Table of contents

Introduction

Tools to exploit in FE 11

Chapter's experience

Key Characters I used

Forges

Turncount

Benchmark stats

Conclusion

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Introduction

FE 11 h5, I always couldn't get past the first three chapters, after watching dondon 151's lp discussion in the tactical guild chat in the fire emblem amino and mangs lp. I came up with an idea of what to do and what not to do.

From mangs lp, I learnt to use wolf AND sedgar, sure they have a shaky start but they turn into a juggernaut of sorts in the right class, eventually Wolf turned into a general while Sedgar became a hero, and also that I need to warpskip the last few chapters to have an easy or peaceful game.

From dondon's lp well I learnt to get past the first few chapters,especially chapter 1 and not to hesitate to use resources to your advantage.

From the tactical guild chat I learnt what forges to use and a lot of tips abt h5 like how the A.I worked, how much might I needed to forge on average and so on.

A few things I haven't seen dondon or mangs exploit are the triangle attack, mangs lost his est and dondon couldn't use growth units as he was doing a 0% growths ltc run, if you do h5 definetly do it, even Est one shots camus with a forged ridersbane at base which you will likely have.

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FE 11 has the following tools you need to exploit to have an easy time with h5:

Wolf and Sedgar, prepromoted units with insane growths, they do level up slowly,but once you get their levels up you can use them as juggernauts, reccomended in somewhat slower h5 playthroughs, general Wolf/ Sedgar is awesome while the other is a hero, so that you have a units who can kill stiff and still take a few hits

Warp, early on it was mostly silly stuff like raising wolf and sedgar but later on I kinda did dondon level warp skipping, I learnt that h5 needs warp if you want to have an easy time, just look at mangs h5 lp at the endgame if you need proof for what I am saying.

Forges especially effective weapons, ridersbane and the thunderbolt , I generally do +4 mt and + 10 hit, it hits well and has a reasonable funds investment

Triangle attack, you need Est, Palla and Catria to do it but trust me using the right weapon you should one shot almost any enemy if you can set it up.

Promotions, I did them a lot earlier than level 20, just so that I can reach some benchmarks and have an easier time, the only exception was Merric who I reclassed into a cleric and into a sage post promotion.

Lena makes a really good sage, promote her at the khadein chapter, use her enough to raise her tome rank to C rank and use an arms scroll to raise it to B rank to let her use the Aura tomez this is assuming you play somewhat slowly.

Starsphere and Lightsphere, especially the starsphere which preserves weapon uses for forges and regalia weapons, this is around the time I started to warpskip.

I sucked at diversion strats but it can definetly be helpful, just place a low luck unit as a bait since enemy A.I loves dealing damage to player units, which includes a chance to be crit by the enemy even if it's something like 1% crit.

Also enemies have forged weapons later on, they basically have a silver weapon's might, it's just extra damage, it can get dangerous if it's a weapon like a bow or a ridersbane.

I used to think that getting doubled by an enemy makes a player unit bad but afterseeing dondon exploiting Jagen and to some extent Wolf in my lp, I realized that I just needed units who can take hits and survive and it didn't matter if a unit got doubled or not.

Brave weapons are generally scary enough, but luckily I raised Wolf and Sedgar they made chapter 20 less scarier, funnily enough brave weapons aren't forged, it is something that a javelin damages Wolf while a brave weapon does zero damage, it was honestly amusing to watch Michalis do like 6 damage after doubling with a javelin.

Recommended weapon types:

Lances:

They have javelins, ridersbane which are effective against 80% of the enemies, they are pretty common you can buy them in midgame and a dracopike can deal huge damage to a manakete, but they are different beasts themselves.

Axes:

Handaxe, hammer which are effective against armors the second most common enemies buy a few early on, since I never really seen shops stocking hammers later on, poleaxes are the axe version of the ridersbane but you can buy them only in chapter 17 secret shops and you can buy only three which should last throughout the game.

Tomes:

They hit on res, almost every enemy has zero res, even Wendell will deal decent damage with a higher tome later on and also they have 1-2 range, which should let you hit on 2 range without a fear of counterattack most of the time.

Staves:

They are a huge source of exp and also most of the utility comes from staves, warp literally breaks the difficulty in h5 if it is used wisely.

I have noticed that most bosses can be attacked by three sides, four if you count flight at one range, you need to exploit this fact and deal quick damage to bosses in one round especially early on, later on it allows for triangle attack shenanigans. otherwise they tend to regenerate a lot of hp.

One or two save points across, more fire emblem games need this feature and not casual mode, I have got nothing against casual mode but I have gotten so used to resetting when a unit dies, that I do it even in casual mode. Definetly use them as benchmarks or if you plan to do something risky.

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Chapter's experience:

Chapter 1

Chapter 1 I got lucky with Jagen critting a lot. I killed the boss through chipping with ranged weapons. Chapter 1 is basically exploiting Jagen's silver lance while he's on a fort luring multiple pirates, you can use diversion strats to make sure a few pirates don't come towards Jagen, also exploiting 1-2 range on the javelin and the 2 range on Gordin's steel or iron bow should help you.

Chapter 2

Chapter 2 I relied on Jagen, Ogma, the fighters because they had relatively high hp and the terrain , it was a puzzle in itself. I needed Jagen to divert the pirates, archers and thieves I needed to block and kill, luckily they do next to no damage on units with high defense . Other units did get kills, but honestly I only used Caeda throughout the game.

Chapter 3

Chapter 3, I required Ogma and Navarre to choke the mountains they didn't do a lot of damage but I could switch around and exploit wta to block them until other units can kill the other charging fighters, that in itself was a herculean task, I needed to exploit all my 2 range options which included relying on inaccurate handaxes on not so skilled units like Darros and Javelins which had wtd, another thing which sucks from wtd, is that you lose all the bonus advantages like extra damage and hit and the worst part is that Jagen has a higher lance rank and he is your best unit for a while. I got Lena and the warp, the warp is gamebreaking but right now I don't really have any use for it. I'm stealing Mekkkah's joke of hymann being impenetrable.

The first three chapters were definetly hardest part of h5 imo.

Chapter 4

Chapter 4, I was glad that I could buy heal staves in this chapter, also I could forge weapons and I immediatedly forged Caeda's wing spear which will help in the next few chapters , I reclassed Ogma into a fighter so that I could use him later on as a hero well that plan didn't work out because of Sedgar becoming a juggernaut later on and Barst having better growths . I regretted making Jagen a dracoknight because I kinda lacked bait for horsemen. Also I got merric, I was glad that I had him because he can hit really hard with excalibur at 2 range to boot, unfortunately he couldn't take more than one hit either. Also chapter 4 has an arena, just avoid the arena in h5, you need to have an insane amount of luck to beat it, it was amusing to watch it in Mang's lp on Ogma tho.

Chapter 5

Chapter 5, I forged the ridersbane dropped by the boss and named it Jagen, while the wing spear is exclusive to Caeda but ridersbane can be used by any unit with a C rank in lances, good forges are weapons like ridersbane in general. Also I got Wendell a prepromoted sage, Wolf and Sedgar, Hardin who had B rank in lances like Jagen but he couldn't reclass into the dracoknight class which made Jagen stay in the party for a while. After chapter 3, lances become more common which makes axes offered by dracoknight better than the paladin with swords, they also offer flight which can let the unit bypass most terrains.

The best thing abt Wendell is that he has 13 speed, that should last him a while and also he can double stuff right off the bat, also he can use staves that Merric can't do while he can use off Excalibur and every tome right off the bat, he can wield most tomes without being weighed down, bolganone and thoron weigh him down by only one point, the only tome he can't use is Aura, which is locked to female mages anyway.

Chapter 6

Chapter 6 was a fortess chapter and it was lucky that I had new units. I reclassed Wolf to general and Sedgar to Warrior, I felt that the warrior was more bulky and it dealt relatively higher damage, also it had one to two range at base compared to the hero , they weren't invincible but they did be much needed bait, also chapter 6 was my first warp use, I just used Abel and the forged ridersbane to kill off cavaliers and also kill and block off the escaping thieves, Wendell was very useful, if you wanted to ask my favorite prepromote it would be wendell, staff utility is so good that Wendell nevers needs to be benched especially if the game has infinite staff range for a ranged staff. the only thing wendell would lack is that he wouldn't heal full hp later on but by then you have multiple healers and even the recover staff.

The best part is that Wendell can chip the boss and Merric gets the kill and the bosses don't even have a javelin and come in with a silver lance, this should go on for a few chapters.

Chapter 7

Chapter 7, I was glad that I made Sedgar a warrior, Sedgar can use bows and all my current bow units are bad anyway, anyway here goes my second warp use, I put Wolf on the fort that spawns the ridersbane cavalier, those cavs can even one shot paladin Jagen but luckily Jagen is enjoying his new dragon mount, I had to give wolf a few vulneararies but on the bright side giving him levels is worth it in the long term. I could warp skip and orko with Caeda,but I didn't have a second warper and also Marth needs to get Bantu and do other stuff.

Chapter 8

Chapter 8 was the port town, I changed Sedgar into a general, and I used a book from Mang's lp, he warped Wolf onto the fort, I took it a step further and made Sedgar go on the other fort next to wolf on the next turn, people might say that's a huge waste of warp but the game is generous with warp and ironically I didn't want to spam warp unless I had to do it , raising Wolf and Sedgar was the solution to it.

Radd and Caesar did shopping for tomes and staves. I really like blizzard tomes they don't weigh a ton, have relatively decent amount of uses and deal decent damage to boot.

Chapter 9

Chapter 9 was the dragon island. I'd like that wrymslayer but no one on my team had C rank in swords, I changed Sedgar into a hero so that I could have a unit with swords and someone fast enough to kill pirates and take one or two hits for the team if needed. Joining the party is Jeorge, Jeorge is a mixed bag of sorts, on one hand I really appreciate B rank bows and two range but with stats like that and slow exp gain. I will have to drop him at some point even if it is good for this chapter and the next few, I will take any good unit since most of my teams are scrubs anyway. Right now it's mostly Wolf/Sedgar parade anyway.

Chapter 10

I took a different approach from what I usually do but it's my first time playing this far in h5 anyway, normally I'd leave a knight or general on the outside fort but this time, after killing all the charging cavaliers, pegasus knights and wyvern knights, I put most of my units inside the fort, I sent Wendell and a hero Sedgar along with two units to act as bait for the archers and sniper with the silver bow.

It was lucky that Caeda was fast enough to not get doubled by the hero near the door, I'd be surprised if Caeda got doubled tho unless the enemy had a brave weapon or if it's late game, cause her speed growth is something like 90% and she comes in with like 10 to 12 speed base in chapter 1. The only thing that made her bad was her hp was crap, low strength which is rectified through her personal weapon, the wing spear and her promo gains and that pesky archer weakness that fliers have.

But funnily enough the hero went for sedgar because his luck was crap, maybe I don't suck at diversion strats after all.

Also Minerva joins the team, a few things abt Minerva is that she comes in with A rank in axes, which means access to all axes and extra 15 hit compared to most axe users, also she can fly and has decent bases if you get lucky with two speed procs throw her a speedwing and she should double most of the game, the benchmark for most of the game until Altea atleast is around 16 and I noticed that when Mangs chose Samson over Arran in chapter 16, there are four more chapters and starting from chapter 20, you are much likely to have an easier time warpskipping some portion of the map. She also has her flaws her hp is crap and she comes in with D rank in lances, honestly she'd be the best unit at this point if she would come in with C rank in lances that means instant access to ridersbane and dracopike, two very important weapons.

She eventually drops off but it will be a while, because it takes a while to get A rank in axes and even then flying hammer is somewhat irreplacable.

Chapter 11:

Chapter 11 was the knorda town, I'm glad that I promoted Caeda here, because 10 mov meant I could recruit Jake without resorting to warp.

Here's where flight comes to advantage, I could chip down a few mercenaries using Minerva and Caeda, Jagen would join in but he's kinda dropping off at this point and I need to find a replacement.

Again this chapter relied on Wolf's tankiness as a general, in fe 11 and fe 12 somehow I completed the prologue and that's a huge achivement because fe 12 prologue is a puzzle in lunatic and above, it gets simple once you get the hang of it, still it's a very specific puzzle for the most part , high defense is REALLY valuable, dodge is kinda crap in the Archanea games and relying on it is a mistake for the most part, the lowest I have the hit rate go in my fe 11 h5 playthrough was somewhere between the 50's and the 70's.

Chapter 12:

I had to break my warp staff to save Macellan and Dolph, I don't even know why I did that considering that they are bad units. Midia and Boah.

I'll be honest I was really looking forward to use Boah and Midia because Midia had C rank in lances and 50 growth in speed and that's kinda high for a playable unit, the only catch is that's she's a paladin and had Jagen's bases and even then Jagen is better because of B rank in lances, I tried using her but it didn't work out as I expected to and I had to drop her . Boah was a bishop with B rank in tomes which meant excalibur and C rank in staves, idk why I didn't use him, perhaps I didn't have enough slots for him or that I was pretty happy with Wendell and Lena and also I didn't use Merric as much as I wanted to.

Anyway I warped Abel near the paladin boss, killed him with the Jagen(forged ridersbane). The rest of the chapter was basically baiting and killing out enemies and accumulating the treasure chest and the game's really generous with the silver weapons which I honestly appreciate.

Chapter 13:

The wooden cavalry, I tried recruiting Beck with warping Marth but that didn't work well, first the thunderbolt didn't one shot ballisates and Beck and Marth would die in a few hits.

This was when raising both Wolf and Sedgar pays off, I kept one of them on the left and the other on the right.

Fending off the thief was easy with a dracoknight Caeda and a javelin.

Also I promoted Barst in this chapter, having an 18 speed hero was something I could dream off at this point and I took it. I reclassed Merric to cleric because I realized that he would gain more exp. healing anyway and it would translate into excellent staff rank as a sage or a bishop.

Recruiting Astram took me a few tries, first I equipped a steel axe with barst and he ORKOed him, next an iron sword but I got unlucky and he hit killed as he was advancing to the boss, the third time I unequipped Barst's weapon and let Astram come to Barst.

I outstalled the thunderbolt ballistae and healed both Wolf and Sedgar and they advanced. It was simple after that.

Chapter 14:

I was glad that I promoted Barst because this guy can orko a lot of enemies using cheap weapons.

I made Sedgar into a beserker to water walk and kill off a few knights to make it easier for Caeda to charge and kill off the cavaliers and the approaching thief. I brought in Astram hoping that I could use him also I didn't have any sword unit with B rank in swords and very few fast units. Also I was partially excited by that 50% strength growth.

I baited and killed the archers by choking with wolf and killing with hero barst.

I recruited Palla and Calla and I will be using them, they will need some investment like energy drops or the speedwings but they are definetly worth it.

Palla comes in at level 8 with B rank in lances and 55% strength growth her speed growth in kinda crap but her base speed is decent enough.

Calla comes in at level 5 with C rank in lances and slightly lower bases than Palla, however she has better growths than Calla.

Chapter 16:

Here's where I promoted Lena and changed her to sage, why sage you ask, sages have three strength which gives them better speed than the bishop while wielding heavier tomes. Also Lena already had A rank in staves and sages have D rank in tomes which gives her better tomes like blizzard and makes her have closer access to the Aura tome.

I let Lena kill most of the mages, it was easy since she orkoed with the blizzard tome and she could take a few hits with a pure water.

Chapter 17:

It was a castle town of Altea, I took care of the thieves with the ballistaes, I had to get the warp and the manaketes were particularly hard, general wolf could lure them in Palla's dracopike , the ballistae took care of the mage near the treasure room.

Afterward it was basic bait and switch and giving Catria and Palla as many kills as I can.

I bought some poleaxes, killer axes, killer lances, dracopikes from the secret shop.

Chapter 18:

Est joins in this chapter, she joins with a ridersbane, with Palla, Catria and Est the three of them can do a triangle attack, should they choose to do it, with the triangle attack, it is a basically guranteed critical hit.

Anyway with Xane, I get a second Wolf for a few turns, with a second Wolf I can tank a bridge pretty effectively.

Along with hero Sedgar, I sorta have a three juggernauts team, and my main team is kinda set.

Finally I killed the boss, with a triangle attack with Est

Chapter 19:

Fane of raman is fairly simple use wolf, and the pegasus sisters to kill most of the enemies, hero sedgar can orko archers, hunters and snipers

Anyway Marth and Julian collected some treasure while the rest of the army clear off the enemies or recruit Tiki if it was Bantu.

Chapter 20:

This was the first of the chapters I did fairly quickly, I exploited the starsphere's gimmick and gave it to Beck and Jake who traded it as they killed off enemy ballistae of which four exist. I had to hurry to the visit the village with Marth but brave lance/sword paladins can easily orko units with low hp and def and it did slow down Marth's advances along with the ballistae placement.

I exploited the triangle attack twice one to kill Camus and the other the devil sword thief. After which I warped Caeda to kill off the brave lance general, while keeping my distance off the reinforcements who also had brave weapons I did kill off a few before Marth was warped to the gate.

Chapter 21:

I warpskipped this one, I gave Caeda her forged wingspear and a starsphere to orko the paladin boss after which I warp skipped the map.

Chapter 22:

I warpskipped this one, however Michalis was tough and I gave Wolf the Gradivus and starsphere, so that he can survive multiple turns against Michalis and his cronies. Eventually Michalis went down tho it was funny to find Michalis doing 3 damage and doubling wolf, which meant that Wolf took like 6 damage per turn.

At the end Marth was warped to the throne.

Chapter 23:

I gave Caeda the starsphere and Gradivus, she orked the bishop boss and I warped Marth to the throne.

Chapter 24:

I noticed that Dracoknight Palla, Catria and Est can triangle attack with ease, I made a dracopike forge and definetly took advantage of that, while I warped Marth to the throne and Julian off to the chest which had the aum staff.

Endgame:

This was a one turn but I had to reset multiple times that I eventually used savestates, once I figured out the puzzle it was easy.

I had two warp staves, one had one use and the other had 6 uses, I gave the 6 use warp staff to Wendell, whose group had Lena, Tiki and Elice who is probably the only one who could use the aum staff without reclass.

It took me a while to figure out the position in which I had to ressurect Tiki and still warp her with Lena while trading off the warp staff from Wendell.

The thing that sucks abt Tiki is that she has some shaky accuracy against Medeus which meant I had to reset a lot and eventually use savestates and try out different actions so that she could hit the second time as the rn changes

Here's what I did:

Geosphere use

Fortify with Gotoh

Geosphere use

Warp Palla and kill the manakete blocking Medeus

Warp in Tiki with Wendell

Attack with Tiki

Ressurect Tiki with Elice in front of lena

Trade warp staff with Lena

Warp tiki

Hope that tiki hits Medeus again

And that's the end of h5.

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Key characters I used

Wolf/Sedgar:

They are essentially my juggernauts throughout the game once they got the levels to offset their bad bases.

Wolf was a general while Sedgar changed into multiple axe wielding classes and the general until he eventually settled into the hero vocation

Jagen:

I used him until like chapter 10, where his lance rank and flight were invaluable, it was too bad that his stats kinda dropped off.

Minerva:

Flying hammer and axes were immensely helpful.

Wendell:

He could chip enemies early game and fall back to staff utility later on.

He's one of my favorite prepromotes.

Merric:

He could chip with Excalibur and eventually went to staff utility like Wendell and is my only unit during this run that promoted at level 20

Lena:

She started with staves and I knew that I didn't regret promoting her at the khadein chapter where she could orko mages and take back relatively less damage through her high res and pure water/barrier. Also she can use Hammerne.

Also sage Lena with one weapon rank and an arms scroll can use the Aura tome which I didn't do because I did a mistake by raising Caeda's sword rank to B as a swordmaster.

Caeda:

She's essentially my offensive force and a boss killer because of her personal weapon the wingspear and the fact that 80 percent of the enemies are cavaliers, knights or their promotions . However h5 had relatively good enemy quality compared to most of the other games at their hardest mode even if they stagnate at the midgame, she couldn't take hits tho, eventually she changed into a paladin once she capped speed as a dracoknight.

Marth:

My convoy and treasure chest collector for most of the game, sometimes Julian would pick up chests instead to save time or if Marth couldn't be near the treasure chest for some reason.

The pegasus sisters Palla, Calla and Est:

Their triangle attack was used for killing bosses and they could kill any unit with the right weapon without eating a counter attack, you could say that I exploited this a lot and even the worst sister which is est is usable because of the triangle attack .

I couldn't use this later on a lot because of warpskips but I like the triangle attack.

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Forges:

Wingspear

Hammer

Ridersbane x 2

Arrowspate

Thunderbolt

Dracopike(+ 5 mt and + 20 hit)

The rest of the forges were +4mt and +10 hit.

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Turncount

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Benchmark stats:

I think that the benchmark speed for h5 is 16, you can double most enemies and still not get doubled by most enemies, of course if you have to double almost every enemy you need like 22 to 24 speed. Manaketes are pretty fast enemies in most cases tho and I haven't really seen my units doubling one in my h5 playthrough.

Killing enemies is somewhat easy if you can manage your funds and get a forge, 80 percent of the enemies have a exploitable weakness which you can take advantage of.

You will need units who can take next to no damage or alteast take multiple hits especially if you do a warpless run or need to conserve warp uses.

1-2 range is particularly valuable or alteast having a 2 range is nice, this is so that a unit can hit back without the fear of getting hit by the enemies attack, fe 11's dodge is atrocious and relying on it is a mistake especially on h5 , this is one of the reasons why lances, axes and tomes are valuable, and bows help to some extent too.

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Conclusion:

H5 is one of the fire emblem difficulties I enjoyed when I got past the rough early game.

Like most games on hard mode, the early game is definetly your hardest part of the game.

I definetly needed to exploit every tool that the game provides like reclasses, forges and the triangle attack which I wouldn't likely do at a lower difficulty.

I am glad that I finally beat one of the hardest difficulties in fire emblem.

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#Izanasees