FE1 Promotion Items

[Von Ithipathachai]

I'm attempting a playthrough of Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light and I'd like to know how many of each promotion item there are.  Especially Guiding Rings so I can figure out whether or not I should promote Lena.

[DarthR0xas]

Use this https://fireemblemwiki.org/wiki/Class_change/Nintendo_Entertainment_System_games

You aren't going to see how many from this page, but scroll down a little, and under the FE1 section click expand and you'll see the class changes. Click the names of the items to go to the pages about them, where you'll be able to find locations.

To save you the hassle for guiding rings, or "Bishop rings", the wiki says chapter 19 is the first chapter you get one, and Lena is not the first person you should use it on. I'd recommend Merric.

[Dr. Tarrasque]

https://www.fireemblemwod.com/fe1/ubicacion-objetos.htm

There's 5 different promotion items. At the bottom of that page you will see a table mentioning the item locations.

The site has most pages in Spanish but for this specific request, the following translations will suffice:

Enemigo = Enemy

Jefe = Boss

Cofre = Chest

Cap (short for Capitulo) = Chapter

Edited February 2, 2019 by Dr. Tarrasque

[Von Ithipathachai]

Thanks, guys.  Looks like I won't be promoting Lena after all.

[𝐅𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐥]

14 hours ago, Von Ithipathachai said:

Thanks, guys.  Looks like I won't be promoting Lena after all.

Promotion items were always limited. it would be wise to plan properly wich units you want to use and bring to end-game before promoting them.

there's also some units like Kain, Ogma and Merric that will always be good to use, and will become top units after promotion.

on the other hand, i don't recommend promoting Pegasus Knights because they will loose their resistance in exchange for a more tanky build, and the main role of Pegasus Knights has always been to deal with mages. otherwise, Sheeda( Caeda ) would probably be the best candidate for promotion.

Edited February 2, 2019 by Fenreir

[Interdimensional Observer]

5 minutes ago, Fenreir said:

on the other hand, i don't recommend promoting Pegasus Knights because they will loose their resistance in exchange for a more tanky build, and the main role of Pegasus Knights has always been to deal with mages. otherwise, Sheeda( Caeda ) would probably be the best candidate for promotion.

That doesn't apply to FE1, FE3 yes, but in FE1, nobody has any Resistance naturally, barring Gotoh.

[Von Ithipathachai]

Another question I should probably ask while I still can:

How does promotion actually work in this game?  Is it like in Gaiden/Shadows of Valentia?

[𝐅𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐥]

if you meant multiple tiers of class promotion, no. there's only the basic class, the promoted one, and that's it.

if you meant actual level caps, i'm not sure. in FE3 you had a lv cap of 20, but you could promote at lv10 if i remember well. i don't know if it was the same in FE1.

there's also classes like Manaketes and thiefs that can't promote.

 

on a side note: secret shops in FE3 also made promotion gains a secondary factor, because all stats were capped at 20 and if you had enough money along with a silver card, you could buy tons of stats boosting items and boost multiple characters to the max at once.

Gaiden was a bit more balanced under that aspect, since you had a limited amount of Lion statues on both Alm/Celica's routes, and those were giving only specific stats with limited uses.

Edited February 2, 2019 by Fenreir

[Von Ithipathachai]

45 minutes ago, Fenreir said:

if you meant multiple tiers of class promotion, no. there's only the basic class, the promoted one, and that's it.

if you meant actual level caps, i'm not sure. in FE3 you had a lv cap of 20, but you could promote at lv10 if i remember well. i don't know if it was the same in FE1.

there's also classes like Manaketes and thiefs that can't promote.

 

on a side note: secret shops in FE3 also made promotion gains a secondary factor, because all stats were capped at 20 and if you had enough money along with a silver card, you could buy tons of stats boosting items and boost multiple characters to the max at once.

Gaiden was a bit more balanced under that aspect, since you had a limited amount of Lion statues on both Alm/Celica's routes, and those were giving only specific stats with limited uses.

What I meant was whether the stat gains from promotion worked like in Gaiden, with stats below the new class's bases increased to equal those bases.

[Dr. Tarrasque]

1 hour ago, Von Ithipathachai said:

What I meant was whether the stat gains from promotion worked like in Gaiden, with stats below the new class's bases increased to equal those bases.

I think it's the way it does in most other games, not how Gaiden handled it.

[RexBolt]

2 hours ago, Fenreir said:

 

there's also classes like Manaketes and thiefs that can't promote.

When i looked into playing Shadow Dragon i saw some saying that in FE1 Knights and Clerics couldn't promote. True?

[Interdimensional Observer]

9 minutes ago, Dr. Tarrasque said:

I think it's the way it does in most other games, not how Gaiden handled it.

Odd, I recall hearing it is like Gaiden.

 

6 minutes ago, RexBolt said:

When i looked into playing Shadow Dragon i saw some saying that in FE1 Knights and Clerics couldn't promote. True?

Knights cannot promote, even thought the General class exists. Clerics can, but don't get EXP from healing, only being attacked- equal to the EXP value of the enemy. They've pretty terrible though in growths. 

[Emperor Hardin]

6 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Knights cannot promote, even thought the General class exists. Clerics can, but don't get EXP from healing, only being attacked- equal to the EXP value of the enemy. They've pretty terrible though in growths. 

Its a theory of mine that Generals can't promote because promotion items always promote a unit to a specific class.

It seems like if you program a Knight to promote with a Knight crest, they'll become a Paladin.

I do know General's can't use Levin Swords due to the uncontrollable flickering caused by the NES sprites.

6 hours ago, RexBolt said:

When i looked into playing Shadow Dragon i saw some saying that in FE1 Knights and Clerics couldn't promote. True?

Knights can't promote despite the class roll describing Generals as advanced Knights. I have a theory why as mentioned in this post. Most likely it was NES limitations.

 

Edited February 3, 2019 by Emperor Hardin

[Julius Nepos]

11 hours ago, Von Ithipathachai said:

Another question I should probably ask while I still can:

How does promotion actually work in this game?  Is it like in Gaiden/Shadows of Valentia?

It does work like in Gaiden, with the unit's stats being increased to the promoted class's base stats. 

The wiki page DarthR0xas linked has pretty good information on it; though do note that the "Gaiden rule" applies to movement as well (so don't use your boots on a pegasus knight, cavalier, archer or priest you're going to promote - you won't gain any movement from promotion that way).

55 minutes ago, Emperor Hardin said:

Its a theory of mine that Generals can't promote because promotion items always promote a unit to a specific class.

It seems like if you program a Knight to promote with a Knight crest, they'll become a Paladin.

I do know General's can't use Levin Swords due to the uncontrollable flickering caused by the NES sprites.

Knights can't promote despite the class roll describing Generals as advanced Knights. I have a theory why as mentioned in this post. Most likely it was NES limitations.

I prescribe to that theory as well. It's no coincidence that the guiding ring and Elysian whip are called "bishop's ring" and "dragon's whip" in this game.

Though my theory is that knights can't promote because general was intented to be an enemy-only class (see their description as "commanders from the Empire of Doluna" in the class roll - Lorenz, the only exception to generals being enemy-only, still comes from the enemy side and has a hidden recruitment in the sense that nothing in the story indicates he is recruitable).

[𝐅𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐥]

11 hours ago, RexBolt said:

When i looked into playing Shadow Dragon i saw some saying that in FE1 Knights and Clerics couldn't promote. True?

https://serenesforest.net/dark-dragon-and-sword-of-light/classes/introduction/

promotions are indeed very limited. considering how the game worked, i guess it would be better/faster to promote mages instead of clerics.

Edited February 3, 2019 by Fenreir

[Emperor Hardin]

16 hours ago, Julius Nepos said:

I prescribe to that theory as well. It's no coincidence that the guiding ring and Elysian whip are called "bishop's ring" and "dragon's whip" in this game.

Though my theory is that knights can't promote because general was intented to be an enemy-only class (see their description as "commanders from the Empire of Doluna" in the class roll - Lorenz, the only exception to generals being enemy-only, still comes from the enemy side and has a hidden recruitment in the sense that nothing in the story indicates he is recruitable).

Its notable that Knights promote to General with the Knight crest in Mystery of the Emblem. 

I always thought the description of Generals being from Doluna was interesting, as most general bosses were not from Doluna/Dolhr. Maybe they meant part of Dolhr's war effort?

Well there was that Lorenz wasn't on the throne on the NES version, admittedly there were mobile mini-bosses like Heimler as well.

I'm pretty sure Knight to General was always intended. Hunter to Horseman I have good reason to believe only came into the thought of the developers with Mystery of the Emblem.

Edited February 4, 2019 by Emperor Hardin

[Von Ithipathachai]

1 minute ago, Emperor Hardin said:

Its notable that Knights promote to General with the Knight crest in Mystery of the Emblem. 

I always thought the description of Generals being from Doluna was interesting, as most general bosses were not from Doluna/Dolhr. Maybe they meant part of Dolhr's war effort?

Well there was that Lorenz wasn't on the throne on the NES version, admittedly there were mobile mini-bosses like Heimler as well.

I'm pretty sure Knight to General was always intended. Hunter to Horseman I have good reason to believe only came into the thought of the developers with Mystery of the Emblem.

What I heard was that they wanted to have Knights promote into Generals and Hunters promote into Horsemen, but couldn't because of memory limitations.  Granted, if this was really the case, that would mean Knights would've lost access to Lances on promotion.

The fan-translated class roll describes Generals as being "sent by Dolhr", so I take that to mean they're merely taking orders from Dolhrian superiors.

I also read that Heimler was unused in the NES version, though I can't verify because I haven't played far enough (I'm on Chapter 6 now).

[Emperor Hardin]

22 minutes ago, Von Ithipathachai said:

What I heard was that they wanted to have Knights promote into Generals and Hunters promote into Horsemen, but couldn't because of memory limitations.  Granted, if this was really the case, that would mean Knights would've lost access to Lances on promotion.

The fan-translated class roll describes Generals as being "sent by Dolhr", so I take that to mean they're merely taking orders from Dolhrian superiors.

I also read that Heimler was unused in the NES version, though I can't verify because I haven't played far enough (I'm on Chapter 6 now).

It seems that is the case for Generals who are indeed described as Knights in the class roll. Based on what I know, it seems if you program a Knight to promote with a Knight's crest, he'll turn into a paladin, which is why they remain unable to promote within the game..

That would work.

That was a bit of an error on Serenes part back in the day. Heimler is there, though his AI is dumber then the DS version as he doesn't open the door he is behind unlike the remake. The SNES version replaced Heimler with a Soldier holding similar stats.

[Von Ithipathachai]

20 minutes ago, Emperor Hardin said:

That was a bit of an error on Serenes part back in the day. Heimler is there, though his AI is dumber then the DS version as he doesn't open the door he is behind unlike the remake. The SNES version replaced Heimler with a Soldier holding similar stats.

Ugh.  Oh, well.

That said, I am enjoying this game a lot, despite some of its glaring issues.  Actually, its warts do give it a bizarre charm.  It might even take Blazing Blade's place as my favorite Fire Emblem game.  But I'll have to finish it first.