This character is so interesting to me. He has a secret good ending in Engage, he has mid stats which makes building him more fun to me (forces me to think and learn about potential support units), and he looks really cool (especially in his engaged forms).

What I HATE about this guy, is his inability to get buff despite working out a ton. Not because I don't find this funny. I think it's admirable that he acknowledges his weaknesses and wants to get better anyway. But dude he reminds me of "me!" This guy can't get buff, I CAN'T GET BUFF EITHER 😭. I hit the gym, work a job forcing me to do extra physical work, yet I have no muscles in my arms. My thighs and legs have become stronger, but their stamina is awful. I am a scrawny dude. I eat to put on weight but get none, then you got people telling me "bro if you just lift you'd be stronger" LIKE BRO I DO.

I can't believe how much I relate to Alfred. Even outside of this muscle issue we seem to be similar. I love him.

Tick tock, it's Vaike o'clock! It's time to, once again, criticize the way Robin is perceived.

As always I'm analyzing in the context of lunatic mode awakening, 0 starting renown. Most of what I say will ring true on other difficulties as well, but the renown value is relevant for a portion of this analysis. I will go into greater detail when we get to that point.

Introduction

Today I will be tackling the "Veteran" skill that Robin's tactician class starts with in awakening. It has a fairly simple effect- so long as the user is in a "defense stance" pairup (to borrow terminology from fates), any exp that the user gains is multiplied by 1.5x.

This has been lauded as one of, if not the strongest skill in the whole of the Fire Emblem series. I myself have also praised this skill greatly in the past.

However, I now believe that the reputation that Veteran enjoys is one that is founded on a number of falsehoods.

If you've been on any online forum or YouTube comments section, you've probably heard some variation of someone claiming that Robin "snowballs faster than everyone else" or that they "gain 50% more levels than everyone else and therefore have the highest stats".

Unfortunately, this just isn't true

Let's get into the biggest issue right off the bat:

1.5x Exp Boost =/= 1.5x as many Level-Ups

This sounds a bit counterintuitive at first glance, but the error in thinking here comes from ignoring one vital truth about the exp formula:

Higher level units gain less exp from defeating enemies than lower-level units do

"Yeah, well duh", you might say. But think about what this means for Robin.

Sure, when they are the same level as their peers, they gain exactly 1.5x as much exp as anyone else and thus will level up at 1.5x the rate.

But that's the issue. If Robin is at the same level as their peers, then Veteran isn't really doing anything meaningful for them, because, well, the whole point is to be an exp boost to snowball a strong unit. If, on the other hand, Robin is a higher level than their peers, then they will gain a reduced amount of exp. At a certain threshold, this will entirely cancel out the boost from Veteran.

I'm not bringing this up to be pedantic and go "well ackshually it's only 40% as many level ups, therefore you are being nitpicking and biased, I win bye bye 🤓"

I'm bringing this up because the level gap that cancels out Veteran's exp gain is much lower than people think it is. Some units will even end up gaining more exp than Robin. Let's look to the awakening exp formula to demonstrate why this is the case.

Awakening's exp Formula (Calculations - Serenes Forest)

IF LD>=0,

Exp from killing enemy= (31+LD)/3 + 3LD + 20

IF LD = -1,

Exp from killing enemy = 30

IF LD<= -2,

Exp from killing enemy = Max[(33+LD)/3, 1] + Max [26 + 3LD, 7]

(And yes, for those who care, I am ignoring the character bonus and lunatic penalty in this formula. They are flat bonuses that you don't commonly run into, even within LM, and thus have nearly no effect on the analysis).

...

Ok, that's a big formula. Let's clean this up and explain what it means.

"LD" stands for "Level Difference". It's simply the level of the enemy unit minus the level of the player unit

For example, if you have a level 10 enemy and a level 4 player unit, the "LD" is 10-4= 6. If you have a level 2 enemy and a level 7 player unit, the "LD" becomes 2-7= -5.

Also, any promoted unit has an automatic +20 added onto their level for this purpose, so if a level 5 unpromoted enemy fights my level 1 promoted Grandmaster Robin, the level difference is 5-21=-16. Second seals go beyond the scope of what I want to explain here. I will talk about them later.

Anyway, what this all means is that we have three scenarios for our exp formula.

Where LD >= 0, the enemy is the same or higher level than our unit.

Where LD =-1, the enemy is exactly 1 level lower than our unit.

Where LD <= -2, the enemy is at least 2 or more levels lower than our unit.

For those who despise maths, the "Max" function just means that we take the bigger of the two values separated by the comma. Max[2,1] gives us a value of 2. Max [6-5, 8+7] gives us a value of 15.

Once the level difference is substituted in, we get a value for exp which is multiplied by 1.5x if veteran is active.

So, for example, if Robin fights an enemy they are the same level as, we use the top formula as LD=0.

(31+0)/3+ (3*0) + 20 = 30.33333... which the game will round to 30. Multiply by 1.5 for Veteran and Robin will gain 45 exp. You can test yourself this works in the prologue- have Robin fight a level 1 enemy as a level 1 unit. Upon killing them while paired up, they will gain 45 exp.

To avoid pages and pages of calculations, I pre-calculated what the exp gain for any given unit would be, based on the level difference. We can then plot this into a graph:

Fig.1

Note that my x-axis is inverted to show negative numbers on the Right-Hand-Side for legibility.

Why am I showing you this? It's simple. We can use this graph to deduce what level(s) it is that a Veteran Boosted unit starts gaining exp at the same rate as our other units.

Currently this graph is simulating 2 units at the same level, e.g a level 7 Robin and a level 7 Vaike fighting enemies of varying levels. As you'd expect, Robin will gain more exp than Vaike.

For example, if our level 7 Robin kills an enemy at a level difference of -5 (so they kill a level 2 enemy), they gain 30 exp. If a level 7 Vaike kills an enemy at a level difference of -5 (again, killing a level 2 enemy), he gains 20 exp.

But what if Robin was level 7 and Vaike was level 6?

Well, nothing changes for Robin here, but for Vaike to get the same level difference of -5, he'd have to fight a level 3 enemy. When fighting a level 2 enemy, his level difference is only -4 and he gains 23 exp, rather than 20.

Let's now plot a graph of the expected exp gain with respect to Robin's level difference, assuming Vaike is 1 level lower:

Fig. 2

As you can see, the blue line representing the exp gain of a "Normal Unit" (Vaike) has shifted 1 place to the right, as we're now working off of the level difference of our 1 level higher "Veteran Boosted Unit" (Robin)

Taking the level difference of -5 for Robin as before still outputs an exp gain of 30, but we can see that a non-Veteran boosted unit is now gaining 23 exp for this level difference, rather than 20.

This isn't because they have magically started gaining more exp, it's because a level difference of -5 for Robin is actually a level difference of -4 for our non-Veteran unit, as they are 1 level lower.

I'm sure you can see at this point, that if we keep shifting our blue "Normal Unit" line rightwards, eventually it will end up intersecting our orange "Veteran Boosted" line.

This is the level lead for Robin at which Veteran's bonus exp gain will become zero, as the amount of exp you are getting for a kill is exactly the same on each unit.

So, when does this happen? Let's shift the blue line 3 more places to the right. This will represent Robin having a 4 level lead over Vaike. (So for example level 7 Robin and level 3 Vaike).

Fig.3

Cool, the two lines are now intersecting. Taking a level difference of -5 still outputs 30 exp for Robin, but taking that same level difference now also outputs 30 exp for Vaike (because we've moved him 4 places over and this is technically what he would gain at a level difference of -1).

Robin and Vaike are now tying in exp gain. Veteran will not snowball Robin any further.

Heck, if we take a Robin level difference of -6, we can now see that Vaike gains 30 exp to Robins 25. Vaike is actually winning in exp gain here! He will catch back up to Robin!

So, checkmate Vaiketheists! Robin's veteran only ever amounts of a 4 level lead, right? Absolutely pathetic.

If only it was that easy...

As I'm sure you've probably noticed, Vaike's exp gain is only tying or leading Robin's for Level Difference values of -5, -6, -7 and -8.

Alright, so what in Naga's name is going on here?

LD values of -4 to positive infinity

This is fairly simple to explain: bigger numbers gain a greater flat numerical value when multiplied by 1.5.

20*1.5= 30, this is a bonus of 10. 40*1.5= 60, this is a bonus of 20.

While the exp formulas do multiply the level differences to get certain values, those values are only ever used in addition or subtraction. The LD>=0 formula adds 3.33333LD and the LD<=-2 formula takes it away. With a level gap of 4, we can say that it is roughly a flat value of 13 that gets added/taken away from the total exp.

Once total exp+13<total exp x1.5, the amount of exp granted by Veteran is greater than the amount lost by being 4 levels higher than another unit. As seen from Fig.3, this occurs at LD values of -4 to positive infinity.

LD values of -9 to negative infinity

Oh boy, it's time to talk about exp minimums.

As I mentioned earlier, the exp formula has these "Max" functions.

When LD<= -2 , Exp from killing an enemy= Max[(33+LD)/3, 1] + Max [26 + 3LD, 7]

They will always select the bigger value of the two options put into them. Where this becomes relevant is in the second "Max" function

Max [26 + 3LD, 7]

As you can see, if we drop the level difference enough, eventually, 26 + 3LD ( a big negative number) will be less than 7. This means that for this level difference and every level difference below it, the "Max" function will always output 7.

Why is that relevant? Because it ignores the level difference between player and enemy units. So a higher levelled unit (ie Robin) isn't punished by getting a lower amount of exp.

When is this relevant? It's not just when Robin starts hitting the exp minimum- it will be when the minimum*1.5 is greater than the amount of exp the Vaike gets. In the instance of a 4 level lead from Veteran, it takes until a level difference of -9 for the minimum to be relevant. It should also be noted that this is only a gap of 2 exp that opens up- it's only when you get to an LD of -10 that a 5 exp/kill gap opens up.

Why did I ignore the first "Max" function? The first "Max" function essentially exists so it always outputs at least a 1. This only becomes relevant when (33+LD)/3 is going to be less than or equal to 1, i.e when LD= -30. That is equivalent to a level 20/10 promoted Robin exterminating some poor sucker in the prologue. It flies way outside the scope of the analysis because at that point your unit can do anything.

So, that's why we're in this predicament. If I want to say that Veteran only amounts to a roughly 4 level lead for Robin, I need to prove that once Robin gains said lead, that the player spends the majority of their time operating in the range of a "Robin Level Difference" of -5, -6, -7, or -8 (compared to the enemies). Any time spend outside of this range needs to be justified.

Prologue and Chapter 1

I'm not going to waste your time on these ones- I fully concede that Robin gains more exp than anyone else in these maps. This is because Veteran hasn't done anything yet- it hasn't amounted to a level lead, so Robin hasn't hit the point where Veteran is going to peter out yet.

Chapter 2

This is where some level of subjectivity comes into play, because different people have different ideas of how fast Robin grows. What I will say, though, is that if your Robin is a lower level than the one in my example, then you are worse off, not better, as even though you gain more exp, you are a lower level and have worse stats.

I say that ~level 7 Robin is what I'd expect most people doing a relatively efficient Robin carry run will have here. Every enemy on this map is level 2, except the boss who is level 4. That's a level difference of -5, within our range for a unit 4 levels lower to be tying exp/kill with Robin. Provided we level up 2 times within this entire chapter, that's being tied in exp gain as well.

This is also the map where we meet Vaike, and he conveniently comes at the base level of 3, exactly 4 levels below a level 7 Robin. So we can just use him as our comparison for the rest of the game. Levelling up Vaike/Robin once or twice causes us to enter into the range of a Robin Level Difference (RLD) of -6 or -7 (Level 8 or 9 Robin vs level 2 enemies). This gives Vaike an exp advantage of 5 and 4 per kill, respectively.

Robin balances this out a little vs the boss as bosses give +20 exp on kill, so Veteran gives them a bonus 10 here.

You might contest that Robin deserves to be a higher level in this map, say, level 9 or so. This would be a 6 level lead over Vaike and falls outside the scope of my analysis- you need an RLD of -11 for Robin to take even a 1 exp lead over Vaike and Vaike is still leading in exp even at an RLD of +2. It's same to assume that if the player does walk into C2 with a level 9 Robin, that Vaike will be gaining more exp than them for a significant while.

Level 9 Robin also has it's own other issues, such as requiring slowdown, making Fred/Chrom a lot worse and only amounting to all stats +1. But again, different kettle of fish.

Chapter 3

Every regular enemy in this map is level 3. Reimi is level 5. If Vaike or Robin kill about 5 enemies in C2, one of which is the boss, they can be assumed to to hit level 5 or 9, respectively. Depending on how many combats you take, you can push that to levels 6 and 10 through hit exp, but that does require some slowdown.

Either way, even with a big overestimate of a level 10 Robin and level 6 Vaike, that still falls at a Robin Level Difference of -7, which is still a 4 exp lead for Vaike per kill. Taking the more reasonable level 9 Robin and level 5 Vaike, you're looking at an RLD of -6, a 5 exp lead for Vaike. Taking a underestimate of a level 8 Robin and level 4 Vaike, you're still hitting an RLD of -5, tying exp gain for both of them.

Yes, if you bring a level 9 or below Robin or level 5 or below Vaike to fight Reimi, we are once again giving Robin a minor exp advantage, but again, this is a 15 exp lead for 1 fight (this is accounting for the boss bonus as well).

I also think that level 10/11 Robin and level 6/7 Vaike vs Reimi is much more realistic given how long C3 is as a map and how easy it is for them both to get kills. This would reduce Robin's exp lead from Reimi to 10 or 5.

Chapter 4

The enemies in this map are level 5. If we take the reasonable 10/11 Robin/ 6/7 Vaike I just mentioned, that's an RLD of -5 or -6, giving Vaike tied or better exp than Robin. Level 9 and below Robin/Level 5 and below Vaike does have an exp advantage for Robin, hitting an RLD of -4, but level 9 Robin also already has issues with their offense in this map. Your standard +def Robin only gets 10 speed by this map 67% of the time, and they also need C Chrom and Chrom to have 10 speed to double things. This is so that they are capable of killing the fighters here in 2 turns, because Robin's offense at this point (17 Atk with iron sword+strength tonic), is too bad to kill them even in 2 hits.

Vaike, on the other hand, can comfortably 2 shot them even at base (23 Atk with Hammer, Str tonic, Sully pairup). So while he doesn't double, he is very likely to kill them faster than a level 9 Robin. At that point I'm just benching level 9 Robin for Vaike and ignoring the exp gain entirely.

Even with more extreme investment, say, level 12 Robin/level 9 Vaike has an RLD of -7, still giving Vaike a 4 exp lead.

Again, Lucina is the only exception. She's level 8 and gives boss exp so Robin has a small amount extra if they kill her.

Paralogue 1

The enemies in this map are level 4. C4 doesn't have a whole lot of enemies (only 9 are on the map and Fred kills half of them), so Robin/Vaike won't really have gained more than 1.5 levels at a push. So I'm saying level 12 Robin or level 8 Vaike is reasonable to have here.

This is an RLD of -8, still tying Vaike and Robin's exp gain.

To be fair, though, I think it's fair to say that Robin is probably going to gain more exp from something somewhere in this map. It won't be a lot, but it's a reasonably long map and Robin/Vaike only need 1 level to get to an RLD of -9, giving Robin a 2 exp lead per kill. -10 gives Robin a 5 exp lead per kill. Including the small bonus from Roddick, who is level 7, Robin has a 30-40 ish exp lead from this map.

I'll say that coming out of this map with level 10/11 Vaike is expected, and this gives us a level 14/15 Robin.

Chapter 5

The grounded enemies in this map are level 5. The wyverns are level 7. The boss, orton is level 9.

As I just mentioned, we have a 10/11 Vaike or 14/15 Robin.

This gives us an RLD of -9/-10 vs the grounded enemies and -7/-8 vs the flying ones. Given that there are more grounded enemies than flying ones, Robin does get a little bit of an exp lead here. There's 10 wyverns and 20 grounded enemies, so if Vaike/Robin killed every single enemy on the map, Robin gains 2-5 more exp from 10 enemies, granting them 20-50 exp. Orton gives us an RLD of -5 or -6, so that's 5-10 more exp for Robin again.

Of course, this ignores the elephant in the room which is that the best strategy, by far, for this map is to have Frederick get to the fort in the middle of the map on t2 where he cleans like 75% of the map on his own. Sure, Robin can maintain an exp advantage here, but they are not killing 30 enemies- there's no point to it.

Chapter 6

Enemies in chapter 6 are level 6.

If we take a level 12/13 Vaike and level 16/17 Robin, that's an RLD of -10 or -11. This is a not-insignificant exp bonus for Robin. RLD-10 is +5 exp and RLD- 11 is +6 exp per kill.

I'll say we come out of this one with a level 14/15 Vaike and a level 18/19 Robin that is much closer to levelling up.

Chapter 7

Enemies in this map have....

Oh wait, it doesn't matter. Sure I could talk about the wyverns being level 9 in this map, but who cares? Robin is level 19 and is about to level up. They can't gain exp past this point.

Forget RLDs for a second. If Robin level caps, even vs the lowest level 7 enemies on this map, Vaike has a 15 exp bonus/kill for nearly every enemy on the map for this map and most of Chapter 8 as well. Because Robin can't gain any more.

This is enough to shut out any minor advantage that Robin would have built up. In fact, it's likely that Vaike is going to close that gap from from 4 to 3 to maybe even 2.

Sure, you can invest less into Robin and Vaike. That doesn't fix the problem. Now you're just staying inside the RLD range that benefits Vaike for longer. Like if we decrease our levels by 2, then in C5 Vaike has an exp lead again and only barely has an exp deficit in C6.

Obviously investing more does not solve the problem either. Robin caps earlier and you run into this problem earlier as well.

So, two questions probably instantly spring to mind

What the hell? Did you waste my time with all this maths just to say "Robin caps nyeh nyeh nyeh"?

No, the point of the maths was to prove the rate at which Robin snowballs is far slower than people say. People seem to think that Robin is walking around at level 15 when Vaike is level 7. That is definitely not true, and is most of the point I was proving.

Ok, but what about the Renown second seal? That can be used after C4 to not only avoid the capping issue, but also increase Robin's exp gain.

First of all, it is really quite misunderstood how second seals work in this game. Robin does gain more exp after second sealing, but it's not the same as actually being level 1. A Robin that used a second seal at level 15 would gain exp like they are a level 8 unit. Obviously boosted exp means their level goes up and they earn less and less extra exp too.

Furthermore, once you promote, the game remembers that you've second sealed and will give you less exp than a unit that has only used a master seal. I'm not going to spend ages on Internal Level calculations because I'm about to make a point that obsoletes this one anyway, but the point I'm making here is that don't just assume the early second seal is a big exp machine that solves the entire problem, because it isn't and it doesn't.

OK, but the actual reason I don't consider it is because:

Either Banning Renown entirely, or assuming Base Renown is necessary for Awakening discussion to make sense

By "Base Renown", I mean assuming you start at zero renown and only access the renown awards once you have beaten enough maps within your current playthrough to gain the renown needed for said reward. So for example, after 5 maps, you can get the glass sword because it is 50 renown, you gain 10 renown per map completed.

(In lunatic+, base renown would be considered to be 270 because you have to beat lunatic mode to unlock it and thus are physically incapable of having less renown)

The renown second seal costs 100 renown. That means you can't get it until chapter 10, which is obviously much later than chapter 4. The reason for this isn't because I want Vaike to be better than Robin, it's because if we just allow 100 renown "because we want it", there's really no reason to not allow other amounts of renown. All amounts that aren't base, zero or infinite are completely arbitrary.

While it is fun to play with this level of renown, when discussing the game, we have to make something of a framework to decide how good units are (are we grinding/how fast are we going roughly/are we doing full recruitment etc). If you decide that you want your framework to be 100 renown because you want the second seal, what's to stop someone else from saying they want to use 1200 renown to get the speedwing and Orsin's hatchet for Vaike? Why not assume 50k renown and get the boots ASAP? Why not assume infinite renown and get the supreme emblem and ignore gold cost entirely?

You can push this to even more ridiculous extents and it's why I'm in favor of banning the entire wireless menu.

If we're OK with allowing the renown second seal on the grounds that we just want it, why not allow the entire bonus box of weapons and have Frederick solo the game? Why not have spotpass maps available and just buy anything you want and circumvent the entire weapon progression system coded into the game? If we're gonna go there, why not just go to DLC maps and grind for a million years and have our whole units super capped?

I don't think I need to tell you that while it's fun to break the game with the wireless menu, and it's funny to discuss the silliness it allows, you can't have a serious discussion about awakening if you allow it. It is a completely unserious mechanic that the game obviously wasn't designed around- it's extra content meant to be for fun or messing around.

Right, ok, I've gone on for long enough there. What about the rest of the game? The game doesn't end after chapter 8, so let's whip out the RLDs and get calculating!

No.

Look, the game might not officially end after chapter 8, but the question we're asking today is "what difference, if any, is veteran making past an earlygame lead of 4 levels". From this point forwards, Robin is a fantastic unit, but it won't be because of Veteran. It will be because of their access to a master/second seal from the C8 villages, which gives them access to the best combat classes, Sorcerer and Hero.

Let me put it this way:

Do you really think Robin would have issues Nosferatu/Sol tanking past this point if they didn't have Veteran?

Yes, there is a small section of the game where Robin has to second seal where everyone else master seals. They are weaker there and Veteran will help get them through that point faster than otherwise- but it's hardly an instant boost. It saves them a bit of time, but not a lot of time.

The only thing I need you to accept at this point is that Robin does not gain 1 quintillion exp from Veteran and therefore can enter every class at hypersonic speed and get all the skills while being super capped at everything. Robin can and will have a slight lead in exp/kill, it's just largely irrelevant to their performance as a unit now.

So, is my final position that Veteran is equivalent to never getting more than a 4 level lead in the earlygame ,and then being doomed to irrelevancy in the lategame, either through second seals reducing your exp gain, stat caps, or stats just not mattering as much as strong skills/weapons?

NOPE!

Hit Exp

Remember the exp formulas I showed before? The first part of it is actually used to calculate hit exp (the exp you get when you deal damage to an enemy but do not kill them).

If LD >= 0, Hit Exp= (31 + LD) / 3

If LD = -1, Hit Exp = 10

IF LD <=-2, Hit Exp= Max[ (33 + LD) / 3, 1] 

I won't spend forever on this because it doesn't make too much of a big deal, but I need to mention it for the sake of completeness. Let's quickly plot Vaike vs Robin's hit exp, using the 4 level gap as before:

Fig.4

As you can see, once we get to zone we were in before of a Robin Level Difference between -5 and -8, you're looking at a gap of 2 or 3 exp. Unlike before, this doesn't become more Robin favored past an RLD of -9, because the minimum hit exp is 1, so this slowly decreases further and further until Veteran has nearly zero effect on the total exp gained.

So why bring this up at all then?

With roughly 2 or 3 exp gain every time Robin hits, but doesn't kill, an enemy, I'm, along with the other small portions of exp lead Robin has in maps like C5 and C6, happy to grant Robin an eventual extra level by the time C8 rolls around. Yeah they cap their level, so it doesn't really matter, but for less invested Robin/Vaike's it is relevant.

So I can now finally write my TLDR for this section (Yeah that's right I said section, I've got more still to go):

TLDR for this section: When fighting the most common enemies in the earlygame of awakening, Veteran mathematically cannot push Robin to above a 4 level lead over their peers (given the same number of kills). Thus, they do not snowball at hypersonic speed like often claimed- it's much more reserved. Taking hit exp into account, along with a few other small bonuses for Robin, they can say that eventually their level lead grows from 4 to 5 by the end of chapter 8. However, it can't really push any further than that as they will cap their level before chapter 8 anyway.

Past Chapter 8, the player uses a master/second seal on Robin and at that point Veteran doesn't make a difference because Sol/Axebreaker or Nosferatu/Tomebreaker is a much bigger impact on their viability. The few extra levels (and it is only a few due to how much levelling slows down in the mid and lategame) that Robin does get are either largely irrelevant, or completely irrelevant because most units cap stats before the end of the game anyway

But hey, a 4 level lead still sounds pretty good right, RIGHT?

Veteran does not produce it's entire exp lead at once

I spent the last section really hammering home the fact that Veteran can't boost you past a 4-5 level lead.

But that doesn't mean you just get the level lead straight away. Sure, in the Vaike vs Robin example, I was willing to grant Robin the ability to be level 7 if they play the earlygame a certain way. I would still rather give that exp to Fred and Chrom and it's also not the fastest, but whatever, I granted it.

But you have to understand, most of that level lead didn't come from Veteran. It came from Robin being given exp that existed before Vaike did. That's not Veteran being powerful and granting Robin a 4 point lead. That's Vaike not existing for a section of the game where Robin was able to be fed exp.

So how long does it take for Veteran to actually produce this 4 level lead?

Let's compare the scenario where we feed Robin to one where we feed Chrom. How many kills do you think it takes for Robin to reach that 4 level lead? Obviously, as before, it will depend on the level of the enemies we're fighting. But hey, let's take a deliberately wrong assumption and assume that the level difference will always be 0 for both units. This massively benefits Robin and completely ignores any exp gain falloff from Veteran

Fig.5

As you can see, even giving Robin a comical amount of legroom that is in no way tethered to reality, it still takes a grand total of 23 kills for them to even open up the 4 level lead that they can never surpass. To put that into perspective, Robin could kill every single enemy in Prologue and C1 and still be 4 kills short.

But, now let's take a more realistic approach. Assuming Robin wants to come into C2 at level 7, all the enemies they fight before then are level 1, apart from the bosses. So we can calculate their exp gain before then vs level 1 enemies. From there, we will assume that Robin gains 2 ish levels per map- once Robin gains these 2 levels, I'll use the next chapter's enemies levels in the LD formula.

This should give us a more accurate estimate of what the number of kills for Robin to hit a 4 level lead over Chrom would actually be. Of course, it won't be 100% accurate. I can't factor in hit exp and boss bonuses, but it will grant us something of an idea:

Fig.6

As you can see, once we start accounting for Veteran increasing Robin's level, and general level differences, it takes much, much longer for Robin to even cement their 4 level lead. I stopped calculating at 58 kills, which is where Robin hits level 17 to Chrom's level 13.

I don't think I need to tell you that 58 kills is a lot of kills to just have a 4 level lead that now will, at best, max out at 5 before becoming obsolete anyway.

TLDR for this section: Despite what people might say, Veteran does not gain Robin their levels super ultra mega quickly. Even a bonus of 15 exp per kill takes a fairly significant time to actually turn into anything concrete. When you start factoring in the slowdown that Robin takes from having a higher and higher level difference, the gap widens to needing over 50 kills to get the maximum value from Veteran.

In the earlier section I demonstrated that Veteran is only a 4, maybe 5 level lead at a push. But that isn't a 4 level lead you get right away. It's a potential 4 level lead you get when you don't really even need it that much. It's a bit like how some people argue that you should pick classes with different stat caps- we're not talking about a direct plus RIGHT NOW, we're talking about a bonus that we'll get much later on.

The truth is, if you've used Robin and you thought they were snowballing insanely hard, it's likely just because you fed all of your kills into one unit, which is something that awakening rewards anyway. Yeah, Robin has some pretty solid tools of their own- not just good class access, but also they have a fair bit of bulk to them and you can set their def or speed to get going fairly quickly.

But, as I have demonstrated, they are not a level gaining machine. Anyone telling you that "Robin snowballs much faster than anyone else" is sorely mistaken. Not just because Veteran only gets you a 4-5 level lead at best. Not just because Veteran takes ages to get there, but because...

Veteran doesn't give you that many extra stats anyway

"Robin has the fantastic/great/the best growths in awakening" is something I've heard far too many times. If you've been on the internet in the last 10 years, you've probably heard it as well. Sadly, it is just not true at all.

Let's note down the growths of the two most common Robins for lunatic mode.

+Def/-Skl

+Spd/-Lck

What you'll probably notice here is that most of Robin's growths in their key areas (Str/Mag/Skl/Spd/Def) are at or around 50%. If you've played other FE games, this probably looks quite good, but within the context of awakening, most of these growths are mediocre. The speed and Def are fine. Everything else is lacking.

Because I am a Vaike>Robin enjoyer, lets do a quick growths comparison

Vaike

Vaike leads a massive 25% in both HP and Str, and 10-25% in Skill as well. He will also lead 10% defence over a non +def Robin. His only "loss" here is a 15% growth in speed to + speed Robin, 35% Mag (a uselesss stat for him), 5-15% Luck (the best stat) and 25% Res (who cares).

Why am I bringing this up? Do I just want to remind people that Vaike is better? Yes. But I also think it's necessary to prove that Robin's growths just aren't that great. The reason this is relevant is because Veteran generates it's extra stats by using Robin's growths.

By now you should be willing to accept that Veteran means a potential 4-5 level lead by the end of the earlygame for Robin and not a whole lot more.

Maybe you've been thinking "Ok, well you keep saying it's only a 4 level lead, but 4 levels is quite a lot! That can make or break a unit!". And, well, let's just see what these 4 levels actually mean for us.

In most cases, 4 Robin levels means, on average, +2 in all of their stats. Except for HP which we can assume +3 in.

In other words:

Veteran is essentially just all stats+2, except you have to kill a whole bunch of enemies before it comes online. I can tell you right now that if Robin joined with all of their base stats increased by two, but without Veteran, nearly everyone would say that they are worse, however they would actually, mathematically, be a better unit.

The reason I know this is staring us right in the face.

Chrom.

He leads Robin by a point of HP, Strength and Defence, 3 points in skill, 2 points in speed, a point in luck. His weapons are also 2 might stronger, and have effective damage vs 3 different enemy types

Oh yeah and his growths are better too.

How many of you consider Chrom to be better than Robin?

...

Heck, let's go to the biggest lead that Veteran could try to get early on: Even if we compare Vaike to Robin in chapter 2, with Robin's full 4 level lead, before Vaike has had the chance to get his hammer or use his better growths to build a level lead, the two are basically tying in combat vs everything that isn't one of the 3 mercs on the map, 2 of which Fred can OHKO on turn 1.

(I was going to show you this with a wall of calcs but I am having to cut stuff for the character limit, so, that's something for another day I suppose)

This section of the game should be showing off the power of veteran, yet all it has done is lead to +2 levels on Robin so far, or +1 in all their stats. Is this really the unit defining, snowball creating, viability creating monster of a skill we have all been led to believe? Pah!

TLDR for this section: Despite popular belief, Robin's growths are very middling and as such, the few extra levels that Robin does gain from Veteran barely amount to that many extra stats. At best, it's All stats+2, but for most of the game it is actually going to be less than that. Ironically enough, the biggest level lead and stat that Robin is going to build over most of your units isn't from Veteran. It's going to be from them having access to exp that no one else does.

TLDR for the entire post:

Veteran is a skill that gets extremely overrated because it just looks and "feels" like it ought to be strong. However, when you actually go through and work out all the points where it should be gaining more exp, they just aren't there. It struggles to ever push Robin past a level lead of 4 (something it takes a good while to do unless Robin is fed extra beforehand) and even then there are units (Vaike) that tie those combat parameters anyway.

At the times Veteran would be expected to take off more, Robin's level caps, and they can't gain more exp, and then they promote into a part of the game where small difference in stats become dramatically less relevant due to skills, enemy phase healing, stat caps and all the other weird stuff that awakening throws at you.

A lot of what is credited to Veteran is actually just people deciding to feed a unit that has an easy lategame a whole bunch of exp early on. Whether or not they had a 50% exp booster really does make this irrelevant. Level 5 Robin (which is what you get without Veteran active) basically has -1 in all stats compared to level 7 Robin in chapter 2. Do you think that changes their viability so drastically?

It has a big ramp up time and the payoff is never all that fantastic.

Robin enjoyers, I ask of you... is this your God?

CRIT PIERCE 💀

Absolutely wholesome cinnamon roll from my fav fire emblem game. He’s super cool and I’d thought I’d share this with y’all!

The title speaks for itself. I think it's gotta be Mystery, Tharacia, or 3 Houses. Mystery and Tharacia make you dismount indoors, which changes your weapon type to one that you probably have less rank on and may lower your stats. Bane weapons also aren't THAT uncommon in these games si you may he taking effective damage. Many foot units in these games have higher movement on indoor maps and also have more weapon types available to them, especially in FE3 where cavs are locked to lances on mount.

Three houses cavs just get super overshadowed by flying, plain and simple. Other than your swift strike bros not many units would like to end up in a mounted class and even they are better off in Wyvern. All the master classes are pretty mid on horses with the exeption of bow knight, (Which is overshadowed by sniper.) and paladin is decent for a couple units temporarily but not the ideal place to end up. Also theres a bunch of terrain in theee houses that heavily penalise cavalry throughout most maps. What do you guys think?

To give more context:

Here is a situation I thought of and would like to hear how you imagine the scenario after Kana is captured:

After the Hoshido route chapter where Corrin escapes from the opera house with her companions, they are intercepted by Camilla.

After a tough battle, the Nohrian forces retreat.

But it was not all in vain as Camilla managed to take Hinoka hostage and her daughter before Hans executed them.

She decided to secretly hold them prisoner to force Corrin to return to her side by using them both as bargaining chips.

While she has them held, how do you imagine the subsequent events will play out?

I would really like to see it come back, it was great to be able to get almost all units at the beginning of the game.

Also, this way I can use units that I don't normally use instead of discarding them because I already have a very solid team from units that came in previous chapters.

I have seen snippets of it on the FE4 character pages on the wiki, but I would like to look at the whole thing, translated or not. (For text there seem to be translations on some old SF threads)

I usually would just buy artbooks myself, but this is a pre-2000 Japan only book, so I doubt finding one is a quick effort...

(Hope it's fine to post this seperately instead of the Question Thread, as it is more specific)

Artist: https://www.hrfarrington.com/about

Couldn't find anything online about it

Welcome to the next installment of Everyone Plays Fire Emblem! As always, this is a casual space for discussing any ongoing Fire Emblem (or related games) playthroughs. Screenshots, impressions, frustrations... gameplay stuff that would otherwise be removed as a standalone post under Rule 8 can be shared here.

While you can of course ask for advice here, specific questions might get faster responses in the General Question Thread here

As always, remember to tag your spoilers, and have fun!

The previous thread can be found here

20 charm Marianne somehow lost to 17 charm Dorothea... rigged competition I say.

But seriously, should I load the previous save file to run the competition again or should I do a soft reset?

Sometimes Fire emblem allows for some pairing like only freaks/really gross people would want like any child unit being paired with an adult. I want to know pairings that games allows for that you absolutely hate, despise or is grossed out by. For example I really don’t like Camilla and Ryoma cause despite how funny it is, despite them being the “mother” and “father” of their family, I feel Camilla would absolutely despise Ryoma and vice versa; feel like miss opportunity to have a male female support line that doesn’t have a S rank.

I know it's probably said to death but GOD I miss how the 2D sprites looked and their attacks. I wish they kept those exaggerated poses and attack movements. like how the paladin stands and how his horse stands in Idle and their attack animation god I love those exaggerated "Knightly" stances

Where do Japanese Fire Emblem fans hang out and discuss Fire Emblem? Info I find online says Pegasus Knight(dot)com, and I certainly love using the website to get information on Japanese Fire Emblem's scripts and things, but it doesn't seem to have any forms where you can post and ask questions or discuss aspects of the series. Is there anything like a Japanese equivalent of Serenes Forest Forums? Or even a Japanese reddit equivalent with an active Fire Emblem community.

Fire Emblem Engage's characters tend to be hit-or-miss with many in the community. Especially compared to the it's predecessor Three Houses, which is often praised for it's character writing and world building. Even so, I think many of Engage's most polarizing characters are simply misunderstood. This post aims to shed the spotlight on the characters that may have been written off initially, and why I think they were overlooked. I'll also give my subjective best and worst supports for each of these characters.

CELINE

Since launch it's been a popular joke in the community that her supports are largely dominated by tea and tea related subject matter. Well congrats, you're making fun of a PTSD victim's coping method. I hope you feel good about yourself.

Tea dominating Celine's supports has often been poked fun of, but there may be more significance to the Princess's drink of choice. In her support with Jean, Celine reveals that she uses tea time as a way to clear her head in stressful situations. According to her, tea has saved her life on numerous occasions. And I don't think that's just an expression.

This revelation re-contextualizes a lot of her supports. Namely, the frequency of her tea times. It makes re-watching her supports all the more dire when you realize that each tea time is a result of the Princess's decaying mental state. This supported by her support with Louis, in which she refuses tea due to him being hurt while obtaining it. In her perspective, her preferred method of de-stressing loses it's potency when she knows the people she cares so much about were harmed in it's brew.

By looking at other supports, we can gain insight on why these small moments of comfort are so necessary and frequent. In Celine's support with Alcryst, she reveals that she has recurring nightmares of her brother Alfred's illness resurfacing and taking his life. In her support with Alear, we learn that she takes no pleasure in making tough decisions as a leader, but remains steadfast out of obligation. Her brother's uncertain health and the great responsibility that would come to her at his passing, is likely why Celine is so stressed. She's caught between the thought of her brothers premature passing and the responsibility of taking over his burden if he does.

Celine is one of the best written characters in Engage, and her subverting Fire Emblem's often trope-y writing by having a deeper meaning to her trope is clever. However, a problem with Engage's story telling is how easy it is to miss these nuances.

It's not like Three Houses where every support involves some kind of deep routed trauma and somehow international politics. Engage's supports are very mixed in terms of being either meaningful lore or just entertaining nothings.

Her support with Jean is one of the most telling, but it's with JEAN. Players opting to bench Jean because of his goofy shorts shorts or any other reason lose an integral piece of Celine's character. It's hard to fault players who underestimate these characters when it's so easy to miss the nuance of these characters simply by the missing a few supports.

Celine's best supports are with Alfred and Alcryst. Worst is with Etie I guess? Despite her supports often being a punching bag, I don't think any of them are particularly bad.

AMBER

It's understandable to write Amber off as little more then a joke. But behind his quirky humor is the charming story of an underdog. Because despite his outgoing personality, Amber is very insecure about his position as a retainer.

In Amber's support with his liege Diamant, we learn that his dream is to become a hero of legend. This is why he fought to become the prince's retainer in the first place. He saw it as an out to his expected life as a simple alpaca rancher. Amber ended up placing second in the tournament to Diamant's other retainer Jade, but was still chosen regardless. In his support with Jade, we see that his placement makes him feel inadequate compared to her and the Prince, both of whom he admires greatly.

Amber's affinity for legends and myth is likely the reason he wants to become one himself. He often turns to legends as a way to fast-track himself to greatness. Whether it be finding the Fountain of Youth in his support with Chloe, or getting his hands on a Legendary Weapon with the help of Vander. In Amber's mind, he needs to have an accomplishment befitting of a storybook not only fulfill his dream, but also to feel worthy of being alongside Jade and Diamant.

Amber's concept of worthiness is very superficial, and although his efforts rarely bare fruit, he already has the qualities of a great hero. Again in his support with Jade, it's revealed that he may have went into his tournament fight at a disadvantage because he was helping a lost girl find her family. A recurring theme with Amber is that he is typically the first to charge in and help others in need. A very hero like quality, but one that he doesn't think much of as it isn't as flashy as a legendary weapon. This actually reflected in his personal skill too, where Amber gets benefits from doing just that.

I think Amber's story is very endearing, and I'm not alone in that sentiment. The Engage manga dedicates a couple of chapters to guy. It's a shame that in the game, his introduction to the player is fairly divisive from what I've seen. To the point where the manga changed that too, go figure.

It's not a hot take to suggest that Engage's character introductions are lacking, with some exceptions. For a character who's known for charging in like a hero, it's seems like a missed opportunity for him to just be dragged into battle completely unwillingly by his "horse-y". Yeah it showcases his clumsy nature, but it does little to entice the player into wanting to learn about him. In my opinion, it's a disservice to Engage's best underdog story.

Best support is with Jade or Panette. I know I didn't talk about the Panette one at all but it's cute DAMNIT. Worst is probably with Alear, but I don't think he has a single bad support. Although I find his support with Merrin disappointing. Speaking of which.

MERRIN

To be fair, Merrin isn't unpopular, but I still think she's misunderstood. We as a community have failed to properly portray how much of a disaster this woman is. But I suppose that's exactly what she wanted.

Merrin portrays herself as a cool and collected knight, and relishes in people seeing as such. But her passion for her hobbies, especially her love for rare animals, often goes against this image. Merrin's such a dork around animals that Citrinne calls her an absolute clown in their support. To which Merrin lies about being a clown in a fake play to save face. Okay, that's not entirely accurate, but the support is still entertaining.

Like many Engage characters, there are two sides to Merrin. Which is why I think she's misunderstood. Like Celine, depending on the supports you are exposed too, you could outright miss this dork-y aspect of her character. Her supports with Timerra, Panette, Kagetsu and even Chloe barley showcase this side at all. Which is a shame, because that's most relatable aspect of her character and is what makes her unique in the infinite pool of knights in Fire Emblem.

The worst offender being her support with her liege, Timerra. It's thinly veiled exposition dump, and doesn't showcase either of their personalities very well. It's nice to know Merrin's backstory, but for a support formatted as two old friends reminiscing, it doesn't showcase their chemistry at all. It feels as though they had a story in mind for Merrin and had to sacrifice one of her supports to tell it. It's no surprise that her backstory is one of the least talked about aspects of her character.

On the other hand, I adore her support with Yunaka. It may be light on the lore, but it does a great job showcasing both characters (Especially Merrin's petty-ness and Yunaka's serious side). It's a definitive FE support in that it has conflict that the characters can learn from, but not so traumatic that it's unbelievable they can friends afterwards. It's not like Fates where it's just everyone screaming at (Or trying to murder) Felicia for messing up the Omelet and then proposing to her the next support. All in all, this support sold me on all aspects of Merrin, and it didn't need exposition to do so.

Comparing the support with Timerra and the one with Yunaka makes the Timerra support feel incomplete. Merrin being a dork is who she really is, why is that left out in the support with her closest friend? It pains me that my favorite character in Engage can be used throughout the whole game and yet the aspects that make her so likeable to me, can be understated. All in favor of the facade that her best supports make fun of.

I already stated what I think Merrin's best and worst support is. So instead, her most underrated is with Bunet (Because it's actually refreshing in FE for a character WANTING to be friends with his support partner at the start). Overrated is with Chloe, sorry shippers. The Citrinne one does everything the Chloe one does but it's more entertaining in my opinion. I prefer being called a clown to tripping any day.

CONCLUSION

The reason I bring up Merrin is because she's a big example of how negligible Engage's supports are. The supports which showcase the characters lore or even real personality are alongside many that just don't. And rarely does a single support do both. Coupled alongside weak introductions, It's hard to fault the players for thinking these characters are one-note. Especially considering at launch, supports were harder to get as recreational activities weren't a thing yet.

I praise Engage for supports rarely being too similar, but it often feels like a coin-flip if the support will be anything of substance. Hiding in Engage is a lot of really great characters, but it's format often causes players to miss them on their first or even second play through.

TLDR Enagage's format allows players to miss key aspects of characters which makes me sad. I was gonna do Bunet and Alfred but this became way too long.

I’ve tried looking them up but I’m not getting any sort of information. I know there’s one in the chapter I’m in, I just don’t know where

Complete it all. Release any of the unreleased DLC (should not take TERRIBLY much to localize what was left and just leave out the ridiculous curtain censorship junk), and put Fates and Awakening with all their content on Switch.

With 3DS gone, Revelations is around $700 on secondary market. And while I have everything on my 3DS, it would be nice to be able to actually play my favorite Nintendo games of all time on the current platform- hell, I'll by the Switch 2 if it is a title for it. I have to believe there is at least some demand for re-releases of two of the best selling 3DS games of all time..