I never seem to be bale to get tier 3 units

[I got 1984'd]

No matter what I try, I'm stuck with 80% of my squads all having tier 2 by the time chapter 12 happens. Even when some units have maxed CP, I can't upgrade them because their stats are too low.

But I watch all these guides and I'm seeing some people have all their squads with tier 3 units or higher. What am I missing here?

[Throwaway Name]

They probably save scummed the marketplace to get arena tokens and stat boost consumables every chapter. I also did not have many tier 3 units by ch.12 by playing without save scums. But I don’t care about ch12 or it’s achievement at all. I just take the loss without trying to win and move on. Not worth the hassle.

[I got 1984'd]

Originally posted by Throwaway Name:

They probably save scummed the marketplace to get arena tokens and stat boost consumables every chapter. I also did not have many tier 3 units by ch.12 by playing without save scums. But I don’t care about ch12 or it’s achievement at all. I just take the loss without trying to win and move on. Not worth the hassle.

I don't really care about the achievement either. I was just curious how some people have such high LDR per squad and tier 3 units. Thanks

[EnemigoDeLaMafia]

You need to check for alignment and initial stats. Otherwise you're going to have earth classes coming online at around level 35. *For a samurai at least

There qre other t3 with less requirements and those come online faster. I still think one should pair alignment to match the class in question. They come a bit too late in my opinion.

[Zalugar]

The high LDR per squad is probably them using the arena cheese method to farm it. Personally I found it way too boring to do, but if you're interested, you put a bunch of people in a high LDR squad such as Lysander and have them sit in the arena's castle door as they get pummeled with arrows. Then you sit there for like literally 100+ turns. Barnabus' trait is also apparently really good for doing it.

I didn't have all that many tier 3 by the time I did chapter 12 achievement. I did recruit a ton of units and sifted them by stats (since they vary) plus affinity, and was like barely able to have 3 sentinels and 2-3 templars by then. Plus a few paladins and rangers. Didn't use any stat boosters on them (might've helped, though) and was able to do the achievement on Warlord at that just fine.

Did do just a little market savescumming to get a couple Teresa's Bulwarks since the game was insisting on giving me way too many of the -15% firearm damage item, which, while nice, I didn't need the literal like 6-7 I had by then already and it kept trying to give me more.

[Yodums]

If you're not save scumming, you have to plan things from the getgo to get off the right foot.

If you want Sentinels, Soldiers have higher str than Spearmen. Every little bit helps. Of the characters you do end up recruiting, compare str and select the guys with high starter str as your key units to groom. These guys should be Soldiers, not Spearmen. Your units that are in affinities with have no chance of making it to tier 3 by chapter 12 can be the other class types, such as Spearmen.

Affinities matter a ton. Even though Fire is kinda meh for endgame min-max purposes, Fire in addition to Lightning has value in propelling str growth early game to get you to the str requirement and has no hp penalty compared to Lightning (full hp is useful for chapter 12) And since not save scumming, gotta make do with what we get.

Candidates for tier 3 should be in squads you battle multiple times. Tank squads in particular that see combat multiple times per turn are good for ensuring that key units stay on the level curve for stats and being on track for CP.

If you want Fire Mages, get Apprentices asap with Water affinity (Dark works too, but squishier)

Valkyries and Paladins are generally straight forward, and have pretty reasonable stat requirements for tier 3 units. Your main bottleneck without save scumming will be Sunstones competing with Templars. In addition, Valkyries compete with Horsebows for horses. Also, both the tier 3 militia units contend with Sentinels for Iron, which makes it rough.

Buy / stock up your stat items but don't use them right away. Right at Chapter 12, use them for your guys that are just short of being eligible for tier 3.

You still won't have your army fully tier 3 compared to save scumming, but you should have enough tier 3 units to work with. You still want to do the chapter 12 gank cheese though.

[I got 1984'd]

Thanks for all the info. I don't know how to save scum. I tried reloading save but market's still same.
Btw do mercenary units in a squad with mercenary leader still eat up extra LDR?

[Zalugar]

Save scumming is done by using the save prompt to reload before a chapter introduction, not saving on the hub screen itself. That said I believe they plan to prevent this with seeds or something so it might already not be available anymore?

And yes non-merc leaders still eat the extra capacity even if the leader is a merc.

[Steelfleece]

Don't be too worried about being short on tier 3 units by chapter 12. That's right around the point your troops will be starting to hit requirements, and you probably won't be overly rich in the resources to upgrade a lot of them anyway. You can still beat the achievement in Captain difficulty with almost all of your army being tier 2, it just means you'll have to rely on sheer numbers and the willingness to lose a few squads on enemy turns (it's okay, they all come back later).

The characters that will upgrade earliest will generally be those with ideal elemental affinities for their classes (lightning for skill-based, dark/fire/lightning in that order for strength-based, dark and then water for magic based) or who have classes with relatively modest requirements (ex: paladin). Some will say to let go of the poor water-affinity fighters and bowmen, but honestly they work fine as firearms users down the road if you already put some effort into them.

[I got 1984'd]

does the story change in any way if i survive chapter 12?

[Steelfleece]

Originally posted by AGM-114 Hellfire Missile:

does the story change in any way if i survive chapter 12?

Nope. You just get a Steam achievement, a little more faction XP, and any experience/CP/etc gains you got from the fighting.

It's something you only ever really need to do once if achievement hunting. Otherwise, fun to try for, no biggie if failed.

[dbemont]

VERY helpful thread.

It's not that I am so worried about chapter 12. But sometimes I will watch a YouTube video while working out, and clearly they have WAY more tier 3 units around that point, compared to what I have. So I was thinking that I must be missing some important strategy, something beyond affinity effects.

Helps to know that that is from save scumming, not insightful strategy of some sort :)

[Clove]

Around chapter 11 or 12 I realized there was no way I could upgrade all of my female warhammer women to paladins due to lack of sunstones. I turned them all into sword-girls. And I turned my few soldiers who weren't totally dumb-brained into apprentices since wizards weren't appearing for me as mercenaries up to that point.

[BoxingBud]

Could be solved with an endurance mode, just saying. That being said we aren't getting it in this update that I specifically waited this long for. Ugh. What other broken promises. GOt my money already gg. Like ok save scum instead. Players that moan and have a problem with endurance or grinding want to save scum instead. Speaks a lot on what they value when it comes to good gameplay. Best to ignore them.

[Lampros]

Originally posted by Zalugar:

The high LDR per squad is probably them using the arena cheese method to farm it. Personally I found it way too boring to do, but if you're interested, you put a bunch of people in a high LDR squad such as Lysander and have them sit in the arena's castle door as they get pummeled with arrows. Then you sit there for like literally 100+ turns. Barnabus' trait is also apparently really good for doing it.

Thanks; this is not something I've tried!

[EnemigoDeLaMafia]

Originally posted by dbemont:

VERY helpful thread.

It's not that I am so worried about chapter 12. But sometimes I will watch a YouTube video while working out, and clearly they have WAY more tier 3 units around that point, compared to what I have. So I was thinking that I must be missing some important strategy, something beyond affinity effects.

Helps to know that that is from save scumming, not insightful strategy of some sort :)

Its not save scumming per se, you just need to recruit the proper elements and filter out for initial stats.

Stat growth is fixed. You only gotta determine initial stats and alignment.

I would do it this way now that I know how it works. Turns out lighting and fire recruits get there quite a bit faster than Earth. It also turns out that initial stats can have aboue 3 points of difference.

Matching the element with the role is actually a insightful strategy.