The Let's Play Archive

Fire Emblem Fates: Conquest

by midnight_lasagna

Part 17: My Castle (Chapter 11)


Effie bends the bars of Haitaka's cell and grants him his freedom. He's so grateful that he joins our group. Possibly because anybody who could bend steel bars could easily do the same or worse to human bones.



As I said before I'm not planning on using him, but Haitaka could easily be slotted into your army as an actual unit for the long term. I won't post his growths because if I did that for every generic I'd be here forever, but he's got 65% str, 60% speed, and 45% def as a Spear Fighter, and combined with his great bases that's pretty nuts! Definitely makes up for his complete lack of supports. Unfortunately he's only got 20% luck and his base isn't good either.

He also has Quick Riposte, Rally Defense, and Seal Defense. Rally Defense is the biggest part of his appeal, and even if it is a Wyvern Lord skill that's easily accessible in Conquest it's not something you'd be able to get this early in the game. He would also get the Swap skill if you leveled him up once, a nice positioning tool that's otherwise unavailable without a specific talent from Corrin.



Maybe you can't gamble at the Lottery, but you can gamble in the Arena. Cabbages don't grow in my castle so I'm betting the one I got at the Lottery to get more. Units can't die here, but you do lose whatever you bet if they don't win. The potential loss of dinner doesn't quite inspire that mix of excitement and fear that a potential loss of life does.



Nice. I have three of these now. Considering Odin's personal revolves around forges, maybe I should forge him a Thunder tome... He did just win in the arena after all.



Forging in this game requires you combine 2 of the same item along with giving up some materials. My castle's material is Emeralds, which is used to forge bows. To forge anything else I'll have to swap it for another ore at a rather terrible exchange rate.



You don't get to choose what stats you forge like you do in most other games. Each level of forge increases stats a little. Other attributes such as accuracy won't start going up until we reach higher forge levels, and they scale rather weirdly. A level 2 forge would only put 2 extra hit on this thing despire also giving it 4 extra might.

To forge a level 2 tome I'd need to combine 2 level 1 forged tomes. So the amount of tomes needed goes up in powers of 2. The maximum level of forge would require 256 tomes, which is... expensive.



Can you guess what I've been playing recently? Naming weapons after video game references feels a little lame but it's the type of thing Odin would want. All that stops him from being a Gamer is that video games don't exist in his world. I need to give the tome 12 characters or more so it will activate his personal skill and give him extra crit when he uses it.

...upon editing I feel the need to clarify that's capital G Gamer like in the way Gamemaster Anthony is a gamer, not in the way someone like Notch is a Gamer. I wouldn't slander my boy Odin like that.



Beruka x Camilla C. Not many supports this time around. Beruka is Camilla's retainer so their support builds very fast. But there is one more I can unlock...



Arthur x Elise S. They are married now. This would be very sweet if it weren't also a bit creepy. Again, liege x retainer supports build faster than others which is why this one unlocked so fast.



Just like Awakening, S supports make babies! Unlike Awakening, there is absolutely no good reason why they make babies. Everybody who's played Fates knows about the Deeprealms, everybody who's played Fates hates the Deeprealms. I won't beat that dead horse.

Instead I'll say that story contrivances aside, I actually like the child units in Fates more than Awakening! From a gameplay perspective, anyway. Somehow the kids in Awakening all feel a bit samey to me - they're all Est/Villager style units who start out bad but end up amazing. Not particularly helpful when they first join, but they become super good when you feed them EXP. Unfortunately that's kind of everyone in Awakening, it's a game where the best way to play is to pick a very small handful of units, feed them all your EXP, and demolish every map with them. I never really understood why you'd replace the parents with their kids in the first place, since they've most likely already gone through the "start off bad but rapidly snowball into amazing" stage. Maybe that's just because I've played too much Lunatic mode.

Well besides "because they're cool". Optimising kids and giving them fun hair colours and silly skills is the entire point and it is very fun grind them up and demolish the game with silly big numbers. There is a degree of min-maxing silliness that's not really possible in Fates. I just think that outside of the super hard paid DLC there's nothing the kids can do that their parents can't already, and they take more effort to get there.

The join level of child units in Fates scales with your story progress, so they'll likely join around the same level as the rest of your army. Fates's exp formula is much less friendly to overleveling than Awakening's too, so it's not really possible to overlevel a parent and have them far beyond the power of their kids by the time they join. Instead of starting off bad and being able to grow past their parents and replace them, they're more on the same power level and tend to be different rather than strictly better. It's up to personal preference which system you prefer, but I like how Fates does it more.



All that aside, let's take a peak at this child's joining chapter. I'm not going to recruit them just yet, but there's no harm in taking a look. Visiting this chapter now and then backing out won't stop both the kid and the map itself from being different if we come back later.



All that stuff aside, I... don't actually want to use Percy. I might change my mind later, I might not. Elise's influence as a mother will turn any unit into a magical glass cannon, a thing which is good for magic users but less so for physical attackers. Percy's access to a mixed class in Malig Knight make it plausible for him to mixed, so he's one of the few physical-leaning units who won't be ruined by having Elise's genes. Unfortunately I'm planning on using both Malig Elise and Malig Camilla so Percy's going to be a kind of weird middle ground between the two who will have trouble fitting onto my team.



Unlike Awakening, the map difficulty also scales with game progress. Or at least the enemy levels do. The enemies are all level 9 or 10, but they're still equipped with super good skills and there's absolutely loads of them to fight. Camilla could probably take on most of the map herself since she's still very powerful compared to the enemies we're fighting, but I'm going to delay the map just a little so I've got more of the units recruited that I would want to give EXP to.





Here is everyone. No Camilla because she hasn't gained a single level, but I am planning on using her!




Camilla
Malig Knight (HS: Dark Mage)
A+ Support Classes: Elise (Troubadour), Selena (Mercenary), Beruka (Fighter)
Personal Skill: Rose's Thorns (+3 damage dealt and -1 damage taken for allies within 1 space)
Growths (With Default Class):
HP: 40% (40)
STR: 50% (65)
MAG: 25% (40)
SKL: 50% (60)
SPD: 55% (60)
LCK: 25% (25)
DEF: 35% (45)
RES: 45% (60)

It's Camilla! From the title of this LP! She's famous!

Camilla... is good. Really really good. Easily the best unit in the game, unless you value Azura's dancing abilities more. There's a lot to say about why she's so good, but she is really, really... good.

Malig Knight is an amazing class to have this early, and possibly one of the best classes in the game. 8 move, high stats all around, an amazing set of skills, and access to two very good weapon types that allow her to attack from both sides of the spectrum. Camilla's magic stat isn't particularly great, but she loses absolutely nothing from having the option to use it regardless. Not only are her base stats high for how early in the game she joins, they'd be good even if she joined at a time where all your other units had been promoted, too. Take away Camilla's promotion gains and she's got 18 strength, 18 speed, and 17 defense, a combination that's easily on par with some unit's level 20 unpromoted stats...

...except Camilla was actually promoted at level 10. Camilla's internal level is that of a unit who promoted the instant she was able to, which means she earns EXP at the rate a level 15 unpromoted unit would. Normally promoting this early would come at the cost of performance in the lategame, but Camilla absolutely gets to have her cake and eat it too. She still won't earn any EXP in her joining chapter, but from that point onwards she will level up noticeably faster than a 20/1 promoted unit would, meaning she can demolish foes much weaker than her and still earn a decent enough reward for it. I personally wouldn't feed Camilla kills she doesn't need to make until chapter 13 or so, but there's nothing stopping you from demolishing entire maps with her if you want. She's not invincible, thanks to her weakness to bows and wyrmslayers, but enemies will otherwise struggle to get through her solid defenses.

Much like Elise's, Camilla's personal skill is also an amazing support tool, although it won't actually benefit her in any way. Unlike Elise however she's much more capable of fighting on the front line, making it much easier to grant the bonuses it gives to other units in the thick of battle. A great way to feed EXP to other units is to have Camilla weaken an enemy with a weak magical attack, and then have another unit stand next to her to receieve +3 to their damage output and deal the finishing blow.

Camilla's growths are absolutely through the roof, which is usually a rare thing for a prepromote. 50% strength and 55% speed put her on a level similar to units like Mozu, Charlotte, and Peri, except unlike them Camilla doesn't have to suffer through mediocre bulk or bad base stats. Any child she's the mother of is going to have high growths, and likely will inherit a great Malig Knight skill too. There is pretty much no child in this game who would not appreciate her as a mother, which makes it all the more a shame there's only one of her to marry off.

Camilla does have some flaws, beyond those of the class she joins in. Her starting skill is a little shaky and her luck stat is mediocre, and won't be getting any better thanks to her bad 25% growth. That's nothing a Goddess Icon can't fix, but it's still a minor issue. Camilla might start off completely indistructable, but as you progress through the game she'll slowly come down to earth and end up a "merely" above average unit as the difference between her and the rest of your army lessens. An earlygame Camilla is unstoppable, a lategame Camilla starts to lean towards being more of a fast but slightly fragile attacker with some accuracy issues.

Camilla has a few reclass options, although she's still a great unit even if she never leaves her base class. Wyvern Lord is the most obvious, trading her mediocre magic for better stats elsewhere. It's not a bad option, but reclassing her will make her miss out on Savage Blow and Trample, so you might end up reclassing her back at some point just to grab them. Sorcerer can be fun but isn't really an optimal choice, especially since her magic isn't so hot. Bow Breaker can be a useful unlock late in the game, although bow users have so many ways to raise their hit rate and will most likely kill her in a single hit if they hit her in a flying class, so it might just be better not to let her near any archers. Heartseeker and Malefic Aura can fix her accuracy issues and help her magic damage output as a Malig Knight a little. Dark Knight is just going to be a worse Malig Knight.

Camilla can also A+ support Beruka to snag the Fighter class. Berserker Camilla will bring her strength and speed through the roof and make her a much better Charlotte, although it will also make her luck issues even worse. At the very least it's not a bad idea to swap into Fighter briefly to grab HP + 5. Supporting her with Selena is also an option, but unless you really want her to be a Bow Knight for whatever reason it's better to go with Beruka instead. Her A+ support with Elise isn't worth it unless you want to dress her up as a maid, which, you know, fair enough. You do that if you want to!

TL;DR:

Pros:
Cons:
My Rating: booby


Selena
Mercenary (HS: Sky Knight)
A+ Support Classes: Camilla (Wyvern Rider), Beruka (Wyvern Rider), Peri (Cavalier)
Personal Skill: Fierce Rival (If user is supporting a character in attack stance and the lead units gets a critical hit, this unit will also crit (attack can still miss, does not activate for weapons that cannot crit))
Growths (With Default Class):
HP: 40% (50)
STR: 30% (45)
MAG: 5% (5)
SKL: 25% (45)
SPD: 45% (60)
LCK: 30% (35)
DEF: 45% (55)
RES: 30% (35)

Selena... well she's not awful, and she's got some things going for that nobody else does, but the two units she joins with really don't do her any favours by comparison. Neither does her personality...

Selena's got a strange stat distribution that makes her a weird sort of mix between a dodge tank and a regular tank. Defense as a second highest growth is odd to see for an infantry sword unit. Her base stats are actually pretty decent for her join level, and she's fast enough to double most enemy types with no help. Unfortunately, while her high speed and defense make her good at surviving combat, she's not so good at actually hurting the enemy.

Selena's growths aren't very good in a lot of areas, and without the solid boosts that the Mercenary class gives she's just a unit with okay bulk and speed and not much else. As a Hero she'll be pretty balanced all round with capable enough offenses. As a Bow Knight she'll be fine too, although both her offenses and defenses will take a hit. A prepromote Bow Knight Selena can be useful enough in the short term, and will make a great support partner for whoever she marries, or even Camilla.

What is interesting about Selena is her access to the Sky Knight class. Excellent mobility aside, the class doesn't do her any favours in terms of combat. It sticks her with E rank lances, it makes her offense even worse and takes away some of her bulk, and mostly just makes her fast and nothing else. She will at least have good resistance in addition to decent defense! Sky Knight Selena however will have access to the amazing Rally Speed skill, otherwise only available through Azura and her children or Corrin (or a Percy with Beruka as his mother thanks to Conquest's weird way of dealing with inheritance). What you can do if you want is reclass Selena into a Sky Knight, raise her to level 5 promoted, and then use a Friendship Seal to grab Wyvern Lord from Camilla or Beruka and end up with a fast, bulky Wyvern Lord with two different rallies (3 if you dip into Bow Knight for Rally Skill) and an already build lance rank. The Wyvern Rider class is not a bad fit all for Selena, it shores up her mediocre offense, it compliments her already good bulk, and she'll still keep her good speed. You may instead prefer to reclass her into a wyvern as soon as possible and only dip into Sky Knight for the rally skill, which is probably better for her stats but will use up an extra seal.

Otherwise she's a perfectly fine support partner and not a terrible mother. Oh and her personal skill is an excellent example of integrating a character's personality into their gameplay... and also is pretty much useless. I'm sure you can get some good use out of it if you try, but I don't think I've ever had it activate.

TL;DR:

Pros:
Cons:
My Rating: The Hatsune Miku hair colour should have been canon.


Beruka
Wyvern Rider (HS: Fighter)
A+ Support Classes: Camilla (Dark Mage), Selena (Mercenary), Charlotte (Fighter)
Personal Skill Opportunist (+4 damage dealt when attacking an enemy that cannot counterattack)
Growths (With Default Class):
HP: 45% (55)
STR: 30% (45)
MAG: 10% (15)
SKL: 55% (65)
SPD: 30% (40)
LCK: 45% (50)
DEF: 40% (60)
RES: 20% (20)

Beruka is a unit that's easy to overlook thanks to joining at the exact same time as Camilla, while on all fronts appearing to be a worse version of her. That is definitely not true in practice, but even if it were, a worse version of the best unit in the game would still be a good unit.

Beruka is bulky. As a professional assassin you might expect her to be fast and strong but die to a stiff breeze, but Beruka is a Knight with wings. High bulk, skill, and luck is a rather weird combination of stats for a flying unit, and it's part of what makes her such a unique and interesting character. Beruka makes an incredibly good "bait" unit. Fly her ahead into a swarm of enemies, watch her not die, and then pick off the weakened soldiers that attacked her with the rest of your army. Her strength growth might be pretty awful, but her solid base and strength + 2 skill means she'll still be hitting hard for a while.

Opportunist is a fun skill, and is effectively Quick Draw but for cowards. Beruka's super high skill and luck mean she'll have high accuracy even with awful ranged weapons such as Hand Axes, so she can chuck those from range to insure she gets the damage bonuses. The +4 damage bonus, Beruka's... not non-existant magic growth, and her mediocre strength make Malig Knight not a terrible promotion option for her. She will be doing okay damage slinging tomes thanks to Opportunist, and Savage Blow will make her player phase contributions even more useful. I wouldn't recommend it unless her growths work out weirdly or you really want a good Savage Blow player phase unit, but it's not an awful alternative to Wyvern Lord.

In any other Fire Emblem game, reclassing your Wyvern Rider into a Fighter would be the worst deal imaginable, but Fighter's base stats and growths complement Beruka's weird stat spread extremely well. It'll shore up her bad strength and speed, while her naturally great accuracy and bulk will make up for the class's inherent flaws. Beruka is probably the only unit in the entire game who would want to run Gamble 100% of the time, thanks to how naturally accurate she is. HP + 5 will help her bulk even more, and Rally Strength from Berserker will compliment Wyvern Lord's Rally Defense nicely, so it's worth dipping into at least temporarily.

Otherwise Beruka makes a good pair-up partner and a not great mother. Her A+ support options aren't worth much, although she might like Quick Riposte from Mercenary. Also did you know that Beruka in Revelation is the only first gen unit able to fill all five of her skill slots with rallies without having to marry Corrin?

TL;DR:

Pros:
Cons:

My Rating: "..."