Cor Leonis

Hm... I'm unfamiliar with the game, so feel free to correct me. I remember people pointing out evidence of the unreleased hot spring DLC content in Encore, but I forget if it was in the trailer or the website screenshots. If it was in the screenshots, are those screenshots still there? Even if the costume changes are still present, I was wondering if it was at least possible the unreleased DLC could still be localized. It would be weird if a "definitive edition" actually ended up missing significant paid DLC content from the original game just because they were too lazy or scared to translate it for the original international version. Somewhat related—the whole situation reminds me of Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Edition where it was technically missing pre-order DLC costumes from the PS3 version (maybe there's some PSN policy about devaluing pre-order bonuses?) and some iDOLM@STER costumes since their license expired. Losing some costumes doesn't really compare to potentially losing an entire paid DLC side story, though.

Can't say I ever used Wrath+Vantage in this game since I've found using Canto to hit-and-run a lot more reliable. Add Warp and Stride on top, and you're able to hit something troublesome far away (mostly siege weapons) and able to run all the way back to a safe distance with little issue. It's an aggressive Player Phase version of turtling (as contradictory as that might sound) that I've had great success with. It also requires little investment since most units are trained for Canto Master Classes from the beginning of the game. My fresh NG Maddening run of Golden Deer has been smooth sailing because most of them could get into Canto classes very easily. Let Lysithea nuke or Warp as needed. My cross recruits (Linhardt and Sylvain) are mostly regulated to being Adjuncts with Sylvain pulling his weight as a Wyvern Lord when there's more than 10 deployment slots. My third Adjunct, Assassin Catharine, is underrated, too. Training her in bows for Assassin lets her get Hit+20 from Archer which fixes Thunderbrand's shaky accuracy. It's kind of a shame I can't find more opportunities to deploy her at this point in the game (post timeskip).

I'm specifically referring to the last week of a given month only since you generally want to Explore the first couple of weeks to keep Motivation high on your units that need the WEXP and there's no tutoring before story missions. Selecting Battle every single week is really redundant since one Battle session is all you really need stabilize your team. It's all about striking a balance with the options available.

I think it's important to point out the grind isn't infinite (99 Turn limit abuse for WEXP and class mastery notwithstanding; I can't defend anyone doing that), and the Maddening EXP nerf pretty much hard caps your Level. After a Battle session, I can confirm your EXP comes crashing to a halt once you start catching up to the recommended levels. Support spellcasters can get ahead due to an oversight in their EXP formula, but most support units already do their job effectively by the time you get A+ rank Professor Level.

Is there any particular reason we're acting as if selecting Battle instead of Explore isn't a legitimate form of play? Explore mostly becomes useless outside of boosting Motivation and cooking Bullheads after you hit A+ rank Professor Level. Random stat boosters from gardening helps but isn't strictly necessary, and reclassing Byleth is really overrated since Enlightened One gets the job done and lets you focus on swords. Using the last week of the month to do whatever Paralogues or quests you have available and filling in the gaps with standard auxiliary battles is a great use of resources. It builds up your Renown for statue boosts and keeps your team's EXP and class mastery from lagging behind. This isn't Normal mode where you can spam free auxiliary battles until you're maxed.

Ah... Those 180 extra points from the Tournament Bait ended up mattering a lot. It allowed me just enough wiggle room to pump out an A rank Professor Level right at the beginning of Chapter 8. A+ is definitely out of the question until the fishing grind next chapter, so I can finally stop focusing on Explore and hit up all these Paralogues. I'm surprised how fair and relatively balanced everything has been on a fresh Maddening run. Lorenz's and Sylvain's Paralogues were tight but nothing unreasonable, and I managed to knock them out on my first tries as soon as they unlocked. Sometimes I feel like my stat ups from leveling have been subpar, but all my in-house (Golden Deer) units have been continuing to pull their weight despite it all. I've yet to truly hit a brick wall, and I haven't even touched my stat boosters yet (aside from some Speed Carrots to meet some key Attack Speed thresholds). They'll probably just rot in the Convoy until timeskip, honestly. The +1 Spd boost from cooking Bullheads every Explore session is really all I need to carry the team.

Just tested my Tournament Bait idea. It's not worth it. You can only catch one non-tournament fish, and it only gives 10 EXP. They're also rare enough soft-resetting is pretty much out of the question. That said, you're still given 50 free bait, and you might as well just use it and hope for the best. I ended up getting an extra 180 EXP by the end. Nothing terribly game-changing, but it may nudge me into a higher Professor Rank down the line.

Hey, any free Professor EXP is welcome. That extra 1000 or so points can go a long way.

Speaking of exploiting Explore... Can I save my extra Tournament Bait for the next Fistsful of Fish event? Or does it become unusable after the quest is over? Gotta min-max my Professor Rank (even though I'm already about to reach B+ as early as Chapter 6).

This there a guide floating around anywhere on where to find items throughout exploration? I don't mean just Lost Items; this includes the Professor Rank increasing items and the like. It has become tedious searching every corner of the map just to get a few bonus points on my Professor Rank in this fresh Maddening run.

How does bonus Renown carry over multiple playthroughs? Say I never touched my 50000 Renown from clearing routes. Would my next NG+ have 100000 Renown (50000 + 50000 carryover) or just 50000 again (50000 is overwritten due to its bonus nature)?

Didn't the original datamine show an Infernal difficulty option after Maddening? What's the Japanese wording for Infernal compared to what was translated as "Abyss"? If someone can confirm they are in fact different words, I feel it would clear up any misunderstandings about "Abyss Mode". If it is the same, however, I suspect you either pull over your Cleared Save units à la Trial Maps or you're given similarly ridiculous units relevant to the side story.

Yes, healing/support spells bypass the curve even in Aux. Battles. That's how my Linhardt got ahead. I mean, I guess you could could try and get ahead that way? You'd only be limited by your spell casts and battle points, but it seems like a major time sink just to get an edge in on the difficulty. Maddening mode has stat inflation on enemies, but it isn't THAT bad.

True, but then you're gimping your mages' EXP by letting everyone else steal their heals. (This is taking kill-stealing to a whole new level, huh?) Besides, this is still Maddening mode; your units have key roles to play if you actually want to clear maps. Your vanguard should be hitting things, not healing allies. They need the stat bonuses and abilities of physical classes, and investing in Faith is very much counterintuitive.

The only problem with that is someone needs to be damaged, and everyone trying to spam their own heal gets in the way. Linhardt, Dorothea, and Lysithea alone keeps nearly everyone's HP maxed without really trying so far on my BE-Church playthrough. I can't really imagine throwing seven more healers on top would offer any real benefit...

Yeah, I've been noticing Aux. Battles on NG+ cap out pretty quickly with the EXP curve. That said, though, healing spells and Warp not being affected by the curve (probably a programming oversight since they don't have an enemy Level to check against) is absolutely silly. I'm only on Chapter 9, but Linhardt is already a Level 34 Holy Knight just because he can spam Physic and Warp every map (Lysithea is close behind at Level 27) while everyone else is barely over Level 20. I'm kind of tempted to keep doing all these gratuitous Aux. Battles just to see how ahead Linhardt's Level can possibly get... Did any of you recruit anyone specifically for their utility or Paralogues, or did you keep your party line-ups all in-house? I can't imagine the first time timeskip Chapter without training everyone in your default house, and it seems like a bad idea to invest in more characters.

How did you end up distributing your activity/battle points before A+ Professor rank? Did you find yourself focusing on Explore or Battle until A+? And how did you end up distributing Renown for statue bonuses? Getting all the Divine Pulses seems like a given, but did you prioritize EXP+10% or getting the WEXP bonuses afterward? I really want to do a NG Maddening run, but I've really been spoiled by the freedom (and less grinding) NG+ provides.

Has anyone figured out the most optimal use of the DLC stat boosters for Maddening? The EXP nerf pretty much guarantees everyone is at level 1 base stats (except maybe Byleth and your lord of choice), so I'm interested in what thresholds can be met with +7 HP, +3 Str, and +3 Spd for the Chapter 1 mock battle.

I kind of have a love-hate relationship with the undo buttons. On one hand, it's quite possibly one of the best quality of life changes ever introduced to this series because now I can undo that fatal misclick of hitting "Wait" when scrolls through menus too fast. The problem is, however, I don't make 10+ misclicks per map. Which leads to the problem... I find myself essentially savescumming for good RNG rolls on low Hit rates or aiming for that one Critical hit to end the map quicker simply because the game allows me to. I have an excessive amount of undos that I simply have no other uses for. In a way, I find this fun to some extent since it allows for some cheesy LTC moments. But it absolutely trivializes any flavor of difficulty that was supposed to be presented. The undo buttons presented in Fire Emblem thus far simply offer too much freedom. It lets you revert to any point in the map and reroll any battle RNG just by reordering your actions, all for the low cost of one single use. It even bypasses defeat conditions by auto-activating when they are met now. It needs a few changes in order to not be so broken in the player's favor. 1.) Loss conditions are loss conditions; the player needs to be punished and game over if they were playing badly enough to meet them. 2.) Undo usage should increment somehow. Something like one use needed for each action or phase or turn undone as opposed to one use letting you rewind to any point in the map. I'd be more inclined to it being tied to phases if the uses are extremely limited or actions if they continue being so numerous. 3.) Character deaths/retreats should be points of no return. Rewinding to get out of bad situations is one thing since the error was recognized, but players letting those situations unfold (whether it was trying to dodgetank or simply not paying attention) need to learn from their mistakes and play it more safe. That's what comes to mind for me, anyway. The number of uses is heavily dependent on how the second change is implemented, but I'm more inclined to a lower number overall. I'm open to thoughts and suggestions since this is a rough draft of ideas.

How feasible is it to get Byleth (male) into Wyvern Rider? Getting the lance and axe ranks seems easy enough, but I only remember Seteth tutoring flying.

Dorothea as a Dancer is just too perfect. I've found Meteor is better as the ultimate utility spell rather than a siege weapon. Just equipping it spreads her support bonuses and Gambit Boosts across the map. It doesn't matter that it only has one use since she should be refreshing other units. You lose out on her long range offensive capabilities, sure, but since basically everyone wants a mount, +5 Mov from Stride even existing, and Warp-skipping to the enemy commander being easier than ever, it literally doesn't matter. She can use Physic if she isn't in range to refresh someone, but I've had great success in giving her the March Ring since 7 (or 12 with Stride) Mov gets the job done. Ferdinand is a Bow Knight. Getting to A+ Riding for Movement +1 is absolutely trivial, and the enhanced bow range is stupidly good. He has to invest in bows since he's neutral with them, but bows are one of the few things actually worth investing in. I need to play Blue Lions to get a fresh perspective on Felix. Recruiting him late in Golden Deer did him no favors since he was heavily invested by default into swords and brawling, two skills that don't exactly overlap. I ended up investing in bows to make him an Assassin to middling success. Bow Knight or War Master are probably his best options when training him from scratch.

That's a relief. Thank you for the concise and insightful answer. Now to try and get a third EXP+10% before this run ends... I've been doing skirmishes on Hard every other week of the month to try and grind Renown. I think for generic skirmishes, you get a flat 100 Renown per battle? So it's an easy 600 every month assuming you have an A+ Professor rank and without ignoring your students' Motivation.

I'm getting conflicting reports here. Do you or do you not start NG+ with additional bonus Renown for clearing your previous playthrough? This is important since I need to know if I should hoard my Renown for NG+ or if I can continue spending it on status bonuses safely in my first playthrough. It would be awful to start NG+ with like 200 Renown just because I tried to reach for a third EXP+10%.

My Professor level is already maxed out at A+ thanks to exploiting the fishing pond. I guess I'll just look out for Anna, then? Will the regular shop carry any limited copies of Master Seals like they did with the lower level Seals?

When can you start buying Master Seals? All of my primary units are level 30+ after Chapter 12, but I have only received the one free Master Seal for qualifying. I don't intend on using online features either. I'm playing on Hard/Classic, if it matters any.