thank you for making it
Lunar brace is a great one for units that don't have a ton of damage piercing like archers or thieves. It's like Alcryst's Luna but more reliable.
I think Leif's +Build is a great early game boost. I agree, Lyn's +speed is better in the long term, especially since BLD has a chance to increase at level up unlike in FE games of past, but keep in mind - you get Leif a few chapters earlier than lyn and you likely want to have a character like Chloe up her ranks with Leif for new weapon proficiencies anyways. I think the +Build is a natural for her and other characters with her build deficiency early on, to wield javelins and other weapon types such as axes or swords without taking the speed hit.
Wait, BLD can increase on LvLups? What about on Maddening with Fixed growths? I swear I haven't seen it level up but I'm not certain. My units are around level 10-12 just getting promoted.
when I replay on hard I'm def gonna endlessly reset until I get level ups in that if it's true lol
Chloe eventually wants a Flame Lance as an option, so build is just speed for her best weapons that all are too heavy for her base build
@@omgstopturd6566 I don't know all the mechanics behind it, but yes units can have an increase in BLD on very rare occasions. I haven't played on Maddening yet - I did a quick blast through normal (and didn't really understand skills until pastt he halfway point.....so I didn't see Leif's +BLD skills until I had Lyn and everyone didn't need it anymore. Oops!) and I'm working through hard now.
@@1mealer Agreed. It'd be different if it was only an *attack* speed penalty, but since it is a speed stat hit, you can get the +4 BLD at bond level 6, while Lyn needs her paralogue completed to get the equivalent in speed at bond 16. But the cost in SP is the same so for a character like Louis you might as well just shoot for the +Speed for the long term.
@@omgstopturd6566 Serenes Forest has the full character/class growth charts, but the TL;DR is that BLD is a stat like any other, it just has a really low growth rate. Most characters have 0-5% BLD growth and most classes have 0-5% growth, so at max you can usually just get a 10% chance to get BLD. On Maddening, since stat growths are fixed, this would mean that you'd get 1 BLD every 10 levels.
Jean, however, breaks the synergy because his personal skill Expertise doubles class growths. Berserker is one of the few classes with a 10% BLD growth, so since Jean has a 5% personal growth he'll have a 25% BLD growth if you make him a Berserker (he also gets a 110% health growth and an 80% strength growth). If you plan to use Jean extensively and you can spare the funds for a Second Seal it's not a bad idea to make him a Berserker for 5-10 levels. Most other characters, however, will only level BLD once in a blue moon if they ever level it at all.
Divine pulse gives more effective hit rate than hit +15 and is way cheaper even with 0 luck. Hit rate is 60%. Hit +15 takes it to 75%. Divine pulse+ with 0 luck. Means on the 40% to miss there is a 50% to hit. So a 20% chance of failure resulting in hit rate of 80. Hit +15 is only better if it takes you to a 100% or really high rate of hit but it costs 2 times as much
Interesting point to bring up! Fun fact though. This game uses Fates hit RNG so 75% is actually 85%. But that isn't considering that unless "high luck" means something besides "luck stat" you would only need 6 luck to fill the gap. Which is doable obviously lol. I never considered that DP+ is the cheaper and more reliable option if you have a shaky rate in that range. I guess you're just trading availability at that point.
Draconic Hex and Echo, especially on Ivy is a rather nasty combo I've found as well. Didn't know about Draconic Hex with Roy though, that one seems real cool
The arena is helluva useful for skill inheritance, more so if you want someone to inherit "X" skills but don't want them to have the Emblem equipped for a good while.
Just purchase the level you want unlocked with the unit that needs the skill in Arena and they should get access to it even if they fail horribly vs the Emblem in combat (don't forget Lv5 bond is the minimum for anyone if they wanna inherit stuff tho!)
Yes this is what you will use all your bond points on :D
Best Skill Combinations
Perceptive and Speedtaker (Gaining more speed)
Unyielding and Solar Brace (Restoring Health)
Break Defenses and Momentum (For Strength)
Arms Shield and Gentility (For Defense)
Quality Time and Lost & Found (Gaining more supports)
Mentorship and Lineage (Leveling up fast)
10:52 I just want to add that Dual Assist from Lucina actually works on all class types and not just Backup. My Alear is a Griffin Knight, and he's been able to trigger Dual Assist with Lucina on him. And also, I gave Lucina to Seadall (Qi Adept) and he was able to trigger Dual Assist as well.
thats because lucina gives the skill dual strike which makes them a backup unit
with the lower movement all the movement skills are just really desirable now, more so than if we still had 8 mov mounts.
but man I do wish we didn't need QoL skills like quality time. what's next? A DLC that comes with Emblem Anna for gold drops every map?
I think in the long run of grinding for SP though dual assist is going to be really desirable for whenever we get that last DLC. the extra chip damage is very valuable and can save lives.
Yeah, I was hoping support grinds ended with the GBA games.
minor thing but paladins get pivot so there's 5 movement skills
Canter+/Draconic Hex/Hobble for the ultimate hit and run debuffer
My Zelkov does this
Ghast it would be super helpful if you could publish a video or short with some best ways to get SP. I find that there are lots of skills I want to inherit and not enough SP to do it most of the time
Pretty niche usage but dual assist on Diamont is pretty good since you'll probably keep him in his advanced personal class once you can promote him.
i personally like the Unyielding skill when paired with Hold Out
I have canter on literally on all units, its so good and opens so many options
Its kinda expensive for 2000 Sp but if you put Pair up on a general they basically will never be killed besides from magic attacks i used it on Louis and it does wonders
i pretty much went for assist boost on every backup. and canter on most melee fighter. When each attack triggers 3+ assists, the battles get a lot easier! :)
Arms shield cuts damage on Qi Adepts by Tomes, Bows AND Knives bro. It’s really good on them as those are the main enemies gunning for your dancer/squishies most of the time.
You don't get a packed lunch if you fall at cooking, like if you try to make something the people like but that the cook is bad at. I think this cuts into the ability that gives you engage refill a bit because you won't always have a box lunch at hand.
6:07
Does anybody know what bonuses support gives in combat ? I've had units with supports fight near eachother like in the GBA/Tellius games but haven't noticed an impact in combat such as more hit/avoid/dmg ect. I'm hoping they didn't remove support bonuses for Engage and I just haven't noticed when it's in effect.
They have to be directly adjacent to one another to give each other their support bonus. Every character falls into one of 5 types of support they give, Balanced, Hit, Critical, Avoid, or Dodge type. For example Framme is a Hit type support and Clanne is a Critical type support. When standing next to them Framme gives her A support partners +20 Hit and +5 avoid whereas Clanne will give his A support partners +10 Hit, +6 Crit, and +5 Dodge.
@@popers1328
Thats super helpful to know, thanks. I'm glad I have supports with Boucheron and Framme now bc he needs the hit boost
I learned the hard way that sp doesn't come easy
I really like the canter and momentum combo
Surprised you didn't add Hold out. (Not cheap by any means) but it can really save units, espcially if they are rocking the Erika ring with self healing
Combo favorite food with Micaiah engage skill to use great sacrifice twice in a battle for an easy full heal on the team or an easy way to get more XP on weaker units
Thank you for this video, I'm so bad at strategically building my characters haha
For me the best combination for any character is:
Starsphere
Lifesphere++
From here you can pick any skill to replace starsphere when you reach stats cap
I really hope that they add New Game+ sometime because I'd totally be down to play the game on Maddening if I didn't have to do all of the grinding for support ranks and skill inheritance all over again
I hope NG+ gets added since makes 100% the game easier since youre not grinding as much. As has been the fate of my 6th run of 3Hopes (430 achievements completed, 20 to go)
Yeah I'm hoping it lets you keep your S rank rings, bond levels and inherited skills.
Paralogues would still need to be completed to get back the higher bond levels though
You dont need to grind anything on maddening do you? Just play the chapters and paralogues?
@@timm8998 im not the person to ask, i did my run on normal
@@Ash_Wen-li i hope so, you get only 1 pact ring per run, and SP is so hard to get as it is. It would actually allow for a 100% file
Great video Ghast, I hadn’t thought of doing the support grinding method you showed off. I do hope in the next dlc wave they add a good and exp map to help with grinding as well as better ways to get supports between everyone who isn’t Alear. In the meantime do you have any tips on how to get more gold? Besides Anna’s skill and gold skirmishes I have no idea.
You can turn on wifi and then sell all the items you get from purple spots on the ground, which helps a bit
@@lukepent9990 Sure, but I don’t really want to sell any weapons I have just in case I need one of them.
@John Cuneo well you end up with a lot of duplicates. I'm sure you probably won't need all of them, but fair enough
Awakening had better Gold grinding, but Fates had better EXP Grinding, except for the Stoneborn. Who the hell actually thought that was a good idea?
Pannette+Hector with Wrath and vantage++ combined with her blood fury a +5 tomahawk engraved with ike on a storm eye turn is beautifully disgusting and by far my favorite combo in the entire game
Wish there were more than two skill slots so limiting
i feel like 3 would be perfect
@@ddanger420 Agreed, it'd allow for some very unique combos.
So I beat the game on Maddening and I put build +3 on everyone,and everyone with 3+ range attacks I gave draconic hex especially on your Celica unit with echo, since the games final maps like to try multiple units at you from all sides to force you to kill the boss quickly being able to drop the stats of people nearby you aren't able to finish off because some of the bosses really do require your hardest hitters focused, build 3 enabled my hard hitters to double more often with silver weapons I made lighter and it almost felt too easy,not as easy as three houses but I didn't have to reset at all for the last few maps
Speed > build though.
Yeah this game definitely makes you work for this stuff, SP, Fragments and Gold, its like they don't expect you to get everything on your first playthrough, I haven't beaten the game yet but I would assume new game plus (if there is a new game plus) will keep things such as your donations and emblem bond rings, I would hope it would also keep the skills you inherited. Part of me is hoping future updates will fix this issue such as designated maps that give a lot of SP, Exp, and Gold and not just one or two gold corrupted that gives chump change. I know 3 houses didn't exactly have exp or gold maps but enemies dropped bullions that you can sell for money.
there's no new-game plus. which imho is really dumb given how far you are from maxing on your first playthrough on maddening.
I have just learned that Break Defenses with a brave weapon gives you both hits of that brave weapon, so you can basically get a free full hit instead of a half
Okay I have a question! If Maddening has fixed growth stat rates, would Tiki skill Starsphere have and effect to give better growth rates at all?
Stack speed from Lyn and build from Leif on Timera to make a speedy, speedy girl who can double almost anyone. Sigurd gives her the much needed canto anyways.
odd that you would mention the tiki skills without mentioning the one that gives 15% to all growths. I would actually argue if you are choosing between build and spd, you should just go star sphere instead and get both, since most classes and even units dont get innate build growth
i gave Momentum to Clanne. I'm just trying out different skills, to see what works.
Does mentorship and lineage work on the arena battles?
I gotta say, resonance + quality time is a consistent pair.
I just finished my first playthrough yesterday and Mentorship was my cheese strat. I unlocked it for everyone and by the end of the game enemies could barely touch any of my units even though I avoided all skirmishes. I've started a Maddening playthrough now so maybe it will be less effective there.