Galap

Thanks for your response! So to make sure I got it right, it makes a list of each non-capped stat and rolls RNs and checks whether they increase, with the order primarily sorted by growth rate, high to low, and secondarily sorted by the reverse order they are displayed in the stat screen (bottom to top). After 3 stats are gained it stops trying to increase any. Is that correct? if so, then what happens if it goes through the whole list and 3 stats are not gained (say only 2 would be)? Does it just repeat the process until a 3rd one increases?

Level ups using BEXP do not handle the RNG in the same way that normal level ups do. The normal level ups roll RNs for each stat independently and increase the stat if the RN is less than the growth rate. BEXP level ups don't work like this, they will always result in 3 stats increasing, and it only picks stats to attempt to increase that are not yet capped. It seems to pick the probabilities of which stats to increase as some function of the growth rates, but given the constraints the probabilities cannot simply be the growth rate probabilities. I'd really like to know what these probabilities are and how to calculate them. I have searched for this information and failed to find it. The closest I found was this thread, which does not give the full info. So, what is the exact formula that is used to determine BEXP level ups?

They are very good for the big engage attacks, like override, lodestar rush, etc, since they have higher power with all of the drawbacks made irrelevant. They are good on slow units like Louis. Sometimes, if your unit can handle the weight they are good on enemy phase. Sometimes, but infrequently, you want a smash attack because of the push as well.

Here's what I did and why. I played on maddening and didn't have DLC. Marth-- Alear. the amped up lodestar rush does a lot of damage, and double xp with mercurius on the lord is always welcome and adds up quickly. Alear did spend a lot of the game with Byleth post chapter 11, because the +3 to all stats goddess dance and rally is really good. Celica-- Citrinne. makes sense to put the pure power magic emblem on a high damage output mage. I had her on celine before but I was forced to drop celine since her power output just wasn't keeping up. Sigurd -- Merrin(sword paladin). putting the horse emblem on a mounted unit makes sense fundamentally. Merrin was my choice of mounted unit because of her high speed and good stats when she joins (alfred became unusable on me). Leaf -- Lapis. Lapis needed to have her low build patched, and needed to get the axe prof to be able to promote to hero for higher strenght and hand axe use. Roy -- Alcryst. I think this might have been a bit of an awkward choice, but Roy was kind of the leftover physical emblem and that's where he went. It did come in handy quite a bit though, and I'd say it was a good decision, since his bonus of +6 strenght and even higher stats when engaged really did wonders for improving alcryst's ability to kill things. Hold out actually made him a pretty good tank, and there were some occasions where he had to tank a bunch of ranged attacks and was able to do it. Lyn -- Diamant. This combination was what created my most powerful unit. Big D really got the work done here. He had really high strength and pretty good defence, but with speedtaker and the flat speed boosts, this turned a unit that's strong and moderately tanky with mediocre speed into a ture Lightning Bruiser: Strong, Fast, and Tanky. The fact that my strongest unit could chuck astra storms with mulagir enabled some long distance one-shots of really pesky enemies, and being able to turn my best unit into a bow user on demand really helped with the large packs of tough fliers the game likes to throw at you. Alacrity really sealed the deal-- his main weapon became the brave axe, allowing him to whack at most enemies four times before they could be able to do anything. THis was enough to kill most enemies in the game in one shot, and take a health bar off of most bosses (combined with dancing, he was able to single handedly kill most bosses without being counterattacked this way). Eirika -- Kagetsu. This also worked really well in creating someone fast who also hits like a truck. Lunar brace is a really good ability to have. Plus, Sieglinde is one of the best engage weapons in the game-- it's one of the only things that's effective against corrupted, and you fight a LOT of corrupted enemies in this game, particularly towards the end. Ike -- Timerra. I probably should have found a better home for Ike, and I probably shouldn't have used timerra at all. Not sure how to evaluate this one. She had decent speed, but it was murdered by her bad build. She never got that strong either. Plus, all of ike's engage weapons cratered her speed even more. I wanted her to be a unit that was fast and tanky, but even with lyn's speed+5 and leaf's build+3, she just didn't get there. Micaiah -- Yunaka. This combination, while being the 'recommended' one, made for a pretty unusual unit, but I liked it. A healer that can do dagger attacks is pretty useful, as is great sacrifice. and later on being able to send large warp balls across the map was really useful. I'm not sure there was any particularly strong synergy between Micaiah and Yunaka, but I can't think of a better pairing for either of them anyway. Lucina -- Louis. THe main idea here was that louis can protect himself, and with bonded shield he can protect others, so this is the ideal setup for holding chokepoints. It worked quite well for this. Lucina's +dex bonuses also helped him be more accurate, which was something he needed. Corrin -- Ivy. This combination was extremely powerful. Corrin is definitely a magic focused emblem, of which there aren't that many, and the boost helped improve ivy's damage output. The main thing though was being able to put draconic hex and the freeze effect on a unit that can attack from 3 range with thoron, and additionally a flying unit, that has a lot more mobility to get where she needs to go. I can't tell you how many times my ass was saved by being able to freeze out whole groups of enemies, or how much freezing bosses from 3 range was helpful Byleth-- Veyle. This worked quite well, since it turned Veyle, whose damage output was mediocre into a great support unit with the Dragon goddes dance/rally.

I've been pretty anal about doing all the things that get them-- fishing, sommie etc. I don't remember how many I had at 17 though. One thing to say is have you been picking up the achievement bond fragments from the bulletin board to the left of the food counter? I only figured out that those existed like halfway through my playthrough and it immediately more than doubled my fragments.

Yeah, I think that a good compromise that would work well would be if you could only rewind to the start of the current turn. That way you can fix misclics or simple processing errors, but strategically you still need to do things the first time. And for the final paralogue, the map wouldn't have lost anything if they just listed as the victory condition "prevent the boss from escaping and route the enemy". Yeah the Ike paralogue rug pull was particularly dickish, since the game clearly labels all of the other destructible walls, but not THAT one.

I've found bond fragments to easily be the least limited resource in the game. I got many characters to high bond levels with multiple emblems, and still ended the game with like 70k bond fragments. SP was by far the more limiting factor to me.

I do like the idea of there being these supertypes of units, larger in scale than the classes, like backup, dragon, covert etc. I would like something like chain attacks to come back, but I think it should be more like fates' attack stance things, since I think the chain attacks were a bit too good since they completely bypass avoid and defence. It was cool in this game to have the option to chip enemies down with essentially unavoidable damage, and to have to deal with the enemy doing it to you, but I would prefer not to have that become a staple. Breaking was kind of boring IMO. It really didn't matter that much to me, to the extent that I often completely forgot it existed. I do find it extremely funny that the AI with the fracture staff never used it correctly a single time in my entire playthrough-- that is, it never used the staff on one of my units and then someone else attacked without getting countered. And it's pretty funny to me because as someone who is making my own SRPG game, It only took me a few second to think about how to write AI that would do it correctly every single time. I know it's probably here to stay, but I really wish they would get rid of the time crystal. I mostly didn't use it, essentially only for misclicks, but I think what it does to the game is fundamentally bad, since I can tell that they're designing the game around you using the time crystal.

that's a really weird bug. I've heard claims that if you update with an existing save, characters recruited before the update will have fixed growths, while new characters will have random (seems weird to me idk) and if you have beat the game on maddening before and select fixed growths, they will be correctly fixed. Can anyone verify these claims?

It's good but not amazing. I didn't use the DLC (maybe I will do a second playthrough that uses it). I ended up getting dire thunder and putting it on pandreo . It's pretty much a good thing to put on a filler magical unit once the unit cap bumps up to 14.

I'll take a crack at it too. This is from my experience playing on maddening. Haven't done DLC, so can't comment on them yet. S: Corrin, Lyn: Corrin: Dreadful Aura is ridiculously strong. You can use it to lock down entire squads of enemies, you have no idea how many times this ability has saved me in my playthrough. The thing that's so busted about it is that the attack doesn't even have to connect in order for it to freeze them out. This combined with draconic hex also lets you stop what would be extremely scary bosses dead in their tracks. It lets you safely chip away at them from range over multiple turns until they die. O Quality Time+ is actually a very good skill, and I had a couple of units inherit it. Staves in this game wear out quickly and cost money, which is a pretty precious resource, so having repeatable free healing is amazing. This is compounded by the healing dragon vein from flying units (I had her on Ivy) which can really do some work. Also, corrin is really easy to level bond with, since the dragon vein gives a good amount of bond xp and using it si free, so if you just spam it whenever the character has a free action, or delay finishing a map and just keep spamming it, you can get to max bond very quickly. Lyn: Speedtaker + alacrity is incredibly busted. the ability to do all of your attacks before the enemy counterattacks is really good. Mulagir is also a very good engage weapon, and a unit being able to become a bow user when needed is very useful, since when you need anti-air in this game, you ususally need a lot of it at once. Astra storm is also great because you can kill things with it before they become a threat, or can pick off theives from afar to get chest items without hassle. additionally, her inheritable + speed skills are pretty inexpensive in terms of SP for how good they are. A: Byleth, Eirica, Micaiah Byleth: Goddes dance is a really powerful ability, getting 4 more actions lets you really get out of tough places. Especially, this combined with Canter on seadall lets you make the same unit act 4 times in a turn, which can be a true godsend. The rally ability is good as well, but I find often it's a wash between the buff being better or just attacking with the byleth user to gain another attacking unit. That said, having the option is nice. Eirica: since lunar brace adds a lot of damage and bypasses defence, it's a very useful skill for making a powerhouse. Also the fact that if you can manage to get it or gentility on other units, they also get buffed when you engage is nice. Twin strike is a very good raw damage attack as well. The main thing about Eirica that puts her in A tier to me is the Sieglinde though. you fight a LOT of corrupted enemies in this game, particularly towards the end, and this is an inherently strong weapon that is also effective against them, where there aren't many other effective corrupted weapons. Twin strike with the Sieglinde is one of the only consistent ways of killing those damn corrupted wymrs without taking damage on the backswing. Micaiah: she would be squarely B tier (for nice things like gaining staff use, improving staff range, great sacrifice, etc.) if it weren't for the fact that staff AOE + 1 applies to things like warp and rescue. being able to send multi-man warp balls across the map is really useful. B: Marth, Lucina, Sigurd Marth: his engage weapons are really strong, and lodestar rush does a LOT of damage. possibly somewhat overlooked is the fact that mercurius gives double XP. if you rack up a bunch of kills with it you can level someone very fast with it. He's pretty straightforward but he's useful. Lucina: Lucina greases the wheels in a lot of ways. the long range backup strike is nice, and probably was helpful, but I didn't really plan around it and often forgot about it. But turning a non-backup unit into a backup unit is some good passive stuff as well. I found her engage attack to be not that strong, but hey, it's an attack that always hits and the opponent can't counterattack, so it's useful. Giving the parthia is good because, as I said before, when you need anti-air, you need a lot of it, so turning this on to get another bow user is useful. Bonded shield is a great ability for holding chokepoints. Sigurd: The extra movement is extremely good, and Override I think is the best AOE attack in the game, but getting a really good setup for it is pretty situational. Canter is extremely useful, and it's great that it can be inherited. C : Roy, Celica, ike Roy might be a better emblem that I had a hard time finding a home for. I like the fact that merely engaging with him gives a flat boost to your stats, though it's a bit hard to predict exactly what it's going to be. Giving up to + 6 strength bonus as a sync bonus is very welcome as well. Hold Out is easily his best skill, and if you get all the way to 20 with him, you can start to become a serious man tank. Where I think he falls down a bit is his engage weapons aren't excellent, and I've rarely found a use for blazing lion. The damage isn't very high, and the geometry being useful is very situational, and often I find the fire hindering the movement of your units is a bigger problem for you than the enemy. One thing you can do that's pretty niche but kind of intersting is that if you are affected by freeze, you can still use the advance ability to move. I ended up putting him on alcryst but that was basically because all the other physical-focused units I was using had a better choice for an emblem. Celica: warp ragnarok is very good, and echo is really useful for splitting targets or extra damage. Seraphim is also great since it's effective against the corrupted. Later in the game stronger tomes like forged thoron can do about as much damage against corrupted, but seraphim is lightweight and just as good. For more minor benefits it's nice to get the recover staff, to be able to heal without costing staff use (I spent a lot of money over the course of the game on healing staves). Ike: Ike's a bit hard for me to evaluate, since in my playthough I kept him on the 'recommeded' character Timerra, who I think is just not very good, and not so good a match for ike. his ability to make you tank things is really nice, but his weapons are really heavy and crater your speed. Again on a unit with high build or already low speed it might be good, but idk. Great aether I was able to pull off pretty well a couple of times but i think it's very situational to be able to get the good multi hit big damage with it. D: Leaf Leaf: I think he's easily the worst emblem, which is sad because Thracia is my favorite FE game. his engage weapons are terrible, and quadruple strike rarely does much damage, often even worse than a normal attack. And his skills aren't very strong. You could probably build around vantage, but I haven't found it to be very useful practically . The best thing about him is that he gives the build, both inheritably and as an equip bonus. This can patch up units that really need it, like lapis, chloe or timerra. I think you're supposed to like him for being able to give lots of weapon proficiencies, but it wasn't very helpful for me. Everything he gave I could get from someone else for some bond fragments, which are a resource that you're utterly swimming in in this game, unlike most others like money and SP, which the game is quite stingy with.

I actually am using Ivy. She is one of my best units. Though, based on some discussion in this thread, I did just put the Byleth engrave on her thoron, and this was a good decision.

^ This happened to me too. I only figured it out like 10 or so chapters in and got a huge dump. Another thing I'd like to change is how the cooking menu works. It doesn't make sense to have to pick the people before seeing the meals. My process currently is: Pick the first 2 people as dummies to see the meals, find the meal that gives the best bonuses that the cook is good at making, open a tab on SF to see the list of preferred foods and Ctrl+F to find the list of who likes it, and then pick who i want to eat it from there. This is very awkward. It would make a LOT more sense if you would first see the meals, pick one, and THEN pick the units, where you see a list of who does and doesn't like them.

If you hold the button while during enemy phase or player phase right before making an attack when full animations are on, it will play map animations instead while the button is down. I haven't tested the other way yet.

I just figured out that you can do this. The button is R2.