------------------------------------------ Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn, Hard Mode Guide ------------------------------------------ by Phoenix Griffiths -------- Contents -------- Use the Crtl + F function for quick access to the various sections of this walkthrough. -~ General Info ~- -- Introduction -- Differences between the Hard difficulty and the Normal difficulty -- Weapons Overview -- Outsmarting the Enemy -- Clear Conditions -- Managing Your Funds -- The Final Chapter (planning) -- Supports -- Character Compendium - Beorc - Laguz -~ Walkthrough ~- -- Part 1 - Maiden of Miracles - Overview - Prologue - Under Gray Skies - Chapter 1-1 - The Silver Haired Maiden - Chapter 1-2 - The Dispossessed - Chapter 1-3 - A Faint Light - Chapter 1-4 - A Distant Voice - Chapter 1-5 - The Lost Heir - Chapter 1-6 - Raise the Standard, Part 1 - Chapter 1-6 - Raise the Standard, Part 2 - Chapter 1-7 - A Gathering Hope - Chapter 1-8 - Glory Unwanted - Chapter 1-9 - One Survives - Endgame - Daein, Arise! -- Part 2 - Of Countries and Kings - Overview - Prologue - On Drifting Clouds - Chapter 2-1 - Winds of Rebellion - Chapter 2-2 - Tides of Intrigue - Chapter 2-3 - Geoffrey's Charge - Endgame - Elincia's Gambit -- Part 3 - Intersecting Vows - Overview - Prologue - The Great Advance - Chapter 3-1 - Laguz and Beorc - Chapter 3-2 - Stormclouds - Chapter 3-3 - River Crossing - Chapter 3-4 - The General's Hand - Chapter 3-5 - Retreat! - Chapter 3-6 - A Reason to Fight - Chapter 3-7 - Rivals Collide - Chapter 3-8 - Incandescent Glow - Chapter 3-9 - Marauders - Chapter 3-10 - The Heart of Crimea - Chapter 3-11 - Just Cause - Chapter 3-12 - The Price - Chapter 3-13 - Blood Contract -Endgame - From Pain, Awakening -- Part 4 - Gods and Men - Overview - Dividing Your Army - Prologue - Chaos Named - Chapter 4-1 - Road to Empire - Chapter 4-2 - Silent World - Chapter 4-3 - Distortions - Chapter 4-4 - Revelations - Chapter 4-5 - Unforgivable Sin - Endgame - Rebirth 1 - Endgame - Rebirth 2 - Endgame - Rebirth 3 - Endgame - Rebirth 4 - Endgame - Rebirth 5 - Epilogue and Records -~ Other Content ~- -- Plotholes/unanswered questions/mysteries/fun stuff -- Copyright Info -- Thanks ------------ INTRODUCTION ------------ This walkthrough focuses solely on the Hard difficulty of Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn. All strategies, advice and character ratings are written with Hard mode in mind ONLY. If you need any help in getting through Hard mode, want to know useful strategies, or simply just fancy reading about Hard mode to see what it's like, then by all means read on. You can also apply the stratgies and advice feature din this guide to playthroughs in Easy and Normal difficulties if you wish. Everything will work just us well there, but more easily. Lastly, you may NOT use this guide to sell or to credit as your own. It is for your own personal, free use only. Feel free to recommend it to people, though, provided you acknowledge that it's mine. Currently, the only website permitted to use this guide is www.supercheats.com If you have any questions regarding this game or this guide, or would like to talk to me about it, please e-mail me at the following address: [email protected] Don't bother e-mailing me if you're going to send spam, if you're going to say things such as "your opinion on ______ sucks!" (these comments will only make me laugh at you), if you're going to ask me to explain something I already explained in huge detail in this walkthrough just to piss me off, etc etc. You know the drill. Feel free to e-mail me regarding any logical matter regarding this walkthrough/game. I'll be happy to help you out, or whatever it is you want. Compliments towards this walkthrough are most welcome. The Walkthrough itself, along with most of the General Info, was written and edited accordingly as I was playing through the game. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Differences between the Hard difficulty and the Normal Difficulty ----------------------------------------------------------------- - Enemies have better stats and higher levels. Bosses also have higher stats. - The amount of enemies and reinforcements is higher in some chapters. - Experience gained from kills is approximately 2/3 the amount you'd get for killing in Normal. - The amount of Bonus Experience you receive is half the amount you receive in Normal, and it also takes twice as much Bonus Experience to level a unit up. - The Weapon Triangle and the Magic Triangle are both disabled, so there are no weapon advantages. There are both pros and cons to this, as you may have guessed. - You cannot see enemy movement ranges. You have to calculate them all yourself. This isn't usually a problem, but when you're surrounded by thickets and such it can give you trouble. - You cannot use the Battle Save feature. It is replaced by the classic Suspend feature from previous Fire Emblem games. - The Guide is removed, although if you feel you need to use it you probably shouldn't be playing on Hard anyway. - You're going to get screwed over by Murphy's Law. A lot. ---------------- WEAPONS OVERVIEW ---------------- Here I will list all types of weapons found in the game and their level of usefulness. ------ Swords ------ Whilst they are still pretty weak compared to Axes and Lances, they have improved somewhat since Path of Radiance. The removal of the weaopn triangle in Hard mode limits their usefulness a little, but they have great Hit rates and are usually used by fast characters. It's worth using characters who are dedicated to Sword-only use in Radiant Dawn, as they are much improved. ------ Lances ------ Relatively powerful with good Hit rates. One of the more useful physical Beorc weapons. ---- Axes ---- Although they don't have great Hit rates, Axes are the most powerful Beorc weapons and they make up for their low accuracy with excellent Might. As far as Beorc go, you'll probably be heading into the final chapter with more Axe-users than anything else. ---- Bows ---- Like Swords, their Might has been iproved slightly since Path of Radiance. Great for indirect combat, although very few Beorc use them as their first-choice weapons, the only useful one being Shinon. ------ Knives ------ The weakest and most accurate physical Beorc weapons. Although Volke is the only unit who can put them to good use in the final chapter, they are still worthwhile. ------- Bowguns ------- Normally, they're incredibly weak and won't deal much damage. However, if you use them against an enemy that you deal bonus damage on due to your weapon and their class (in other words, using it on something like a Pegasus Knight), you'll deal an immense amount of damage. Use ful in the right situations - it's worth having someone in your team who can use one. ---- Wind ---- Moderately poewrful and accurate. Great choice of magic. ---- Fire ---- Very powerful with good accuracy. It's the best type of magic. Unfortunately, all of the characters who use it first-choice are too difficult to raise up in Hard mode. ------- Thunder ------- Strangely, it's both weak and horribly innaccurate, with only a high crit ratio as the benefit. You'll probably never use this. ----- Light ----- The weakest form of Magic, although still powerful. Excellent accruacy means it never misses. You don't have much choice but to use this throughout the game, as it's all Micaiah can attack with, but it's very good. ---- Dark ---- Only two characters can use this. One joins too under-levelled to be of any use in Hard mode, whilst the other can also use Light magic. Dark magic is the most powerful magic, but has terrible accuracy. You probably won't get much of a chance to use this in Hard mode. ------ Staves ------ Although allowing units to defend themselves with one was a complete waste of time as they will never deal any damage, staves are absolutely vital for your healing needs, especially long-range staves like Physics. --------------------- OUTSMARTING THE ENEMY --------------------- --------------- Regular enemies --------------- The enemies in Hard mode are tougher and even smarter. However, it isn't too difficult to manipulate them to suit your own ends. Most enemies will only attack when you enter their movement and attack range. Because you can't see enemy movement and attack ranges in Hard mode, you have to calculate them yourself, which usually isn't much of a problem but can prove tricky when there are grasses and thickets hindering their range. The best way to take care of large groups of enemies is to lure them out by stepping into the very fringe of the ranges of those clostest, and picking them off one by one. Increased enemy stats and lower Exp gains means you have far fewer opportunities to rampage through large groups of enemies like you could in Easy and, to an extent, Normal, so you should play your game more cautiously. Every time you move a character to a certain position, think about who can attack them and the pros and cons of placing them in that position before you command them to Wait. Some enemies will never move even if you enter their movement and attack range. If that's the case then ignore them and focus on the enemies that are moving to attack you first. Once nothing else is moving towards you, THEN kill the ones standing still. Enemies like this are quite rare and are most commonly found on maps where the enemy uses more defensive strategies, such as 3-11. Overall, in Hard mode, you'll find yourself letting enemies come to you far more often, and moving out to attack far less. Even in maps where you're forced to play offensively at at least some point in the chapter (which is pretty much a given for about 90% of the game), you should adopt a 'defensively offensive' strategy. Defence is much, much more important than ever before in Hard mode. Be careful. -------------------- Enemy reinforcements -------------------- In Radiant Dawn, enemy reinforcements ALWAYS move towards you no matter what. If you're in a large map against a large number of enemies, and enemy reinforcements arrive, then you should immediately stop what you are doing and let the reinforcements come to you before you do anything else, unless the reinforcements will take several turns to reach you. Sometimes reinforcements will arrive when you are close to beating a chapter. In such instances you must judge whether you can beat the chapter before they get to you, or if you can safely kill the reinforcements for the Exp and then clear the chapter, etc etc. It all depends on the requirement/s for clearing the chapter. Learn to judge accordingly. Also, in a few chapters, enemy reinforcements can appear at your starting position or in areas where they can flank you. I will note these instances in the walkthrough when they apply, but you should use caution in situations such as these. ----------- Enemy Laguz ----------- Unlike Path of Radiance, you actually fight against Laguz in very few chapters, and most of those chapters are dedicated to fighting Laguz only, or almost all Laguz with one or two Beorc uits leading, such as 3-13 and 4-5. In all chapters with Laguz enemies, except for 4-5 which is the only chapter featuring Feral Ones, they can Revert back to their human forms due to their Transform metres still taking effect. Try to kill them in their animal forms if you can possibly do so without serious risk to your units, as they give out about five times as much Exp as they would if you killed them in their human forms. Be careful when fighting against Laguz too, as they hit hard. Tiger Laguz are easily the most dangerous Laguz throughout the majority of the game, as they can kill most of your units in 1-2 hits (and it's Micaiah's terrible team that has the honour of fighting Laguz for the most part). Dragon Laguz can also hit very hard, but unlike other Laguz they have terrible hit rates. Even so, this is Hard mode, and 'terrible' hit rates aren't always as unlikely to hit as they seem. ---------------------------------- Enemy long-range Bishops and Sages ---------------------------------- You will encounter very, very few long-range Sages in this game. What few there are must either be taken out immediately if possible, or have their long-range magic drained by a high-Resistance unit. The reason for the shortage of ranged Sages is probably because of the more defensive style of play you have to use in Radiant Dawn, whereas the more offensive freedom you received in Path of Radiance allowed for long-range Sages to pose a much larger threat, hence why PoR's Hard mode was full of them. Additionally, you receive very few long-range tomes yourself in Radiant Dawn. I think you only get five without stealing anything, two of which Pelleas only Pelleas use. However, there are still plenty of Bishops with Physic staves in Hard mode. Later chapters are full of them. If you can't send a flyer like Jill or Haar around the enemy ranks to kill them (which are rare opportunities, to say the least), then try to finish off an enemy if he is going to be receiving some damage or the Bishop will just heal him. Due to Staves actually being equipped weapons in Radiant Dawn, you can't just send a Thief up to steal them anymore. ------------ Enemy Bosses ------------ Radiant Dawn features all enemies with higher stats and bosses are no exception. It's highly unlikely that your units will be able to double-attack or deal much damage to bosses this time around. Most of the time, you'll often have to gang up on bosses to kill them before they can deal too much damage. In Micaiah's chapters, Micaiah can often one-shot the bosses with her Thani tomes if they are Armoured or Mounted Knights, which makes things considerably easier as some of the bosses in Part 1 have stats that can really give you trouble. You don't want someone to get killed by a boss, especially since bosses are almost always fought towards the end of chapters. Enemy bosses always behave differently. Some never move at all, some only move after they've been attacked or had someone stand where they can attack without moving, some only move when their HP is low and they need to heal themselves, and some will move as soon as you (or an NPC) moves into their range. Just look at the circumstances and the Clear requirements - if you have to Seize to win the chapter, then the boss is never going to move off that square. If it's Defeat Boss or Rout enemy, then they're probably going to move at some point. It's all about adapting to the circumstance around you, and your prediction and understanding of the enemy AI. ---------------- CLEAR CONDITIONS ---------------- There are numerous conditions to clear maps in this game. Here I will list them and give you some general advice on how to approach them in Hard mode. ----------- Defeat Boss ----------- Fairly simple - kill the boss. However, in Hard mode, enemies have increased stats and bosses are no exception. You'll rarely be able to double attack bosses, and if you can it probably means their Defense is too high to two-shot them. Bosses are usually placed comfortably behind large platoons of enemies, and you should always clear every single surrounding enemy before you consider attacking the boss because bosses hit hard and any surrounding enemies can easily finish off a wounded unit, or injure a unit for the boss to kill! I will always mention whether or not bosses move, so be aware. ---------- Rout Enemy ---------- Kill all of the enemies on the map. Although this seems fun, Rout Enemy chapters are often amongst the longest chapters in the game, especially the ones in Part 4. Because you can't reliably plough through the enemies all day like you can in easier difficulties, what's usually the best method of getting through these chapters in Hard mode is to take things very slowly and let the enemy come to you. Only start moving further forward once no more enemies move towards you. ----- Seize ----- Ike or Micaiah (and in one case, Geoffrey) need to Seize a particular square on the map (castle gate etc.) to clear the chapter. Sounds simple, but as usual you're going to have to mow through hordes of enemies to get to the Seize point. Plus, the boss of the chapter is almost always going to be standing on the Seize square, and he's never going to move, either. Approach with caution. ------ Escape ------ Ike or Micaiah has to Escape. Similar to the Seize condition, except other player characters and Partner units can also Escape, although the chapter is only cleared when Ike/Micaiah Escapes. You get Bonus Exp if Partner units Escape before Ike/Micaiah, but not if your other player units do. As usual, the Escape square/s are going to be well behind enemy lines, with the boss or other tough units positioned on top of them. ------ Arrive ------ Same as Seize and Escape, except you have to Arrive instead. Bosses/powerful enemies on the Arrive square/s? Yep. Plenty of enemies between you and the Arrive square/? Yep. So, the same advice applies. ------------------ Defend for _ Turns ------------------ The exact opposite of the Seize condition. You have to stop the enemy arriving on a particular square or it's game over. There are only three such maps in the entire game - 2-E, 3-5 and 3-13. The best way to clear these chapters is to position your frontliners at blockade points, with Snipers/Sages etc. backing them up from behind, and just let the enemy come to you. These chapters also feature the Defeat Boss condition, but in Hard mode it's simply far too risky to think about clearing the chapter that way. Physic staves are always available in the Bargain section of the Shop before these chapters, so buy them as they are more useful than ever here. 3-13 is slightly different as you have to prevent enemies from breaching the line, and the actual clear condition is Hold Line For 12 Turns. However, it's virtually the same as the other two defense chapters, but harder. ------------------- Survive for _ Turns ------------------- Survive for a certain number of turns. These chapters are rare, and you are often tied between the decision of either laying low, ignoring enemy units and gaining little Exp, or taking the risk of attacking enemies and reaping the rewards. I recommend the latter, as you'll want to soak up as much Exp as possible before the final chapter. ---------------- Defeat _ Enemies ---------------- A condition for two of Micaiah's Part 3 chapters. Simple enough - you just have to kill a certain amount of enemies to clear the chapter. They're quite similar to defense maps as the best way to clear these chapters is to position your units in defensive positions and let the enemies come to you. 3-12 is easy enough, although 3-6 is very hard as it's swarming with hard-hitting Tiger Laguz. ------------------- MANAGING YOUR FUNDS ------------------- Unlike Path of Radiance, you don't get a lot of money this time around. Throughout Part 1 and Part 2 you'll have enough to live on, but starting with Part 3 you'll begin to find yourself struggling with funds. Try to be resourceful with your cash - don't buy six Steel Axes for Nolan to use when you'll soon gain access to Silver Axes, because you'll want (and probably need) the more powerful punch Silver Axes provide you with, but you can only get half your cash back when you sell the remaining Steel Axes. To avoid severe cash issues in Part 4, you should, throughout the whole game, only buy a character a weapon if there's a high chance their current weapons will run out of durability before the following chapter ends. For example, Micaiah's Light tome only has six uses left, but you want to train her during the next chapter. Therefore, she's going to want another Light tome if she wants to kill more than six enemies. Also, always look at what you can sell for money should you require it. Here is a list of good items to sell: Red Gems, Blue Gems, White Gems (obviously...), Rexbolt, Balberith, Skills you're not going to use, outdated weapons, Olivi Grass, Spectre Cards, Reaper Cards, Statue Frags, Ashera Icons, any Thunder weapons, any Dark weapons, any Killer weapons, Spirit Dusts. Aside from the Gems, which exist to be sold anyway, you're not going to need any of these items throughout the game. Thunder and Dark magic are both useless in Hard mode. Killer weapons are too weak and unreliable. There's no need to keep Skills or weapons that you're never going to use again. Spectre and Reaper Cards are a waste of space. Statue Frags are only useful if you want a unit with weak Build to Shove more units. Ashera Icons aren't very useful as the only units who tend to have less desirable Luck stats are either backliners or units such as Ike, whose other stats make up for it. Spirit Dusts are useless as all units who use the Magic stat all either have uber Magic growths or are simply not worth using in Hard mode (Calill, Tormod etc.). ----------------- THE FINAL CHAPTER (planning) ----------------- By 'the final chapter', I mean Part 4 Endgame, the Tower of Guidance, and I also mean all five parts of it, not just the final showdown with Ashera. Starting planning your final chapter team ahead of time, and don't give too much attention to any units you won't be bringing with you, as you want the few you actually do bring to be as strong as possible. Six units - Ike, Micaiah, Sothe, Ena, Kurthnaga and Sanaki are all essential. You can choose a further ten units of your choice, excluding the Herons, and an eleventh unit which has to be one of the Herons. Two of the ten of your choice should be Tibarn and Caineghis - you don't want to go in there without them, especially in Hard mode. Sell all the items you are not going to be bringing into the final chapter. All units should have at least one more weapon in addition to their 'ultimate weapon', which will be blessed by Yune before the third part of the chapter, as you can't risk those 'ultimate weapons' being used up in the first two parts. Customise very powerful weapons, such as Silver Poleaxes, for any character not wielding an SS weapon or powerful weapon that's exclusive to them, and max out the Might and Hit rates at least. Characters should either be wielding SS weapons (you should have all of them by the third part), powered-up custom weapons or powerful weapons exclusive to that particular character (such as Nolan's Tarvos). Finally, Micaiah should be used as both a healer and an attacker. Give her the Fortify staff, but save it until the showdown with Ashera. My ideal final chapter team (mentioned weapon the one that character should get blessed by Yune) around the time of blessing: Ike - Ragnell Micaiah - Rexaura Tibarn Caineghis Reyson Nolan/Boyd - Tarvos/custom Silver Axe Jill - Urvan Nephenee - Wishblade Titania/Kieran - Custom Silver Axe Mia - Vague Katti/Alondite Soren - Rexcalibur Shinon - Double Bow Giffca Sanaki, Sothe, Ena and Kurthnaga not used. My ideal final chapter Supports: Ike + Titania/Kieran Micaiah + Sothe/Reyson Nolan/Boyd + Jill Tibarn + Caineghis Nephenee + Mia Soren + Shinon -------- Supports -------- Setting up Supports between characters is vital to Hard mode success. You will really notice the difference Supports provide in this difficulty more than ever. Always try to go for Supports that increase Avoid. Now that anyone can Support with anyone, it makes sense to arrange your Supports to suit your tactics. For example, you should pair up two frontliners such as Ike and Titania or Oscar and Boyd, two backliners such as Soren and Shinon, and two fliers such as Jill and Haar. Although some characters receive different endings if they share an A Support with a certain unit, it's not something you should aim to do in Hard mode. Think making things significantly easier for yourself, not worrying about the plot. -------------------- CHARACTER COMPENDIUM -------------------- This character guide has been written purely with Hard Mode in mind. Therefore, you may see me giving poor reviews to characters who have strong potential in easier difficulties, Edward being a prime example. Just keep in mind that this walkthrough has been written purely for Hard Mode, and don't badger me if I say something you don't like. I've included the main playable leaders under 'Lords', as they all have unique classes anyway. For Beorc, I will just refer to the middle of the three classes when referring to a particular class. An $ next to a unit's name means I feel this unit is the best member of their class. A * next to a unit's name means I feel this unit is worth taking into the final chapter. A # next to a unit's name means I feel this unit is very poor and should not be used at all. The three above terms do not apply to Micaiah and Ike - both are great units that you're forced to use in every part of the final chapter, anyway. ----- BEORC ----- You'll mainly be focussing on training up your beorc units throughout the game, as the few laguz units that are worth using join in Part 4, and require little training up, if any, ----- Lords ----- ------- Micaiah ------- Growth rates - HP 40%, Str 15%, Mag 80%, Skl 40%, Spd 35%, Lck 80%, Def 20%, Res 90% She has very high Magic, Luck and Resistance, decent Skill, mediocre Speed and the traditional Sage-like poor HP, Defence and Strength. If you use Bonus Experience on her once she's capped Magic, Luck and Resistance then her other stats will skyrocket. Still, I recommend you use a Seraph Robe and a Speedwing on her to help her out. She will almost never double attack enemies, but she can one-shot Armoured Knights and cavalry with her Thani tomes, which makes up for it. She can also be a great healer once she promotes. ------- Elincia * ------- Growth rates - HP 45%, Str 65%, Mag 40%, Skl 50%, Spd 70%, Lck 60%, Def 20%, Res 35% As a third tier unit, she possesses poor base stats, but great growths outside of her defences. Her Amiti sword - basically an infinite-durability Brave Sword with better statistics - makes up for her early lack of Strengh. She's not among my personal favourites to bring into the tower, but her abilities as both an attacking unit and a mobile healer result in her being a decent choice if you're willing to train her up. --- Ike --- Growth rates - HP 65%, Str 55%, Mag 10%, Skl 60%, Spd 35%, Lck 30%, Def 40%, Res 15% Ike is once again an uber unit, especially with Path of Radiance transfer data. He can solo entire maps once he obtains Ragnell. His Speed can potentially lag a little this time around (his Speed growth is the same as Micaiah's - 35%), so you might need to use a Speedwing to help him out. His Resistance is relatively poor, too (Talisman). Even so, he's a brilliant unit, and the only enemies that can reasonably pose a threat to him are multiple Sages. ------------ Swordmasters ------------ ------ Edward ------ Growth rates - HP 85%, Str 60%, Mag 5%, Skl 65%, Spd 60%, Lck 50%, Def 35%, Res 20% Despite his usefulness in Easy/Normal I strongly discourage you from using Edward in Hard mode as he's simply too fragile to raise. Plus, Micaiah's team is constantly under-levelled throughout the majority of the game and you can't reliably raise more than three (who should be Micaiah, Jill and Nolan). Just use Mia instead. ------ Zihark ------ Growth rates - HP 55%, Str 35%, Mag 10%, Skl 75%, Spd 70%, Lck 40%, Def 25%, Res 35% Due to him joining Micaiah's party as a pre-promote, his stats have been lowered to avoid overpowering him, which doesn't beneifit him whatsoever in the long term, especially as his Strength growth is somewhat unappealing. Despite this, however, you'll be forced to use him in Micaiah's chapters as he's easily one of the better units in Micaiah's team. Use him in Part 1 and Part 3, but bench him in Part 4. ----- Lucia # ----- Growth rates - HP 50%, Str 25%, Mag 20%, Skl 70%, Spd 60%, Lck 30%, Def 15%, Res 50% She has poor base stats, and her rubbish growths in Strength and Defence prevent her from ever becoming a reliable frontline unit. Plus, she's only around for one chapter before Part 4. Use her in 2-2, where you won't have much choice, and ditch her afterwards. --- Mia $* --- Growth rates - HP 70%, Str 45%, Mag 15%, Skl 60%, Spd 65%, Lck 35%, Def 40%, Res 25% Her growths are all good, even in Strength this time around. With such high base Skill and Speed, she'll easily cap them early on, allowing you more time to buff up her other stats with Bonus Experience - she may need it as although she's fast her base Strength is poor. Mia is easily the best Swordmaster to take into the final chapter. ------ Stefan ------ Growth rates - HP 55%, Str 50%, Mag 20%, Skl 60%, Spd 60%, Lck 15%, Def 40%, Res 50% He has very high Skill and Speed but the rest of his stats are average. If you didn't bother training up Mia and still want a Trueblade in the final chapter, Stefan can get the job done. However, if you trained up Mia, she'll most likely have better stats than him. ------- Snipers ------- -------- Leonardo -------- Growth rates - HP 60%, Str 40%, Mag 15%, Skl 75 %, Spd 35%, Lck 65 %, Def 35%, Res 55% He has great Skill, Luck and Resistance, but little else to show. Such unreliable Speed growth results in him being the worst of the three Archers. Use him as a softener in Micaiah's early chapters, and then immediately send him to the bench. ------ Shinon $* ------ Growth rates - HP 50%, Str 40%, Mag 15%, Skl 70%, Spd 65%, Lck 30%, Def 45%, Res 20% Just dominates everything. He joins at a high level with good base stats, and he'll cap Skill and Speed easily, and Strength quickly enough, allowing Bonus Experience to bring up all the rest. One of the few Greil Mercenaries who can potentially cap every stat, although you need to be luckier with his growths than you do with Jill/Nolan. As a Marksman, his ability to hit targets from three squares away with any Bow makes him invaluable in the final chapter, as he can hit everything without fear of retaliation. You want him in the final chapter! ---- Rolf ---- Growth rates - HP 85%, Str 75%, Mag 10%, Skl 45%, Spd 45%, Lck 35%, Def 35%, Res 20% His potential is close to that of Shinon's, but it's severely dampened due to his base level being so low. It's impossible to train him due to his very average Speed growth, too. Plus, you can just use Shinon, who can double-attack and two-shot enemies from the very start. Rolf is a decent Sniper, but he's not worth the effort when you can just use Shinon. -------- Warriors -------- ----- Nolan $* ----- Growth rates - HP 60%, Str 45%, Mag 20%, Skl 70%, Spd 60%, Lck 60%, Def 35%, Res 40% He has good base stats and good growths, although 45% Strength growth is somewhat disappointing for a Warrior. Even so, he can become an excellent unit if you train him up, which you'll have to anyway as he's one of the few good units in Micaiah's team. In comparison to Boyd, Nolan has more Skill and Speed, whereas Boyd has more Strength and Defence. He can cap every single stat at third tier, if you get a little luck with his growths and use Bonus Experience well. ---- Boyd * ---- Growth rates - HP 80%, Str 65%, Mag 5%, Skl 45%, Spd 45%, Lck 40%, Def 50%, Res 10% Boyd is still and Axe-swinging ass-kicking powerhouse. Although his Speed tends to lag a little early on, he's one of the Greil Mercenaries you should seriously consider training up, reagrdless of whether or not you're planning to bring him into the final chapter. He can kick plenty of ass in the final chapter, although Nolan will probably outclass him when they're both third tier units. Naturally, Boyd is to Nolan what Haar is to Jill - outclassed by the Dawn Brigade member in the end, but still final chapter worthy. You can even bring them both. --------------- Bishops/Healers --------------- ----- Laura ----- Growth rates - HP 45%, Str 20%, Mag 70%, Skl 70%, Spd 70%, Lck 50%, Def 20%, Res 35% Although she has great growths, she never really has any opportunity to grow and will only ever amount to being the Dawn Brigade's primary healer prior to Micaiah's promotion. ---- Rhys ---- Growth rates - HP 40%, Str 25%, Mag 65%, Skl 35%, Spd 35%, Lck 60%, Def 20%, Res 75% He's pretty much exactly the same as he was in Path of Radiance - useless as an attacking Sage due to his rubbish Speed, but his high Magic leaves his healing ability unmatched. However, his poor mobility means Elincia and Mist outclass him, so he won't really amount to being more than an extra healer if you really need one. ---- Mist ---- Growth rates - HP 40%, Str 25%, Mag 45%, Skl 55%, Spd 50%, Lck 70%, Def 25%, Res 40% Although her base stats are significantly worse, she's better than Rhys as her starting class has two extra movement, and she gains a horse upon promotion, resulting in her being the best of the dedicated healers. She's useless as an offensive unit, though, as she's too weak to reliably kill much. ------ Oliver # ------ Growth rates - HP 65%, Str 55%, Mag 35%, Skl 35%, Spd 45%, Lck 30%, Def 30%, Res 20% Aside from poor Skill and Speed, which completely let him down, his base stats are decent. However, the window of opportunity to use him prior to the final chapter is extremely limited, and he's a waste to bring into the final chapter as there are much better healers available + Micaiah who can do everything he does, only much better. Just steal his staff and kill him! ------ Lehran $ ------ Growth rates - None (he joins at level 20 third tier) You only get him for the final part of the final chapter, but he is worth the trouble. He joins with the Ashera Staff, and can use the Rexaura or the Balberith to damage the final boss. If you can do so without much risk, be sure to fulfil the requirements to obtaining him. He's also equipped with a 'hidden' Nihil skill, so the Auroras won't damage him. ---------------- Rogues/Assassins ---------------- ----- Sothe ----- Growth rates - HP 30%, Str 60%, Mag 20%, Skl 80%, Spd 45%, Lck 65%, Def 20%, Res 30% The first pre-promote you'll gain access to. Just how he figured out how to promote after Path of Radiance is never explained. In Part 1, he's great and it's tempting to go crazy with him rather than train up units suchs as Nolan and Jill. Don't do this, as by the end of Part 3 his pre-promote stats and useless defences will have caught up with him, and he'll be nothing more than a liability if you try to frontline him. ------- Heather # ------- Growth rates - HP 40%, Str 25%, Mag 20%, Skl 50%, Spd 70%, Lck 75%, Def 30%, Res 40% It's a huge pain in the ass to recruit her, and she's only really useful for the 4-4 chests (which you can alternatively buy Chest Keys for), the only map in the game featuring treasure chests that Sothe isn't available for. Just let her die - she isn't worth the effort to recruit and will end up benched most of the game, anyway. Plus, she can't promote to third tier. ----- Volke $* ----- Growth rates - HP 50%, Str 50%, Mag 5%, Skl 60%, Spd 65%, Lck 20%, Def 45%, Res 15% He has great base stats, great growths for the few levels he has to gain, and is all-around superior to Sothe...by far. Although it is somewhat unfortunate that you can't replace Sothe with Volke going into the final chapter, you may want to consider taking Volke anyway as he is a much better choice for the Baselard. ----- Sages ----- ------ Ilyana # ------ Growth rates - HP 55%, Str 45%, Mag 50%, Skl 60%, Spd 30%, Lck 40%, Def 30%, Res 50% The fact that the game developers utterly ruined Thunder magic renders Ilyana pretty useless. As a unit, she has a great base Speed but a rubbish Speed growth which ruins her otherwise-great growths. Too unreliable to even consider using unless you need an extra softener early on. ------ Tormod ------ Growth rates - HP 50%, Str 55%, Mag 40%, Skl 45%, Spd 55%, Lck 25%, Def 35%, Res 45% Many of his base stats aren't that great, although his growths are good. However, due to him being completely absent between 1-E and 4-4, he'll amount to nothing more than a backup unit in Part 1. ------ Calill ------ Growth rates - HP 35%, Str 25%, Mag 45%, Skl 60%, Spd 55%, Lck 55%, Def 15%, Res 50% She's too difficult to raise reliably in Hard mode. If you really want someone to wield the Rexflame in the final chapter, Calill is pretty much the only character who can reliably do so, but I've never thought it was worth the effort. Not in Hard mode. ----- Soren $* ----- Growth rates - HP 40%, Str 25%, Mag 80%, Skl 60%, Spd 35%, Lck 35%, Def 25%, Res 70% Soren is far superior to the other Sages in the game. He has high Magic, Skill and Resistance, and once he caps them (which will happen quite quickly) Bonus Experience will buff up his other stats, most significantly his Speed, which is ok to begin with, but not great. Take him into the final chapter wielding Rexcalibur. You won't regret - he rocks! ------ Sanaki ------ Growth rates - HP 70%, Str 40%, Mag 60%, Skl 60%, Spd 35%, Lck 55%, Def 30%, Res 50% Her base stats mostly range from okay to great, and although most of her growths rock, she is offset by a terrible base Strength and an unreliable Speed growth. You can use her in the final chapter, but as she'll rarely double anything (even if you train her up) I feel she's pretty redundant. ------- Pelleas ------- Growth rates - HP 35%, Str 25%, Mag 55%, Skl 45%, Spd 60%, Lck 40%, Def 30%, Res 45% He has nice Speed growth for a Sage, but he's difficult to level that late in the game, especially since you can't give him Paragon until 4-5. It really doesn't help that Dark magic has terrible Hit rates, either. I only recommend training him up if you're hell-bent on using the Balberith throught the final chapter. ------- Bastian ------- Growth rates - HP 25%, Str 20%, Mag 30%, Skl 70%, Spd 40%, Lck 40%, Def 25%, Res 50% He has good base stats for a joining third tier unit, but his growths are mostly terrible. Even so, he's decent enough to take into the final chapter if you still want an Archsage and didn't bother training up Soren. The fact that he joins up with an SS in Wind means he can immediately start wielding the Rexcalibur. ----------- Halberdiers ----------- ---- Aran ---- Growth rates - HP 50%, Str 75%, Mag 10%, Skl 75%, Spd 35%, Lck 35%, Def 70%, Res 25% Most of his growths absolutely rock, although he'll almost always be too slow to double attack anything. Basically, he's like a Lance General with 1 extra movement. He has the potential to be just as good as Nephenee, but far more effort is required to train him up. -------- Nephenee $* -------- Growth rates - HP 45%, Str 35%, Mag 15%, Skl 70%, Spd 65%, Lck 40%, Def 35%, Res 45% He base stats are pretty good, and once she levels up a couple of times her Speed should be high enough to double most enemies even in Hard mode. Her Strength and Defence growths are somewhat lacking, but you can easily raise them by using Bonus Experience once she's capped Skill and Speed. She has my vote for the best Lance-user in the game. Take her into the final chapter! ------ Danved ------ Growth rates - HP 75%, Str 40%, Mag 20%, Skl 30%, Spd 45%, Lck 60%, Def 45%, Res 25% His base stats are very similar to Nephenee's, despite his base level being several higher. His growths aren't that great, and he receives very little game time prior to joining Ike's team. With Nephenee around, there's no point in using him, although he is a decent support unit in Part 2. -------- Generals -------- --- Meg # --- Growth rates - HP 60%, Str 35%, Mag 15%, Skl 40%, Spd 65%, Lck 75%, Def 35%, Res 50% Look at her growths - she has all of the shortcomings of a General, but none of the benefits! Plus, she uses Swords. Ignore her! -------- Tauroneo -------- Growth rates - HP 55%, Str 40%, Mag 5%, Skl 65%, Spd 50%, Lck 20%, Def 45%, Res 50% A perfect example of a Jeigan. He's invincible in 1-6, but when he returns in 3-12 you'll notice how mediocre he really is. Ditch him after you are no longer required to deploy him. ------------ Black Knight ------------ Growth rates - None (he joins at level 20 tird tier) When he's around you don't really have much of a choice but to use him, except in 1-E. Try not to go overboard, though, as he stops being a playable unit after 3-6 and Micaiah's team really needs the Experience he'll suck up. Use him for emergencies/baiting only. ---- Brom ---- Growth rates - HP 80%, Str 40%, Mag 5%, Skl 40%, Spd 30%, Lck 70%, Def 60%, Res 25% Brom's nothing special. His growths aren't really impressive. Use him in Part 2, but there are too many better units in Part 3 for him to find a place on your team for. ------ Gatrie $ ------ Growth rates - HP 50%, Str 60%, Mag 5%, Skl 45%, Spd 60%, Lck 30%, Def 60%, Res 35% Far better than the other Generals. He has high Strength, Defence and Speed growths, and the rest are pretty good for the most part, too. Worth using throughout the entire game prior to the final chapter. If you really like Generals, he may even be a contender for the final chapter, although there are better options. Strangely, I always find myself ditching him after 3-5, though. ----------- Dragonlords ----------- ---- Jill $* ---- Growth rates - HP 50%, Str 45%, Mag 15%, Skl 45%, Spd 65%, Lck 60%, Def 35%, Res 45% Simply put, Jill is brilliant. It's probably more fitting to call her a stronger, sturdier Pegasus Knight with Axes as her growths edge more in the Speed direction. Although she's underlevelled throughout most of the game due to her being in Micaiah's team, she isn't difficult to raise and she really gets going once she promotes. Like Nolan, Jill has the potential to cap every single stat. In comparison to Haar, Jill is much faster with better Resistance throughout the majority of the game, whilst Haar has more Strength and Defence, and possibly Skill. Train her and take her into the final chapter! ---- Haar * ---- Growth rates - HP 30%, Str 70%, Mag 5%, Skl 70%, Spd 30%, Lck 45%, Def 65%, Res 20% His stats and growths are very reminiscent of a General, except he's a flying unit, which makes him far better. His Speed and Resistance are lacking, although his base Speed is good to begin with. Bonus Experience use when he's capped his better stats will help make up for this. He's definitely good enough to take into the final chapter, although, due to his poor Resistance, he has a tougher time there than Jill, who noticeably outclasses him when they're both at third tier. He's still worth using, though. After all, he does belong to the best Beorc class in the game. -------- Paladins -------- ----- Fiona # ----- Growth rates - HP 45%, Str 40%, Mag 15%, Skl 40%, Spd 60%, Lck 55%, Def 55%, Res 50% She joins underlevelled with poor base stats - it's virtually impossible to train her up despite her good growths. Just ignore her. -------- Geoffrey -------- Growth rates - HP 60%, Str 50%, Mag 10%, Skl 60%, Spd 35%, Lck 30%, Def 30%, Res 55% He's only available in two chapters prior to 4-5, by which point he'll be underlevelled. He can also get screwed over in Speed and Defence relatively easily. Not a bad unit, but Kieran, Titania and Oscar are all better choices. ------ Kieran $* ------ Growth rates - HP 75%, Str 60%, Mag 15%, Skl 40%, Spd 30%, Lck 30%, Def 60%, Res 25% He's similar to what he was like in Path of Radiance - better Strength and worse Speed than most of the other Paladins. Despite what many people say, if you try to solo as much of 2-3 and, in particular, 3-9 (in which chapter he can be given Paragon), he can join Ike's team at a similar level to most of Ike's units, so he's immediately usable. Personally, Kieran's my favourite Paladin, as his higher HP and Defence means he can take a hit better than Titania. Ultimately, I feel his ability to take hits much better than Titania is what places him above her. ------ Astrid ------ Growth rates - HP 55%, Str 40%, Mag 20%, Skl 45%, Spd 40%, Lck 70%, Def 30%, Res 50% Her base stats are nothing special and she joins at a really low level, making it way too difficult to level her up. Plus, she's in Geoffrey's team, so she won't see much action before 3-11. Unlike Path of Radiance, Paladin-heavy teams aren't recommended, so she's not worth the effort. Plus, Snipers are better Bow users, anyway. ------- Makalov ------- Growth rates - HP 55%, Str 40%, Mag 15%, Skl 40%, Spd 75%, Lck 45%, Def 50%, Res 25% Very similar to what he was like in Path of Radiance. He has good growths, except for Skill. However, unless you seriously love his pink hair, you should just ignore him. He doesn't get much playtime before 3-11 and he uses Swords. Unlike Path of Radiance, Paladin- heavy teams aren't recommended, so he's not worth the effort. ----- Oscar ----- Growth rates - HP 50%, Str 35%, Mag 20%, Skl 65%, Spd 60%, Lck 55%, Def 30%, Res 20% He has great SKill and Speed, but mediocre Strength. Bonus Experience once he caps Skill and Speed will help him bring his Strength up. He's a great unit, well worth using throughout the majority of the game. Unfortunately, however, his stat caps are disappointingly low, so as far as potential Paladins for the final chapter go, Titania and Kieran are better choices. ------- Titania * ------- Growth rates - HP 60%, Str 60%, Mag 15%, Skl 55%, Spd 50%, Lck 40%, Def 20%, Res 30% Although her base Speed is somewhat underwhelming, her Strength, Speed and Skill growths are all very good, and she caps those three stats more easily than any other Paladins. Her defences are her Achilles' Heel, however, and she can't take hits particularly well. She'll cap Speed more quickly than Kieran, but she won't be able to take physical hits as well as he can. I feel that, towards the end of the game, her poor defenses eventually get the better of her, thus why I feel Kieran is the stronger overall choice. ------- Renning ------- Growth rates - HP 40%, Str 60%, Mag 10%, Skl 50%, Spd 40%, Lck 10%, Def 70%, Res 20% If you trained up Kieran, Titania and Oscar (chances are you've been using at least one of them), they'll probably have better stats than Renning, despite his higher level. It doesn't help that Swords are his weapon of choice, either. Only use him if you really want a Paladin in the final chapter but didn't train up any others, although I'd just recommend you simply bring a different kind of unit if that's the case. -------------- Fakcon Knights -------------- ------ Marcia $ ------ Growth rates - HP 70%, Str 30%, Mag 20%, Skl 40%, Spd 65%, Lck 50%, Def 35%, Res 35% She isn't around for much of the game prior to 3-11, but she can be final chapter worthy if her growths are good and you are willing to put in the effort of raising her. Unfortunately the few chapters she's around in before she joins Ike's team are filled with enemies that can kill her too easily. Plus, Jill and Haar are both better units, anyway, and they're far easier to train, and therefore I can't really recommend you put in the effort. ------ Tanith ------ Growth rates - HP 35%, Str 55%, Mag 15%, Skl 75%, Spd 40%, Lck 35%, Def 40%, Res 30% Her base stats are mediocre. Although she does have good Strength growth for a Falcon Knight, she really isn't worth training up, especially in Hard mode when most of your units have superior stats. ------ Sigrun # ------ Growth rates - HP 40%, Str 45%, Mag 10%, Skl 70%, Spd 25%, Lck 70%, Def 10%, Res 50% Her base stats are rubbish and her growths suck too - 10% Defence growth and nothing to make up for it. Although you are unfortunately forced to deploy her throughout the end of Part 3 and most of Part 4, don't let her kill anything! ----- LAGUZ ----- Laguz are still mostly piss-poor units with the irritating transform limits, poor stats even when transformed, and experience metres that grow at snails' pace. The only exceptions are the Part 4 laguz, who are significantly stronger; the Herons, who are as useful as ever; and Ranulf, Janaff and Ulki. Most laguz have crap growths, but the good ones have good base stats to begin with. ------ Wolves ------ ----- Volug ----- Growth rates - HP 95%, Str 25%, Mag 15%, Skl 35%, Spd 40%, Lck 90%, Def 15%, Res 10% His transformed stats are crap due to his Halfshift skill, although they are acceptable in Part 1. When he can remove the skill in Part 3, do so. You should generally stop using him by Part 4, however, as his defenses will suck too badly by then. ------ Nailah $ ------ Growth rates - HP 60%, Str 30%, Mag 15%, Skl 20%, Spd 20%, Lck 45%, Def 30%, Res 30% She's pretty much an uber overpowered unit who can't realistically die in Part 1, but you should avoid using her except in 1-8 where you don't have a choice. When she returns in Part 4, she's still a great unit and well worth using in Ike's team's chapters. As far as laguz royals go, she's outclassed by Tibarn, Caineghis and Giffca, but you may still want to bring her into the final chapter as it's considerably easier if you buff yourself up with laguz royals. ------ Tigers ------ ------ Muarim $ ------ Growth rates - HP 60%, Str 55%, Mag 5%, Skl 45%, Spd 20%, Lck 55%, Def 35%, Res 30% Muarim is a massive disappointment because, with his base stats and growths, he could have been a really good unit, especially for a non-royal laguz. However, he's simply absent for too long after Part 1, and when he returns he's too underlevelled to be of much use. Use him as a support unit in Part 1, but just bench him when he returns in Part 4. -------- Mordecai -------- Growth rates - HP 90%, Str 35%, Mag 10%, Skl 25%, Spd 15%, Lck 80%, Def 45%, Res 15% He's not very fast, but he's great in Part 2 where you'll sometimes need a slow but overpowered unit to smack something hard for someone like Nephenee to finish off. I don't recommend you use him after that however, as he becomes pretty useless by Part 3. ----- Kysha # ----- Growth rates - HP 85%, Str 40%, Mag 5%, Skl 45%, Spd 35%, Lck 50%, Def 40%, Res 15% His base stats are poor - face it, you're never going to use him. Bench him immediately, and never look at him again. Also, why do so many people call him Kyza? If anyone cares to answer me regarding that, be my guest. ------ Ravens ------ ---- Vika ---- Growth rates - HP 60%, Str 25%, Mag 50%, Skl 60%, Spd 60%, Lck 65%, Def 15%, Res 65% Like Muarim, she had potential,somewhat as a laguz, but she's absent for far too long after Part 1 to be of any use in the long-term. She's a great support unit in Part 1 when you need one, though. -------- Nealuchi -------- Growth rates - HP 55%, Str 35%, Mag 10%, Skl 40%, Spd 40%, Lck 80%, Def 40%, Res 25% Isn't around much, and can't even two-shot anything to begin with. Use him when you have to, but ditch him afterwards. ------- Naesala $* ------- Growth rates - HP 40%, Str 45%, Mag 15%, Skl 30%, Spd 45%, Lck 55%, Def 15%, Res 35% If you can level him up a few times and get his Strike level up to SS before the final chapter, then he's basically a more fragile version of Tibarn with better Dodging ability. Although I don't recommend you relace Tibarn with him, Naesala is still worth taking into the final chapter if you're seriously worried about the enemies in there and would prefer to buff yourself up with Laguz Royals, though he's the worst of the group. ------ Herons ------ ------ Rafiel * ------ Growth rates - HP 60%, Str 0%, Mag 40%, Skl 10%, Spd 20%, Lck 60%, Def 10%, Res 50% He can affect four units at a time regardless of whether or not he's transformed. In fact, the only thing his Heron form actually does differently is double his stats (bar HP and Luck) and starngely prevent him from climbing ledges. He cannot fly, so his movement is always retricted to 5 squares. You can help him out by giving him the Celerity skill, but I still feel Reyson is better. ------ Leanne ------ Growth rates - HP 60%, Str 0%, Mag 40%, Skl 10%, Spd 20%, Lck 80%, Def 10%, Res 40% The worst of the three Herons. In both her human and Heron form, she can only affect two units at once - either to her north and south, or her west and east. The only thing her Heron form really does differently is give her 1 extra movement and double her stats (bar HP and Luck). ------ Reyson $* ------ Growth rates - HP 65%, Str 5%, Mag 30%, Skl 20%, Spd 20%, Lck 60%, Def 20%, Res 20% Reyson is the best Heron choice to bring into the final chapter. Due to Olivi Grass and Laguz Stones being in plentiful supply in this game, he can use them to his advantage and be transformed the majority of the time. It's his higher movement and the Canto ability which sets him above Rafiel. ---- Cats ---- ----- Lethe ----- Growth rates - HP 85%, Str 35%, Mag 5%, Skl 30%, Spd 50%, Lck 45%, Def 35%, Res 20% She's fast, but she can't two-shot any full-HP enemy, even in Part 2, except for the occasional Mage. She's not a bad support unit in Part 2 when you need one, but bench her as soon as possible. ---- Lyre # ---- Growth rates - HP 50%, Str 35%, Mag 10%, Skl 65%, Spd 70%, Lck 50%, Def 20%, Res 30% She's worse than Lethe, and, strangely, joins later too. You're never going to deploy her, unless you have a Lyre fetish. ------ Ranulf $ ------ Growth rates - HP 70%, Str 30%, Mag 15%, Skl 40%, Spd 35%, Lck 55%, Def 15%, Res 10% He has good base stats, and you're forced to deploy him in most of Ike's Part 3 chapters, anyway. He's useful as a support unit when you need one in Part 3 and Part 4, but don't bother bringing him into the final chapter. ----- Hawks ----- ------ Janaff ------ Growth rates - HP 55%, Str 40%, Mag 15%, Skl 45%, Spd 25%, Lck 50%, Def 35%, Res 10% He's strong and fast, but he's more fragile than Ulki and has a worse dodge rate. Even so, he's a great supporting unit in Part 3 and Part 4. Not worth taking into the final chapter, though. ---- Ulki ---- Growth rates - HP 65%, Str 25%, Mag 30%, Skl 25%, Spd 40%, Lck 35%, Def 30%, Res 25% One of the best laguz that isn't a royal, he's a great supporting unit in Part 3 and Part 4. He doesn't hit as hard as Janaff, but is otherwise a better unit. Not worth taking into the final chapter, though, ------ Tibarn $* ------ Growth rates - HP 75%, Str 40%, Mag 5%, Skl 10%, Spd 20%, Lck 40%, Def 40%, Res 20% He has uber stats all over and can two-shot just about anything! The only enemies that pose a serious threat to Tibarn are multiple Snipers or Bowgun wielders. He's essential in the final chapter - don't go in there without him! ----- Lions ----- ------- Skrimir ------- Growth rates - HP 90%, Str 35%, Mag 5%, Skl 35%, Spd 25%, Lck 20%, Def 50%, Res 5% Skrimir's role in your team is virtually unchanged from Easy/Normal - a great supporting unit in Part 4, but not worth taking into the final chapter as he's easily outclassed by Caineghis and Giffca. The only real difference with Skrimir in Hard mode is that he double attacks far less often and takes more damage due to increased enemy stats. --------- Caineghis $* --------- Growth rates - HP 50%, Str 40%, Mag 10%, Skl 40%, Spd 20%, Lck 40%, Def 30%, Res 10% His stats are, for the most part, incredible. He can kill almost anything in two hits, and the only things that are a reasonable threat to him are multiple Fire Sages or multiple White Dragons. He's essential in the final chapter - don't go in there without him. ------ Giffca * ------ Growth rates - HP 40%, Str 35%, Mah 10%, Skl 35%, Spd 50%, Lck 25%, Def 30%, Res 15% He's almost exactly the same as Caineghis, minus Formshift. To make up for not having Formshift, he joins with five Laguz Gems which enable him to remain transformed throughout an entire chapter, making up for it. I recommend adding him to your final chapter team - he's brilliant. ------- Dragons ------- --------- Kurthnaga --------- Growth rates - HP 95%, Str 45%, Mag 15%, Skl 20%, Spd 35%, Lck 60%, Def 25%, Res 40% Although he has serious potential if you BExp abuse him and let him get a bunch of kills, you can't really do this on Hard mode, so he'll most likely end up benched. --- Ena # --- Growth rates - HP 50%, Str 20%, Mag 50%, Skl 40%, Spd 40%, Lck 35%, Def 15%, Res 50% Like Kurthnaga, you can't really spare the effort training her up in Hard mode. Plus, unlike the prince, she sucks anyway. Bench her. ----- Nasir ----- Growth rates - HP 70%, Str 15%, Mag 45%, Skl 35%, Spd 20%, Lck 45%, Def 15%, Res 40% He joins way too late to be of any use. Although his high Resistance means the Spirits - the primary enemies in the two sub-chapters he's around him - won't deal much damage to him, his Magic-based attacks means he won't be doing much damage to them. Thus, like all of your Dragons, he'll most likely be benched unless you want to take advantage of his White Pool ability. ------ Gareth ------ Growth rates - HP 90%, Str 40%, Mag 5%, Skl 30%, Spd 10%, Lck 65%, Def 30%, Res 25% Same as Nasir, except Gareth is a Red Dragon, meaning he can deal some serious damage to the Spirits, but they'll also kill him quickly due to his crap Resistance. No point deploying him - he'll just die. ----------- WALKTHROUGH ----------- --------------------------- Part 1 - Maiden of Miracles --------------------------- -------- Overview -------- Part 1 is the hardest part of the game. Micaiah's team is especially poor overall with very few units filling the gap between weakling 1st tiers and pre-promoted Jeigans. There are even less worthwhile units in Hard mode as characters such as Edward, who turns out to be an excellent unit in Easy and Normal, simply can't hack it with enemies this numerous and tough. As far as units go, Micaiah, Nolan and Jill are the only three you should consider using thoughout the whole game. You're forced to use Micaiah anyway, but she can turn out to be a top unit if you're patient with her, so be sure to train her up. Nolan and Jill can be slightly difficult to raise up early on, but they will kick ass and really get going once they promote. All three are among the very few units in the game who can possibly cap every single stat if you use Bonus Experience at the right time and have a little luck when levelling them up. On the whole, if you can clear Part 1 without giving up, then you should be able to manage what the rest of the game has to offer in Hard mode. Good luck. ----------------------------- Prologue 1 - Under Gray Skies ----------------------------- Clear - Rout enemy Defeat - Any ally dies Use Edward to weaken enemies whilst Micaiah finishes them off. Don't let Edward or Leonardo kill anything as they're both useless in Hard mode. Take things slowly and lure each enemy out one at a time, only moving on to the next once he's dead. The boss can two-shot Edward and one-shot both Micaiah and Leonardo, and will start moving when you enter his range. Once all of the other enemies are dead, heal Edward (use a Herb, not a Vulnerary) and position him between two barriers so the boss can't move past him, allowing Micaiah and Leonardo to move up close. Don't let Edward attack the boss - just have him heal each turn as he'll do enough damage on the counter-attack. Have Micaiah and Leonardo attack him at range. Finish him with Micaiah. Reset the game if Edward or Leonardo kills the boss with a random critical hit, as Micaiah is the one who wants the experience. Hopefully, she'll be close to reaching level 3 by the end of the chapter. Since this is a short and relatively easy chapter (well, compared to what's coming up, at least), you may want to re-start it if Micaiah's level up growths sucked. -------------------------------------- Chapter 1-1 - The Silver Haired Maiden -------------------------------------- Clear - Escape in 10 turns Defeat - Any ally dies Provided lead with Nolan and move fast, this is a relatively easy chapter. Let Nolan take all of the enemy hits and weaken them, whilst he (if he doesn't need healing) and Micaiah finish them off. You'll need to use Edward and Leonardo to help take out the soldiers coming in from the west after you take out the initial mob. The boss and his buddy on the escape squares will only move when they are attacked. Pick one to take down (I recommend the boss as he's really not that tough and gives out more experience). Micaiah can two-shot the boss. Make sure she's at full health and attack him from range. On the enemy phase he'll move to attack her, but won't one-shot her, and she'll kill him on the counter-attack. On the next turn, have her escape. You won't get any Bonus Experience for letting the others escape first, anyway. ------------------------------ Chapter 1-2 - The Dispossessed ------------------------------ Clear - Laura Arrives Defeat - Any ally dies Things start getting serious now. Let Nolan take care of the enemies coming in from the east, but just leave him counter-attack. Let Micaiah finish some of them off, but you really should be looking at getting Nolan up to speed. Position Edward and Leonardo directly below the northern gap so that the Fighter above can't jump down and kill someone. When Sothe arrives, immediately send him east to take care of that Fighter. Waste no time finishing off the eastern enemies, as reinforcements will appear at your starting position. If you can get everyone up on the ledge in time, just use Micaiah and Nolan equipped with a Hand Axe to attack them from above. Once they're taken care of, you'll be facing Fighter reinforcements from the east, so use Sothe and Nolan to take care of them and any enemies who jump off the boss's level. Just take your time after this, moving slowly around the map towards the boss (avoid climbing up into his room, though). Don't miss the Wind Edge and the Thani in the South-West treasure chests. The Soldier guarding the entrance to the boss's room and the Archer inside won't move until you attack the Soldier, so plan accordingly. The boss won't move until he's attacked, which shouldn't be a problem as you can just one-shot the boss with Micaiah's new Thani tome. Be sure to grab the Energy Drop in the chest next to where the boss was standing before you have Laura Arrive. --------------------------- Chapter 1-3 - A Faint Light --------------------------- Clear - Escape Defeat - Any Ally Dies This is one of the hardest overall chapters in Hard mode, but shouldn't give you too much trouble provided you take your time. Don't move far from your starting position for the first 12 turns or so, as reinforcements will appear every few turns until turn 12. On the first turn, diagonally blockade the western side of the starting position with Sothe and Nolan so the two Soldiers will attack them on the enemy phase, and move Micaiah directly behind them, with Laura close by. Also, move Edward into the grass in the east, with Ilyana behind him for backup, so they can lure the lone Fighter in - he hits hard but won't be able to one-shot Edward. On the second turn have Sothe and Nolan finish off the soldiers, who were hopefully weakened, while Micaiah bombs forward to one-shot the approaching Knight (she shouldn't move into enemy range whilst doing so). Meanwhile, have Edward and Ilyana take down the eastern Fighter if Edward didn't kill him on the first turn. On turn 3 move Micaiah back behind Sothe and Nolan and heal Nolan with Laura if he needs it (probably). At the end of the third turn, Aran and pals should be closing in - just let them come to you, but be sure to move Micaiah and Laura out of Javelin range as Aran WILL attack you. Hopefully, Nolan, Micaiah and (if necessary) Sothe can take out Aran's assisstants on the next player turn, which will allow Laura to safely move up to Aran and recruit him. Things cool down a little after this. Just keep on taking out Archer and Myrmidon reinforcements that will appear at the start. Soldier reinforcements will appear in the far south near the boss around turn 9/10, but they shouldn't reach you until reinforcements stop appearing at the entrance. After turn 12, you can safely start moving south. The Soldier with the Javelin next to where Aran originally appeared will never move, nor will the two Knights blocking the passage to the south. However, the Boss will move once you enter his range. Lure him north with Sothe (who will also have to take a hit from the Knight with the Javelin to do so), then, on the next turn, Steal the boss's Discipline scroll and one-shot him with Micaiah's Thani. Kill the Soldier with the Javelin to the west with Nolan, and one-shot both of the Knights with Micaiah. Enemies hanging around where the boss originally was should start charging north, but Sothe shouldn't have any trouble with them. It's fairly straightforward from here on. Just be careful when approaching the Escape square - the Archer standing on it will never move, neither will the Knight a square in front of him. However, the Archer is equipped with an Iron Longbow, allowing him to attack enemies 2-3 squares away, meaning anyone who attacks the Knight will be at the mercy if the Archer. The best strategy is to one-shot the Knight from range with Micaiah, then have Sothe shove her out of the way. Kill the Archer with Sothe on the next turn, and have him, Nolan and (for assistance) Aran barge eastward to take out what's left, as they'll all start moving towards you once you're linear with the Escape square anyway. Once the enemies are all routed, you can finally clear the map. Let everyone Escape before Micaiah (including Aimee and Kurth - you'll have to Target them to the square though) so you can get slightly more Bonus Exp. There's no way you can realistically clear the chapter quickly enough for the Turn bonus, anyway. ----------------------------- Chapter 1-4 - A Distant Voice ----------------------------- Clear - Rout enemy Defeat - Micaiah or Sothe dies My personal recommendation is to ditch everyone except Micaiah, Sothe, Nolan and Laura, as they're the only characters you currently have access to who are going to be useful in Part 1. It's very, very possible to win the chapter using just the four of them if you follow my advice, and therefore you won't have to worry about any useless units robbing your very few good ones of any experience. Be sure that Sothe has the Beast Killer Knife, and Laura has a Mend staff. Both are available from the bargain section of Aimee's shop at Base. In the South-West corner of the central area, there's an extra square extension that is cut off from the adjacent passage by a one-square gap. You can place Micaiah on this square, Laura one square east, Nolan one square east of Laura, and Sothe one square north of Laura. Therefore, your units should be positioned something like this: W W WS GMLN WWW Key:- W = Wall, G = Gap, M = Micaiah, L = Laura, N = Nolan, S = Sothe Unfortunately, as you can probably see, Micaiah won't be killing anything due to her positioning. You could always have Laura swap places with Micaiah - if you do you can get through this stage in the chapter more quickly, whilst Nolan will get far less kills and has a higher chance of dying as he'll be restricted to Vulneraries and Micaiah's Sacrifice for healing, the latter of which forces Micaiah to give up a kill. Regardless of what strategy you use, Nolan and Sothe will be taking attacks from a large group of laguz, which is bolstered by even more reinforcements from the north of the map. The Tiger laguz can only three-shot either of them, so even if Nolan gets hit by two Tiger attacks he'll survive. The Cat laguz are significantly weaker, but you shouldn't take them for granted, although both Sothe and Nolan can survive two Tiger attacks and one Cat attack. You'll be forced to maintain this defensive position for several turns. Just let them attack you and heal up on the player turn, unless Nolan has the opportunity to finish someone off and will survive the counter-attack if he misses the hit (an opportunity you should only take if you haven't used Laura in that turn yet). Eventually, the mob will break down and you can move out to finish off any stragglers. The chapter becomes significantly easier after this. Head north through the hole in the wall with Nolan to lure the lurking Tiger down, and finish him off with Micaiah, whilst Sothe heads south-west to open the chest. Next, lure the western boss down by moving Nolan into his range and use Nolan and Micaiah to kill him. Once you've opened the North-west chest, head south-east through the central area. There should be three Laguz left at this point, including the north-east boss. Use Micaiah to kill the one who can be attacked from the other side of the wall, and then move her and Nolan to the south-east, and then have them push north towards the remaining boss up the eastern passageway, whilst Sothe starts heading north-east up the central area. Send Laura with Nolan and Micaiah. Lure the boss and his remaining ally out by entering their range (the Cat atacks before the boss). Once the boss is focussed on Nolan, have Sothe grab the the north-east treasure and finish the boss off with the others. --------------------------- Chapter 1-5 - The Lost Heir --------------------------- Clear - Defend for 6 turns Defeat - Micaiah or Sothe dies, Volug dies, Other unit dies, defended area is captured Even with powered-up Hard mode stats, the enemies are still too weak to harm Tauroneo in any possible way, so all you have to do is survive on your own for six turns, which is easy enough if you avoid the main enemy force, right? Well, unfortunately, Jill and Zihark have other plans. You're forced to cut down/block off large groups of enemies to prevent too many of them heading north and overwhelming Jill and Zihark, who will only use Vulneraries if they are under half HP and will otherwise go enemy-hunting, often resulting in a situation where one of them throws themself into the range of too many enemies and gets swarm-killed. Here's what you should do... Take only Nolan and Laura along with your three forced units. You'll need to send your troops to attack in a manner that will leave three of them standing directly below the gaps to stop more enemies jumping down from above. Also, you'll need to finish the entire group of enemies just north of your starting position by the end of turn 2, so you're ready to start climbing the ledge on the third turn. Use Volug to charge forward and attack the easternmost of the two Myrmidons. Volug should kill him, and be standing directly below the northernmost gap. Next, have Nolan attack the Fighter, but attack him from the south, not the east. Hopefully, Nolan will knock off enough of the Fighter's HP and dodge his attack. After this, move Micaiah to the square east of the Fighter and finish him off. She should be standing directly below the middle gap. Next, move Sothe up to kill the remaining Myrmidon, and have Laura move to the square directly below the southernmost gap. Due to a patch of sand to Sothe's west, the remaining enemies won't be able to run around Sothe to get to Laura. On turn 2, finish off the remaining enemies with Nolan and Micaiah. In the meantime, have Sothe and Volug climb up onto the ledge to take care of the two enemies who were waiting to jump down. On turn 3, Nolan and Micaiah will have to deal with enemies coming in from the south, whilst Sothe and Volug should block the two easternmost gaps. If you move a unit one square west and one square south of the southernmost of the eastern gaps, the boss and all of his Fire Mage assisstants will move to attack. In fact, I highly recommend you do this, as otherwise the boss and pals will eventually start moving northwest, towards Jill and Zihark, and they'll probably kill one of them. On turn 4, Nolan and Micaiah should have killed the Fighter and the Mage from the south, so have them move up the ledges to hold off more reinforcements from the south. The main danger to Jill and Zihark in this chapter is the amount of enemies climbing up the ledges, so if you can cut them off all you have to do is hope that Jill and Zihark won't do anything too stupid and you'll get through the chapter without too much hassle. Note - If you're still really worried about Jill and Zihark, you may want to consider bringing someone like Aran along to help blockade the ledges so that one of your more powerful units can head north to assist the suicidal duo. ---------------------------------------- Chapter 1-6 - Raise The Standard, Part 1 ---------------------------------------- Clear - Rout Enemy Defeat - Micaiah or Sothe dies, Volug dies, Tauroneo dies Stay at the beginning of the map at first, and let the enemies come to you. Form a blockade just north of the starting point consisting of Jill, Nolan, Zihark and Volug, with Micaiah just behind them and Sothe and Tauroneo guarding Laura from the Pegasus Knight threats. Unless the Pegasus Knights are equipped with Javelins, their Attack Speed will be lowered considerably due to their rubbish Strength, so most units can double attack them, including Nolan and Jill. You'll have to defend for a fair few turns, and Nolan and Jill will have to heal constantly. Towards the end of the initial rush, you'll be swarmed by Armoured Knights. Have Micaiah one-shot the one with the Hammer, which you receive on killing him. Then, Trade the Hammer to Nolan/Jill on the same turn, and have them kill another Knight with it. Depending on the positions of Micaiah, Jill and Nolan, it may be possible to 'pass the Hammer' from each to the other and have them kill three of the Knights in one turn. Hammers have crap Hit rates, though. After the initial mobs are taken care of, have Nolan and Jill lead a charge west, but take it slowly. Pegasus Knight reinforcements keep coming in and although they aren't a significant threat to most of your units, they can kill Micaiah and Laura without much trouble. At around turn 12, six Pegasus Knight reinforcements appear - three at the north, three at the south. Just use Zihark, Volug, Sothe and (if necessary) Tauroneo to take them on whilst Nolan, Jill and Micaiah continue on to the north-west finishing off the remaining enemies as they go. Try to make sure Nolan and Jill spend a few turns positioned next to each other so they can set up Supports with each other before 1-7. Same goes for Zihark and Volug. I recommend using an Energy Drop on Jill, too, to help her get her Strength high enough for her to double attack with Steel Axes. ---------------------------------------- Chapter 1-6 - Raise The Standard, Part 2 ---------------------------------------- Clear - Defeat Boss Defeat - Micaiah or Sothe dies, Volug dies, Tauroneo dies, Fiona dies Take out the Archer on the ballistae on turn 1. To do so, have Jill take out the Soldier on the Archer's left, and then send Volug up to kill the Archer. Send Nolan east to take care of the Fighter and Mounted Knights - hopefully he can double attack them by now. Send Zihark and Tauroneo to defend on the western bridge against the group of Mounted Knights. Once all the enemies in the centre area are dea, send your main force north-east to the bridge to help out Fiona, but don't cross it. Mounted Knight reinforcements appear - three in the north-east and six with a Priest in the north-west, and you don't want them all charging towards you while you try to finish off the initial enemies. Send Tauroneo across the west bridge (just sending him across should be far enough) to lure down the six Mounted Knights that reinforce in the north-west. He won't have any trouble soloing them - you don't really have much of a choice here. It'll take the heat off the rest of your party in the east. The rest of your team should blockade just south of the eastern bridge. Once enough of the enemies there are dead, you should be able to launch an offensive to clear out the rest of the mob. Once all of the Mounted Knights are dead, move your main group north-west towards the boss. Lure him out with any unit that can take a hit and then one-shot him with Micaiah's Thani tome. Provided you can take your time and avoid getting swarmed by Mounted Knights, this chapter isn't too difficult. No more reinforcements come after the large wave of Mounted Knight reinforcements. Hopefully Jill and Nolan will be around level 18 with good stats after this chapter. Again, try to let Nolan and Jill spend a few turns standing next to each other so they can build up a Support relationship before the next chapter. Same goes for Volug and Zihark. ------------------------------ Chapter 1-7 - A Gathering Hope ------------------------------ Clear - Seize Defeat - Micaiah or Sothe dies, Volug dies, Tormod dies, Muarim dies One of the easier Micaiah chapters. Aim to get Nolan and Jill to at least level 19 at the end of this chapter. After that, just use Bonus Experience to get them to level 20 before the next chapter and use Master Seals to promote them. Let Zihark and Volug take care of the enemies coming in from the north, whilst Nolan and Jill take out the Armoured Knights to the east. Tormod and pals will appear at the end of turn 1, so send Sothe as far east as possible to recruit him. The three are all good as assistant units, if you need them. After this, move back west and head up the western staircase, killing the enemies you encounter along the way. Place Jill and Nolan equipped with Hand Axes on the two squares above the ledge so that they can kill all the enemies coming from below, including several reinforcements, all of which are equipped with ranged weapons (although if Nolan and Jill have a support set up and have high Biorhythms, almost all of the enemies will probably have 0% chance to hit). Zihark, Volug, Sothe and Micaiah should be able to handle reinforcements charging up the western stairs. Oh, and don't open any of the prison doors yet. Once there are no more reinforcements from the southern areas, charge north with Nolan and Jill, with Micaiah behind them. After that, send the trio towards the large doors in the northwest, but lure the enemies out rather than bomb down to kill them, as three of them have ranged weapons and can easily kill Micaiah. Once the four are dead or have moved away from the doors, they will open. Next, edge eastwards - but watch out for enemy Archer reinforcements - they can two shot Jill and have excellent Hit rates. Once you've cleared a path east, send Nolan and Jill south-east to kill the two enemy Mages, whilst your other units start freeing the prisoners. On the next turn, kill the soldier standing in front of the eastern prison door with either Nolan or Jill, and have the other free the remaining prisoners. The boss and the two Archers standing near him will never move, even if attacked, so use this to your advantage. The boss has great defences too - brilliant for boss hounding. Once all the enemies are dead and all of the prisoners have escaped, Seize. Take your time on this chapter. You'll get far more Bonus Experience if all of the prisoners escape than if you try to clear it quickly (which you'll have to abuse Muarim and Vika to do, anyway - not recommended!). ---------------------------- Chapter 1-8 - Glory Unwanted ---------------------------- Clear - Rout Enemy Defeat - Micaiah or Sothe dies, Nailah dies, all prisoners die Kill all of the initial enemies ASAP and move all of your units to the northern part of the map. Rescuing all the prisoners is completely impossible on Hard mode, and trying to rescue more than one will just lead to things getting hectic, so just rescue one with Nailah and let the rest die - it'll also help you out as many of the enemies target the prisoners first, resulting in less of them charging at you at the beginning, which would otherwise force you to abuse Nailah and Muraim. You won't have much of a choice but to use Nailah in this chapter, as there are simply too many enemies, and the Bandits are particularly fast with plenty of HP. Just try not to let her kill too much as Micaiah, Nolan, Sothe and Zihark need the experience too. Nolan should be promoted and kicking ass by the end of this chapter, if you didn't promote him beforehand. Try to let him kill as much as possible, and try to get Micaiah as close to level 20 as possible too (giving her Paragon helps). There are several reinforcements in this map, most of which are Bandits, but there are also a few Dracoknights, too. They'll mostly fly around killing the prisoners, but keep Rafiel out of their range as they target him before anyone. The final two reinforcements are a pair of Dracoknights in the east - once they're dead, there should be no enemies left save for the boss and his gang in the south-east. Send Nolan, Micaiah and Nailah/Muarim down to deal with them. Try to lure out as many enemies as you possibly can without straying into the boss's range. It's not worth trying to kill the boss with Nolan - he's too fast to double attack, can three-shot Nolan and has a 10% critical rate, which isn't that much but you really don't want to get screwed over by Murphy's Law right at the end of this long, difficult chapter, so just one-shot him with Nailah/Muarim and let Nolan kill the remaining enemies. Just take your time in this chapter and defend in the north until the enemies stop coming. Probably one of the harder Micaiah chapters unless you abuse Nailah and Muarim. -------------------------- Chapter 1-9 - One Survives -------------------------- Clear - Rout enemy Defeat - Micaiah dies You can't Rescue Micaiah with the Black Knight, so immediately move Micaiah into the thicket two squares east of her starting position, and move the Black Knight in front of her. A large number of enemies have long-range weapons - target the Soldiers and Archers first as they have better Hit ratios and can double attack Micaiah, whereas the Fighters can't. Micaiah will need to kill a few of the enemies to stop things getting out of hand. You may need to restart the chapter a few times as enemies can appear unexpectedly and kill Micaiah off guard, but this doesn't matter as this is a very short chapter and you can memorise what enemies appear where on what turn. Eventually, no more enemies will attack you, but Jarod won't appear. You'll have to circle the map with both of your units and kill the remaining ones in the northern areas of the map. Once you have done so, Jarod will appear in the south-east. It's far easier to defeat him with the Black Knight, but if you can get him to attack an unequipped Black Knight with Micaiah safely behind, you can defeat him with her and let her get the experience, although don't bother if she's already level 20. ---------------------- Endgame - Daein Arise! ---------------------- Clear - Seize Defeat - Micaiah or Sothe dies, Black Knight dies (lol), Nailah dies If you want to recruit Lehran later on, you have to deploy the Black Knight in this battle. I recommend you do so anyway, however. Give Paragon to Jill, as she's probably at a lower level than Nolan. If Jill's stats are considerably better than Nolan's, give Paragon to him instead. Or just pick who you'd rather level up more. This chapter is only as hard as you want it to be. It can range from being the easiest chapter in the game, to one of the hardest. If you want it to be the easiest, then just solo the chapter with the Black Knight and Nailah. However, it's a complete waste of experience to do so, and I strongly advise against it. I recommend you at least take the Black Knight, however. If you're aiming to reap the rewards and let Nolan and Jill do the majority of the killing, then this is going to be a very long chapter. You're also going to have to sacrifice the treasure, not that it's worth the experience loss you'll have to take by using the Black Knight or Nailah to tear through the lower wave of enemies to kill the Thieves before they start looting. Just hang around the beginning at first, killing the initial enemies in the area. There will be two total Fighter + 3 Mages reinforcements at the starting area. Use Jill, Nolan, Zihark and Sothe/Micaiah (depending on whether or not Micaiah has hit level 20) to take them out. After the second group of reinforcements are dead, start climbing the north-east staircase, although send Muarim up the ledges to kill the annoying Archer hanging about or he'll cause you trouble. Watch out for the Fighters with Venin Axes, too, although most of those are reinforcements you probably killed when they moved down to the starting area. Kill the Armoured Knight with Nolan/Jill with a Hammer, and lure any remaining enemies on that floor towards you, with the exception of the Armoured Knight in the far west. Use an unequipped Black Knight to lure the annoying Archer with the Iron Longbow down onto your level, and gang up on him to kill him. If he's being difficult, then just kill him with the Black Knight. Oh, and watch out for the Meteor Mage. Use the Black Knight to drain his Meteor before you even think of moving anyone else onto the third floor. There are seven total Armoured Knights left to kill in this chapter, which is great news for Micaiah if she still hasn't hit level 20, although it's preferable if she already has and Nolan and Jill and kill them instead. Clear out any remaining enemies on the third floor, and lure the north-west Archers down with an unequipped Black Knight. Once they're dead, head to the eastern treasure room, and use an unequpped Black Knight to lure down the remaining Archer and the three Soldiers in the north-east treasure room, and kill them with Nolan and Jill. You'll need to stand the Black Knight on the fourth floor to lure down the final Soldier, which will trigger three Armoured Knight reinforcements, who will start chasing you along with the Armoured Knight that was originally in front of Jarod. Move the Black Knight back into the middle-eastern treasure room. The remaining Soldiers will jump down first, so kill them accordingly. The Armoured Knights, however, can only move down the ledge one at a time (in others words, only one can per turn), so kill them one by one with Nolan/Jill bearing a Hammer, or Micaiah if she still isn't level 20 (she has a forced promotion after the end of this chapter, so I recommend you get her to level 20). There shouldn't be much left after this. Pretty much just Jarod + two Thunder Mages in the middle, and two Armoured Knights + two Fire Mages in the north-west treasure room. Kill the lot of them with Nolan and Jill (I recommend you take out the two Thunder Mages from ledges though as they can cripple Jill easily). That just leaves Jarod. Steal his Concoctions with Sothe so he can't heal himself, and attack him with Nolan and Jill until he dies. Alternatively, to kill him more quickly, attack him once with Muarim to knock off most of his HP, and then have Nolan and Jill finish him off. ----------------------------- Part 2 - Of Country and Kings ----------------------------- -------- Overview -------- As far as difficulty goes, it's a step down from Part 1, but some of the chapters are still quite difficult. Avoid soloing maps with Lucia and Geoffrey, too, as they'll rob potential units of good experience. ----------------------------- Prologue - On Drifting Clouds ----------------------------- Clear - Survive 8 turns Defeat - Elincia dies, Nealuchi dies, Leanne dies, Leanne is kidnapped On the first turn, rescue Leanne with Nealuchi (it's too risky to leave her out and her movement sucks) and move him to join Marcia and Elincia. On the second turn, finish off any enemies that attacked you (preferably using Marcia to kill at least one) and move further north-west. Until turn five, let the enemies come to you. They'll usually go for Elincia - finish them off with Marcia. Recruit Haar on turn 5 and send him south-east to take on the boss. The boss and the rest of the Dracoknights start moving on turn 6 anyway. If you can kill the boss without too much risk to Haar (shouldn't be much of a problem) then do so, as the boss and his friends can reach the rest of your group by turn 8 and possibly kill someone, plus Haar would like the experience. This chapter isn't really much different from Normal mode. The only real difference is that your units have a higher chance of dying (most notably Marcia) due to increased enemy stats. -------------------------------- Chapter 2-1 - Winds of Rebellion -------------------------------- Clear - Defeat Boss Defeat - Nephenee dies, Brom dies This is quite a tedious mission in Hard mode, as Brom will never double attack anything and Nephenee will only do so rarely. The enemies can also gang up on Nephenee and kill her quite easily, too, especially if she has a 'worst' biorhythm at the beginning. Immediately head north to the northern house and defend there - you'll be facing a few enemies, including a hard-hitting Archer, who will all attack Nephenee (and can kill her in a few hits). Let Brom work alone to take out the enemies, preferably the Archer first, while Nephenee heals herself with Vulneraries. There isn't really much you can do about the houses - it's far too risky to go chasing after the Bandits with half the rebels on your heels. Once the initial group of enemies are dead, head south to wipe out the few enemies hanging about and visit any houses that haven't been destroyed (it's unlikely there are any left at this point, though). Try to work fast - Heather will eventually attack one of the soldiers next to the boss, prompting the boss to attack and kill her on the next turn (there's nothing you can really do about this). The boss starts moving once he's been attacked but will remain still otherwise. If Heather does move to a square next to the boss and gets attacked by him, he'll kill her and he and his allies will start chasing you down. If you're still in the north-west when this happens, head south, jump down the ledge and let Brom stand below it. Hopefully the boss will move on the square above the ledge, leaving Nephenee free to circle around the map and lure out his allies. The boss can two-shot Nephenee and three-shot Brom, so it's vital that you head to the northeast bushes and fight him from there. He'll attack Nephenee if both of your units are in range - if he does hit her there's a good chance Wrath will activate a critical hit, and she'll knock out most of his HP; if he misses, she'll deal about 10 HP damage. If you levelled her up at least once and her Strength and Speed went up, she'll probably have enough Attack Speed to double him anyway. Let Nephenee get the majority of the kills, but use Brom to weaken them so that she doesn't use up too much of her weapon durability - it's got to last her another chapter before she can get anything else. ALTERNATIVE STRATEGY IF YOU WANT TO RECRUIT HEATHER - Recruiting Heather really isn't worth the risk and the trouble, and even if you use this strategy there's a high chance she'll get killed before you can get to her. The biggest pain about recruiting Heather in Hard mode is that she actually attacks the enemies, rather than just steal from them. At all depends on luck, at the end of the day. On the first turn, move both of your units as far south as possible without getting close enough for the Fighter with the Hand Axe blocking the ledge to attack you without moving, or you'll be swarmed when trying to kill him. After he's attacked you, move Nephenee down the ledge and have her use a Vulnerary as she probably took a few hits, and then move Brom to the space directly below the ledge so that the enemies above can't follow you. Send Nephenee east and hope that Heather won't kill the Mage when she first appears and run north on her next turn. Chase her down and, hopefully recruit her before she throws herself in the middle of the boss and his allies. The main issue here is if you can't initially get to Heather, Nephenee will be swarmed by most of the initial enemies if you run too close to the north-west chasing her. Additionally, if Heather does attack one of the boss's allies, they'll all chase Nephenee after killing Heather, forcing you south and landing you in a much more dnagerous sitiuation as his allies will still be alive. ------------------------------- Chapter 2-2 - Tides of Intrigue ------------------------------- Clear - Lucia Arrives Defeat - Lucia dies, Leanne dies, Nealuchi dies This isn't a particularly difficult chapter, but your party is lacking in healing items and the map is full of enemies with Venin weapons in Hard mode. Don't forget to light all of the torches, either, as it'll make the chapter much easier. You'll want to kill as much with Nephenee as possible in this chapter, but she won't have the weapon durability to kill everything, and you'll be forced to use Lucia to kill a lot of the enemies, too. At the beginning, send Lucia north to take care of the enemies up there, whilst Brom and Nephenee blockade the passage to the east. Use Lethe and Mordecai to kill the Archers as soon as possible. After the initial mob is taken care of, move Lucia further east in the northern passage, and move Mordecai east towards the south-east torch, and lure the enemies lurking around there back to Brom and Nephenee, but have him take out the annoying Archer with the Iron Longbow first. Whilst Brom and Nephenee finish off the second mob of enemies from the east, send Mordecai, Lethe and Nealuchi to the south-west to take out the three reinforcements there, which are the only reinforcements in this map. Send Nephenee to aid Lucia, who is probably being attacked by a Mage and an Archer or two. Once the dust has settled in the western areas, move Nephenee and Lucia east through the northern passage, with the rest of your party moving east from the southern passage, with Mordecai leading. Nephenee and Lucia will be attacked by a few enemies along the way, but none of them hit too hard. Depending on whether or not Nephenee has enough weapon durability left to kill a few more enemies, use her to take out what few enemies are left, with Mordecai significantly weakening the two Armoured Knights in front of the boss, first. Just be sure Nephenee has enough weapon durability left to kill the boss, who she should be able to double-attack and two-shot. Arrive with Lucia once the boss is dead. ------------------------------- Chapter 2-3 - Geoffrey's Charge ------------------------------- Clear - Seize Defeat - Geoffrey dies, Kieran dies This isn't a difficult chapter, but it is rather long and tedious. Before the battle, be sure to stock Kieran full of Axes and Vulneraries. Give Marcia the Brave Lance, as Geoffrey can two-shot everything on the map anyway. This map can be divided into three sections - the south section, the middle section, and the north section. You get Bonus Experience if any of the enemy soldiers survive, but you'll have to kill the majority of them anyway, so don't bother unless you really don't need to. At the beginning, you'll probably be forced to use the NPCs to help wipe out the mobs at the beginning in the south section. Move Geoffrey and Kieran to blockade the entrance to the middle section - hopefully the enemies will target Kieran more. Perform hit-and-runs with Marcia to kill any wounded enemies. Once they stop coming, move Geoffrey and Danved to the north-west corner of the middle section, as there are hordes of Mounted Knight reinforcements there. Use Kieran and Marcia to plough eastwards, and then towards the north-east, killing all the enemies that you encounter. As for the northern section of the map, just let Kieran solo everything. You can use Marcia as backup if you want, but only when she's not at risk from the multiple Archers and the two Warriors with Bowguns, all of which can one-shot her. Weaken the boss with Marcia, kill him with Kieran, and then Seize with Geoffrey. Before you do so, however, have Geoffrey Trade Marcia his Short Spear so she can Trade it to Nephenee in the next chapter. -------------------------- Endgame - Elincia's Gambit -------------------------- Clear - Defend for 15 Turns/Defeat Boss Defeat - Elincia dies, enemy Seizes location, Geoffrey dies NOTE - Give Brom a Physic staff to take over to Ike's team in Part 3. Provided you play defensively, this is a fairly easy chapter. Buy Nephenee at least two sets of Javelins (three will probably be better) and have Marcia Trade her the Short Spear. Don't worry about giving Nephenee any regular Lances as she's never going to be fighting in direct combat during this battle, anyway. Have Haar stock up on Axes, and buy Calill another Elfire tome as she may need it. Don't bother thinking about leaving the top level where you start the chapter - there are too many enemies running towards you. Blockade the easter chokepoint with Haar, so no enemies can get in that way, although it will be several turns before they start heading in that direction, so you may want to perform hit-and-runs with him. Don't bother sending anyone west, as no enemies will ever move in that direction unless one of your units moves down the western staircase. Position Nephenee just above the ledge in the middle that will open up when enemies destory the wall, and position Calill in the middle area to attack enemies wherever necessary. If you want the Nullify scroll, you'll have to hit the General carrying it with Calill's Meteor tome. She can only three-shot him, so hit him on one turn, and then hit him twice (using Leanne to Vigor her after the first) on the next turn, so that he doesn't lose too much HP on the first turn and start moving around. Trade it to Nephenee when you can - it's a great skill for Haar. Place the NPC Order on Avoid, so they stay away from enemy units. Strangely, the two Archers on the top level never move regardless of what you tell them to do. The most lethal of the enemies are the Warriors and Archers with Bowguns, as they have the best Hit ratios and can one-shot Marcia and Elincia. They can have up to 50% Hit ratios from BELOW the ledges, so keep Elincia and Marcia away from them. They aren't as effective on Haar, but strangely no Bowgun users ever seem to head east - if they do they will probably attack Nephenee from below and get killed. The Crimean Royal Knights arrive on Turn 7. Send Kieran south with a Hammer to kill the two Armoured Knights and the General hanging about, and use him to lure in a couple more enemies from further south. Don't send him too far though, or too many enemies will make their way towards him and he'll get killed. He could do with the Experience, though, so it won't hurt for him to get a few kills. There's not really much else to say in regards to this chapter, since you're basically just doing the same thing for 15 turns. Just keep everyone healed and stay defensive and you should pull through with little trouble. Nephenee and Calill can easily gain 2-3 levels in this chapter, and Haar should gain 1-2. Hopefully, towards the end of the chapter, the Armoured Knight carrying the Energy Drop will move directly below the top level, allowing Calill to two-shot him. ALTERNATIVE STARTEGY IF YOU WANT TO DEFEAT LUDVECK - If you don't care about Nephenee, Calill and Kieran getting much in the way of Experience, then follow this strategy: - On Turn 1, move Elincia and Haar right to the edge of the ledge, and have Leanne move behind them and use a Laguz Stone (Trade one to her from Lethe or Nealuchi). - On Turn 2, move Elincia and Haar across the middle level all the way to the last squares on the middle level, just above the bottom level, leaving a space between them. Move Leanne down to the space between them and Vigor. Move them down all the way across to the bottom level, and kill two of the Generals guarding Ludveck. Retreat Leanne as far back as possible with her after-movement and then Rescue her with Marcia/Nealuchi to get back to the top level. During the enemy phase, Ludveck will attack Elincia/Haar, as will several other enemies, including ones with Bowguns. Pray that they both dodge most of the attacks, and that a Bowgun wielder doesn't one-shot Elincia. - On Turn 3, attack Ludveck with Elincia and Haar, whose combined efforts should be enough to defeat him. Try to deal the finishing blow with Haar so he can get the Tomahawk, as Elincia won't have the opportunity to Trade it to him after defeating Ludveck. If you don't defeat Ludveck on this turn, for whatever reason, then Elincia will probably die during the enemy phase. - Chapter won in ten minutes. I strongly discourage this strategy, however. Not only will your units miss out on a gold mine of Experience (very valuable in Hard mode!), but there's a high chance Elincia will die in the process and you may have to reset a few times anyway. My recommendation is, if you do want to try this, try it once and if Elincia dies in the process, just beat the chapter the longer, more rewarding way. -------------------------- Part 3 - Intersecting Vows -------------------------- -------- Overview -------- Part 3 is the easiest section of the game. 11 of its 15 chapters feature Ike and his team of invincibles tearing through hordes of enemies who, even in Hard mode, rarely seem to pose anything much of a threat. Of course, it can't all be that easy, can it? Three chapters are devoted to the Dawn Brigade, and they're far more difficult than the Greil Mercenaries' rampages. The remaining chapter sees you playing as the Crimean Royal Knights. ---------------------------- Prologue - The Great Advance ---------------------------- Clear - Skrimir Arrives Defeat - Ike dies, Skrimir dies, Ranulf dies This chapter pretty much sets the stage for most of Ike's missions - pure massacres. Unlike with Micaiah's and Elincia's teams, the increased numbers, levels and stats of the Hard mode enemies do little to hinder Ike's uber crew. Before the battle, have Boyd exchange his Steel Axe for Titania's Steel Poleaxe so that Titania can weaken enemies, rather than kill them, and Boyd can deal more reliable damage. Have Rolf trade his Steel Bow to Shinon. Remove Provoke from Shinon and Counter from Titania, and give them to Ike and Boyd respectively. Trade the Vulneraries around so that Ike, Boyd, Mia and Oscar have one set each, and distribute the rest to whoever feel needs them the most. Focus on levelling up Ike, Boyd, Mia, Soren and Gatrie, and weaken enemies with everyone else. Just push north with Ike, Boyd, Mia and Gatrie leading the charge. Try to attack the enemies from the bushes. If Boyd or Mia take a couple of hits, be sure to heal them as they CAN die, but just don't let them charge too far forward without support and you shouldn't really have this problem. They both have good dodge rates, anyway, Mia moreso. Place Shinon on the northern Ballistae so he can take out a few of the enemy Mages, and anyone who may pose a threat to an untransformed Ranulf. Try to work quickly - the boss has a nice Crossbow and you'll want to get to him before Skrimir one-shots him. The best startegy is, when you get to the bend in the north, send Oscar and Boyd running through the thin path in the far north-east. Hopefully Oscar can stand in front of the boss before Skrimir gets there and one-shots him. Attack with Oscar and Boyd (with a Hand Axe) to kill the boss. ----------------------------- Chapter 3-1 - Laguz and Beorc ----------------------------- Clear - Rout Enemy in 12 Turns Defeat - Ike dies, Exceed 12 Turns Although there are a lot of enemies to kill between now and Turn 12, it's easier than it sounds. On my first Hard mode playthrough, I cleared the map on Turn 9 (player phase), so you should make it your goal to do so. None of the enemies here posess a considerable threat except for the boss due to his 35% or so chance to land a critical hit. NOTE - There are a couple of enemies hiding in corners and alcoves that WON'T move unless you can see them. You can't really afford to miss anyone so check everywhere accordingly. NOTE #2 - If Lethe and Lyre die, they'll merely retreat and you'll still get them later on in the game (not that they're worth using), so use this to your advantage. At the start, send Ike, Boyd, Mia, Soren and Oscar to deal with the initial enemies just north/north-east of your starting position, while Gatrie, Titania and Shinon head south-east to dispose of the Generals there. Send Rhys with Ike's group and Mist with Titania's. Place Lethe and Lyre on the Halt command. Once the initial mob in the middle section of the map has been taken care of, send Boyd, Mia, Soren and Rhys east along the middle section to kill whatever they encounter. There isn't anything they can't handle, provided you keep healing them if they take a couple of hits. Send Ike into the western bushes next to the gap in the large wall that splits the map in two. He'll draw the attention of the boss (who Ike has the best chance against) and several of his minions. Once the southern enemies are taken care of, send Titania, Gatrie and Mist north to join Boyd's group, while Shinon retreats back to the starting area to join Oscar and the Cats. Five reinforcements pop up there over two turns (two on Turn 5 and three on Turn 7, I think) - be careful as the reinforcements will try to douse the torches, which is more of a pain than it sounds. Direct Lethe and Lyre to Roam, so they can help out Oscar and Shinon kill the reinforcements. Leave Ike where he is for a few turns until there are only Mages and Archers left attacking him. Around this point, Boyd's gang should have broken into the norther area of the map from the east and be taking down any enemies hiding around the north-eastern area of the map. Once this is done, keep pushing Ike against the enemies still in his vicinity, and have Boyd, Gatrie and Mia meet up with him (I don't recommend Soren go this far as he's easy prey for the Snipers). They should kill any remaining enemies along the way, which will clear the map unless Oscar and Shinon are still fighting the reinforcements (they shouldn't). ------------------------- Chapter 3-2 - Stormclouds ------------------------- Clear - Defeat Boss Defeat - Ike dies NOTE - Haar, Nephenee, Brom, Ilyana and Heather all join your team before this chapter. If you grabbed the Nullify Skill in 2-E, then give it to Haar so that Thunder Sages won't rape him. NOTE #2 - Read the Info conversation with Aimee for Soren to obtain a Silver Card, enabling you to buy everything at half price in all of the shops, so stock up on as many weapons and items as you can afford (hopefully you did what I told you a brought over a Red Gem and a Blue Gem with Ilyana from Micaiah's team), and when you're finally done or out of cash, sell the Silver Card for 2,000 Gold as it'll disappear after you leave Base anyway. Stock up on the most powerful weapons you can get at this point in the game (Steel Poleaxs, Steel Greatlances, Steel Blades etc), although you may want to buy a couple of weaker weapons for better Accuracy for when a unit has a low Biorhythm. NOTE #3 - Make sure the Wyrmslayer is included in your shopping basket. Give it to Mia so she can actually two-shot Dragonlords, including the upcoming boss! She needs the experience, anyway. NOTE #4 - Start thinking of who's going to Support with who in this chapter, and stand them next to each other. I recommend Ike + Titania, Nephenee + Mia, Boyd + Oscar, Soren + Shinon and Gatrie + Haar. Haar is usually flying around on his own, so he doesn't have great need for a Support, and Gatrie can take hits better than most units, but it's useful to have them Support for blockading purposes. This chapter is surprisingly tricky at the start - there are a lot of initial enemies coming in from two directions and there are lots of reinforcements - even more than in Normal mode. The best way to go about it is to send a small force east to blockade against the three or four enemies initially coming in, whilst your main force barges south. Make sure Mia and Nephenee are in the southern force - the enemies there have worse defences and don't hit as hard. I recommend sending Oscar, Haar and Gatrie east, and everyone else south. Once the initial enemies are all dead, retreat to the north-west corner as there are probably a few gangs of Paladins heading towards you right about now. Blockade the north-west corner, keeping your weaker units safe. Try to position your units so that the Paladins have to use most or all of their range to get to you. This will prevent them from attacking you and then retreating back to distances that would be a risky to chance them into. A good strategy is to give Ike an Iron Sword and position him on the very edge of their ranges. He will knock about 2/3rds of their HP out with two hits, allowing everyone else to just gang up on them and finish them off. Once the Paladins are dead, things calm down. Head east, lure out the Dragonlords to kill, and send Haar flying across to the Bolting Sage to kill him before he can cause any damage to your team. Send Boyd and Nephenee to kill the two Paladins in the grass, and on the next turn position Ike right on the edge of the boss's range, with Mia, Boyd, Gatrie and Soren standing as close as they possibly can without entering his range. The boss and his two allies will come flying over and attack Ike. Kill the allies with Boyd, Gatrie, Soren, Nephenee and Haar so that they can get some Expereince, and then two-shot the boss with Mia equipped with the Wyrmslayer. ALTERNATIVE STRATEGY IF YOU DON'T CARE ABOUT EXPERIENCE - I don't recommend this, but at the start just send your entire team south, then send a few units east through the bog to lure in the boss. Kill the boss with Mia. Chapter over in five minutes, but you'll lose out on a healthy amount of Experience if you do this, which is why I don't recommend it. ---------------------------- Chapter 3-3 - River Crossing ---------------------------- Clear - All Supplies Burnt by 15 Turns Defeat - Ike dies, Exceed 15 Turns Start thinking about which units you want to train and which units you should drop at this point. I recommend you drop Brom, Heather, Ilyana, Rolf and Rhys. Immediately send Haar flying around burning the nearby supply crates, whilst the rest of you army barges through the initial enemies and into the main camp. There isn't a great deal to say about this one - just plough through the enemies as quickly as possible, setting the supplies on fire as you go. It's much easier than it sounds. Try to kill the Senators if possible, as they have some great items and you only get a crappy amount of Bonus Experience for sparing them. When you approach the area near the boss, use caution as the boss and most of his allies can attack from range, one of which includes a Sniper with a Steel Longbow. Try to lure the Sniper into positioning himself where he can be attacked from a two-square range, and kill him with Shinon. As for the boss, you could always just ignore him by burning all of the other crates first, and then sending Haar flying over him to burn the last one, but he offers good Experience and isn't too tough. I equipped Boyd with a Hand Axe and Oscar with Short Spear (they had a C level Support, too) to take him down. Provided you work fast enough, it's very possible to wipe out all of the enemies in the map by around Turn 14, with the exception of the General reinforcements to the south. This map is far easier if you've been training up Boyd, Mia, Nephenee, Haar etc. to match up to the higher levelled members of Ike's team. -------------------------------- Chapter 3-4 - The General's Hand -------------------------------- Clear - Ike and Ranulf Arrive Together Defeat - Ike or Ranulf dies NOTE - Read the Info conversation with Shinon and then check Aimee's bargains for an excellent Silencer - brilliant for Shinon. This is an easy chapter provided you don't send anyone alone into too much heat. The Laguz on this chapter can be a pain - they will also attack enemies, and as they are Other units rather than Partner units, you can't Direct them to simply bugger off and stop stealing your kills. A few of them will likely die to enemy attacks, however. You get Bonus Experience if they live but it's only 100 per survivor, which is, what, 10 Exp points at this stage in the game? If you want it, just hope they get severely wounded and retreat back to wherever Mist is for healing...but don't heal them or they'll start attacking the enemies again. Send both Ike and Ranulf west, accompanied by Titania, Oscar and Haar, while the rest of your group climbs the eastern cliffs. Have both groups meet up in the central plateau. Titania and Oscar can't climb up any further, so just leave them here. Send the rest of your army up the western cliff, as the eastern one has two ledges in immediate succession to climb and there are numerous enemies with indirect attacks who will have great Hit ratios due to their elevation advantage. Lure the enemies on the western side of the boss's level with Ike and Haar. Once they're dead, barge east to take out the remaining enemies before going for the boss. The boss and his ally on the Arrive squares as both have ranged weapons, so if anyone directly attacks one of them and stands in front of him, he will have both the boss and his ally attacking him on the enemy turn. Use Haar for hit-and-runs, and indirect attacks to dispose of the ally, and then gang up on the boss. The boss has a good 30% chance to land a critical hit if he is equipped with the Killing Edge, but won't be much of a threat to anyone with good Defence. To Arrive with both Ike and Ranulf, stand one of them on one Arrive square and Wait, and send the other onto the other square and select Arrive. ---------------------- Chapter 3-5 - Retreat! ---------------------- Clear - Defend for 10 Turns, Defeat boss Defeat - Ike dies, Enemy Seizes Location Hopefully, you did what I told you in 2-E and gave Brom a Physic staff to take over to Ike's team, as it will help out greatly in this chapter. Give it to Mist. Send Boyd, Oscar and Nephenee west, Haar, Gatrie and Rhys east, and everyone else barging south with Mist and Reyson hanging around behind the southern group. Have Reyson Vigor Ike so that he can get to the southern steps on the first turn. The southern group will be facing mostly Paladins; the western group battles mostly Sages, Halberdiers and, less commonly, Warriors and Snipers; the eastern group is up against a huge group of Generals. The southern group should concentrate on wiping out all of the enemies around them. Ike and Titania are the best two characters to blockade with at the bottom of the staircase, while Soren, Shinon and Mia provide the necessary backup (give Mia a Storm Sword or something). This group should be able to wipe out the initial enemy rush by Turn 5, but don't bother charging south to trying and kill the boss as there will be hordes of Paladin reinforcements appearing soon. Just hold your ground and let the enemy come to you. There are 12 total Paladin reinforcements near the boss - six on Turn 6/7 and six more on Turn 8/9. The western group will have a tough time. I recommend you give Boyd Hand Axes and Oscar and Nephenee Short Spears/Javelins so you can attack enemies from above ledges - this enables you to two-shot hard-hitting Sages with little fear of their counter-attack actually hitting you. Hopefully Oscar and Boyd have a Support set up. If that's the case, try to keep the attacking enemies focussed on Boyd more than the other two, as he can take hits somewhat better. Things will eventually calm down around Turn 7, but after Turn 8 more enemy reinforcements show up, so stand above the western ledges to stop them giving you too much trouble. It's tempting to take them out, but I don't recommend it unless you're still using ranged items as there are further reinforcements after Turn 9. The eastern group has the easiest time. The initial Swordmasters won't deal more than 1 HP damage to either Gatrie or Haar, and the Generals won't hit particularly hard. Just watch out for the Sage, as he can hit Haar really hard. Dispose of him ASAP and you shouldn't have any problems from then on. A good way for Gatrie and Haar to suck up some nice Exp. Stand Rhys above the ledge in the south-east, as a General will attempt to climb it. The General won't be able to attack Rhys, but he'll just stand there throughout the entire chapter unless he's attacked, so leave him be. Finally, Mist and Reyson's job is to heal everyone, naturally. Mist should only really be aiming to heal anyone who can't heal enough HP with a Vulnerary. It's tempting to go crazy with the Physic staff but it only has 15 uses. Use Reyson to Vigor Mist if she needs to heal more than one character. Have your characters use Vulneraries when necessary to prevent too many of them needing Mist's assistance at any one time. ------------------------------- Chapter 3-6 - A Reason To Fight ------------------------------- Clear - Defeat 46 Enemies Defeat - Micaiah or Sothe dies, Black Knight dies (lol) NOTE - Give Paragon to either Micaiah, Jill or Nolan. Remove Volug's Wildheart skill or he'll be a useless piece of shit. NOTE #2 - If possible, try to kill the enemies when they are transformed. Even though they hit much, much harder and take hits more easily in these forms, you'll get about 4-5x the amount of Experience for killing them in their transformed state than you would if they were in their untransformed state...and Micaiah's teamd desperately needs the extra Exp. Only kill the enemies in their untransformed states when there's too much risk. This is one of the hardest chapters in the game, and THE hardest chapter outside of Part 1. The main problem here is that there are very few useful units you can bring along in this chapter, and all of them will die in 1-2 hits from the Tiger Laguz, which are far more numerous in Hard mode than in Easy/Normal. If you screwed up Micaiah's party by using pre-promotes in Part 1, this is around the time where you'll begin to feel it. Hopefully you have an A Support between Jill and Nolan and an A Support between Volug and Zihark, or your units will have a much higher chance of getting hit and dying. You won't get any Bonus Experience if the NPCs survive, so you can use them as bait/cannon fodder if necessary. I recommend sending them to blockade the north until the Black Knight arrives. There are two blockade squares north and three east. Although it's possible to use all five of your frontline units, I've always found Sothe and Zihark to be too fragile and unreliable in the dodging front to be useful blockaders, even with A Supports. During this chapter Sothe will be feeling his stats catching up to him and you'll begin to realise how very mediocre he is in the long term. Give Sothe Steel Knives and Zihark a Storm Sword so that they can attack from range if you want/need them to. When the chapter begins, send Zihark to kill the nearby Tiger. Hopefully he'll activate Adept or a critical hit and will kill it. If he doesn't, use Micaiah to assist. Next, send Sothe as far east as possible, so that the two lurking Cats will be visible. Kill them with Jill and Nolan, and with Micaiah too if she didn't have to assist Zihark (it'll be much easier to kill the two Cats in the same turn if Zihark killed the Tiger by himself). If one of the Cats is still alive after the player turn, it will probably chase down the NPC Bishop. Have Volug use Olivi Grass to buff up his Transform metre, and Target the NPCs to move to the northern blockade squares so they can hold off the enemies until the Black Knight arrives. Don't Direct them to attack, though, as they'll just mess things up if you do. As soon as you can, position your units around the blockade area like this: TTOT ZS T VMJO LNO TTTT Key :- T = Tree, O = Opening, N = Nolan, J = Jill, V = Volug, M = Micaiah, Z = Zihark, S = Sothe, L = Laura Place Volug where Sothe is originally standing as soon as he transforms, as Sothe is piss-poor at blockading against Laguz. Jill will often take attacks from two sides, as you may see, but she dodges better than everyone else, especially with a Nolan A Support. Keep this formation up throughout the entire chapter. If you want/need to perform a hit-and-run with Jill, make sure that she can retreat back to her position. In this battle, no damage is often better than some damage; if you attack an enemy, but don't kill it, then there's a high chance it will attack you on the next turn, in which you WILL kill it but there's a high chance it'll hit you. This will leave you at half health during the enemy turn, and open to attack from more enemies, resulting in a far higher chance of dying. So, basically, if you're not going to be killing something in the same turn, then don't attack it. On Turn 5 the Black Knight appears. Send him north to aid the NPCs, who have probably been reduced to just the two Halberdiers. Let him solo the northern section. It's a shame to waste all that experience but there's nothing you can really do about it. Just keep formation and using the same startegy until you kill 46 enemies. ---------------------------- Chapter 3-7 - Rivals Collide ---------------------------- Clear - Survive for 12 Turns Defeat - Ike or Ranulf dies NOTE - You can recruit several of Micaiah's troops, including Jill and Zihark, but I don't recommend it as Micaiah needs these units for a further two chapters, and Ike's team isn't exactly in need of anyone else. This chapter is similar to 1-E, in a sense, as it's only as hard as you want it to be. If you just hang around the starting area and kill only the few enemies that move towards you, it's the easiest chapter in the game. If you decide to charge the enemy head-on, then...it is still a pretty easy chapter provided you've got the grasp of how to use your team (which is very likely if you've made it this far into Hard mode), with the benefit being you'll get plenty of delicious Experience for Ike's crew. You can only take 10 units with you in this chapter, two of which (Ike and Ranulf) are essential. For the remaining eight, I recommend Boyd, Haar, Nephenee, Soren, Mia, Shinon, Reyson and Mist. Paladins can't cross most of the map, so it's better to just leave them out. Enemy Dracolords are a real pain in this chapter as they have a tendency to move into awkward positions. Send Haar, Janaff and Ulki after them. I'm going to assume you want to charge south in this chapter. You should. It's nothing Ike and pals can't handle, anyway. Have Ike and Boyd lead the charge, with Nephenee, Mia, Soren and Shinon backing them up. Give Ike a weak Sword if he's overlevelled so he can weaken enemies instead of kill them. Immediately send Haar against any Dracolords heading in your direction. Leave Reyson near the starting area to recruit Janaff and Ulki when they show up there after Turn 2. They'll join you in the next chapter regardless of whether or not you recruit them here, but they come in handy in this chapter so it's worth using them. You can only really advance as far as the third island, where Zihark and a gang of Swordmasters are positioned, as there are too many enemies to go much further. Plenty of enemies attack you around here, so kill as many of them as possible. Watch out for the Sages as they'll hit Ike and Haar really hard. Around Turn 10, a horde of enemies, including the Black Knight, start moving towards you. It's probably safer to just retreat at this point. If you want to recruit Lehran at the very end of the game, then Ike will need to survive an encounter with the Black Knight. Give Ike a Wind Edge or a Storm Sword and make sure Haar is nearby. Attack the Black Knight from range so he can't activate Eclipse (although he still has a 7% or so chance to land a critical hit) and then Rescue Ike with Haar immediately afterwards. Ike will need at least 27 Speed to avoid being double-attacked by the Black Knight, or he'll just get killed. It depends whether or not you think it's worth it. ------------------------------- Chapter 3-8 - Incandescent Glow ------------------------------- Clear - Rout Enemy Defeat - Ike or Ranulf dies This is a relatively easy chapter that's great for gaining some Experience. Try to get all of your offensive units up to level 15 by the end of this chapter. Most of them probably already are, so it shouldn't be any trouble. At the start, split into two groups, with Mist in one and Reyson in the other, and charge down the two seperate paths. You should already know this, but avoid standing on the dark patches of rock or you'll be hit by a fireball, which deals 10HP damage. The same goes for enemies. Try not to position yourself where enemies have to stand on the dark rocks to attack your units, as if you knock their HP below 10 they'll get killed by fireballs and you'll miss out on the Experience. Once you've killed all the enemies around the northern two paths, merge your two groups in the middle of the map and start heading south-east. Ignore the south-west passage as it's too narrow to reliably use. Try to lure out the enemies around the boss. The boss himself will actually run away from you unless cornered, and around now he'll probably start heading north via the south-west passage with a Bishop and a General with a Short Spear. The two Generals and the Sniper that are blocking the passage to the boss never move and you'll have to use units like Oscar, Titania and Haar to kill them with hit-and-runs or you'll be stuck standing on dark rocks. Watch out for the Druids with Worms, too. They can hit hard, if they manage to hit. Once all of the enemies where the boss was are dead, head up the pursuit of poor Septimus. He hits hard, but Silve GreatLances have poor hit rates so he shouldn't be too much of a problem. Just gang up on him and kill him, preferably with Soren as he's probably still the most underlevelled member of your group. Kill the Bishop and the ally General on the same turn, if you can. ----------------------- Chapter 3-9 - Marauders ----------------------- Clear - Defeat Boss Defeat - Geoffrey dies NOTE - You can finally access Geoffrey's team's Skills. Remove Astrid's Paragon and give it to Kieran. It doesn't matter what you do with Geoffrey's Paragon, you can give it to Calill or Marcia if you want to use them, but there's not really much point. Just remove it from Geoffrey or you'll never get the chance to do so until he rejoins in 4-5. Astrid and Makalov are useless here, so it's better to just leave them out. If you plan on using Kieran in Ike's team after this chapter, he'll have to solo as much of the chapter as possible and boss hound the boss for maximum Experience. If you do this, he can easily catch up to Ike's team in terms of levels. It's very possible to get him to level 19/20 by the end of this chapter, but he'll have to solo the entire map to do so, and early on there are probably too many enemies to kill without Geoffrey and Calill's assistance. Level 17/18 is a more realistic goal. Don't bother using any Bonus Exp. on him before this chapter begins, though, as he'll have better growths just levelling up normally for the time being. At the starting area, immediately send Devdan below the northern ledge to stop enemies jumping down, and send Geoffrey, Kieran and Calill east. There are plenty of enemies and enemy reinforcements running towards you at the start. In fact, the majority of the chapter will be spent fending off large groups of Halberdiers around the southern houses. This will take several turns - once no more enemies are charging in your direction in this area, you can safely move on. The easiest way to kill all of the enemies around here is to weaken them with Calill and Marcia, and then kill them with Geoffrey and Kieran, the only two units who can reasonably take enemies out at this point. As for the three reinforcements at the start, just command the NPCs and Devdan to kill them. A couple of the NPCs will probably die, but you don't get Bonus Exp. if they survive, anyway. You get some nice Bonus Exp. for saving the houses - 1,000 per house saved, I believe. However, things will get far too hectic if you try saving them all. The two southern houses can be saved easily, and since there are so many enemies standing around the north-eastern house to begin with, the reinforcements probably won't even be able to set it on fire. Nothing to be done about the others, though. Someone will probably get killed in the process of trying to save them if you attempt it. Once you've stopped fending off enemies around the southern houses, just let Kieran solo the rest of the map. Tread carefully - you don't want too many enemies attacking him at once as he can still die. Once he's killed everything else, move out to kill the boss. The boss is a wimp who will never have more than a 50% chance to hit at very best, and Kieran can only three-shot him. Perfect for boss hounding! The best strategy is to place Kieran directly in front of the boss, but don't attack. The boss will attack on the enemy turn, then attack him with Kieran on the next turn and retreat away from the boss, who will heal with a Concoction on the next turn. Repeat until the boss is out of Concoctions, and then finally kill him. Kill him on a player turn, so you can move to the square behind where he was standing and obtain a nice Spirit Dust. Only use the boss hounding strategy if you want to use Kieran later on. It's pointless otherwise. ---------------------------------- Chapter 3-10 - The Heart of Crimea ---------------------------------- Clear - Rout enemy Defeat - Ike or Ranulf dies, Elincia dies. The main issue with this chapter is the NPC Elincia's stupidity. If there are no remaining enemies within the reach of any of the Royal Knights, she'll lead them further forward into enemy territory. Not only will they steal your kills, but Elincia's life will be seriously put at risk by two Snipers, one of which has a Crossbow, and, of course, the Silver Bow wielding boss, who is a Paladin with good stats. Therefore, speed is efficiency in this chapter. Although the chapter is swarming with enemies, it looks much harder than it actually is, and it is very, very possible to simply plough through the enemies here. At the start, immediately send Ike, Titania, Oscar and Boyd north to aid Elincia and her crew. Only kill the enemies coming in from the east with them, though - leave the group of Halberdiers in the north alone so that Elincia's team will waste their time taking all day trying to kill them, which they hopefully won't finally accomplish until you're close to completing the chapter. When Ranulf and Janaff transform, send them with Ike's group for backup if it's needed (you probably will need to use them at some point). Ike will have to join in with the fighting regardless of whether or not he's level 20. Hopefully he isn't, although unless you've abused him he should still have a level or two left to go. That should leave Ulki, Nephenee, Mia, Shinon, Soren, Haar, Mist and Reyson moving east through the southern section, where there are far more enemies (mostly Paladins and Bishops). Reyson should use a Laguz Stone as soon as possible - you'll need to Vigor your units often in order to finish off enemies you couldn't kill in one go-around or the Bishops will heal them. Send Ulki or Haar to kill the Bishop with Purge as soon as possible or he might hit someone hard when you really don't want him to. Don't forget - move as fast as possible. Watch out for the reinforcements in this area, though. It's four Paladins over two turns, and they arrive fairly early, so they shouldn't be a problem. Ike's group and Boyd's group should meet up below the southern path that leads up the hill to the boss. Lure as many enemies down from near him as your possibly can before going for him. The boss and his entourage won't actually moves unless Elincia moves into his range, and she's hopefully still far to the west. Knock out most of the boss's HP with Ike, and then use a lower-levelled unit to finish him. Use everyone else to try and kill as many surrounding enemies as possible, particularly enemies with Bows of any kind. Hopefully you can clear the map on the following turn, with the Royal Knights stealing a minimal amount of kills. ------------------------- Chapter 3-11 - Just Cause ------------------------- Clear - Seize Defeat - Ike or Ranulf dies, Sigrun dies, Tanith dies This is the most difficult and frustrating of Ike's Part 3 chapters. You're forced to sacrifice two of your uber ass-kickers for Sigrun and Tanith, due to the limited number of units you can bring, and Sigrun and Tanith are simply fucking terrible. Not only that, but this is a very long chapter full of enemies and the annoying traps that Ike's team missed when they crossed this bridge in Chapter 23 of Path of Radiance. In fact, the only difference between this chapter and Chapter 23 of Path of Radiance is that this time around it's harder and you're going in the opposite direction. This chapter's swarming with Paladins and the blockades and pitfalls can make them a real pain in the ass in this chapter. Watch out, if a unit falls into a pitfall in Hard mode, there's a huge chance that they'll be ganged up on and killed, especially if there are Paladins in the area. The enemy stats here finally begin to catch up to Ike's team's somewhat, too, and you can't expect Ike to help clear the level as he's probably level 20 or close to hitting it at this point. Concentrate on getting everyone as close to third tier as possible, with the obvious exceptions of Sigrun and Tanith. You should have brought two Paragons over from Geoffrey's team - give them to the two units who are the most under-levelled (one of which is probably Soren). One last thing, if a flying unit is positioned to wait over where a pitfall trap is, they won't activate it and your other units can pass by without trouble if you keep your flier (probably Haar) over it. Also, if enemy units are close to you but mysteriously don't move towards you, there's a high chance it means there's a hidden trap in front of them, so ignore them until you circle around. The exceptions are Generals, who never move in this chapter, and one Sniper between a pair of Generals at the far end of the bridge. At the beginning, send your two best blockaders (either units with high Defence or great dodging ability and A level Supports) to blockade against the incoming seven Paladins. Finish them off on the following turn and proceed to slowly lure out groups of enemies and kill them. If a unit falls into a trap, rescue him/her with Haar, Tanith or Sigrun immediately or they will probably be killed. When you corss about 1/4 of the bridge, Leanne will arrive as a player unit, with Tibarn and two Hawks as Partner units. Direct the Parter units far away from the battle and get Leanne directly behind your forces as you're probably going to need her in this chapter. After the initial rush, things cool down a little until you get to the final quarter of the bridge. Plenty of Paladins, Snipers and Dragonlords to greet you. Lure them out one by one and kill them - the Dragonlords hit hard, so watch out. When you finally exit the bridge, four more reinforcements appear in the north east, and they all hit hard, so kill them all as quickly as you can. Watch out for the Swordmaster with the Wo Dao and the Thunder Sage with Arcthunder. The Swordmaster doesn't hit very hard but has a high chance for a critical hit, so kill him with a high Defence unit. The Sage does hit hard and has a 5-10% critical chance - perfect for being screwed over by Murphy's Law and forcing you to start the chapter again because he had a lucky crit and killed someone. Kill him with a unit who can take a critical hit from him. The Sage, along with the General with the Short Spear and, obviously, the boss. Kill the Sage, General and Bishop first. The boss isn't too tough, and can only three-shot or four-shot most of your units, except people like Soren who have poor Defence. Kill him with whoever's most in need of Exp., and then Seize to finally clear this chapter. Ideally, you want everyone at least level 18/19 at the end of this chapter so that they can promote by Part 4. ------------------------ Chapter 3-12 - The Price ------------------------ Clear - Defeat 40 Enemies Defeat - Micaiah or Sothe dies, Tauroneo dies Give Paragon to either Nolan or Jill, depending on which of them is at a lower level/has worse stats. Make sure that both of them have at least two fresh Silver Axes each before you go into the chapter, too. This is the easiest of Micaiah's Part 3 chapters. Killing 40 enemies isn't really much of a problem and you can get some great Exp, especially for Nolan and Jill, who will be doing most of the killing, and Micaiah, who should be getting a few kills and healing the others often. Send Jill and Nolan down the south-east hill to blockade. They will be facing a legion, but they should have hit an A Support some time ago and have really good dodging abilities anyway, so they shouldn't be taking many hits. You'll want to keep them healed, though, preferably with Micaiah and, if necessary, Laura (who finally becomes pretty useless at this poin, but is still handy to have around incase you really need an extra healer). Micaiah should back up Nolan and Jill by picking off a few enemies from behind them unless she's in danger of being killed by Snipers. Sothe should do the same with Knives, but don't let him kill unless necessary. There isn't really anything Jill and Nolan can't handle here, although it's unlikely Nolan will double-attack much. Zihark and Volug should head to the north-west to assist Tauroneo in killing the Falcon Knights and any other enemies that may make it up. There won't be much for them to kill, but that doesn't really matter as you're only going to ever use them for one more chapter anyway. If possible, try to kill the two Snipers and the two Archers who are heading towards Micaiah and co., as they all have decent to great Hit rates, and the Snipers can two-shot and possibly double-attack Micaiah, depending on how lucky you were with her Speed growth. She'll probably be healing more than attacking, but keep this in mind. There isn't much else to say, really. Nolan and Jill should be good enough to attack as well as defend, so use it to your advantage. They should have gained a fair few level ups once you've finished the chapter. ----------------------------- Chapter 3-13 - Blood Contract ----------------------------- Clear - Hold Line for 12 Turns, Defeat Boss Defeat - Micaiah or Sothe dies, Tauroneo dies, Enemy Breaches Line This is a very, very difficult chapter. There are swarms of enemy Laguz, and they don't waste time reinforcing either. The Tiger Laguz are as much of a pain as ever - they can still kill all of your units in 1-2 hits, with the exception of Nolan thanks to his high HP and decent Defence, although that doesn't mean you should risk him. And yes, Tauroneo is among those who can die in two hits to the Tigers - if you didn't notice it in the last chapter, you'll notice here that the enemies really make him look like the Jeigan he is. You can't realistcally clear the chapter unless you use the NPCs. This is probably the last chapter you'll ever be using Tauroneo, Zihark, Laura and Volug in, and you're probably not going to use Sothe ever again except for opening the chest in 4-E-1, so only use them to kill if you really have to. Nolan can solo most of the enemies himself if you give him a Bowgun/Crossbow, the Beastfoe skill, and the Vantage skill. However, you'll need to have picked up the Beastfoe skill from 1-4, and the Vantage skill from 1-E (which is unlikely unless you blasted through the chapter with Nailah and the Black Knight to beat the Thieves to the chest). Also, watch out for the Hawk Laguz. There aren't many of them, but they can just fly over everyone and breach the line. One-shot them with Nolan + Bowgun/Crossbow. If the NPCs are on Roam, the Archers at the Ballistae will always target the Hawk Laguz and one-shot them. Give Paragon to whoever you want and place the NPCs on Halt. Blockade the southern ledge with Jill and Nolan alongside the Halberdier NPC for the first turn. On the next turn, the Hawks should be in range. One-shot one of them with Nolan + Bowgun and use Jill to attack the other one - if she misses one of her hits then finish the Hawk off with Micaiah's Purge. Zihark and Volug should be blockading the eastern ledge, preventing enemies from climbing further, and Tauroneo blockading the western one. Micaiah, Sothe and Laura should be standing in front of the northernmost middle ledge, which prevents any enemies from climbing up there. You should have bought the Physic staff from the Bargain section of the Shop at Base - Micaiah and Laura should make good use of it. Retreat Jill and Nolan as far back as possible on the third turn, as any remaining NPCs in the south will probably be wiped out on the following enemy turn. Send one of them to guard the north-west, while the other heads out to guard the north-east. Around this point, Order the NPCs to Roam. They'll help injure and kill enemies. Nolan and Jill can join in the chaos quite safely provided you keep them healed, as the enemies almost always target the NPCs first. As there will be plenty of enemies grouped up just below the middle ledge, Micaiah can safely attack them from above with her regular Light tomes. In fact, I recommend you try to avoid over-using the Purge, as it can come in handy later on in the game. Tauroneo, Zihark and Volug should be safely behind the Line at this point. Regardless of whether or not you healed them throughout the chapter, by Turn 10 most or all of the NPCs outside of the Line will be dead or dying. Nolan and Jill should retreat to their respective guard points (the north-east and northwest entrances to the Line area) to guard against any Laguz attacking around the sides. Ike and the Greil Mercenaries start moving on Turn 11, but they're not going to get close enough to any of your units to pose any kind of threat. Just hold fast and you'll make it to the end of the chapter. You can defeat Ike to end the chapter early, but in Hard mode it's simply too difficult as there are swarms of Tiger Laguz between you and him. ------------------------------ Endgame - From Pain, Awakening ------------------------------ Clear - Rout Enemy Defeat - Ike or Ranulf dies, Sigrun dies NOTE - Ike automatically promotes after this chapter. Make sure he's level 20 by the end of it! In order to clear this chapter, 80 on-screen units have to die. This includes enemy units, allied Laguz units and your units. The allied laguz do pretty well at first, although a large number of them will die after a few turns due to their transform metres running out. As usual, any of your units on the enemy side will merely retreat if they are defeated in battle, although their defeats do add to the kill count. Concentrate on barging north-east up the middle path. You're never going to get very far, only about halfway up by the time the chapter ends, but it doesn't really matter as there are plenty of enemies for picking off along the way, and you'll want all of your units as close to promoting to third tier as possible at this point, although I recommend you send both of Ike's team's Paragon skills to the Convoy so that the severely underlevelled Micaiah, Nolan and Jill can each equip one before 4-P to help catch up. Tibarn and his group of Hawks will deal with the enemies in the south-east, whilst Skrimir's Beast Laguz team will take care of the enemies in the north-west, so don't bother following either group. Have Reyson use a Laguz Stone as soon as the battle begins. The initial enemies can be taken down by the second turn, so waste no time bombing further north towards Zihark and his group of Swordmaster. Once they're all dead, continue up to the three Generals blocking you from going further. You won't advance much further than this, as you'll be swarmed by a large group of Halberdiers and Thunder Mages, at which point Jill and her entourage of Dragonlords will start flying in your direction. Lure them towards you. Kill the Dragonlords and recruit Jill with Haar so she can kill a couple of enemies before the chapter ends to gain some valuable Exp. Around this point, the kill count should be at least 60, probably more. Lure down a few more enemies and kill them, if you need to. There won't be much more you can do about this. The chapter will end on 80 kills, regardless of who dies (unless it's Ike, Ranulf or Sigrun, obviously). This is quite an easy chapter. Just keep your Supports together and you won't have much trouble whatsoever. --------------------- Part 4 - Gods and Men --------------------- ----------------- Part 4 - Overview ----------------- Part 4 consists of seven chapters - the final chapter and six before it, although the final chapter itself can be classified as five seperate chapters. The six chapters leading up to the final chapter are all very long chapters. Some of them feature over a hundred enemies, including reinforcements. The first five chapters are all Rout Enemy chapters, and the sixth is a Defeat Boss chapter which takes just as long as any Rout chapter. Additionally, you'll only have a small number of useful units to actually clear these chapters, as you have to divide your armies up into three groups. Each group features in two chapters each before the final chapter. As for the final chapter itself, I'll get to that later. One thing I will mention is that at this point in the game, you should seriously start thinking about who you're going to bring if you haven't already. Part 4 offers plenty of Experience, but you should concentrate on letting your final chapter team-to-be to suck up as much of it as possible. Another large issue regarding Part 4 is the severe lack of funds. You don't get any money for clearing chapters and chances are you won't be starting Part 4 with a great deal of it either. Sell all weapons and Skills that you aren't going to use. You may even want to consider selling something like an Ashera Icon if you really need the cash. ------------------ Dividing your army ------------------ You have to divide all of your available units into three different groups - Micaiah's, Ike's and Tibarn's. By this point, the majority of your units are probably useless, and you'll have to divide up the few that are useful. Don't place too many of your best into one group - whilst that group will have an easier time, the others will have a much harder time. Try to keep Supports together, too. Here are my recommended divisions of the useful units that can be re-assigned: Silver Army - Jill, Nolan, Haar Greil Army - Boyd, Oscar, Shinon Hawk Army - Janaff, Ulki, Nephenee, Mia, Kieran, Rhys All other useful units are already placed in teams that they cannot be re-assigned from. These units include a Laguz Noble and a Heron in each team. ----------------------------- Part 4 Prologue - Chaos Named ----------------------------- Clear - Rout Enemy Defeat - Micaiah or Sothe dies, Sanaki dies NOTE - Sothe receives an automatic promotion at the end of this chapter. Yeah, you probably haven't used him in a while and don't really care. NOTE #2 - Give Paragon and some Bonus Exp to Micaiah, Nolan and Jill to help them catch up in levels. If you did what I told you and assigned both of Ike's team's Paragons to Convoy, then Nolan and Jill can access them. This chapter pretty much sets the tone for most of Part 4 - long chapters with a large amount of initial enemies and billions of reinforcements, whilst your team only has a small number of useful units to battle them with. Send Naesala and Skrimir to blockade in the north, whilst Jill, Nolan and Haar blockade in the east. Micaiah should provide healing and attacking assistance wherever's needed, and Leanne should be abused to help kill the enemies quicker. Jill and Nolan should be doing the lion's share of the work, here, unless you also want to bring Haar into the final chapter, in which case let him get a load of kills, too (although by now you'll probably start noticing how Jill is beginning to outclass him). The majority of the chapter will be spent blockading these two chokepoints. Eventually, Jill and Nolan can safely venture eastwards to kill the remaining Paladins. Don't move them out unless there are no enemies between them and the eastern bridge, where they should continue their blockade. Naesala and Skrimir won't be troubled much by the northern mobs. Just don't move into the Warrior with the Bowgun's range has he can almost one-shot Naesala. Use any unoccupied units to gang up and kill the Swordmaster who reinforces in the town squre, too, or he'll sneak up on Leanne and kill her. Once all of the eastern enemies are dead and there are no more enemies moving towards you in the north, move Jill and Nolan to where Naesala and Skrimir are blockading, and on the next turn let them venture out to mow down any incoming enemies. Both of them should be promoted by this point. Around now, use Nolan to kill more than Jill as he has a much more difficult time in the next Silver Army chapter (it's a desert chapter). Do move too far towards the boss though. The boss and his gang will start moving around Turn 16/17. Retreat Nolan and Jill back to the bridge to blockade. The boss will be the first to reach them. He doesn't have a great hit ratio and hopefully both Nolan and Jill are fast enough to double-attack him at this point (which is quite likely if they're promoted). Ideally, whichever one of them he attacks will pull off their uber third tier Skill and one-shot him. He isn't that tough, and if they have an A Support you don't need to worry about his Brave Sword. Blockade against and kill the remainder of the enemies moving towards you. There will still be a few enemies left in the east north of the river, but by now Nolan and Jill are probably invincible and won't have much trouble killing what's left. -------------------------------- Chapter 4-1 - Road to the Empire -------------------------------- Clear - Rout Enemy Defeat - Ike dies Before this chapter begins, use Bonus Exp to get Titania, Soren, Shinon, Oscar and Boyd up to level 20 (if they aren't already; usually they're close to it) and then promote them all with Master Crowns. Although it's still possible to use second tier units at the moment, chances are these are the only useful units in your team (plus Nailah) and they'll kick considerably more ass if promoted. Hopefully you have A Supports between Ike and Titania, Oscar and Boyd, and Soren and Shinon. Incoming Falcon Knights are the biggest threat in this chapter. They'll barely scratch most of your units, but can easily fly out of nowhere and two-shot Mist or Rafiel, and you'll never know where they are due to this being a Fog Of War map (thankfully, the last one in the game). Ike, Boyd and Shinon are the best units to kill them with - Ike's probably the only unit fast enough to double attack them, whilst Boyd can one-shot them with any kind of Bowgun and Shinon can one-shot them with anything. Don't let Nailah kill too much in this chapter. You'll want your Beorc units soaking up the Experience. Plus, Nailah STILL only gains one measly Experience point per kill. Oh, and if you still have a Torch or something lying around in the Convoy, bring it. This chapter features three Physic-wielding Bishops hidden away deep within enemy territory. On player turns, be sure to kill enemies rather than just damage them, or they'll end up being healed on the following enemy turn. Nothing you can do about the Bishops until you've routed the makority of the enemies, unfortunately. At the start, move Mist and Rafiel up north where they'll be safe, Boyd and Oscar west, Nailah, Soren and Shinon east, and Ike and Titania south. There aren't a lot of enemies that attack from the east, and at some point you're probably going to have to send some of your units in other directions to assist units taking on occasional swarms of enemies. The first swarm of enemies comes from the south, early on in the chapter. It's nothing Ike can't handle, and if he has Provoke they'll hopefully mostly go for him and get slaughtered. Titania's more fragile, however, so be careful with her. You'll eventually have to retreat a little so that someone like Shinon can move south to assist in killing off the last of the mob. The west will be the next place swarming with enemies. They aren't too dangerous, but you'll want to kill them all quickly, which Oscar and Boyd can't do on their own as there are too many of them, and a couple of enemies even reinforce within your perimeter, who will proceed to chase down Mist and Rafiel rather than attack the brothers. You can safely move everyone west to assist here, as there won't be any enemies coming in from other directions save for a few Druids in the south. Enemy reinforcements stop appearing by Turn 13 or so. At this point, kill any enemies left around you, and start heading south whilst combing the map. Have Oscar and Boyd comb down the western side, Ike and Titania comb down the south, and Nailah, Shinon and Soren comb down the eastern side. Mist and Rafiel should go either west or east, but not south as there are still a few enemies down there, as opposed to the one or two down the flanks. The boss is hiding in the south-east corner, and is surrounded by three Generals. If your units have A level Supports, then the Generals won't post much of a threat. The boss is a Falcon Knight (or maybe a Seraph Knight, I forgot to check) with 29 base Speed, making it unlikely that anyone not called Ike or Nailah will double-attack her. Either two-shot her with Ike, or one-shot her with Shinon or Boyd. Take down as many of the Generals as you can before the enemy turn, too. -------------------------- Chapter 4-2 - Silent World -------------------------- Clear - Rout Enemy Defeat - Tibarn dies, Elincia dies NOTE - If you're going to be using Elincia to attack, then get rid of her Mercy skill and sell it. If you're using Kieran, then give him Adept as it will help greatly. This chapter looks harder than it actually is. The biggest pain in the ass on his map is the amount of reinforcements in the starting area. Usually, it's just one, but the last four reinforcements to appear there all pop up at once. Nephenee and Mia should charge south. Even if they're not promoted, they should be very close to it and will promote after a few kills. If the pair have an ample supply of weapons, some Concoctions/Vulneraries incase they get hurt, and an A Support, they should have little to no trouble in swiping through the southern half of the map. However, they should move in paralell with the rest of the gang. In other words, only move them west when Tibarn and co. move west. This will allow the two groups to meet up near Valtome and team up to dispatch of the final group of enemies with ease. Plus, Nephenee and Mia won't get flanked by the south-east reinforcements that way. Everyone else should stay around the starting area. Tibarn and Kieran should blockade to the west, where enemies will be coming from. As they are mobile, it's no problem for one of them to retreat to join in with reinforcement-slaughtering. Reyson should use a Laguz Stone ASAP, but don't transform any of the other Laguz until you really need to use them. Ulki, Janaff, Ranulf and Pelleas may all need to assist in killing the reinforcements near the starting area. Once the reinforcements stop coming, start heading west with Tibarn and Kieran leading the charge. Tibarn, Kieran and Elincia should circle around the north-western part of the map to dispatch of the remaining enemies in the area (watch out for hard-hitting Dragonmasters). Once they are all dead, move Tibarn and Kieran towards Valtome's gang from the north, and Nephenee and Mia towards Valtome's gang from the south. Valtome, the three enemies surrounding him and the two Bishops with Physic staves will never move, but the rest of the enemies in this area will. Dispatch of the three enemies surrounding Valtome with hit-and-runs from Kieran and Tibarn, and/or using ranged weapons with Nephenee and Mia. You don't want to get attacked by Valtome whilst dealing with one of his sidekicks, as it's typical for Hard mode to fluke-kill the unit in question, forcing you to either win the chapter with one of your few useful units dead, or re-start it. Valtome has very good stats for the most part, but he shouldn't be much trouble for Mia or Nephenee, who, at this point, can both probably double-attack and two-shot him. Take him down, and then finish off the Bishops if you haven't already done so. ------------------------- Chapter 4-3 - Distortions ------------------------- Clear - Rout Enemy Defeat - Micaiah or Sothe dies, Sanaki dies This is around the point in the game where second-tier units become virtually useless. You'll only really have three units that are notably useful in this chapter - Nolan, Jill and Naesala, although Micaiah will still be good for healing. Skrimir is too slow to double-attack much at this point (although he's still good backup), and so is Haar (who, at this point, will really be looking inferior to Jill). Also, once you cross about 1/3rd of the map, the Black Knight will unecessarily show up and start stealing all your kills (he's an Other unit this time around). He has crap movement, but warps in front of a massive gang of enemies. You will have to work fast to stop him from killing too much, including Numida if he moves far south enough! Additionally, he refuses to be Rescued. To recruit Stefan, position Micaiah on the square directly south of where the easternmost Sniper was originally standing. You want that Vague Katti sword! Your initial objective should be to kill as much as you can before the Black Knight arrives. Send Jill and Nolan south-west. They'll be taking on a legion, but it's nothing they can't handle. Just make sure they are well supplied with Silver Axes and any kind of ranged Axes (except Hand Axes). Send Naesala east to take care of the enemies there, with Haar, Sanaki and Skrimir providing assistance if necessary. When the Black Knight arrives Jill and Nolan should head south along the centre of the map (Nolan will need to be airlifted by Haar or Sigrun). It's easier to take down most of Numida's mob in the south if you leave one or two enemies for the Black Knight to kill near where he warps in, as he will attack them first. Jill and Nolan will be taking on an even bigger legion (again, nothing much they can't handle, provided they have an A level Support), this time facing off against numerous Snipers and Sages, so equip ranged axes! Kill Numida with Jill once she gets the chance to circle around to him. Around this time, Dragonmaster reinforcements will appear in the north, near where you started. Send Naesala up to deal with them, whilst Jill and Nolan continue to massacre the remnants of Numida's gang. Once the south-east enemies are all dead, Jill and Nolan should trek across to the south-west to kill the enemies positioned there, who, by this point, should be the only enemies remaining on the map, and there are no more than ten. If you don't try to be aggressive with Jill and Nolan in this chapter, then it will take absolutely ages and the Black Knight will also kill a lot more, so go nuts! This isn't a difficult chapter, just not one of the more enjoyable ones. ------------------------- Chapter 4-4 - Revelations ------------------------- Clear - Rout Enemy Defeat - Ike dies NOTE - If you don't have Heather recruited (i.e. she died in 2-1), you'll need to take four Chest Keys with you. Although there are six treasure chests on the map, an enemy in the western treasure room drops two Chest Keys upon defeat. The items in the chests are all worth it. The western treasure chests contain a Blizzard tome and a Statue Frag. The mid- north treasure chests contain a Red Gem and a Blue Gem (pick them up with someone who has a full inventory so you can send them to the Convoy for Tibarn's group to use). The north- eastern treasure chests contain an Arbalest, the strongest Bowgun in the game, and the Fortify staff, an extremely important staff that you'll definitely want in Micaiah's hands in the final battle against Ashera. This chapter will probably take you somewhere between one and a half to two hours to finish. It's incredibly long, difficult, and swarming with enemies. The enemy count at the start of the chapter is litterally doubled due to the absolutely huge amount of reinforcements. Because of this, regardless of which strategy you use, your party will be holed up somewhere in the south-west area of the map for the majority of the chapter staving off the seemingly endless waves of reinforcements. The numbers of reinforcements are relatively small at first, so it's easy to get lulled into a false sense of security. Around Turn 10, increasingly larger numbers begin to appear and you'll eventually be facing a legion. The final wave of reinforcements, and also the biggest, occurs at the end of Turn 14. Finally, watch out for the Sage with the Meteor tome, who reinforces in the south-easten corner with three pals on Turn 13. I recommend rescuing Rafiel with Nailah, as the Herons are always the priority target for long-range Sages. If Rafiel is rescued, the Sage will most likely attack Ike instead. There are two possible strategies you can realistcally use in this chapter. I recommend strategy B, though. It's far more reliable and safer. Strategy A: This is the most popular and common strategy. It works fine in Easy and Normal, but in Hard mode I find it to be completely and utterly BOLLOCKS. The main aim here is to remain in the starting area, venturing forward only to help Tormod and pals (if you want to) and forming a protective barrier around your weaker units with your frontliners. You should already begin to see the problems regarding this strategy, the major one being that the majority of your frontliners are either too wimpy (Oscar), too fragile (Titania), or just seem to be ridiculously popular target practice for Snipers (Boyd). In other words, Oscar's mediocre Strength has finally got the better of him, and he probably won't double attack much either, so he's usually stuck dealing 15 HP hits to anything that attacks him. Titania's defences are notoriously crap (hence why I prefer Kieran to her) and all it takes for her to die are a Worst Biorhythm, and three to four enemy hits at best. Boyd is still useful in this chapter, but Snipers always seem to target him above anyone else, and will either gang-rape him or one-shot him with a fluke critical hit. The main issue with this strategy (and the reason why I'm not going to bother wasting too much time on it) as that, around Turn 12 or so, your gang will be facing a ridiculous amount of enemies that just won't stop coming and WILL ALMOST NEVER ATTACK IKE LIKE YOU WANT THEM TO. That's right, even if Ike has the Provoke skill, they'll go for Oscar, Boyd and Titania first. The other downside is that's is harder for Soren and Shinon, the two best units in this team after Ike, to get as much experience as with Strategy B. Oh, and the Snipers that reinforce on the balcony ABOVE you will give you some fun, too. Strategy B: A personal strategy I cooked up myself. It involves Ike, Soren and Shinon bitch-slapping around 95% of the map, bare minimum. It involves climbing ledges almost immediately, and since Paladins can't do that's it's better just to leave Oscar and Titania out. If you want to bring Boyd into the final chapter, then use him in addition to Soren and Shinon. Your first order of business - get all of your party (bar Nailah, for the time being) up the ledge directly north of your starting point. Nailah should move east to kill the two Swordmasters lurking there, and head for the ledge on the following turn. Send Tormod west the meet up with the rest of your team, whilst Muarim and Vika blockade the ledge just south of them (Muarim should kill the Halberdier who Tormod wounded before the chapter began in the process), which they will abandon the following turn and head west. On the next turn, send Nailah up the ledge; Soren, Shinon and Boyd need to kill the enemies lurking outside the western treasure room, while Ike heads east to blockade. Over the following turns, progressively move Ike back west to the treasure room, still blockading, whilst Soren, Shinon and Boyd open the western treasure room and kill the enemies inside, and then move the majority of your party into the treasure room. Ike now needs to retreat all the way to the treasure room entrance so that he can blockade here - the reason he needs to do this is because there will be several reinforcements popping up directly south of the treasure room entrance. Place Shinon on the square behind him to assist in the killing. The Snipers that show up target Shinon over Ike, but don't pose much of a threat and Shinon should be able to two-shot them with a Silencer Bow. You're going to remain here for quite some time. Ike will be taking a lot of heat, the only enemies that are actually any kind of threat to him whatsoever are the Sages. You'll probably want to deploy Shinon if possible to kill the Sages. Now is a great time for Soren to make good use of the Blizzard tome found in the treasure chest. I also recommend you give him Tormod's Meteor tome. Eventually (by around Turn 17) there will be very few enemies left running towards you. Most of them will be the Meteor Sage's crew. If you rescued Rafiel like I said you should, the Meteor Sage will probably move on a square directly below you and attack Ike. Just use Shinon to kill him on the next turn. Soren and Shinon should kill the remaining enemies themselves - Ike's probably gained a boatload of level-ups anyway. It's all Soren and Shinon from now on. Send them east and kill off the lazy Generals who never bothered to come after you, and then start heading up the main staircase at the centre of the map. Beware - the Sleep Staff Bishop in Oliver's room will start trying to put your party members to Sleep at this point. Hopefully, he'll miss every time, but make sure Mist is nearby with a Restore staff handy, just in case. Either way, Shinon and Soren should be able to deal with the enemies in this area. Just don't provoke the enemies in the west, yet. Concentrate on killing all of the eastern enemies, opening the treasure rooms and maiming all the goons inside. I recommend sending Nailah to grab the rest of the treasure (unless you have Heather around). At this point in time, you'll probably have been playing the chapter for well over an hour, and with all of the heat having cooled off some time ago, chances are you're bored and just want to finish. Send Soren and Shinon, with Ike as backup, west to the final area. The only enemies that move to attack once you're in range are the Swordmasters, Warrior, Halbierdiers and, strangely the north-westernmost Bishop. Oliver will move towards Rafiel if you move him into his range, but Oliver will actually recruit himself into your army if you do so. Provoke these enemies first, and then move out to kill off the remaining Generals and Bishops with Soren and Shinon. As for Oliver, it doesn't really matter what you do with him. Recruit him or kill him, it's your choice. Chapter FINALLY over...with an even longer one coming up next. ------------------------------ Chapter 4-5 - Unforgivable Sin ------------------------------- Clear - Defeat Boss Defeat - Tibarn dies, Elincia dies NOTE - If you want to recruit Volke (which I recommend you do), you'll need to have 3,000 Gold going into the chapter. In an Info conversation before the final chapter, he'll give 20,000 Gold to Ike, so it's certainly worth the money. Plus, you could use the help. Although you only have to kill Izuka to clear the chapter, you'll need to plough through almost all of the Feral Ones to get to him, so it's similar to a Rout chapter. This chapter is the best in the game for handing out Experience. Strangely enough, the Dragon laguz give out the least amount of Exp. Watch out for the Dragons, Tigers and Hawks most of all. The Dragons have terrible Hit ratios but will knock off over half a unit's HP (with the exceptions of Tibarn and Kieran) if they do hit. All other Laguz have very good Hit ratios - the Tigers still hit hard, although at this point most of your third tier units should be able to survive two of their hits. The Hawks also hit hard, if not as hard as Tigers, and provide the additional threat of the mobility all flying units possess. Cats don't really hit your frontliners hard enough to justify being a threat, but they can finish off a unit who has already been wounded and also tend to attack in packs, so be careful. Ravens are very weak, but are still something of a threat due to their mobility, high Speed and Dodge ratios, and their somewhat irritating tendency to fly over your frontliners to attack Reyson. Treat them with caution. After every turn, Izuka will summon (i.e. warp in) four more Feral Ones. To make things more difficult, these Feral Ones will surround him, and will remain by his side until the following enemy turn, after which they will move to attack and he'll summon four more. He does this twenty-five times, all in the first twenty-five turns unless he's forced to Warp elsewhere. Thus, there are up to a 100 reinforcements on the map, in addition to the 55 starting enemies. Despite all of this, I rather enjoy this chapter. It's great seeing Nephenee, Mia and Kieran become even more uber due to all the Experience they suck up. Plus, it's one of my favourite chapters for storyline, too. At the start, immediately send your frontliners to kill the nearby enemies to the north. I recommend using Bastian for assistance. Send Elincia to where Volke is hanging about and recruit him, then use Reyson to help him get up north and assist the rest of your team. You will now be forced to split your very small group of frontliners into two to stave off attacks from both sides of the fork in the road. I like to send Nephenee, Mia and Volke up the western path so that they approach Izuka from the south, and Kieran and Tibarn up the eastern path so that they will curl around and eventually be approaching Izuka from the east. Elincia should hang around the middle to 'heal and run' should anyone need it, and Reyson should be waiting just outside the danger zone to Chant her when necessary. There's not much more to say, really. Move slowly towards Izuka with both groups. Although you'll mostly be defending, try to move a couple of squares further each turn. The amount of enemies charging towards you will seem nearly limitless at first, but they'll eventually begin to die down as the chapter wears on. By the time you're approaching Izuka, you will primarily be facing his reinforcements. He will probably warp somewhere else on the map if you get close enough - usually to the north-west corner or the eastern island, although he occasionally heads to the south-west. If he warps, continue to chase him down. The toughest part of the battle is already over, anyway. If you want to kill Izuka before he stops summoning laguz, send a flying or mounted unit to kill one of the Feral Ones surrounding him, and the move onto the now-open square next to him. He will attack you on the following turn. There are very few units you can do this with, however. I recommend using Tibarn. Izuka has a very high Magic stat, attacks with the most powerful (if inaccurate) spell in the game, and also possesses the skill Flare in Hard mode, which can possibly activate and may even kill a unit with weak Resistance. The last thing you'll want to do is start this incredibly long chapter again, and your units gain plenty of Experience anyway, hence why I recommend Tibarn, who can survive a Flared Balberith when at full health, to kill Izuka. If you want to wait until Izuka stops summoning Feral Ones before you kill him, just continue killing them off until he does, and then chase him down with Tibarn while the rest of your crew finishes off what's left (there shouldn't be much). Any Feral Ones left when Izuka is killed will simply die and the chapter will end. ----------------- Endgame - Rebirth ----------------- ------------ Preparations ------------ The Endgame is actually a massive five-part chapter. The first and third parts of the final chapter can easily be considered regular chapters in their own rights, and both are very long. The other three parts are shorter, but should still be taken seriously. Prior to the Endgame actually beginning, you will have access to the Base for the last time, so be sure to deal with anything you need to. Don't forget to read the Info conversations. After you exit the base, you'll finally reach the point where you have to pick your final chapter team. You can pick ten units in addition to the essential six - Ike, Micaiah, Sanaki, Sothe, Ena, and Kurthnaga. I highly recommend that two of your ten optional choices be Tibarn and Caineghis. I also recommend Giffca, who is just as awesome as Caineghis without the benefit of Formshift. Make sure that they have, or will have, their ultimate weapons by 4-E-3. You also have to choose a seventeenth member, which has to be one of the three Herons. The final chapter team I used (in addition to the weapons they wielded after Yune's blessing) when writing this walkthrough was: Ike w. Ragnell Micaiah w. Rexaura Nolan w. Tarvos Jill w. Urvan Kieran w. Custom Silver Axe (all stats maxed when created, Coin bonus was Hit) Nephenee w. Wishblade Soren w. Rexcalibur Shinon w. Double Bow Mia w. Vague Katti Caineghis Giffca Tibarn Reyson Sothe (only used in 4-E-1 to open the chest and get the Matrona) Sanaki (not used) Kurthnaga (not used) Ena (not used) Nasir (joined later, not used) Gareth (joined later, not used) Supports: Micaiah - Sothe Nolan - Jill Kieran - Tibarn Shinon - Soren Nephenee - Mia Ike had a Support with Titania, who didn't end up joining my final chapter team as her growths blew goats. I meant to pair him up with Micaiah, but forgot. I also meant to pair up Caineghis and Giffca, but they were running all over the place so often that there were few opportunities for them to stand next to each other for long. I personally prefer Reyson as my Heron of choice, although Rafiel is also good if you give him the Celerity skill. You don't have to use any of the useless units if you don't want to. Ike and Micaiah are the only two characters who you have to take into each sub-chapter and the only two characters who need to survive each chapter. Both of them are leaders and can each use the 'Order' command, although you've probably never, ever used that. Oh, and don't forget to purchase additional weapons before heading into the tower. The Wishblade, the Double Bow and the Rexaura are not obtained until you enter the tower, so Nephenee, Shinon and Micaiah will need at least one additional weapon until they obtain them (Micaiah will probably have one of her Thani tomes left with a decent amount of durability remaining). I recommend that all of your units (bar the Laguz and Ike, obviously) head in there with at least one additional weapon - you don't want those ultimate weapons running out of durability. DON'T FORGET TO GIVE MICAIAH THE FORTIFY STAFF. Give her Paragon too. Micaiah will be serving as your primary healer during the final chapter, but chances are she will need to chip in with the killings. Get her Light magic level up to SS in the first sub-chapter (either buy an Arms Scroll from Aimee's Bargains, if you have the cash, and use it as soon as she promotes, or give Micaiah the Discipline scroll). Her Staff level will need to be S by the final battle so she can use the essential Fortify staff, but she should hit this without much trouble using Physics (also available at Aimee's - you'll want at least two). I also recommend giving Micaiah a Silence staff - it will come in handy in the first sub-chapter. Make sure everyone has at least one set of Concoctions or Elixers each. As a final note, divide all of your good Skills as you see fit. If you picked up the Dragonfoe in 4-3, be sure to give it to someone as it will come in handy later. I also strongly encourage you to teach Pass to someone like Caineghis as it will come in very handy in the first two sub-chapters. -------------------------- Part 4 Endgame - Rebirth 1 -------------------------- Clear - Rout Defeat - Ike dies, Micaiah dies This is the last Rout map in the game. It's not exactly unobvious what to do here - your main force should barge north whilst a smaller number of your crew takes care of the eastern and western sides. The biggest issues here are Hetzel, and another Bishop with a Sleep staff. Hetzel is positioned where he always is - the north-east corner, surrounded by Generals. The Sleep staff Bishop is directly north of your starting position. There is an easy solution to kill both of them off, and it involves Caineghis with the Pass skill. Hetzel has both a Sleep staff and a Silence staff. However, if Micaiah is in his range, he tends to focus on Silencing her, rather than trying to put anyone else to Sleep. Equip Micaiah with a Restore staff and place her within his range. The Restore staff will just cure the Silence status if he hits her, and then he'll try again on the next turn. Ehehe. On the first turn, send Caineghis to kill one of the Generals to open a path north, then have Reyson Vigor him so he can storm north, pass through the enemy ranks with Pass, and kill the Sleep staff Bishop. Send Giffca up through the gap Caineghis created so that he can provide support in getting to Hetzel before turn 4. Using this strategy, you can get to him and kill him whilst he's still trying to Silence Micaiah. You should also be wary of the two long-range Sages. They are standing on single-square pillars surrounding by the chasm, meaning you can only use Bows, Magic, or other long-range weapons to kill them, although one must wonder how the hell they managed to get onto those pillars to begin with. Use Micaiah to Silence them if you don't have any Pass skills available. Unfortunately, Ike is Mr. Popular with Hetzel, the Sleep staff Bishop, and the long-range Sages due to his crap Resistance. If you don't have the Pass skill, Rescue him with Tibarn (or someone else with Savior) until they're all dead. Lekain can also be a problem. He behaves much like Izuka did in 4-5. In other words, he starts warping around like crazy when you approach him, usually retreating to the safety of the plaforms surrounded by pillars in the south-west and south-east corners. If someone with a ranged weapon (I used Nephenee with a Spear in this playthrough) is nearby, they can kill him on the turn after he warps, meaning he'll still have the Rewarp staff equipped instead of the Rexaura. He ususally warps to Defence + 10 squares, though, so make sure Reyson is handy or you have enough power to two-shot him. Remember to give the Rexaura to Micaiah, too. She kicks ass with it. Lekain's stats are respectable enough, plus he has the master skill Flare, but he shouldn't be too much trouble. One more thing about Lekain. Early on in the chapter, when your team begins to close in on his position, he'll hit everyone in his range with Silence. If Micaiah has a Restore staff equipped, she'll instantly cure herself of the status should she be in Lekain's range. If she didn't have one equipped and was hit, have her equip it the next turn for the same effect. Only cure Magic users and Staff users of Silence - physical units aren't effected by it. The Double Bow user can attack from both one and two spaces. Just kill him with Shinon from three spaces away and claim your prize! Aside form that, keep ploughing through the chapter. Reinforcements periodically appear in the north and south (usually a team of three Generals each time, although on two occasions a team of five Bishops will appear in the south). At the point when they are constantly appearing, Micaiah will probably need to join in with the fighting, so keep everyone healed with Concoctions/Elixers if they get seriously wounded. Thankfully, none of the reinforcing Bishops carry Sleep staves, including the three in the north. This is a long chapter in Hard mode. Be patient - once Lekain, Hetzel, the Sleep staff Bishop, and the two long-range Sages are dead, the chapter becomes rather easy. -------------------------- Part 4 Endgame - Rebirth 2 -------------------------- Clear - Defeat Boss Defeat - Ike dies, Micaiah dies NOTE - If Ike doesn't have the Nihil skill equipped, he'll need it now. This chapter is about as hard as you want it to be, really. You can either give Ike a Hammer, move south a little so the Black Knight can't attack you from a defensive square, and then two-shot him for the chapter to be over. Of course, if Nephenee's in your team (no other Lance users are final chapter-worthy), you'll want the Wishblade. Another reason why Caineghis + Pass is such a great idea for the final chapter. Since there are so many enemies here, and Ike simply can't two-shot the Black Knight on the first player turn (the Black Knight is standing on a defensive square, preventing Ike from two-shotting him with a Hammer), you might as well let your other team members grab a kill or two. If you don't have the Pass scroll, then Micaiah or Soren can two-shot Levail if they have any long-range tomes (Purge, Blizzard etc.). If not (probably the case), then obtaining the Wishblade is much more difficult. On the first turn, your entire party should move south a few spaces, so that your hard-hitters can barge forward towards Levail on the following turn. Levail is, unfortunately, standing on a Defence + 10 square, and nobody will be able to two-shot him, although most of your buffest bashers can one-shot him with a master skill. I recommend using Shinon - he has a ridiculous chance of either activating Deadeye or getting a critical hit if he has a good Biorythm, something like 50 - 60% I believe. Plus, he can attack from three spaces away, and you don't have to kill so many enemies to get to Levail. Ike should hold off killing the Black Knight until you've got the Wishblade. Once you have, kill him. He's far easier than he was in Path of Radiance, and isn't anything resembling a threat if Ike has Nihil and is standing on a Defense + 10 square. -------------------------- Part 4 Endgame - Rebirth 3 -------------------------- Clear - Defeat Boss Defeat - Ike dies, Micaiah dies NOTE - You should have three Nihils available at this point. Ike should have one, whilst the other two should go to Caineghis and Tibarn/Giffca. NOTE #2 - I recommend giving the Dragonfoe skill to someone like Nolan who can wield Bowguns. If you use the Arbalest, Nolan can one-shot every enemy on the map, bar Deghinsea. Although the Dragons mostly have poor Hit ratios, they hit HARD. Do all you can to avoid Dragons ganging up on one particular unit, as that unit will probably die. Red Dragons attack with physical power, whilst White Dragons attack with magical power. The best strategy at the start of the chapter is to kill all of the Dragons nearby in the centre area with a large portion of your crew, whilst sending smaller groups to the south- eastern and south-western corners to kill the Dragons hanging around in those areas. Your units in the centre area should avoid provoking any further Dragons until the surrounding ones are dead. Keep in mind that the enemies on Deghinsea's platform will NEVER move, including Nasir and Gareth (although they still attack if you move next to them), but everyone else will. The majority of the chapter will be spent in the centre area of the map. Dragon reinforcements constantly pop up in the north-east and the north-west, and, as reinforcements always do, will move towards you, although when they reach Deghinsea's platform they will not move further unless someone enters their range. There will also be one Red Dragon reinforcements in the south-east, and one White Dragon reinforcement in the south-west, on some occasions, so keep a unit in each corner to deal with them when they appear. All reinforcements should be dead by around Turn 16, by which time all of the initial Dragons, bar Deghinsea, should start Reverting. It's your choice whether or not you just rush towards Deghinsea or kill the lot of them. I recommend just going for Deghinsea, as Dragons give you crap Experience if killed when transformed, and there's not much point in hunting for additional Experience points at this stage in the game. When one of your units moves within an eight square range of Deghinsea, he will use an AOE attack that hits everyone within an eight square radius. Just pick a unit with good Defence and move only them into this range so that Deghinsea will only hit them, thus wasting the attack (he only uses it once). As for Deghinsea himself, he has crazy capped stats all over, regains 30HP every turn, and will almost always activate his Ire skill when battling a unit that doesn't have Nihil. He also has a hidden Nihil skill himself, so Master Skills won't save the day here. Attack him with Ike and your other two Nihil users, with Reyson chanting them all afterwards so that you can defeat him on the same turn. I also recommend attacking him with Shinon from three squares away (Shinon can never be counter-attacked from this distance). Nasir and Gareth will join your party if they survive this fight. Not that you care. -------------------------- Part 4 Endgame - Rebirth 4 -------------------------- Clear - Defeat Boss Defeat - Ike dies, Micaiah dies NOTE - Give Nasir's Nihil to a better unit. Either a Laguz Royal or whoever's wielding a powerful SS weapon such as the Wishblade or the Urvan. This is a simple chapter. All you have to do is barge southwards down the map towards Sephiran and kill him. The Spirit enemies aren't particularly powerful but you shouldn't underestimate them. They all have 30 Speed, so anyone with an Attack Speed of 34 or higher will double them (and probably two-shot them). The map is full of defensive squares, though. Be careful when approaching Sephiran. He uses a powerful AOE map attack when you approach him, which can kill any weakened units. He also uses a long-range attack to hit a single unit (usually Ike or, if they've been deployed, one of your Dragons). It's a Magic-based attack, and can knock well over half of a unit's HP off if their Resistance isn't great. He only uses each of these attacks once. Keep killing the spawning Spirits and moving towards Sephiran. When you reach him, kill the Spirits surrounding him before attacking him, or he will start redirecting your attacks to the surrounding Spirits. After every turn, more Spirits will warp next to him, so either try to kill him on the same turn that you attack him (which isn't that hard, really) or be prepared to deal with more Spirits. As for Sephiran himself, he has uber stats and hits very hard. He also has the Corona master skill, so attacking him with any unit that doesn't have Nihil (except for, as always, Shinon from three squares away) is risky, and, like Deghinsea, he is equipped with an unseen Nihil skill, so you can't one-shot him with master skill attacks. Even so, the combined power of Ike and your other Nihil users should be more than enough to take him out. This is a short map and will probably take you less than half an hour to beat. -------------------------- Part 4 Endgame - Rebirth 5 -------------------------- Clear - Defeat Boss Defeat - Ike dies, Micaiah dies NOTE - Lehran will join you at the beginning of this chapter if you deployed the Black Knight in 1-E and attacked the Black Knight with Ike in 3-7, which would have triggered Ike's memory scene after you killed the Black Knight in 4-E-2. Lehran joins with an Ashera Staff - very useful. He can also use the Rexaura and the Balberith. I recommend giving him the Rexaura as Micaiah will only be healing in this chapter, plus Lehran's hidden Nihil skill means he can attack the Auroras without retaliation. To get to Ashera, you will first need to dispose of the eight Auroras surrounding her, whilst taking her attacks. Her attack pattern is as follows: 1st Turn - Physical AOE attack on everyone 2nd Turn - Magical long-range attack on a single unit 3rd Turn - Magical AOE attack on everyone 4th Turn - Physical long-range attack on a single unit 5th Turn - Silence cast on the majority of your units Repeat cycle Her attacks generally deal more damage the closer you are to her, and for this reason her long-range attacks usually target your gang of Nihil-users cutting down her shield of Auroras (Ike seems to be the most popular target). For this reason, Reyson should adopt a 'Chant-and-run' strategy so that he doesn't take enough damage to get killed by Ashera's attacks. For some reason, Ashera doesn't Silence everyone on the map when she uses this attack, and strangely Micaiah and Soren always seem to be among the units that don't get Silenced. Micaiah should have a Restore staff handy just incase, though. This chapter is exactly the same as it is on the Normal difficulty, and the same strategy applies. Everyone with Nihil (four of your units, plus Lehran if you fulfilled the requirements to recruit him) should focus on killing the Auroras surrounding Ashera. If you attack them with a unit that doesn't have Nihil, then that unit will receive half of the damage it deals to them. Reyson should Chant your Nihil units so that you can kill the Auroras faster. Micaiah should focus on healing - using the Fortify staff after Ashera uses an AOE attack, and using a Physic or the Matrona staff on any unit who is hit by one of her single-target attacks. All other units should be ready to kill the constantly spawning spirirts that appear throughout the map. HINT - You can kill the Auroras with a unit who doesn't have Nihil and not take damage. Beware of the Spirits. They will try to heal both Ashera and the Auroras if they have taken any damage, so it is vital that you kill them. Both Ashera and the Auroras heal 40HP after every turn, too, so plan accordingly. Once all of the Auroras are down, attack Ashera. She hits hard, but should never be able to one-shot any of your units unless they have taken prior damage. EVERYONE can and should attack Ashera. She revives once after you kill her the first time, but it isn't particularly difficult to kill her completely on the same turn you gain access to attacking her. In order to finish off Ashera for good, you will have to kill her once, so that she revives. Then, cut her HP down to a point where Ike can one-shot her (he deals 20HP damage with one attack if his Strength stat is maxed out, which it should have been for quite some time at this point). Her HP needs to be at this level to trigger the cut-scene between Ike and Micaiah, and then Ike will kill her for good. Hail to the king, baby! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- CONGRATULATIONS! You have now beaten Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn on the Hard difficulty! Give yourself a well-earned pat on the back. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------- Epilogue and Records -------------------- After watching 45 minutes worth of Epilogue and staff credits, you'll finally get to take a look at your Records for this playthrough. As for mine...well, the records move way too fast for anyone to be able to write down the chapter time records, and most of the kill records, but here we go... The time it took me to complete the playthrough I based this walkthrough on was 56:36:51. My top five units were: 5th Kieran - 114 wins 4th Jill - 129 wins 3rd Nolan - 136 wins 2nd Ike - 151 wins 1st Nephenee - 174 wins I also managed to note: 6th Shinon - 109 wins, 7th Mia - 104 wins, 8th Micaiah - 79 wins, 9th Soren - 78 wins. -------------------------------------------------- Plotholes/unanswered questions/mysteries/fun stuff -------------------------------------------------- Here I will explore a few of the unanswered questions and mysteries in Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn. Just thought I'd do this for a little fun. Be warned - this section contains spoilers. --------------------------- The last Disciples of Order --------------------------- You fight the last group of the Disciples of Order in 4-E-2. However, you can win the cahpter without killing any of them, as Ike only needs to kill the Black Knight to progress. However, all previous chapters that featured the Disciples of Order required that you butcher the lot of them. Plus, the Disciples of Order from 4-E-2, are never referenced again in the storyline, not even just after you beat the chapter. I guess it's for storyline purposes that Ike killing the Black Knight ends the chapter. Therefore, it can be assumed that while Ike was dueling the Black Knight (which was much longer and tougher in the storyline than in the actual game, presumably) Micaiah and the others completely routed the remaining Disciples of Order. ----------------------- Wherever you will go... ----------------------- One must wonder where, exactly, Ike departed to after the events of Radiant Dawn. The only real answer is Hatary, although this would directly contradict the whole "he was never seen again" thing, as Nailah and Volug returned to Hatary. By his nature, Ike would have at least stopped by to say hello. Who knows, maybe relationships between Ike and Nailah soured after Nailah caught him staring longingly at her gigantic breasts, or something. Who knows? Then where else would he have gone? According to Tellius legend (which was pretty much confirmed by Yune), 800 years ago the Great Flood sank all other continents, bar Tellius. Unless Ashera raised Tellius's elevation to keep it above sea level, or somehow otherwise protected it, the other continents are still sunk beneath the sea, and even if this flooding was temporary, it would have completely wiped the life from these continents anyway. This would leave Ike, Soren and Ranulf shipping off to desert lands, resulting in their deaths. It is possible that the other continents weren't actually sunk, and it was all just a misunderstanding. They may even be the continents where the other Fire Emblem games are set. I guess it's all up to the player's imagination - the whole thing's rather vague. ------------- Micaiah's age ------------- Muarim mentions that Micaiah is much older than she looks. However, she can't really be that old. Lekain tells Sanaki that her sister (who turns out to be Micaiah) was supposedly assassinated, and when Micaiah talks to Muarim about her past, she mentions that an old woman raised her, so she must have been a young child at best (probably younger, as she shows no indication that she even remembers Begnion). However, this was only around twenty- three years before Radiant Dawn (not specifically stated in the game, but in Path of Radiance the Serences Massacre occurred twenty years before the game began, and Radiant Dawn takes places three years after Path of Radiance). Thus, Micaiah is at least twenty- three years old, but since she looks about twenty anyway this isn't really much of a difference. Also, if she was raised in Begnion during her early childhood, it's very probably that she would have remembered something of it. I guess it can be attributed to the whole Branded aging faster thing, but according to most conversations involving the subject of the Branded, the reduced aging only begins to occur during adulthood. It could possibly vary from Branded to Branded, hence why most characters who know of Micaiah's status seem to think that she's well over thirty. There's also the question of how old she was when she met first met Sothe, which was over ten years before the events in Radiant Dawn, and during the flashback scene where she explains to Ike how she met him. She looked about the same age as she does in the game - around twenty. Sothe would have been no more than ten, as he's looks no older than twenty (probably in his late teens in Radiant Dawn) himself. That would mean Micaiah is at least ten years older than him, thus resulting in her being at least thirty years old. Another contradiction. It's also strange that Micaiah and Sothe (canonically) marry after the events of Radiant Dawn. Micaiah is at least ten years older than him, and will also easily outlive him. Also, in Path of Radiance, Sothe clearly thinks of Micaiah as someone who is like a parent to him in the A level Support conversation with Tormod. I guess their view of each other changed after they met again. As for the age thing, perhaps when a regular Beorc has a 'union' with a Branded, he or she will also age more slowly. Who knows? And did Sothe become King of Daein by marrying Micaiah? In conclusion, Micaiah must be thirty years old in Radiant Dawn. Most direct references point to this, but other evidence (mostly Lekain's speech about assassinating her) proves that she can't logically be any older. ------------- Jill and Haar ------------- I find it strange that they marry despite the age difference between the pair being at fifteen years, probably more. Perhaps it's some kind of rad tradition in Tellius. ------- Dragons ------- Am I the only one who finds all the hype surrounding Dragons in Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn kinda annoying? In Path of Radiance, at least, they had decent stats, and the Feral One Dragons were genuine threats who you often needed to gang up upon to take down. In Radiant Dawn, however, they were incredibly slow, had terrible hit ratios, and only excelled in one area of Defence/Resistance and possessing very poor qualities in the other. It wouldn't be so bad if the storyline didn't go on about how deadly they were. In the main story, Chapter 3-13, Tibarn says he's not going to stand up to a Black Dragon. In the next chapter, we that Kurthnaga, who Tibarn was so terrified of, has useless stats and can easily be defeated one-on-one with any member of Ike's uber crew. Don't get me wrong, I like the Dragon characters, but if they're supposedly so damn badass at least make them live up to it. ----------------------------------------------------------- Deep in the Crimean dungeons, there be a Duke imprisoned... ----------------------------------------------------------- I for one would like to know what, exactly, became of Duke Ludveck. Seriously, as the main antagonist in Part 2, you'd think a small mention of his eventual fate would have popped up at some point, but it never does. His fate remains ambiguous. Since he was probably kept imprisoned throughout the rest of the game, we can assume he was either turned to stone during Ashera's awakening and restored to normal after Ike and Micaiah defeated her, or that he was powerful enough to avoid being turned to stone and ended up starving to death in prison. ------------- Sequel no. 2? ------------- Exapnding on the whole Ike heading off to lands unknown story... Many Fire Emblem fans seem to think that Ike leaving Tellius forever at the end of the game was a hint from Intelligent Systems of a third game in the 'Tellius series', involving Ike, Soren and Ranulf exploring new lands. It's nice to think there will be a third game, but looking at these facts, it's unlikely: - No other characters from Tellius, bar Soren and Ranulf, will appear, or it'll go against the statement that Ike was never seen again. This means that many other important characters from Tellius (Micaiah, Elincia, Tibarn etc.) won't be appearing unless Ike's somehow involved in whatever's going on without the others ever actually seeing him...who knows? To be honest, I thought Ike leaving Tellius was a bit weird to begin with, anyway. - They could have a game without Ike, but since he's the 'main' character of the Tellius series (Micaiah was only indirectly referenced in Path of Radiance and never appeared) it would be a bit of a disappointment. It's unlikely we'll get a game focusing on Micaiah as the sole main character. - According to Lehran in the Epilogue, it took 1,200 years for major discord to break out on Tellius once more, by which point all of the characters, with the possible exceptions of some of the Dragons, will be long dead. Perhaps the third game could focus on a new batch of characters, the descendents of the original Tellius crew. Stefan apparently founded a nation of Brandad after Radiant Dawn, so perhaps this nation is heavily involved in the new war. Perhaps they strive for Branded superiority and start a war to prove their point. Hey, that's actually a pretty good idea. EMPLOY ME, INTELLIGENT SYSTEMS! ----------------- The Plot, Overall ----------------- In comparison to Fire Emblem games past (most notably Path of Radiance), Radiant Dawn features quite an awkward plot which became a little too far-fetched by the end of the game. For the most part, I enjoyed the plot, Part 1 and Part 2 in particular. The majority of Part 3 was fine, although the whole "Daein has to fight or we'll be bitch-slapped by the Blood Pact" thing eventually got a little annoying. It was Ashera waking up and turning everyone into stone that I wasn't all too keen on. It just pushed things a little too far. I guess it was just to make things a little different, and it's difficult to see how the plot would have satisfied otherwise, but I thought the story in Part 4 was just overdone. The obvious exception was 4-5, as it had little to do with the rest of what was going on during Part 4. The plot, overall, also made the events of Path of Radiance seem really redundant. I didn't think it was a bad storyline, by any means. I just think it was a little overdone in the end. I really enjoyed Part 1 and Part 2. Part 1 because it was great to play as Daein being the good guys, for once. Part 2 because, although it didn't really have much to do with the rest of the game, it focussed on developing Elincia's character more (which is probably why it was added in), plus 2-1 felt really nostalgic, and reminded me of the early chapters in Path of Radiance (Where it could easily have fit in). Part 3 featured a mostly enjoyable plot, plus it featured some of the most enjoyable battles in the game (Ike's uber crew rampaging through hordes of under-levelled enemies on some of the best maps = win). Part 4 still had a pretty good story, if a little far-fetched. -------------- Copyright Info -------------- This Walkthrough is the property of Phoenix E. Griffiths. Any attempt to re-create this walkthrough without the owner's permission is a direct violation of this copyrighted material, and charges will be pressed. ------ Thanks ------ I'd like to thank the following people for giving me the motivation, or whatever, to write this walkthrough: - Me - Rich and Dennis of SuperCheats for hosting this walkthrough - Nintendo + Intelligent systems for releasing this great game, although I'd like to point out that you are also cocksuckers for releasing this game in Europe over a year after it had been released in Japan. Anyone who feels they can contribute to this guide in some form are welcome to e-mail me with their suggestions. I'll be happy to add the into my walkthrough and ad YOUR name onto this thanks list. R.I.P. Miika Tenkula
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