Completed FE4 1st gen. Some thoughts and questions

[Quirino]

I finally got to beat the first generation of FE4. I'm about to start on the second generations, but there's some thoughts and questions I'm with:

-Is it just me or was chapter 2 the most difficult of the first gen? I thought all chapters beyond chapter 2 were a bit underwhelming, chapter 4 especially. Chapter 2 had still pretty weak units fight against large groups of enemies. Especially the end, with Zyne and his horseslayer and Eve, Eva and Alva doing stupid things was pretty difficult in my opinion.

-The majority of the first generation was pretty easy compared to other Fire Emblem games. Does the difficulty go up in generation 2 or is it comparable?

-I did the game semi-blind, using the secret event and item locations pages on Serenes Forest. The pairings I had were:

Aideen x Midir (I wanted to do Aideen x Azel first, but I cheated and took a look at the items page on Serenes forest and preferred the brave bow over the rescue staff)

Aira x Lex (It was either Lex or Holyn, because of the brave sword. Since Lex was the stronger unit I went with Lex)

Lachesis x Beowulf (This was a tough one, Lachesis did not show any interest in any man except for that conversation with Beowulf, so he was practically the only choice)

Sylvia x Alec (yep... I wanted to pair her up with Claude after their chapter 4 conversation, but all of a sudden Alec was her partner)

Fury x Levin (It was either Levin x Sylvia or Levin x Fury, since Levin x Fury actually seemed two-sided, I went with this one)

Tiltyu x Azel (This was the only hint given towards Tiltyu's pairing)

Brigid x Jamka (I had already decided to pair up Midir with Aideen, so him hitting on her did not make any sense lol. I just chose Jamka, as fellow bow-user)

Now that all pairings have been made, how good/bad are they?

-For the second generation, will again all characters be usable? For the remainder of Gen 1 I used all my characters. Will this also be possible in Gen 2 or is it not recommended? I read that there are some more characters in Gen 2, so that's why I'm wondering.

-Any things I should be aware of before playing Gen 2?

Thanks :)

[MartyTheDemonSlayer]

The second generation is about as easy, though a few of the bosses might catch you off guard on your first playthrough. There are a few holy weapon using bosses that will charge your army and are capable of completely destroying non holy weapon users if you aren't prepared for them, but besides that your children will have such good skills/stats that anything else will pose almost no challenge. All of your pairings are good as well. Though there are other options if you want to change up the roles of different units in your army, with these pairings all children will be easy to train and useful.

[Integrity]

tbf ignoring that pretty much all pairing setups are good your pairings are pretty great, don't fret

as to the second question gen 2 plays 100% like gen 1 mechanically, except for not planning for a gen 3.

there's really nothing you NEED to know going into gen 2. as much information as you spoiled for yourself for gen 1 is more than enough to get you through gen 2.

[Guy Starwind]

Your pairings are I would say the pretty standard pairings. You'll be fine. For a first timer you may think the difficulty is increasing but imo your pairings kids will be more than enough to handle it. Only thing hard might be due to you not knowing what's coming. Once you've played this game 30 times you'll see Gen 2 isn't hard hahaha

[Xator Nova]

gen 2 is actually easier than gen 1 because you have more overpowered units with less cost, and there's no planning for a next gen.

[Belisarius]

Gen 2 is really easy because you have loads of overpowered characters with overpowered weapons. There's nothing you really need to know aside from don't overuse the super weapons.

[Icon of Sin]

And even then, some characters can afford to overuse said weapons with the Thief and Bargain rings.

There's a few harder moments here and there. The final chapter 7 boss might be a bit challenging and not everyone can tackle some of the bosses in the ast three chapters thanks to their overall strength.

[sirmola]

Gen 2 is really easy because you have loads of overpowered characters with overpowered weapons. There's nothing you really need to know aside from don't overuse the super weapons.

I persomnaly find that because holy weapon users can always clear the arena, they have enough money to use the holy weapons pretty consistently, which i prefer to do because getting over 50 kills on a weapon (the number next to the star on the weapon stat screen) gives that weapon the critical skill, and each additional kill after 50 adds one to crit (up to +50 crit at 100 kills). I like to get 50 kills on at least the balmung and ichival. The others either come on too constrained a timeframe (tyrfang and narga), have a wielder with the crit skill (holsety and gea blog), or give crit as a skill(mistotlin). In fact, if you missed the bargen ring in gen 1, the game essentially forces the bargen ring drop on the balmung wielder, who it exactly who needs it.

[Quirino]

I see what you mean, I'm at chapter 10 now and all my important characters have promoted and are pretty damn powerful. The characters with holy weapons equipped are basically unstoppable and then there's Leaf, Seliph and Lakche who can almost turn any weapon into a holy one.

I'm quite disappointed with the storyline of the second generation though! Where's all the politics from the first generation? Here we have the - let's save the world from the dark Empire with 20 persons. Oh, and there's the possessed character who has the power of summoning the dark god - storyline again. I mean it's not a bad storyline at all, but I feel it doesn't compare to generation 1.

But despite the stronger characters, I feel the difficulty is slightly higher in the second generation, if only for the high amount of magic. Like Woodshooter said, the chapter 7 boss with Tor Hammer was a nightmare, I managed to get Shanan to take him out. Chapter 8 had a little difficult start, as Fin was underleveled in generation 1 and he couldn't hold Lenster castle's defenses. Chapter 9 was just fun, I got Sety to take out Arion with Gungnir. In chapter 10 I just took out Hilda (and the Jormungand boss, who was a joke) and despite not possessing a holy weapon, Hilda was the first one I couldn't one-round with Sety. So yeah, for the really strong bosses I'm relying much on the holy weapons.

Well, let me go fight Julius and Ishtar...

edit: Lana has the bargain ring because she can't fight in the arena. Had it been a better idea to give it to a holy weapon user?

Edited July 16, 2014 by WindMage25

[sirmola]

I see what you mean, I'm at chapter 10 now and all my important characters have promoted and are pretty damn powerful. The characters with holy weapons equipped are basically unstoppable and then there's Leaf, Seliph and Lakche who can almost turn any weapon into a holy one.

I'm quite disappointed with the storyline of the second generation though! Where's all the politics from the first generation? Here we have the - let's save the world from the dark Empire with 20 persons. Oh, and there's the possessed character who has the power of summoning the dark god - storyline again. I mean it's not a bad storyline at all, but I feel it doesn't compare to generation 1.

But despite the stronger characters, I feel the difficulty is slightly higher in the second generation, if only for the high amount of magic. Like Woodshooter said, the chapter 7 boss with Tor Hammer was a nightmare, I managed to get Shanan to take him out. Chapter 8 had a little difficult start, as Fin was underleveled in generation 1 and he couldn't hold Lenster castle's defenses. Chapter 9 was just fun, I got Sety to take out Arion with Gungnir. In chapter 10 I just took out Hilda (and the Jormungand boss, who was a joke) and despite not possessing a holy weapon, Hilda was the first one I couldn't one-round with Sety. So yeah, for the really strong bosses I'm relying much on the holy weapons.

Well, let me go fight Julius and Ishtar...

edit: Lana has the bargain ring because she can't fight in the arena. Had it been a better idea to give it to a holy weapon user?

Yeah, i have to agree on the plot. as for the bargen ring, that is a perfecly good place to put it. Holy weapon users kill the arena anyway and thus get tons of money, but lana does have money issues unless you staffspam to promote her at the end of chapter 7 like i do.

[CT075]

gen 2's difficulty can be trivialized pretty easily in two steps:

1) load all your resources into celice

2) pass holsety down to arthur

done

[MartyTheDemonSlayer]

A lot of the powerful/holy weapon using bosses become much easier if you stack Celice, Delmud, and Nanna near the unit attacking them. The massive boost to hit/avoid will make the fights a lot faster and a lot less frustrating.

[Quirino]

Hehe I actually used those three for those infuriating falco knights that came with Ishtar. Only that way I could beat them with Holsety.

And is Arthur with Holsety better than Sety other than coming earlier? I mean Arthur becomes mounted on promotion which always makes him a good character given Thoron or such, doesn't Sety become rather redundant if he's not given Holsety (with his late joining time, low move etc)?

Anyway, just completed the game. Julius was easy with Narga, and then the game froze in the midst of an untranslated epilogue part, oh well.

Loved the game, definitely one of my favourites and one of the best in the series. Sadly, also one of the easiest, which decreases its replay value. I am going to do one run soon with replacement characters only, to give myself a bit of a challenge (although with Shanan, Seliph, Oifaye, Leaf, Altenna and Aless around it still shouldn't be that difficult).

I wonder if I should do Thracia next, not sure if I'm up to the supposed difficulty of that game yet hehe.

[Belisarius]

Loved the game, definitely one of my favourites and one of the best in the series. Sadly, also one of the easiest, which decreases its replay value. I am going to do one run soon with replacement characters only, to give myself a bit of a challenge (although with Shanan, Seliph, Oifaye, Leaf, Altenna and Aless around it still shouldn't be that difficult).

The replacement characters aren't even that bad. They're definitely worse but most are very useable. I'd suggest still going through Gen 1 to get your characters how you want (because that's half the fun) and then second gen do not use holy weapons at all. This way you still get to use the cool people (yay Lakche) but there's no steamrolling via op weapons.

[Quirino]

The replacement characters aren't even that bad. They're definitely worse but most are very useable. I'd suggest still going through Gen 1 to get your characters how you want (because that's half the fun) and then second gen do not use holy weapons at all. This way you still get to use the cool people (yay Lakche) but there's no steamrolling via op weapons.

That's a nice idea, although I am worried already about Blume, Ishtar, Hilda and the dark mage bosses hehe. And is it even possible to defeat Julius without?

[Belisarius]

Yeah he should be with strong physical attackers. I can't give you a definitive answer on that as I never got around to doing a no holy weapon run, but I still want to at some point.

[MartyTheDemonSlayer]

The one method without holy weapons I know works for sure is using berserk on whichever warlord has the Hel tome. FE4 AI makes it so he attacks Julius, reducing him to 1 hp, so anything can finish him off. Of course, the chance of that happening is ridiculously low barring RNG manipulation. The biggest problem with killing Julius without holy weapons is that he has wrath, so units without awareness would be slaughtered when he went under half health. I think that due to how Lopt reduces stats, any unit would only deal one damage.

In terms of bringing Julius down, you could give the sword twins hero swords (they inherit awareness from Aira), Celice could use the hero lance, via pairing Aideen with Alec both Lester and Lana would have awareness, so that would be a hero bow and a tome attack. Julia can also chip since she has awareness too. Altogether, including the counter attack on enemy phase, that would be 24 damage a turn, 14 of which would be healed by Julius, so it would be doable, just take a while and require a lot of healing. With good dancer + rescue staff use you could probably get in even more damage per turn, but I can't be bothered to work out the optimal way to do that.

[Guy Starwind]

If you found it too easy might I suggest some of the hacks. The Camus or Shin patch are pretty good. Heck I even made a hack and it adds challenge to it.

[BrightBow]

That's a nice idea, although I am worried already about Blume, Ishtar, Hilda and the dark mage bosses hehe. And is it even possible to defeat Julius without?

Well, if nothing else it is at least possible to berserk a Bishop with the Hell spell and have him attack Julius, leaving him at 1 HP and ready to be killed by anyone.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2wytEZueK0#t=3m39s

Otherwise it would be tricky. He has nihil, so criticals or skills won't work. A Masterknight with capped Str, a Strength Ring and a Silver Axe would have 54 attack. This gets halved by Julius, leaving 27 attack against his 25 defense. Not sure what else could even scratch him, let alone overcome his healing.

Edited July 16, 2014 by BrightBow

[MartyTheDemonSlayer]

In FE4 attacks are never completely negated, they always deal at least one damage, so by sheer volume of attacks it could be done.

[Guy Starwind]

In FE4 attacks are never completely negated, they always deal at least one damage, so by sheer volume of attacks it could be done.

Really? I thought I'd negated attacks in the past without the use of great shield but I'm probably making stuff up.

[MartyTheDemonSlayer]

Yep. Just double checked by having a 29 attack unit attack an enemy with 30 def, and the enemy took one point of damage. So the hero sword + awareness approach could take down Julius. Great shield is the only way to negate all the damage.

Edited July 16, 2014 by MartyTheDemonSlayer

[BrightBow]

Yep. Just double checked by having a 29 attack unit attack an enemy with 30 def, and the enemy took one point of damage. So the hero sword + awareness approach could take down Julius. Great shield is the only way to negate all the damage.

But could that method deal enough damage to overcome the healing effect of the city? I don't know how it is with FE4 but those things usually heal 10% HP.

Edited July 16, 2014 by BrightBow

[MartyTheDemonSlayer]

You can get awareness on 4 hero weapon users, (sword twins, lester, celice with hero lance) and have Lana and Julia to both chip as well. That's 24 damage a turn including the counterattack on enemy phase, which could probably go up with some complicated rescuing/dancing tricks, which is enough to overcome Julius' regeneration.

[BrightBow]

You can get awareness on 4 hero weapon users, (sword twins, lester, celice with hero lance) and have Lana and Julia to both chip as well. That's 24 damage a turn including the counterattack on enemy phase, which could probably go up with some complicated rescuing/dancing tricks, which is enough to overcome Julius' regeneration.

That's great. I guess that should be more then enough.

The Rescue staff is normally very hard to get. But if I can recall correctly, if it's not inherited it will show up in the Final chapter in the shop.

Edited July 16, 2014 by BrightBow