Starting Conquest, need advice

[SullyMcGully]

So, I'm finally playing through Fates! I'm starting with Conquest, and I have a few questions:

1: What's the deal with Felicia? Is there something I'm missing here? I understand that Gunter is Jeigan (those growths) but Felicia... seems like a decent character. Should I use her, seeing as she is going to reach level 20 without reaching her full potential the way other units would?

2: In the older Fire Emblem games, you had to sacrifice giving experience to most of your units and instead focus on training an elite team. Is that the case in Conquest? How do I unlock child units if I decide to bench their fathers?

3: Are there any good strategies for building up supports faster in this game? I can deal with limited gold and EXP, but I want to unlock all of the paralogues.

4: Is there anyone I should definitely not use? A broken mechanic I should take advantage of? A must-have skill, weapon, or character I should go all out for? Basically, is there anything really important I should know before I start?

Thanks, guys. I know you'll have some good tips. Don't worry about spoilers, I spoiled myself on YouTube a year ago.

[Emeraldfox]

1. Felicia's level cap is 40. She's treated like an unpromoted unit with a special class like Azura.

2. If getting the children is that important to you there's always the dlc maps and invasions if you want supports.

3. See 2

4. Just play the game and figure that stuff out for yourself, bucko

[Extrasolar]

38 minutes ago, SullyMcGully said:

1: What's the deal with Felicia? Is there something I'm missing here? I understand that Gunter is Jeigan (those growths) but Felicia... seems like a decent character. Should I use her, seeing as she is going to reach level 20 without reaching her full potential the way other units would?

The earlygame Felicia and Jakob start off fairly strong, with good bases, which lets them double and deal pretty good damage to low-defense enemies, as well as their healing earlygame being absolutely invaluable until you get Elise. They'll start to fall off roughly midgame with their low strength, meaning that except for the dagger debuff they won't be dealing much damage. The healing stays relevant no matter what. And all of this is assuming no reclass, which if you're new to the game I wouldn't mess with too much just based on how much complexity it adds.

38 minutes ago, SullyMcGully said:

2: In the older Fire Emblem games, you had to sacrifice giving experience to most of your units and instead focus on training an elite team. Is that the case in Conquest? How do I unlock child units if I decide to bench their fathers?

Yup. Conquest has limited experience, unlike Birthright and Revelation. So you need to train up your elite team. But if you still want every child unit, just use the father you're not using in battle as a permanent Pair-Up backpack with the mother that you want/are training. Each time they battle they'll gain affection points and let you get the kid.

38 minutes ago, SullyMcGully said:

3: Are there any good strategies for building up supports faster in this game? I can deal with limited gold and EXP, but I want to unlock all of the paralogues.

Not really. Just stick the pairs you want next to each other, or keep them paired up as normal, and each battle they initiate they'll gain affection points. Some characters have faster-building supports with others naturally, and some characters have slower-building supports with others, though. It all depends on the character and partner in question. I think there's a list here on SF which characters are easier to support with others.

38 minutes ago, SullyMcGully said:

4: Is there anyone I should definitely not use? A broken mechanic I should take advantage of? A must-have skill, weapon, or character I should go all out for? Basically, is there anything really important I should know before I start?

Effie is great, to the point that she carries a lot of Conquest, as well as Keaton. The Nohrian royals are all good to use, but that's expected. Laslow always turns out extremely strong for me.

Most everyone else is alright to use and train, but won't turn out spectacular, though I'd stay away from someone like Nyx, who starts off weak and is difficult to get off the ground, while other magic users can do her job better and more reliably. Izana and Shura are good, provided you know the secret way to recruit Izana (level up the hot spring to max, and he'll join you automatically after a certain point in the game).

Niles will be insanely useful early on as a rare Conquest bow, but his poor strength means that he'll also fall off around midgame; while doubling everything, he'll often fail to do significant damage. Promote him into Adventurer, and he'll be able to heal, meaning he'll at least stay relevant that way.

Arthur's low luck becomes a liability later in the game, where he tends to eat enemy crits more often than not. Unless you stick a Bronze Axe or his son Percy with him as a Pair Up (Percy's personal skill essentially cancels out any enemy crit chance), you'll be playing with fire each time you send him into battle later in the game.

Odin is extremely mediocre and often not worth the effort to train, but his kid Ophelia is one of the best kids in the game. In my experience, pairing Odin with someone who gives high speed and crit (like Selena, for example) makes Ophelia even better.

Edited March 25, 2017 by Extrasolar

[vercio]

1. Butlers and Maids come as Special Class. You can take em up to Level 40.

2. If you don't use the grinding DLCs, yes, it is more like the "old" Fire Emblem

3. Online battles: no experience but support grinding is to make up there. My suggestion is to do Storyline battles until Chapter 20, then moving forwards to kids in order to build good kid units

4. Avoid Arthur, and focus on certain units: Effie, the Royals, Inigo are the ones i'd bet my run. The Dracoshield/Dragonstone combo is a must have for defense playing. If you want seriously hack the game, you can try to go with THREE THOUSANDS Online Battles for a Dragonstone+, which will break the game making MU a potential untouchable item.

 

[Interdimensional Observer]

1. Felicia, Jakob, and Gunter are all special cases. They start promoted with unpromoted bases, but can reach up to level 40, and can get awesome level 15 promoted skills as early as level 15, which can be sweet.

Gunter has near zero growths- use him for the few chapters you have to, but dump him afterwards unless for Corrin's Defensive Stance partner.

Felicia is a decent magic attacker with the Flame Shuriken or a reclass. Jakob is better in the short term with a reclass to something physical. Both do taper off in the long run, particularly Jakob, but neither become unusable.

2. Don't shove all your experience into 1 unit- on Hard and Lunatic settings the game heavily curbs experience gain if you're more than say 3 levels above your foes. But don't try to raise 16 (the max deployment for any chapter) unpromoted units- that is spreading things too thin.

As for kids, you can gain support points, but not experience, while fighting My Castle battles online. Find some castles where nobody is armed/stationary with only range 1 and the throne is clear, and after about 7 battles, you'll have your S supports.

4. Go ahead and use whoever you want. Though as a heads up, Xander and Camilla have very good growths and start strong too- use them as fallbacks if you need to. I'd recommend some diversity- be sure to have an anti-mage and a durable non-horse unit at least.

Fates gives you a half-dozen ways to play with the difficulty once you start. Use some if you really can't get past something.

Also, what difficulty you're playing on will affect a lot. Casual and Normal means things won't be too bad, I did Classic Hard my first time for Fates- it could be brutal, but I slogged through it with joy. I pray you haven't picked Lunatic.

[Shadow Mir]

1. Felicia and Jakob can level up to 40. For what it's worth, they're also able to pick up level 15 skills loooooong before anyone else can.

2. Yes, Conquest is more akin to the older FE games in that aspect - you can only grind on Boo Camp. As for getting the children, you can either use the DLC if you have it, or go to other castles (for best results, go to castles where everyone is unarmed and the throne is unguarded). (There is another caveat, but I'll get to that later)

3. See 2. Also of note, if you're playing as a male Corrin, if you marry anyone other than Flora, Anna, Scarlet, Reina (the latter two aren't relevant in Conquest, btw) or a child unit, you won't be able to get all of them.

4. Avoid Arthur and Charlotte like the plague - the former tends to be vulnerable to crits, in addition to being hard to get off the ground, and the latter couldn't hit the broad side of a barn if her life depended on it. Also, I'd stay as far away from Berserkers as humanly possible - not unlike is the case with Arthur, you're playing with fire every time you try to have them enter combat. On the other hand, the royal units and Effie tend to be good.

Edited March 25, 2017 by Levant Mir Celestia

[Nobody]

I recommend using the royals, Kaze, Niles and Effie + their pair up partners, and also whoever else you like. It's easy to use units you like if you're also using the best units in the game.

Niles's strenght might look bad, but he's an amazing ninja killer. Ninjas are the most annoying enemies in the game, and have bad def, so Niles's bad strenght isn't really an issue, specially if you forge him a bow. He will also one shot all the fliers.

Edited March 25, 2017 by Nobody

[Water Mage]

While some units like Arthur and Charlotte are difficult to use because of their hit rates, it's still worth training, or at least promoting them as they make for amazing pair-up parthers, particularly Charlotte. Just to have an idea Berserker Charlotte gives her S-Rank pair-up partner +8 Strength and +5 Speed.

[Shadow Mir]

15 minutes ago, Water Mage said:

While some units like Arthur and Charlotte are difficult to use because of their hit rates, it's still worth training, or at least promoting them as they make for amazing pair-up parthers, particularly Charlotte. Just to have an idea Berserker Charlotte gives her S-Rank pair-up partner +8 Strength and +5 Speed.

Personally, I don't agree - using a pair up bot means I'm wasting a unit slot imho. And with only so many Master Seals to go around for the majority of the game, I'd give priority to the units I know I'm taking to the end.

Edited March 25, 2017 by Levant Mir Celestia
Typos

[Sieghart]

Also shurikenbreaker and lancebreaker are your best friends in conquest.

[Shadow Mir]

31 minutes ago, Sieghart said:

Also shurikenbreaker and lancebreaker are your best friends in conquest.

Erm, Lancebreaker isn't accessible in Conquest... And even if it was, it's a level 15 skill, aka it comes too late to matter, in all likelihood. Why do you say Lancebreaker's good in Conquest anyway?

[Sieghart]

2 minutes ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

Erm, Lancebreaker isn't accessible in Conquest... And even if it was, it's a level 15 skill, aka it comes too late to matter, in all likelihood. Why do you say Lancebreaker's good in Conquest anyway?

In later chapters we have alot of spear masters, basaras (Some of then use spear) ,falcon knights,kinshi knights and great masters.

[eclipse]

As long as you aren't starting on Lunatic Classic, you'll have some flexibility regarding who you choose.  For now, experiment!  Figure out who works for you, and run with it.  Children aren't vitally important, though there's a few that give nifty items in addition to their recruitment (Ophelia comes to mind).  Find a good core of 12 units, including Corrin.

Don't forget about the various Seals!  Camilla makes a fine Wyvern Lord, Selena can go staffbot via Falcoknight, and Ninja helps to fix Laslow's Speed issues (a little).  Most reclasses aren't absolutely horrible.

Have fun~!

[Shadow Mir]

20 minutes ago, Sieghart said:

In later chapters we have alot of spear masters, basaras (Some of then use spear) ,falcon knights,kinshi knights and great masters.

Well, there's the aforementioned problem about Lancebreaker being practically inaccessible in Conquest since the one class that gets it is Hoshidan.

Also, going back to the discussion of kids, their paralogues scale according to how far you are in the game. Of particular note, Forrest and Ignatius (respectively, Leo and Benny's sons) have paralogues that are just stupid if you wait too long to do them.

Edited March 25, 2017 by Levant Mir Celestia

[Interdimensional Observer]

Forrest's Paralogue can be taken slowly with an Entrap use, the paralogue gives you 5000k anyhow so it basically pays for itself. Ignatius- yeah he is the problem one.

As for other children paralogues with goodies. Do Percy's early if you want gold (you can nab 7-10k if you try), if you want experience save it for later. Nina's has a couple niceties, namely a Shining Bow, but you can always buy one instead. Ophelia's has the best goodies- a Horse Spirit, Lighting, Calamity Gate, and Spirit Dust- all so delectable for your mage of choice- and two of those are even otherwise unobtainable Hoshidan weapons.

[Shadow Mir]

12 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Forrest's Paralogue can be taken slowly with an Entrap use, the paralogue gives you 5000k anyhow so it basically pays for itself. Ignatius- yeah he is the problem one.

As for other children paralogues with goodies. Do Percy's early if you want gold (you can nab 7-10k if you try), if you want experience save it for later. Nina's has a couple niceties, namely a Shining Bow, but you can always buy one instead. Ophelia's has the best goodies- a Horse Spirit, Lighting, Calamity Gate, and Spirit Dust- all so delectable for your mage of choice- and two of those are even otherwise unobtainable Hoshidan weapons.

As I see it, that's an Entrap use that could've been put to better use elsewhere. Aside from those, I consider Sophie to have one that's awful late as well, and Nina is another one that's better done early than late since if she gets away, you get a thumbs down.

Edited March 25, 2017 by Levant Mir Celestia

[SpearOfLies]

1 Promoted unit with inter level of basic class lv 1 and have cap 40. It's easier get advanced skill.

2 Limited.

3 No, you can farm throught online battle. Very slow. I advice you to do it with rev. It's a lot easier cause you can spawn maps with enemy.

4 Overall they are all solid unit. At least more than birthright unit. They all have their own good side and down side. The royalty are the best units but you are not forced to use them(but it's better cause dragon veins mechanics). Unless you play lunatic, you can freely use anyone but you still need a balance team without problem.

[Dunal]

4) Everyone is usable/viable but keep these in mind of you want to use certain units:

Arthur: If you want to use him long-term, you'll want to use his Son as well, and forge him a +2 Bronze Axe (2K gold) until then.

Nyx: Forge a +2 fire tome (2K gold as well) and supply her with speed tonics in the first few maps she is in. She is powerful later in the game but needs some help to prevent her struggling early on.  

Charlotte: Also wants a forged bronze early on purely because of accuracy. She won't need it later on though. Also some early STR/SPD tonics or a strong pair-up.

Peri: If you want to use her, save the dracoshield for her and invest some early DEF tonics.

Mozu: Reclass to archer, give her +2 bronze bow + some early STR tonics. This significantly helps her early game and will be pretty powerful by the time she gets Quick Draw.

Odin: Most expensive unit to make good IMO with wanting +2 thunder tome with a goofy name. Or a +1 thunder with MAG tonics. And/or a nosferatu tome later on. OR you class change him and give him a +2 bronze/iron sword. Which is likely the better option TBH.

 

Keep in mind, that you only have so much gold, so I advise not using more than a couple of these units. Although three of them is probably fine.

Everyone else should be easy enough to use.

 

Edited March 25, 2017 by DLuna

[SullyMcGully]

Thanks for the advice! I'm playing on Normal Classic, so hopefully the difficulty doesn't get too intense. I'm pleased with the difficulty so far, though. It feels good to have to reset on normal mode again!