The only forge you need is iron dagger +4 for Yunaka to be invincible

Early game on even just hard felt like my units struggled at times, so i definitely think early forging and stat boosts are worth it to give them a little extra wiggle room until their stat growths kick in. Especially because all stat gains from forging and consumables are a flat amount, those extra stats are more impactful early than they are later on

In my experience playing Hard Classic, the start of the game is where it's rough and where forging can be really useful. I would say that getting your Iron weapons to atleast +2 or +3 would be a worthwhile and minimal investment. Alear's Liberation is also low investment and a solid sword I stuck with the entire game. Daggers get huge returns on forging and Tomes don't really but being able to upgrade your tomes to the next tier via forging "???" Is also really powerful. Don't forget to engrave those weapons too really go all out on a weapon for each of your good units. When you approach the endgame you can just invest again in a Killer/Silver weapon. As long as you fill your stable with dogs and check each cleared map for shinies on the ground and collect what your dogs dig up in the Somniel you should have the resources. Aside from that I bought staves and seals with my money. I also donated to each country lv3 when the costs started getting too much and TBH I feel like I didn't get any worthwhile returns on that, infact I would say it's a huge money sink and would singlehandedly alleviate any money issues in the game if donating was stopped at lv2.

Ingots are a resource I think are far worse off in terms of availability. Weapon drops you get during maps that you don't need are just easy money. Forging should be looked at in terms of what cost in ingots it will be rather then gold. If I needed money for a staff or something else I almost always had a useless weapon gathering dust in the convoy.

And then there's Libération. The only sword MC will ever need for the majority if not all game if you max it out. Easiest forge decision ever and not expensive in the long run.

if you're having trouble with armor enemies, remember that adding 1 might to an armor slayer/ hammer is essentialy +3 damage against armor. and effective weapons are still useful in the endgame,

I really like upgrading steel weapons. I feel like at +3 they are really strong after that first weight drop. My faster characters still double with them and at max they are normally either the same weight weight or +1 with about 4 or 5 more damage and some added crit.

Not a huge deal, but there’s a typo in the thumbnail! It should be “too”, not “to”.

I like primarily using lower quality weapons, mainly javelins and hand axes. because I love that extra range. I also love long bows. I like forging them so they can be stronger and cooler. I know I should probably use better weapons because there is no weapon durability, but I will keep using them for as long as I can. I also tend to hoard stat boosters. I like to wait until my units are promoted so I have a better idea of who needs what, but I usually end up forgetting about them and only remember at the last map. I do intend on giving the dancer my dlc boots when I get him though. I may not play optimally, but at least I'm having fun.

I forged an iron Lance +5 for Chloe and I still use it at times and I’m on chapter 23. It has enough MT to make a difference and it’s light enough to let her double certain enemies the heavier weapons wouldn’t.

I thought forging was useful but I think one has to be cautious of using Silver - you are even more limited in that than gold, or at least I was. I was abusing the dogs for most of the game and I only really got +2 on my end-game weapons. +5 seems out of the question, whether you are hoarding or not. It has to be said, some weapons are pretty cheap to upgrade. Anything that doesn't require Silver that will help you out dramatically should be a top priority. I would focus on giving forges for characters who are naturally fast but suffer from low strength (thieves, merrin, alear, chloe, alcryst) or characters that don't double to give them a little extra oomph (ivy, louis). Someone like Diamant can probably live without them, but I think Killer weapons are pretty cheap to upgrade so maybe there is a case for that too. I think forging can be really good on characters with low build because upgrading weapons is often not smart because they take on extra weight. These characters are pretty crap if you don't forge them weapons to make up for their low strength and build.

I think that preparing for end game doesn't really mean much if you don't get there to begin with. I'm still currently on my first playthrough on chapter 23 and I started on maddening. Only thing I forged early was alears sword and that was it, I didn't really start forging or really engraving until like chapter 14. No really reason for not doing it I just didn't, probably because I didn't know what to forge and trying to figure things out. now I have a +4 of each killer weapon (besides lance) and panette is one rounding stuff half dead herself.

Iron forges are absolutely worth it for a number of weapons; the vast majority of the army doesn't have enough Build to hold even Steel weapons without penalty and Iron forges are lighter, slightly more accurate, and can easily hit higher Mt than a base Steel weapon for pretty low material costs (Iron is a pretty abundant material and you can even downtrade higher metals for a little more). On Maddening my main squad sports mostly Iron+1 (+3 for Bow and Dagger) weapons with relevant emblem engraves and I almost never have a reason to use out-of-the-box Steel, leaving plenty of room for items, staves, and specialty/ranged weapons.

Early game i forged the short knife for yunka to plus 5 and then added micaiah's effect (I think) to give it way more avoid. I dont think i had enough money to do it for the iron dagger. So for chapter 11 I had yunaka in the bush and the enemies couldn't hit her. I still use it late game. I forged the compact axe just so Vander and boucheron could hit enemies ealry on. I rarely use the compact axe now but it definitely helped early game so would recommended forging the compact axe to get guaranteed hits.

I'm playing on hard/classic and I'm on ch 23 and I've only donated each place once just to see what happens and I haven't noticed much but I haven't been doing skirmishes either

Im still only halfway through my first playthrough but getting iron arts scroll to +2 made a huge difference for me early on. I think early game as long as your arent blowing your silver ingots, its only helpful to give your units more to work with. But Id agree spending gold on donations so far has felt like a huge waste

Vander with S-Rank Elincia ring was fantastic for training on maddening. I do wish that Mercy was an action, so he could kill if needed, but otherwise, If you're already confident dealing with the enemies, he'll make if so much easier.

Worth it for the main characters and their primary weapons. Forging is the only way to improve stats until the item becomes available to purchase. And forging allows you to upgrade to that ??? item before it’s available in the store or dropped as loot. So yeah, I think it’s worth it. What else am I going to spend money on? Clothing?? 😂

Donations are NOT worth it. Maybe you donate once to each so you can adopt the various animals, but otherwise they're huge money pits

I needed a bit of forging early to get through some early stuff. But was so expensive, which is where my skirmish addiction started lol

After playing trough the game multiple times i figured out that forging short, iron and steel weapons (at least to +4 or +5) is a total waste of resources, since soon after you unlock a better weapon before the extra damege from forging is necessary, so the weapons that are worth forging to max from the moment you get then are: 1: Weapons with enemy effectivness like armorslayers, poleaxes, hammer and rider'sbane, since they have high value early game and don't lose value in lategame. 2: Good Longer ranged weeapons, like tomahowk, spear and longbow, since they don't lose value at any moment. 3: liberation and the weapons from the fire emblem heroes event, since they have their own unique bonuses that don't lose value even on lategame and tend to be light. 4: high crit weapons, like killer weapons (not wu dao couse it's way nerfed compared to 3 houses) couse they are more valuable then almost any silver weapon, especiale when engraved. 5: all daggers, especialy silver daggers, daggers get 2 mt for every level unlike most other classes that get 1mt. These weapons will both ease your way on the early game and have their value on endgame, meaning they're all worth the investment.

I feel bad about using it to upgrade iron weapons, however using it to get early levin swords, silver weapons, etc... Or even javelins/hand axe upgrades because i don't like the weight on spears/tomahawks

I haven't done a spreadsheet on it yet but imo steel and killer weapons are the best bang for your buck. A steel weapon +3 is comparable to a base silver weapon but with additional crit, and is probably more optimal for anyone with high dex. A silver weapon +1 is more than enough for high build characters that can use the extra hit. Regarding forging to the next tier, there's one place it's absolutely worth it, and that's giving Louis a silver greatlance ASAP. Also worth noting that going to just +1 gives steel an extremely cheap +2 Mt, and gives special weapons like armorslayer or Levin Sword a very cheap +1 Mt and +5 hit.

I'm about midway through a Hard Classic run, and up until my current chapter, I only used the forge to give Liberation enough might to out damage Steel Sword. Now I'm constantly getting surrounded by silver weapons while I'm still only able to buy steel. Now I gotta grind gold so I can upgrade those steel weapons (and a few effective weapons) high enough to compete with them.

I see your point but the problem with using vander is that team slots are limited and so is xp. Sure vander could be a good tank that weakens enemies to set up for a kill but each round of combat could've been used on another unit that could make better use of that very xp.

I +5 forged my slim weapons for my high speed units. They double most enemies, even those annoying high speed dagger units, and can 1 round some enemies. Definitely not gonna donate early game. Not until I want the legendary weapons. Especially on maddening since you get way less skirmishes Also doing +1 to some weapons grants 2 mt which is pretty huge. I agree with giving Vander a compact axe (or even a hand axe). Just having a second wall with Louise makes things so nice. Also using celica/micaiah's engravings to make the weapons even weaker.

For fast units a lot of the powerful weapon are heavy so they have to use iron to double so improving those are good for them regardless on maddening

nice

I am almost at the end of my first hard playthrough. Made loads of mistakes and can’t wait to go through again with better knowledge on hard to see the difference. I intend to have a “maxed” playthrough with really solid perfect characters and weapons before I focus on maddening and how to beat that. But forging is 100% a great thing to do.

To be fair regarding stat booster hoarding, for boosters that aren't boots you never know 100 percent how a unit is going to turn out until the last 5 or so chapters and those are usually the most difficult so I'd rather save them to beef up units that didn't get as good of stat ups than to give it to good units that maxed out those stats at level 10 promoted and have essentially lost some stat gains as a result of the boosters

Forging the +1 is always super cheap and definitely worth it. Especially on things like armorslayer that get triple effectiveness.

At first I was like only powerful weapons, but seeing how later weapons don’t use Iron, just forge everything you need

In regards to forging and donations: On Hard mode myself, I've not found *too* big of a struggle having to choose between them, at least level 3 donations have been okay. I think level 2 is totally fine in all of them, no problem there, it's 20k total, not so bad at all. I donated to level 3 in countries after getting the big infusions in respective areas, and I had no idea what the donations were going to give at the time. Firene is the least useful one to reach level 3, giving you a steel lance from level 3. A Wo Dao for 10k at the early time you can level 3 Brodia? Not too bad, if you really want to use it. Balganone from Elusia level 3 for 10k? Also, fairly useful. Solm has a Brave Axe for 10k at Chapter ... 12? Need I say how useful that is? I've also not been doing skirmishes, so I don't have any extra stuff, I don't have the DLC either. I've got +2 ranged weapons on my 8 melee characters @ Ch. 19 now wondering if I should make it +3, it wasn't that expensive. I also noticed how cheap most +1's are, and I put +1 on every special weapon, Ridersbane? +1, Armorslayer? +1, Killer Lance? +1, etc, I think these things are way too cheap to actively avoid putting at *LEAST* +1 on most weapons you're going to use earlier. I'm less sure about it for mage tomes and fist arts, mostly fist arts I just don't know what to do with, and mage tomes feel like once you can double C/B rank tomes, you're better off there anyways, and then it's about if you can double Bolganone or not, because Tomes are actually really expensive to refine. Bows are worthwhile tho imo if you want to have a solid bow user, again, *at least* +1, you're literally only hurting yourself by not spending 300g and what, 30 iron ingots? Also Liberation +2 or 3 asap, then +5 when you can, easiest decision in the game regarding refining. To anyone still thinking Iron/Steel aren't worth refining, at least refine your hand axes and javelins asap. Unless you're on Normal, then you probably don't even need to realize these systems exist tbh.

Apparently, for donations, only going to level 2 is worth it. Maybe going farther with Brodia due to the huge gains in metal ore. I guess if you take a country to level 5, you get a legendary weapon... but you'd have to grind gold for weeks to get enough to do them all...

Things I’d recommend forging: -iron bow into killer bow; Etie isn’t going to double anything anyway and Alcryst is only slowed by 1 using it, which he may grow out of -the three “Heroes” dlc weapons. Low rank, high might and hit, forges also lower their weight to make it easier to double for units with low build. -Javelin; solid 1-2 range, makes a unit more deadly AND versatile -Knife when you get Yunaka -Thunder, don’t bring to Elthunder because Olwen’s bond ring turns a good thing into a great thing with Dire Thunder! The extra might from Elthunder and Thoron don’t mean anything since by staying at Thunder you are DOUBLING your damage as long as you’re using Olwen, also makes your speed and defenses irrelevant if it means you kill everything else first on player phase (doesn’t work for enemy phase but mages struggle at enemy phase anyway).

Yunaka with a Micaiah engraving on her iron dagger is incredible and basically never gets hit, but her damage can be a bit lacking unless you forge the thing up to +5.

Forging are worth because weapons don't break. The problem is the game expects you to grind for stuff even for things like SP.

I have a friend, who, on hard mode, benched Vander on Chapter 5, the first point that you're allowed to do so, despite the fact that literally you don't have to exclude units from that chapter because you only have the correct amount of units without having to make anyone sit out. He then proceeded to ask me how he was expected to stop the thief, everyone is so slow movement in this game, and even if you send Alfred to catch them, he struggles to take the hits.

Well, you're absolutely right, but the way you phrase the question presumes that that there aren't any legitimate reasons to hold back on forging, spending stat-boosters, investing in the "wrong" units, or whatever. The logical argument is that while spending your resources early may make the game easier in the short-term, it's not the early game that matters. It isn't investing - it's squandering. I can't get back the resources I put into that +5 iron sword, and I'm unlikely to want it once I've got enough build for steel sword. It won't even take very long before I want to replace it on most characters. I don't agree with this mentality, but I do understand it. I think many players approach upgrades as "all or nothing," though, and in my opinion, there's nothing wrong with forging a weapon just once or twice to collect some inexpensive upgrades.

I donate to countries in maddening when it increases the ore rewards i get at the end of every chapters. That's it.

Iron forging is the way to go. Wt is low and you can get their power to almost match silver weapons. Helps dodge tanks and helps with accuracy

I've done one donation so far, only because I want to adopt better dogs lol. Assuming high level ones give better ore. Ive mostly been limited by ore when it comes to forging so 🤷‍♂️ ... is it really not worth it?

I don't know having a silver greatlance on Louis in chapter 10 is amazing.

Donating any further than lvl 2 or maaaybe 3 definetly not worth it. I like getting the lvl 2 for Firene for the large amount of cooking resources and bond fragments it gives for a measly 5k is worth it i'd say.

Dont be a hoarder XD if you are just going to keep all your gold you might as well not have it. I only donated every nation to lvl 2 to get some dogs and some do give more ores, i donate as soon as i enter the region, i upgrade weapons after almost every map and i never really ran out of money I also second sealed a bunch of units and i still have a lot of money. Also i have found that forging daggers, steel weapons (in the mid game and for low build units), adding avoid to dodge tanks (some of the engravings give 20 and 30 avoid which is crazy), maxing crit on killer weapons, upgrading effective weapons, all of these are very helpful. Lastly going at least +3 on a weapon gives u a very good boost compared to the base weapon and it is not very expensive, going +5 however is a big investment and sometimes not worth it.

only weapons worth forging are iron weapons maaaaaybe steel, brave weapons, and the thunder tome (especially if you have the Olwen S bond ring). oh and the FEH weapons, I don't know why they gave use Silver tier weapons with Iron tier weight for free at the start of the game

i feel like donations after you can get dogs is a waste of my money. I forge a bunch of stuff

Vander is your Jagen. He is suppose to fall off a bit. He has a good early game to help you at the start so the weaker units can survive then bench him later. Jagens are NOT suppose to carry you through the entire game.

You don’t get enough money to forge in maddening. On chapter 20 I have 17k gold and only enough for a +3 item. And I had dogs in the farm since the beginning and going to Somniel after every map.

Silver weapons are fat weight, which most units can't and won't negate the speed drop with. If they value Avo at all, silver weapons aren't useful. On the other hand, if Ike and Pair Up is mixed in, high weight weapons make objective sense. Diamant is very effective on face tanking even without Pair Up to nix backup. Also, forging lower weapons is far cheaper in general. I wouldn't go beyond +2 on anything but steel, but the mgt/crit bonus for relatively little cost can help bridge damage gaps. Knives aren't up for debate. +2 mgt per level is OP, potential engraves that bump Avo/crit make knife units outpace most physical weapons that don't get inherent bonus damage like Bows and ridersbane.

I think the real gold sink is donating, my next playthrough I'm going to try skipping it to see if it hurts or if its better to just keep gold for strong staves and refines

Forging iron weapons is cheap, and gets you very light and accurate weapons for the situations where that is worth more than hitting a bit harder.

Still on my first playthrough on Hard but I do not think donating is worthwhile and absolutely wouldn't have done it if I had realized that money was as tight as it is.

Early game forged weapons are definitelly a plus

Typo in the thumbnail

Does Liberacion get a new form or is safe to upgrade? I stopped using Vander pretty fast because I thought he took way too much damage, and was always getting weapon broke. Louis been a Whole demon for me

I think it's worth noting that an Iron Dagger +3 is stronger than a base SILVER DAGGER. You'd have to be crazy not to upgrade your Iron Dagger.

I feel like forging was introduced far too early given how big of a money pit it is. You shouldn't be forging until you start seeing silver weapons, thats how expensive it is. The only rare exception I can think of is Levin Sword and even then there's only 2 unit's I can think of where magic scaling swords makes sense so at that point youre better off just buying them from the shop not forging them.

OneGuy LUL

Donations are only useful if you grind. If you proceed thru the game as if it was a linear fe there is absolutely no reason to donate. Difficulty is irrelevant it's just whether you want to grind or not.

On what are you using money not used on forges? Master seals? Come on!

If on maddening, which is what the game is basically meant to be played on, you should pretty much never do the donations, with the exception of like a well timed brodia 2-3 donation for more metals and a free wo dao. in regards to only upgrading items that will help you in the endgame, what most people are likely talking about is stuff like turning the steel sword into a early levin or wo dao, instead of doing +3, you really shouldnt forge the iron or steel weapons into better versions of themselves, its almost always a better idea to get access to higher tier items earlier like the magic scaling weapons and high crit weapons, and then upgrading those

I feel, they are to selfish with gold in this game

Saying Vander is good is saying Jagen is good. He’s not worth using. Vander sucks.

"forging early game weapons is bad because you're wasting resources that can be used on your late game weapons" what's the point of saving resources if the act of hoarding those resources prevents you from getting into late game.

Your argument makes no sense at all. Your wasting materials upgrading a iron weapon when you get a steel and silver weapons early and you can jsut forge upgrade to a steel and silver whixh is better and cheaper than upgrading a iron weapon On maddening you donate to lv 2 except brodia to 4 thats where most your minerals come from. Dont waste minerals on iron gear. Upgrading it to steel is fine then upgrading to steel+ wasting materials early makes mid to end game harder as you wont have much. Wasting materials on low lv weapons makes it harder not easier later. Vander is good early but hea a tottal waste to invest the limited exp in. Doing your way will make it harder. Unless your playing easy mode(normal/hard)

I can after the honey moon phase engage bout to be criticism

My hot take is that every single character should have a slim weapon +5 in their inventory at all times