The Book of Beginnings, Chapter 5: Follow the Lodestar

Join me as we revisit the early parts of Fire Emblem Engage on Maddening difficulty, exploring several important questions along the way:
How should we assign our Emblem Rings?
How can we earn a lot of EXP on these maps? Is that important?
Who deserves training?
Which mechanics and abilities define tactics and strategy in these early chapters?
How should we use the forge, the arena, and the ancient well?
Original stream VOD with chat replay: • The Stream of Beginnin...
I am using a handful of mods:
60 FPS Patch, by systemdev (gbatemp.net/th...)
Easy Exercise/Gym, by Sohn (gamebanana.com...)
Fast Fishing, by SpookyPix (gamebanana.com...)
Null Ring Bonuses, by me (gamebanana.com...)
Steel-Only Dogs, by me (unpublished)
No Arena Support, by me (unpublished)
Deterministic Combat Flags, by me (unpublished)
#fireemblemengage #maddening

[@SS4312]

This is twice in a row you collect exactly 420 bond fragments from achievements. Are you trying to tell us something Zoran?

[@vishuprathikanti9352]

Love this map. 2 interesting ways of tackling it and with your emblem rings you have the flexibility to warp solo the left side, or marth solo it, depending on who gets both rings. Or send the whole army lol

[@rattyxoxo7397]

In line with the brief Mentorship discussion: I think the best use case for Mentorship is definitely on Seadall, as ultimately the only skill he particularly wants is Canter/Canter+. Giving him Mentorship slightly accelerates how fast he can get Special Dance, which allows him to apply Speed+3 as well as minor reliability bonuses to allies. His SP isn’t particularly strict (especially with the new Well) and you can definitely afford to give him Leif for a few easier Paralogues to get enough SP for anything else he wants, like Quality Time, on top of the SP he grabs from just dancing with a bond ring. The only real cost for giving him Mentorship is the Bond Fragment cost and the temporary lack of access to a second skill slot, but the former is so cheap it’s basically negligible if doing some achievement exploits and the latter isn’t a great issue

[@jerry3115]

I think quality time is more impactful than mentorship on seadall, the small amounts of hp for free can be really nice. Although, if you do what I recommend, and always have sigurd on seadall, you have room for mentorship in the other slot anyway.

[@lystia]

similarly using it to get to world tree faster on hortensia is nice

[@lagspike7763]

level 1 clanne. SMH you think you know some people

[@jerry3115]

clanne gang

[@sohn7767]

Clannest gang

[@GaretStrife]

I'm curious: will you try for any of the S-rank Bond Rings, considering they can be cheesed? Your mod does away with the stat bonuses on those Rings -- and probably the Skills, now that I think about it -- but getting Renewal on Framme would be awesome for Chain Guards early on. The movement manipulation skills, Draw Back and Shove, are things I could see you using well too, considering some of the things I saw you do on your Fates guides.

[@jerry3115]

I feel like most of the bond rings offer so very tiny bonuses that they aren't really worth going for at all. However, dire thunder (and maybe wind god) is a different story, though I'm not sure if he'll use those

[@sohn7767]

Olwen mid

[@jerry3115]

@@sohn7767 no

[@jerry3115]

i understand wanting to maximize SP gain, but it really feels like you're heavily neglecting valuable units like chloe

[@sohn7767]

Be a little patient with Chloe

[@cartooncritic7045]

Next chapter is the Chloenning.

[@NoCryinRyan]

You only have three Emblems by the time you get to this map and they may be spoken for depending on what you want to do with them. Chapter 4 is the first time you’re allowed to move Marth and Sigurd freely but it’s still pretty restrictive; I decided to try giving Sigurd to Alear and Marth to Alfred to have better control over the weapon triangle and utilize the Emblem skills (Divine Speed really makes up for Alfred’s middling Speed stat and only gets better once Break Defenses is unlocked; Canter and Gallop are fantastic tools for repositioning Alear and once Momentum is unlocked, it lets Alear consistently reach kill benchmarks). Chapter 5’s a good chance to really experiment with the Emblems as there are no new joining units nor new Emblems to figure out; there are easy setups for Override to do maximum damage and kill a bunch of enemies by turn 3 as well as Warp your Celica unit to the top left part of the map. TLDR; Chloe is one of Engage’s safety nets that can be easily salvaged after this chapter, but Alear, their retainers, Alfred, his retainers, and Celine only have these opening chapters before Experience gains get out of hand.