The Batlord

Well, I don't know if you did or not, but never upgrade someone until they're level 20. It's a waste of ten levels. With the tower you don't have to worry about going into battle with weak characters besides the first few missions, so always, always, always hold off until your character is level twenty. No exceptions. You won't be able to max out their stats until they're upgraded though.

That would be a lot more helpful with the first GBA Fire Emblem game, but this one you still might have to backtrack. First, you're going to want to save every single time your character is about to level up. And when they do, I generally don't accept any level that doesn't have at least three stat increases, but depending on where their stats are at, and if I really need one or two specific stats, I might be more flexible. It's been a while since I played this game, so I don't remember exactly how the system works, but I know that often times the stats will increases the same way if you play a battle the same after restarting it. Defeating a different amount of enemies before you level up can change the way your stats increase after a restart, and I'm sure there are other ways too. The real problem though is that often you'll be able to do nothing different to change the way your stats increase, and this is when you need to learn the art of restarting. It's been so long that I don't remember how it works, but I remember that the first time you restart after playing through once, stats will increase differently, but I think they will stay the same after a second restart. But if you restart, go into the battle, restart again as soon as you start, and then do it all over again, things will change again. I know there are a million tricks to do all of this, and it's mind-numbingly frustrating and time-consuming to get it all down, but when it all works it's hella satisfying. It's really just a matter of patience, and I mean a lot of patience. Like, mega-grinding in Pokemon or Final Fantasy kind of patience.

You also need to know what their max stats are for their upgraded form too, as without that you're basically guessing what stats need upgrading the most at first. Also, don't be so concerned with just getting your attack stat or other "cool" stats. A character's specialty stats (i.e. defense for a knight or magic for a mage) will generally max out on their own so long as you make sure that every level gets three or more stat increases. The important ones to look for are their slow-increasing stats. For some this won't be too much trouble, but for others this can be like torture. I honestly don't remember if it's even possible to get your Wyvern rider, Cormag, to max out his luck. It takes forever to get even one point increase, and you may need to get one every single level just to be able to max it out. It's miserable.

Don't worry about the second floor. Only the first floor. For whatever reason you get a lot more experience on the first floor than with most of the other floors, so you're just wasting time going past it.

My strategy for leveling is pretty much set in stone: start with one character only (if he's a non magic-user or archer), and only give them iron weapons to conserve money. It's also useful to give them iron weapons because you get more experience for killing something than just for hitting it, and you'll want the slower stat increases so that you can get as close to a hundred experience as possible. Your goal is to make it so that your next hit will level up no matter what happens. Then save. You'll also want to put them in one of the two corridors to either side of you (on the first floor of the tower obviously). You want to limit each turn to one battle as much as possible. You don't want to fight five guys at once, level up, get ****ty stats, and then have to restart and fight all those guys over again when you can just take them on one at a time and only worry about fighting just the one after a restart. This also helps you control the outcome of each battle after a restart. Variables in combat are your enemy.

When you do level up, and you're satisfied with your stat increases, then exit the tower. If your guy is high level and you don't have to worry about leveling up if you finish the floor, then you may not have to do that, but you should definitely keep an eye on your experience. If you level up twice in one battle, get ****ty stats the second time, and then restart, you lose the good level. Always make sure to safeguard a good level up.

And if you have a ranged character, or magic user, get another character with high defense to block the enemies in the corridor so that your other character doesn't get butt****ed. You should also remove your tank's weapon to keep them from destroying all the enemies. Obviously they'll still get one experience point per battle regardless, so keep an eye on their experience too. I feel like I might be forgetting something...

I can only think of two more things to mention. One, it should go without saying, but don't worry if your character is really low level and you have to pull them out of battle after only one or two attacks. It's grinding. You do what you gotta do. Secondly, if you care about support conversations this is also the perfect time to build them up. If you stick with that you can get everyone's support **** done by the end. Unfortunately you can only have five support conversations per play through though, so you'll still have to play through the game several times to get all of that completed.

Learn from my wisdom and countless hours of experience, young padawan. If you have any other questions then just ask. I can talk about Fire Emblem all day.

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