So a fun thing I realized as Byleth hit level 20: Byleth’s skills do not increase during class sessions. I have been pretty much neglecting seminars and the tutoring available around the monastery (because I spend all my time dining with students—I am a very social, over fed professor). What this means is, while my students are all ranked in the Bs for most skills, Byleth has a C in swords and authority and cannot pass any of the advanced class exams. I think this problem is easily fixed and yeah I should have been paying closer attention but, per one of the recent podcasts, it is a good representation of how this game just throws a ton of information and options at you and trusts you to make it work.
Black Eagle plot discussion/speculation (11th month, pre-time skip): okay so Edlegard has to be a villain or working with characters we currently think are villains, right? I cleared the mission where Tomas is revealed to be Solon and there is that cutscene where Edlegard is like “hey so the Flame Emperor likes you do you like him? Lol” and come on Edlegar at least be a little more subtle in your motivations. It’s a weird scene as well because this is the second time we have seen the Flame Emperor and, unless I missed something obvious, I have no idea what his motivation or goal is. Why would I team up? I have appreciated how some of the supports have given Edlegard an interesting back story but she is clearly driven to establish an empire in a set way and is prepared to trample anyone in her path.
I am on the 12th month and I understand this month ends with a ball (I am going to be very upset if my charming students do not dress up for the occasion). When does part 1 end? I would figure at the close of the year but I feel like I have only just started to have full freedom to explore the monastery and access side quests.
Edit: I am already regretting recruiting professors. There are students I still want to recruit and my bench is rapidly expanding. Typical Fire Emblem problems… I need to have every unit possible so they can simply languish on my roster.
The supports have been really good—it’s kind of wild given how they were basically jokes dragged on for too long in the 3DS games. Linhardt has gone from being a student I couldn’t stand to being someone I really like due to his supports (and he’s an unstoppable mage). I also like how many of them simply end at a B without a ton of resolution as that feels like a much more organic representation of how some relationships play out.
I’m just hitting level 20 with a lot of characters, and I sat there going through the advanced classes going “oh no. Oh no I’ve messed up” because I hadn’t really been building toward them. I don’t have a single student with a A rank in anything. Usually once they started hitting B rank I would turn their focus to something else. And yeah, my protag is a mess. Too much time spent trying to win people over. I think that’s partially a result of activity points feeling soooo precious at the beginning of the game.
I think I’m nearing part two. I’ve been assuming with supports that everyone can get to B rank with each other before the jump. Am I also correct in thinking that if I don’t get to B before the jump, I’ll be cut off from further advancing those supports? I’m currently desperately trying to make everyone be friends with each other. I can’t believe Austin said you don’t need to min/max haha
The weird thing is, while I am personally really bent out of shape about the way my Byleth is currently built, it really hasn’t effected my game at all. Playing hard/classic has not punished me for not min/maxing as previous FE games have. I think you and I will be mentally anguished by the state we find our characters in but the game really does seem to be built to accommodate the situation we are in. As I think I have said before, this just leaves me feeling like my second play through is going to be wildly different because I am going to be prepared for all of this stuff.
I am not sure with regards to the supports and the time jump. I know there are some primers on the subject online but I have been avoiding those for fear of accidental spoilers.
It doesn’t cut off! The only thing that happens is you can’t have supports with people that aren’t on your roster. Some of my post-timeskip supports have elements that make it seem like they were intended to occur before the timeskip.
One thing I (“like” is probably not the right word, “observe”? “Find interesting”?) about this game is how upper class your perspective always ends up being. Regardless of faction, regardless of how many commoners you have in your ranks, you’re still leading the elite of the elite. These are the finest soldiers in the best gear who can just mow the fuck down bandits like they’re nothing. It’s never more clear when Bernie is chasing down a guy on her horse with a spear, or Hubert is literally throwing the forces of Hell down.
It’s also especially glaring when the skirmishers and conscripts in your squads don’t even get names. You can have those squads be basically wiped out and not care at all. They’re tools, we have more where they came from, what matters is the upper class hero units. It feels brutally authentic to actual medieval warfare in a way, when Byzantine Emperors and lords always had a good chance to survive even massive defeats like Manzikert, but regular villagers didn’t have that luxury.
Yeah. Joking aside, I actually have found classic/hard to be surprisingly forgiving. I’m actually over leveled at this point (just started chapter 10 with everyone at 20 and the last story mission was level 18) and I’ve only done main missions, paralogues, and a couple special event missions like the monster appearances. So I’m sure I’ll be ok even if I can’t switch immediately.
That’s good to know! I was getting worried about that and it was discussing me from doing more recruitment cause I was worried about not having time to build supports.
I think I may have accidentally killed someone by telling someone what they wanted to hear and not what was best for them. Feels really bad.
I just got into the timeskip, not sure how I expected it to happen, but that wasn’t it.
I kind of wonder how much the other houses get hints about the reveal that precedes the timeskip, I felt like I got some very clear cues that I couldn’t have gotten in a different house (I’m with the Blue Lions, because post-timeskip Dimitri in the trailer seemed interesting).
I finished Black Eagle C. It was a heck of a final mission, and o quite enjoyed all the post game character slides and pairings, a few of them were really heartwarming.
Though I’m taking a day or two off before hopping into a second route, I’ve already had depressing thoughts about facing some of the nicer BE people on the battlefield. I mean I have to save Petra she’s basically a POW, and Dorothea and Bernie are nice and don’t deserve to die for Edelgard. And Linhardt is also a good guy too, I also don’t want to fight him… This game is so brutal haha.
I genuinely don’t know if I can do any of the other routes because I’ve already come to like so many of my Black Eagles (and I haven’t even hit the time jump!). The thought of having to face down Petra, Bernadetta, and Dorothea especially makes me pre-sad.
I am starting to worry about improving Byleth’s skills too. I’m still pretty early in the game but I’m having a really hard time trying to figure out how much time I should spend raising student motivation versus training myself.
Interested in hearing how other people balanced their time.
So, most of the ways of raising Byleth’s skills don’t give you experience toward professor levels, which give you more action points. I think the exception is choir practice, which you can only do once per exploration. I did plenty of skill training stuff, but sometimes wish I’d done more social stuff, particularly things like having meals to raise student motivation. I wouldn’t worry about your skills not being up to the later classes because you get a unique class that seems to have way higher stats anyway. I think my next playthrough I’ll probably be doing more social stuff or raising skills to recruit students I like, rather than worrying too much about getting a good class for the main character you’re always going to be using, with a passive that gives them bonus experience, and apparently really great default stat growths.
I usually pick out the students I want to train over the next week, and whether or not I’m going to do a seminar next weekend. I try to raise motivation for those students with gifts and meals. Gifts don’t use time, so they’re very good for motivation; you can plant flowers in the garden that count as gifts once you harvest them. Meals max out motivation if the students have the blue arrows on their icon; if it fits with two of the students you want to motivate, you can max out both for one activity point. Then I use whatever I have left to train.
Other things that help:
at a certain point you can restore Saint statues in the Cathedral that give you bonuses to training for both you and your students (like +2 points to swords, etc.)
I have been worried about my ~C+ skills on my character but I also need to remember that I’m positively wrecking house on normal difficulty, especially as Byleth. I’m doing the thing where I don’t use him a ton so that other people get the exp.
This is how I plan to correct my own problem. I am at professor rank B right now and rather than spend all my time in the dining hall, I am going to put the tons of flowers I have to use and rely on gifts to raise motivation and spend activity points on improving Byleth.
With that in mind, Byleth does get a unique weapon (not sure how early you are in the game) and has the general bulk and power of a standard Fire Emblem lord so I think we would have to work very hard to make him a bad/unusable unit.
I haven’t spent as much time on leveling up Byleth’s skills as I probably should have and she is still just wrecking people left and right, even on Hard/Classic, so there’s that.
I do plan to spend some time next time coming up working on her skills, though.
People keep talking about how hard it is to recruit folks and I’m out here at the time skip having recruited all but 3 people and kinda wishing the game would have stopped me at some point. I’m pleasantly surprised to see that characters changing houses is reflected in dialogue, especially glad that Petra officially ditched the empire and seems to want to hook up with Claude, she’s so great.
Everyone’s post-timeskip looks are so damn good, all those colours are a welcome change from uniforms. But also, is nobody even gonna comment on the fact that Flayn has not aged? Like at this point I’m just waiting for the Dragon thing can be said out loud because how has nobody else caught on yet. Both Hanneman and Lin can detect unique aspects of your blood from a distance and I’m still the only one in this monastary that knows What’s Up.
I definitely felt like it was tough at the beginning, but now I’m seeing how you could get a bunch of people. Your ability to improve relationships increases way more than I thought it would. Going from 2 activity points to 8! So I can see how you’d be able to hit B rank for everyone. I’m imagining it would be a lot tougher if you had to hit the skill level in whatever weapon they want. I tried diversifying and it’s left me with a lot of D/D+ skills.
I wouldn’t worry thattt much about byleths skills. Post time skip you’ll have way more time points than you’ll know what to do with. Most free time I was doing drills 3-4 times, which adds up.
Also I just realized there is a new game plus mode meant to help speed up your subsequent play throughs. That’s sounds wonderful.
EDIT: Just started my New Game Plus! Did the Tutorial Mission plus picked a house! Its going to be the Golden Deer for this run through, because i heard they were the most similar and was a good pairing with Black Eagle C. And then Blue Lions and Black Eagles E were the other good pairing.
Also i picked F!Byleth this time, and good lord is the outfit just the worst.
