Fire Emblem: Three Houses (NSW) - July 26, 2019

[Kirin]

So I have a few spoilery questions that aren't story content related, but still spoilering.

Spoiler: show

1. Black Eagles route. When does recruitment cut off entirely? Looking for specific date when I cannot do anything else to recruit. Trying to finish paralogues before that date.

2. Can Hilda be recruited for Edelgard route? I know she can be during Church route, and I have her at B support. There is so much conflicting info here.

3. Does anyone know if you can have multiple B ranks ask to join your house in a week? Wondering if its worth save scumming to have this happen. In mid Jan and I have 7 left to recruit that are all B rank.

[Raldo]

Note: This is only my first playthrough so I didn't go crazy trying to recruit everyone.

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1. You can at least recruit as late as the last explorable week prior to going to the goddess' sex dungeon tomb for a revelation or whatever. Why do I know this? Because I handed the controllers over to my wife "Do the stupid lost items garbage, I hate this part." and when I returned she said "I accidentally clicked too fast and recruited Annette." For the entire playthrough I have been referring to her as "the 6-year-old" because she looks and acts like a child, and had no interest in recruiting her. I had already recruited Raph, Marianne, Ignatz, Mercedes, Lysithea, Felix, and three faculty members and I had little interest in adding more bodies.

Can characters ask YOU between the last explorable day and Ch11's mission? I don't know. However, there is no calendar time between Ch11 and Ch12 and you'll be moved to a separate temporary base camp because you just declared war on the church, so there's definitely no recruiting after Ch11. No training, no bonding, no lost items, no activity points, no exploring, no fighting, no paralogues, you go straight from Ch11 to Ch12. Is that the case for all routes? idk.

Side note: Take any items off of Flayn prior to this mission. I'm told you'll lose whatever she's holding.

2. Nope; or at least, she doesn't have the options for lost items / tea / gifts ever. By the time I got to the end of the first half, I had managed to collect all three of her lost items and they annoyingly wasted space in there (not that space is an issue, but I kept having to explicitly ignore their presence), because you cannot give them to her. I just finished the chapter where you kill her, and I'd like to imagine I threw her lost shit on top of her corpse. You can recruit her on the Church route though, you say? That's actually surprising to hear, since she is lacking the options for easy bonding on the Black Eagles route. When would you even get the chance to recruit her?

3. I can't answer this. Any time I hit B rank, I just asked them to join my house and they did, so no one ever got the chance to ask me. With that said, I only B ranked two people and also trained a little in the skill they wanted (Raph and Marianne). Anyone else I recruited I just got C rank and didn't really care if they joined or not.

Useful random tips I've discovered only recently...
• All of your weapons get fully repaired after the time skip (after Ch12). I would've actually used some of the rarer weapons if I'd known this. I can't comment on the fancy relic weapon(s) though since I hadn't used them.
• If you want to repair a weapon at the blacksmith, consider upgrading it instead. Upgrading a weapon also fully repairs the weapon, and the cost difference between repair vs upgrade is often minimal.
• You can, at least sometimes, steal the "equipped" non-weapon items. I stole Hilda's Accuracy Ring before I killed her, but it wouldn't let me steal Claude's whatever-shield. Up until that point I hadn't even thought to try to steal something that said "equipped".
• It let me buy a handful of Master Seals from the marketplace during the battle setup for Ch12. Despite that, I am now on Ch14, but it still hasn't unlocked the fucking Master Seals to buy. Why did it let me do it during Ch12? Weird. Yes, I know Anna's store unlocks the ability to buy more. Hopefully I didn't miss it or something. I haven't seen her, and I know where to look. Edit: Oh. Apparently the regular shop sells 5 master seals after a certain point, but only 5 ever.

[Bweigelt]

Spoiler: show

Hilda cannot be recruited to the BE route only the church route. Also I believe you can get two people to ask in the same week but I can't confirm because I've never had it happen to me.

[Greatguardian]

Master seals never restock in the normal market. Anna's shop will become available after a quest that can be completed within the monastery so as long as you do every quest each month you'll get it.

[Serra]

Flayn is too pure a cinnamon roll for this world.

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[Corrderio]

That is fucking adorable

[Kirin]

ARGH! Bugger all.

Was so excited when I had Sylvain join as my last recruit-able unit on the 22nd of Feb - finishing a 4 units in 4 weeks stretch to get everyone.

Got to the battle screen on the 28th, Sylvains Paralogue was available but greyed out. Ay dios mio!

If I had known he had a Paralogue, I would have scummed for him earlier in the month instead. Now that green '!' is going to haunt me for the rest of the game.

Branch Path question:

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Is the latest save spot for the Black Eagle Edelgard/Church story split when you go to see her become Emperor, or in the tomb when you have to decide between kill/protect?

[Corrderio]

Spoiler: show

I believe that's when the path splits

[Raldo]

Spoiler: show

Is the latest save spot for the Black Eagle Edelgard/Church story split when you go to see her become Emperor, or in the tomb when you have to decide between kill/protect?

Spoiler: show

Surely the last possible save point would have to be the battle prep for the tomb, right? You're not gonna get along very well if you follow Rhea's command to kill her. I kept my save from that battle setup, but I haven't tried to trigger church path yet (just got to final battle of BE route at 2AM last night).

[Kirin]

Spoiler: show

Surely the last possible save point would have to be the battle prep for the tomb, right? You're not gonna get along very well if you try to kill her. I kept my save from that battle setup, but I haven't tried to trigger church path yet.

That was my thought, as I was wanting a convenient save for playing the other option.

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All for lady Edelgard!

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They could have handled Edelgard's story shift a little better though.

Edelgard: I'm the Flame Emperor. Attack the church!

Classmates: Say what now? You're betraying us?

Byleth: I'll protect you, Edelgard.

Classmates: We're on board!

[Corrderio]

Spoiler: show

You're a terrible person.

Anyway 4 chapters left for me for Dimitri's path. Hoping to finish by the end of the week.

[Kirin]

I just want best Lord to Lelouch the ever living frak out of Fodlan for righteousness.

Not spoilering that, because it could apply to any of the options.

[Corrderio]

My eyepatch king will reing supreme

[Corrderio]

Finished the Blue Lion's path this morning and yeah loved the game. Also don't regret who I chose to marry:

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[Tarage]

Bernie needs a hug. When she's ready for physical contact. Which may be never.

[JeanClaudVanDamme]

Is this strictly an offline RPG? Or does it have some sort of online requirement to get full experience like the fukkery that was the 3DS Fire Emblem where you had to trade/breed with other people and shit.

I just want an honest to goodness offline single player RPG experience man.

[Corrderio]

There is some online but it doesn't impact the gane any.

Battles will have highlighted cells where if you step on get EXP or items that are shit.

During exploration random NPCs show up you can buy overpriced things from or play a hide and seek for some ingredients.

Then at the end of the week it will show what people did (Explore, Battle, Rest, etc)

[Kirin]

Well, the yellow exp spots on maps can restore Gambit uses. Can be very useful in the more difficult fights.

Finished BE route last night. Easily a better game than Fateswakening, and I have a feeling will be up there with PoR/RD and Geneology when I finish the other 3 paths.

Gripes:

1. I feel like they needed just a few more class additions. No Troubador or Valkyrie is a bit irksome for a more mobile healer. Also, Edelgard gets a black magic talent that is essentially wasted in her class line. More classes need to have access to magic, or maybe open all classes to magic use and limit their access to tiers - so a Great Knight isnt galloping around casting Fimbulvetr.
2. Paired with that, class compatability could be cleaned up a bit too. This also goes into leveling Armor/Flying/Riding as a whole. Access to these could be a bit more open.
3. Maybe I missed it, but skills seems to level so slowly for no reason. I know of the knowledge gems, but even with +2/3 growth in a skill with the job I would still often only have growth of +1 after a use. Maybe I am missing something.
4. Unique character models not being consistent. No reason why, Ingrid for example, has her unique model on cavalry units and Pegasus Knight, but not Falcon Knight.
5. No real "DPS check" fights that had you rushing to save a village. This goes in with also wanting more "Defend for X turns" or "Don't Let X escape" fights.

Likes:

1. You can't build stupid broken units unless extensively ignoring school activities and fighting every chance you get. This also is a natural progression of no eugenics simulator.
2. The school functions as your My Castle were well done. I know this felt very SMT/Persona-esque, but it worked.
3. Difficulty pacing for me was okay even as a veteran to the series. It was "easy" to an extent, but there were enough battles to make you think and thats only going to get more intensive with Lunatic mode.
4. Monster fights were the best new addition IMHO. Some of their drops could be more plentiful though. I ended up with a bajillion Umbral Steel but zero Agastarium or whatever it was for weapon upgrades.

Can't wait for DLC. Edelgard best lord.

Completionists Gripe:

Make the "who you marry" decision not stuck behind 2 more battles. Thats gonna be a tough slog to go through that for both Male and Female Byleth 20 or so times.

[Corrderio]

Ah right. Forgot EXP spots can restore gambits/durability

[Kaslo]