33 replies to this topic

[bookwormbabe29]

Hi there! I know it's a long shot, but I figured i'd post here and see if I could find any hep for my Fire emblem run. I've played the north american games (except the wii one) alot, and i'm trying out the earlier games for the first time. I skipped '1' as i played Shadow Dragon.... that counts, right? :)

Anyway, on to Fe2! I had a few questions.

1. There seem to be fewer characters in the early games. How many can you typically send out in this one? How many should i send out/use/train or whatever?

2. I hear you can revive people in this game, and can use it to switch characters from the two teams. Is this useful? Seems like where Celice (sp?) has mostly mages and what not, transferring a fighter might help, but i don't like the idea of letting someone die. You know?

3. Items. I hear a lot of people talking about getting something called an angel ring early on and it sounds nice...but how does item dropping work? I don't mind trying for one or twenty, but would the item be listed in the thief's stat window, or would it only drop randomly after i kill him? i am using save states, so not sure if i should load before the fight starts, or before i land a killing blow, or anything. any tips/help appreciated!

4. I doubt it, but are there any codes known for this game?


Thanks for your help in advance!

[SRC]

1. You can probably use as many characters as you want, especially if you grind a bit. Some maps will only let you use 8 characters or so, but usually character limits are not a problem. I would recommend only training a few of the stronger characters so they gain more exp to cut down on the grinding. For example, Cliff is highly recommended to use, Grey is pretty decent, and Robin is mostly just a filler unit. You can use all three, but the fewer you use the faster Cliff will improve. Generally this will make the game easier.

2. You could if you really want a character on a particular thing, but it's not really necessary. Alm's team starts really fighter heavy and Celica's team mage heavy, but they balance out a bit as chapter 3 progresses and it's not a big deal to begin with. A Mage!Cliff is plenty good if you want to give Alm's group a quality mage, and Celica's team has lots of quality sword users and Pegasus knights that join decently early that fulfill her physical unit needs.

3. For non-random drops you see the item, but not for random drops. I'm not sure how reloading alters the chances of getting an item drop, but it's probably faster to just keep killing enemies and then restarting the maps. (Plus you get exp this way!) I wouldn't recommend fighting just for the sake of item drops, though. The drop rates are extremely low for a lot of items, and if you are unlucky you might never find the items you are looking for.

4. Actually, yes! The easy mode code will double exp gain. This of course makes the game a bit simpler, but if you plan on grinding anyway this isn't anything more than a time saver. You can access it by holding start and select then pressing A when you're choosing a file to start a new game on.

Also, I would recommend promoting your characters as early as they are able to. Promotion gains can be pretty useful for a lot of characters and will make the game a lot easier. This will sometimes cut on some level-ups, but because of how experience gains work in this game leveling up characters past level 10 can get really slow.

[WindMage25]

1. It's worth using all of the characters, except for some that join late and are simply underleveled (like Atlas and Jesse). It's not until late that the character limit actually restricts you from using some units, and by that time you'll already have figured out which characters you don't want to use anymore. I suggest just to train every character and check for yourself which you want to keep on using.

2. SRC already explained this. I'd like to add that you can only revive units in shrines you come across during the game. So you can not revive until you have access to one of those shrines.

3. Keep in mind that weapons and items are scarce in this game. You usually only get one copy of each (sometimes one on both teams). You also don't actually need to equip a weapon, each unit (melee fighter) has a standard iron weapon equipped. Also weapons never run out of uses. But on to your question, there's no way to check whether an enemy will drop a weapon. The drop rates are really low (from 0.014% to 0.258%), so I would not grind for it.

Like SRC said, for a first playthrough you may want to try easy mode first, normal mode has quite limited experience. Keep in mind that the growth rates are really low, so don't panic if your character gets bad level ups. There's only one single growth rate of one character that's actually higher than 50% (Zeke's speed growth is 55%).

And grinding makes this game a whole lot easier. My last playthrough was a no-grinding normal mode playthrough and I had quite lots of trouble to complete it, so if you want to make the game a lot easier for yourself, I suggest to grind units to promotion ASAP.

[ポーラ]

1. Use anyone. Any of them can be good with enough training. But don't ignore Cliff, and the peg sisters. Since they break this game.

2. You can revive in 2 shrines in the game and can only be done three times each.

3. If you want to go for the item drops...it's best to do this with Shamans that summons the monsters.

Dragon Shield: Let Dolk summon the Dragon Zombies. You can get by killing alot of them. It's actually the only way that you can get the shield easily. Since the first one requires an insane amount of grinding to do so (Tozeh has this), and getting it from Judah is likely the case. But it might take a really long time since he can seal off your attacks. Falcoknights are best to do this.

With every other item is easy enough to get. Just let the shamans summon them and keep defeating their creations and you may have to repeat the maps many times to make this happen. And letting Dolk summon the Dracozombies is by far the easiest and most effective way to get the Dragon Shield. Use Falcoknights to do this since they can off em in one hit. But for the Angel Ring, don't try to go for it. You already can get two in the game and that I have played this game over 5 times and never found it. And I have spent days in the Thief shrine to grind too. =)

4. Yes there is. Easy Mode. Serenes will tell you how it is done in the hints and secret section.

[Byte2222]

Okay, your questions have been answered pretty comprehensively by the guys above but I'll chip in a bit of advice:

Revival shrines are limited use; don't count on being able to revive your units. Also Alm's team don't get access to one until chapter 4 and Celica's team chapter 3. BTW, 'chapters' are more like Radiant Dawn's 'parts' (i.e. part 1, part 2 etc.)

Either play on easy mode (all it does is boost exp gain) or take time to stop and grind; I got ambushed and barely escaped with no casualties in my first playthrough when I neglected to grind.

Promotion is pretty weird in this game. Classes have base stats associated with them and when a unit promotes any of his/her stats below the class bases rise to the class bases. The promotion section on the main Serenes Forest site explains in more detail but this means that it's (broadly) better to promote ASAP.

Anything else bothering you just ask, we're pretty decent and accommodating folks!

[Celice]

It's a good thing you skipped the first one--it'd be a vast waste of time, other than for completionist/nostalgic worth :/

I was able to complete the game with minimal grinding (back-tracking was the only "grinding" I did) and I never went out of my way for items. Towards the end of the game, I actually got caught in that trap-event for several battles, but survived, still without any grinding before-hand--I guess it just depends on your playstyle and how much battle your units actually get, and how much experience you end up thinning around multiple characters as opposed to "enough."

Also, if you somehow break the game in grinding, summoning can procure 18 different shadow-units on the field.

[bookwormbabe29]

Thanks everyone!

So I guess i shouldn't get my hopes up on having an entire army worth of angel rings, huh? Oh well.

So it is better to promote right away 'broadly?" Dare I ask what that means? I'm used to the 20/20 promotion system, so this 'promote ASAP' thing is hurting my brain. If it's only broadly, are there exceptions to the promote ASAP rule? I already promoted my starting villagers, but Luka just hit level 7. Should I hold off or promote right away? What's the rule on these early games? :)

[Celice]

I always promoted as a soon as it was available. I think I've heard there's some benefit for mages learning magic if you wait, but I dunno much more than that.

Besides, it's more fun when you promote sooner and have more stuff to play with :)

[Byte2222]

Thanks everyone!

So I guess i shouldn't get my hopes up on having an entire army worth of angel rings, huh? Oh well.

So it is better to promote right away 'broadly?" Dare I ask what that means? I'm used to the 20/20 promotion system, so this 'promote ASAP' thing is hurting my brain. If it's only broadly, are there exceptions to the promote ASAP rule? I already promoted my starting villagers, but Luka just hit level 7. Should I hold off or promote right away? What's the rule on these early games? :)

Yeah, that's kinda my fault. 95% of the time promote as soon as you can, that 5% covers if you have some particular magic you want a Mage to learn before promotion (not very likely to happen) and that time when you're feeling masochistic and want to milk some very high growths or abuse an angel ring. I wouldn't recommend it, getting experience at a high level is much harder than in the rest of the series and getting a unit to level 20 before promoting is practically never worth the effort. Maybe put off promotion for a few levels for Est or something but it's really better to just promote when you get the chance. Like I explained, because of the whole 'boosted to class bases' thing just promote as early as possible.

Edited by Byte2222, 26 June 2012 - 05:27 PM.

[bookwormbabe29]

Ok, that makes sense, I suppose :)

Another one for you: I am at the final battle for chapter 1, with the two enemy generals (Dozer and Slayder in the patch I'm using). According to the guide I'm using, you get the dragon shield if you defeat Dozer first, and he retreats if you kill Slayder. A challenge I'm willing to try to take on, of course! But my question is this...how does the story change based on who you kill? I'm going to try to play around with this, but figured I'd ask and see if people could clue me in on this. Of course, and tips for taking on Dozer would be nice too lol.

[Furetchen]

'Dozer', I believe, is actually a decoy... but is conveniently only treated as such if he dies first! It's kind of an easter egg, I guess. Anyway, the real Dozer will still show up later.

Also yeah playing SD totally counts as playing FE1. You know how clunky and badly-graphicced FE2 is, so that it's barely playable (but still playable and should be played because it's still pretty awesome)? FE1 aged about three times as badly.

[bookwormbabe29]

Huh. You know, I figured since my guide said the bolt/thunder sword always did 15 damage, it, you know, always did 15 damage. I figured to beat tozeh/dozer for his dragon shield by warping Gray as Merc up there with the sword, only to have to it do one damage. And I sort of saved myself into a corner. Opps? This could go badly lol. Hm. I guess i'll have to give up on the Dragon shield (so sad!). I wonder how strong I would have to be to actually beat this guy? 31 defense and 20 mdef with 40 HP... yea, not happening lol. Oh well.

[Celice]

Yeah, it's definitely not something you should be expected to do. Did you attack close-up or at a range? I think the always-15-damage happens when the attack is ranged. But, I dunno.

[SRC]

I believe its description is just a mistake. The sword always has 15 magic attack. (It does 13 damage to enemy Cavaliers and 7 to enemy Sorcerers, which at level 1 have 2 and 8 res, respectively.

As for Dozer, you might have to have Cliff go Villager>Merc>Swordfighter>Demon Fighter>Villager one or two times, then promote him to Mage and learn Excalibur at level 7. If you can get Cliff's power stat to 25 he can kill Dozer in one round with only one Excalibur critical, which is actually not too unlikely with Cliff's awesome stats by then and Excalibur's 20 crt rate. If you get two critical hits, Cliff will "only" need 22 power to one round him. Either way, Viola! The almighty dragon shield!

The flip side to this is if you get Cliff to that high of a level he can probably solo most of the game even without the shield.

Edited by SRC, 27 June 2012 - 12:33 AM.

[Refa]

By getting the shield, you've pretty much ensured that you need no help for rest of game, so why bother?

Not disagreeing with SRC, just saying in general.

Edited by Refa, 27 June 2012 - 01:15 AM.

[bookwormbabe29]

Hehe yea, I didn't 'need' it, but I like taking on challenges, like beating 'impossible' enemies. I thought I had found an easy enough way to do it by training for warp and using the bolt/thunder sword, but that backfired in my face. I certainly don't want to so over train to take on the entire game right now, but i would have loved getting the dragon shield and saying "hey, i DID do that." Does that make sense?

The irony is, if he didn't retreat, he could likely wipe the floor with my team lol.

[bookwormbabe29]

Holy crap, I actually beat him! I'm better than I thought! lol.

Ok, so MAYBE I'm a little higher level than expected, and MAYBE I did some save state abuse, but no where near as much as I thought would be required. I just had to make sure my pegasus knight didn't get hit twice and die, and that was the only abuse I did. I lured the Dozer/Tozeh boss out by moving my Cleive into his range, and he moved to attack me. I then warped Force behind him so he couldn't retreat to heal. It was then just a matter of barraging him with spells and arrows until he fell. Slayder only attacked once, and spent the rest of the battle sitting still as no one was in his range. It took a dozen or two turns to do so with my characters only doing 1 or 2 damage a round, but I got lucky with some crits and was able to do a whopping 4 damage instead with spells like excalibur. That was a nail biter, seeing if it would crit or not, but I got lucky. Not something I suggest doing for everyone, but man, I am SO glad I was able to beat him without anyone dying. If the pegasus knight would have dodged that last blow 'normally' I wouldn't have even needed the save state abuse.

Now the only question is... does the retreating general (slayder in my patch) actually ever show up again as he promises? Hehe. I hope so, so I can kick his butt too :)

[WindMage25]

I don't believe Slayder (the Paladin, right?) returns. In chapter 3 you'll fight Dozer again anyway.

[bookwormbabe29]

Hm... oh well. Well, I have a new question; a call for opinions.

I'm at the part where I need to chose Sonia or Deen. I 'think' Sonia is better, and I like her sprite better so I'm leaning towards her at the moment. I just wanted to hear people's thoughts. Do either of the two ever add/subtract anything from the story?

[SRC]

They are both pretty good members of their respective classes. Sonia is kind of dragged by her late and crummy promotion, but she's way better than the likes of May and Bowy, especially if you keep the shield on her. Dean has kind of has crummy growths, but his bases carry him very well, especially when he promotes to DEMON FIGHTER. Heck, Dean is probably a decent bit better because of DEMON FIGHTER, but picking Sonia won't kill you.