Going to fire this up for the first time, how much am I at risk of missing recruits/important things without a guide?

There are a few sidequests that need you to recruit kids from other houses, and sometimes they can't be done on a certain route so it's actually highly likely. Granted you should probably save those until after you beat the game the first time if you didn't just stumble upon the combination.

>recruiting Marianne
>ever

Dumb bitch deserves to be under a grave

Extremely. The game is kind of built for it. You'll kind of need to play perfectly to avoid it.
Pro tip. Don't let it bother you too much. You'll want to do at least one more playthrough after your initial one if not more than that, and in those playthroughs you'll probably have more of an idea of how to proceed. But for better or worse you kind of just need to accept what happens and try to make the best of it.

If you really want to recruit everyone possible on your first playthrough, you can do it fairly easily on normal difficulty in the Black Eagles route. Just dine a lot, and ask students for assistance each month and grind out their supports. Be aware that the game is built for multiple playthroughs, and each route has specific characters you can't recruit.

I used her as a thief to one shot the Death Knight twice, she's fucking based.

If you're playing BL or any route besides BE where you recruit Mercedes or Caspar, make sure you have both so then you get a paralogue of them post timeskip. It gives you some pretty important details, and you get Mercedes' crest item. If you defeat the boss of that paralogue with Caspar, the boss will give his weapon to you after the paralogue so you want to make sure he's well levelled.

But if I miss characters in that particular route, sounds like I won't really have a chance to get them

Nah, the characters that are exclusive to certain routes are starters/guaranteed join your party with their respective route.

>thief
>oneshot the deathknight
>thief
How did you do it that early?

This is one of the things that triggers my OCD, how you can miss things if you don't beat bosses with certain characters or walk next to an enemy and talk to them. How are you supposed to know these things without the internet?

It was the chapter 6 and chapter 8 appearances, I trained her in spears and used Frozen Lance

That part in 3H where you find out the Flame Emperor is actually Bernadetta really fucking blew my mind. I can't believe her whole shy shutin personality was all an act!

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To calm your OCD, that's the only example of where you need to use a specific character to beat the boss to get a reward.

Oh, okay because you said thief I thought you were going with Soulblade, but Frozen Lance also works. Also I forgot he popped up in chapter 8 since that time he's kinda easy by then

Oh no, Soulblade is what my Thief Lystheia did! (My class choices are absolutely retarded.)

For the most part it's context clues. Paying attention to what characters say about themselves and the upcoming missions. The rewind mechanic also makes it pretty easy to experiment attacking w/ different people to find changes. I think it's easy to get most of the special dialogues

The Mercedes/Caspar paralogue, and Lindhardt/Leonie paralogues are pretty random as fuck though since those characters don't have supports. It at least prompts you about beating the death knight with caspar though

>how much am I at risk of missing recruits/important things without a guide?
If you go Black Eagles remember this important thing:
>Some units will literally defect if you choose a certain side, so make sure that they don’t have any important irreplaceable items in their possession nor make them a dancer; also if you decided to chose spoilers don’t bother wasting school teaching points on them.

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Do crest items have any value in NG+ maddening? Like would throwing one on Ashe make him better or just cripple him by wasting an item slot

>(My class choices are absolutely retarded.)
I thought you were memeing thief Marianne because you knew her relic is a sword, her crest, also lances lack a magic version I think. Thief Lys doesn't sound too bad analyzing it in theory.
Though if you're calling those retarded I'm wondering what the rest of the house was.

don't use a guide, that's just boring. it always takes the fun out of things for me.

Crest items have worse rates than minor crests so you decide because only the raise combat art damage has a decent enough rate

If you have the Riegan crest and have Ashe carry it. He can use Failnaught without problem.

Honestly, Lystheia and Marianne were the head scratching ones to others, I'm near the endgame, so they are all in other classes now.

Claude: Wyvern Master
Lorenz: Dark Knight
Ignatz: Mortal Savant
Raphael: War Master
Lystheia: Mortal Savant
Marianne: Falcon Knight (was torn between this and Holy Knight)
Hilda: Just a Fortress Knight
Leonie: Bow Knight

The problem is that most people don't want to have to replay Blue Lions just to see the exclusive scene that unlocks from the Caspar Paralogue.

>My class choices are absolutely retarded
This is actually a great way to do on a second playthrough, going through BE now and I "randomised" everyone's classes just assigned each class route a number then did a dice roll for each character and ended up with stuff that makes no sense but really works.

For example Linhardt as a Brawler is decent, he has no strength but somehow got great defence and is basically a wall that hits back with 8X4 consistantly, Archer Lys is working really well too along with Brigand Hubert. Biggest surprise is Mage Caspar, idk how but he's easily an MVP.

Cavalier Dorothea is unsalvageable though, no strength, defence or speed.

>Ignatz: Mortal Savant
Well in the end that's the only really questionable one, and makes a bit sense since Leonie is the Bow Knight, and Claude probably has his bow.

I kinda did it that way too, I made Byleth pure white magic and healing.

Believe it or not, my Ignatz is an absolute monster. Bows to kill other mages and Pegasus knights, magic to kill everything else. Also, poison from being a Dark Mage.

I had to look up a guide or ask here for some things (why isn't Bernie doing damage, what's this about Brigand, what's a growth) but that's because I'm new to FE.

You can recruit everyone possible in a run if you grind via Normal Difficulty the free auxilary fights to get the stats they want, even before NG+

Just got done doing Marianna mission on Hard. I have to say I am not looking forward to doing that on a maddening no NG+ run.

>poison ignatz
That does sound like the most useful way to use him if feeding him strength boosters is out of the question. Does he keep being a crit monster as a mage?

Doing Bernadetta and Petra mission post TS on GD. Have the choice of routing the enemy or getting Petra to the bottom corner of the map. I am not bitch made so I go I take everyone out. Next thing I know Hubert shows up and surrounds me.

I found the actual objective easy, but the voices in my head told me to think of all the rare materials monsters drop when you break their armor, so I kept getting into unwinnable situations because of greed. I can't imagine how awful it would be in Maddening though, you're right.

Guys how do I get mercedes + caspars paralogue?
Is it post timeskip? Because I'm still pre and it wont show up even though I have both recruited

It's post timeskip.

As soon as Petra gets near the escape point he shows up anyway, just rewind time and place people near his spawn before he appears.

Wait so the objective is a lie? I was planning on rushing it on maddening because he was horrifying enough on hard mode. What happens on BE?

How do you keep her alive. She starts out in just as bad a spot as Manuela in her Mission. I can't even get Flayn to rescue her cause of the forest and all the monsters.

Catherine shows up

It's not a lie, just a changing one, like Kill Boss turning into Prevent Enemy Retreat.

In BE the map is identical but Catherine shows up instead of Hubert, and the plot is changed to the Church are threatening Brigid to join them

Well I guess I am not doing that mission on my maddening BE no NG+ run. Cat is wack on hard I am not about to take her on anymore than I have to on maddening.

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Move her to the north fortress and don't enter the woods with your other units, stay on the path to the west. iirc the boss only attacks when you encounter other beasts

For all the trouble Marianna mission doesn't give you much. They could have given you a wand or at least a magic spear so she has something to use when you make her a holy knight.

Better look at some guides. There's a lot of specific things as characters with aptitudes for certain classes, stat growths, etc. At least read about stat growth of the cast of your house of choice, to avoid a shoddy crew later in the game

Marianne paralogue? I can't speak for Maddening, like I said, but in Hard she's not actually going to be attacked for two or three turns if you keep her still. So rush everyone over there w/stride and then have them take aggro.

I'm pretty sure it's designed for you to get a shit ton of rare mats from breaking monsters, Blutgang seems to be a secondary reward. Iunno, maybe they just want Marianne to be a Dancer.

She is wasted being a Dancer. Unless you want to meme with a Felix or Petra dancer, you are better off using your worst unit. Since dancers are just going to cast stride or dance every turn you don't want to waste one of your better units with the job. This is why people say to make Flayn your dancer since she is at best an off healer and doesn't do any other job well.

I just recruited Lindhardt on my GD run, what's the best thing to do with him? He can't be a gremony because he's a female (male), so should I make him a dancer? Make him take a nap on the bench?

he learns warp so just have him warp Lyisthea to other people so she can warp them

Bishop is fine, he gets Physic so he basically doesn't need movement and master classes aren't that great anyway except of course for Wyvern Lord and Bow Knight. I guess you can make him a Holy Knight but he doesn't get x2 white magic uses that way.

Dark Knight is always an option for male mages but you have haul all the time and effort to building up lance and riding rank to get into it.

Who was this faggot anyways? He appears for like 3 chapters than fucks off. Was he supposed to be the Death Knight?

Yes, he's probably the Death Knight and the Death Knight is almost assuredly Emile, Mercedes' brother.

I got that scene. It seemed rather vapid and rushed though.
>Is that you Emile?
*battle*
>Goodbye brother

You can get through the game perfectly without recruiting everyone but recruiting unlocks supports, new dialogue, paralogues and new story scenes.

You also get the benefit of not having to make the kids kill each other

literally the best part of the game
I constantly divine pulse back to see if people have cool lines for former housemates
the only units I didn't do it for were Mercedes and Annette. I have standards.

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Can we talk about Ferdinand Von Aegir and how he can't be hit by enemy attacks? I made him a Hero and I can throw him into a crowd of enemies and expect him to make it out alive. That's pretty much what I did to rescue all the people for his Paralogue, and then they give me a fucking Evasion Ring in one of the chests like he can't dodge enough. How can anybody even compete?

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he had some clutch dodges for me but he's definitely not Ingrid tier or anything

Eh, he always got to attack twice anyway, so critting wasn't too much of a concern, but yeah, he still crits a lot.

My Ingrid has like 8 more speed than him but she has to wait for the turn to reach his levels of peak evade. Ingrid's decent to dodge shit in a pinch but Ferdinand is allowed to attack without having to give up the avoid bonus.

I guess it really depends on level ups as well, now that I think about it

>Not just going full optimization, giving him alert stance + and be in Wyvern lord for +10 avoid

wait, I just remembered that Ingrid had a evasion ring every time I ran her
Ferdinand is actually way more impressive than I thought

this is the only guide you need

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>can use Dedue post timeskip
oh shit does he actually die? The part where they mention they don't forget their debts actually happens?

this game doesn't even need that level of optimal shit, making everybody a wyvern is so fucking boring and yet everybody keeps suggesting that

I can recall Sylvain's also gives stat boosters as that's what the thieves you need to kill are carrying.

Lemme just know so we're clear, Hero Relics (Gold Icon) will damage you if you use them without the corresponding crest, but Sacred Equipment (Silver Icon) are basically free for anybody to use, right?

yes

You don't need a guide. C'mon man

I thought gold only hurt you if you had no crest, but you can only use their arts if you have a matching one.

I'm a tard. I didn't figure out that was the indicator for it. I just used those dragon accessories you get new game + to give characters the crests.

Ingrid can get Defiant Avoid which gives more avoid than Ferdinands personal skill, I think Dimitri's personal skill give's more avoid than Ferdinands as well, though if you set up Dimitri right he won't even get the chance to be attacked at all since he will kill everyone first

Lol, Marianne is one of the best dancers, sword avoid, especially when paired off with alert stance and sword mastery gives Marianne free reign to nuke everything with Blutgang in spite of her low def. Marianne's crest has the same effect as Felix's but with Blutgang her damage is through the roof.

>really low on money
>go scrounging through my supplies looking for stuff to sell
>see 30 platinum fish and goldfish that i forgot about
thank you jesus

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don't Flayn and Seteth bounce if you stay with Edgelord?

Defiant skills are trash though, they're not really worth the trouble of activating unless you were doing something like Defiant Strength on Dedue then just using a Devil Axe to get his HP down.

If she isn't getting hit then it doesn't matter

attacking with a Dancer is wasting your Dancer

Why are you wasting time attacking with a dancer when they should be letting you best unit attack again. Dancers have bad growths and none of the x2 spell skills. If you want to meme then by all means build an attacking dancer, I for one would rather they just make my best unit even better.

Not recruiting everyone actually makes the game better.

Ingrid could probably hit the point where nothing can hit her even without Defiant Avoid, sounds like a waste of a skill slot to me

You only need to seriously recruit if you're playing red edge lords or blue assholes.

Defiant skills would have actually been good if they activated below 50% health and were nerfed slightly

It has been a long time since an western VA was this based. How can other houses even match up.

youtube.com/watch?v=9sbVGS_LUmQ

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>DLC classes bring in Brazen skills that have a higher HP requirement to be active and they outclass defiant skills yet again