CK: For what it's worth, weapon ranks do matter a little for Corrin because higher weapon rank = more bonuses in combat, at least when you aren't at weapon triangle disadvantage. Not a huge deal but it's something.
I agree that I actually like BR's plot better despite CQ's vibe theoretically being more SF-friendly. Ah well, that's been ranted about plenty already. I forget, what bit of Garon plot did BR have that CQ didn't? I seem to recall Garon's plot being stupidly far more hidden than it needed to be, e.g. the bit about Young Garon imbibing way too much dragon's blood as part of a ritual which drove him crazy and rendered him susceptible to demonic dragonic possession or something. You'd think the story could be more open about that.
Rinkah & Scarlet are both more useful than they "should" be because Birthright has a weird paucity of axe/club users. Basically just those two, and a few people who get it on promotion but have a low cap on their max weapon rank (e.g. Master-of-Arms Mozu, Great Knight Silas). They're also some of the rare tanks that the BR team has, along with Azama of all people, and Ryoma for an evade-tank. Scarlet's also pretty cool on Leo's swamp curse map, since the curse doesn't affect Nohrians or something, and she's a flier in a swamp anyway.
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SF's Fire Emblem corner! I've played a little bit of a bunch of FE games for, I dunno, reasons. The one true series.
FE8: Was playing a scrub team vs. Eph mode a few months ago, but after clearing the Eph side, eh, I guess I funneled XP too efficiently or something, but the game was getting too boring & easy after the desert at Renais castle. Clearly I should challenge myself! I should try...
FE12: I tried Lunatic with a Female Archer naming Chris/Kris "Clarisse" and deciding that both Katarina & Clarisse were sent on the infiltration mission, but Clarisse had some multiple personality breakdown that resulted in her working for both sides, with "Klein" her evil half. (Yeah, I don't blame the FE Heroes localization team for changing this one up, the German players would have laughed way too much at the evil assassins Eine & Klein.) Sadly FE12 Lunatic Paralogues are really not balanced around you picking whatever crazy stylish set up you want, you just flat lose the stats war, and get told on Discord that neener neener people have done it with 0% growths on Lunatic Reverse (sure, with super-optimized setups and the occasional bit of save/reload abuse). Note that evasion is not really much of a thing in earlygame FE12, so hoping for lucky dodges is not a great strat. Started again one difficulty level lower on Maniac, and... holy shit this is still hard, but at least vaguely doable as a Female Archer (rather than a Cavalier, which is apparently the usual "best" Avatar unit for the Prologue). Like, we're talking eat casualties with massive cheating via the emulator load state button in Prologue 8 vs. Katarina. Okay, maybe later.
FE6: Well there was just a FEH banner for this recently, and I never played it on Hard. Played a little, and the enemy layout is not particularly inspired still with them making it a bit too easy to bait just a few units out at a time too frequently, but the enemy stats are definitely notably better, especially in bulk. Enemies now sport big tanky HP & Def values so they can sustain a pretty decent amount of beatdown before dying, which is okay when dealing with just 1-2 units at once (which the game usually lets you do), but might be dicey later. Also, Marcus is actually useful! Dang if giving him an Iron Sword lets him both hit, and also chip enemies down to single-digit health to feed the kill to real party members, and also help out for boss kills in C1-3. We'll see how C4 goes, with the hordes of cavalry in the open, and attempting to not get owned by Rutger...
FE Fates: Seeing Elf & CK's recent playthroughs, finally started up Lunatic Conquest (I played through Hard Conquest before), Branch of Fate start, and... promptly got my ass kicked on the first map, Faceless in the swamp. It was a pretty legit difficulty map even on Hard, and now the Faceless are sporting Grisly Wound and a few have the extremely horrible Seal Speed. Restarted, broke out the Path Bonuses, gave Corrin 2x Dragon Herbs (+2 to all stats) and a Boots (+1 Move), broke out Tonics for nearly everything for Corrin and a few for Jakob (F-Corrin this time, I did M-Corrin on CQ before, so Jakob time), and attempt #2 went much better via having Corrin just murder the Seal Speed units with a 2x Yato strike, which stops it from ever proccing. Still. Grabbed Mozu, Ice Tribe next. Will probably go Archer Mozu this run, that build seems helpful for boss-killing on Lunatic.
Wargroove - Okay, this isn't Fire Emblem, it's Advance Wars. Still. Nearly done the main campaign I think, on the fake final battle which is obviously not the final battle in C6 because you haven't settled up with the assassin who killed dad from stage 1 yet.