<p>Basically, two hours of mid-game grinding for the sake of relationships has left me with half a roster of invincible gods, with the other half being completely useless, even in random skirmishes. It's a real shame that you can't turn up the difficulty, as any semblance of strategy has been erased.</p><p>I'm on chapter 20 now, by the way.</p>

That's what grinding will do, I imagine. Personally, when I get my copy I am going to attempt very hard to not immediately try to max everyone out, but I can't make any guarantees that I won't immediately grind Donnel to level 15 as soon as I get a Second Seal.

I sorta get what you mean in regards to my Avatar and his wife, who I grinded a bit for supports and skills and went a bit too far. Sol on my Avatar is kinda pointless for him now that he no longer gets hurt (or hit for that matter). Wife is still vulnerable to a degree but she also got Sol from when I classed her to a Hero and her high skill basically means she activates it every other battle. Due to doing this before I recruited them, their kids are kinda broken as well after they promoted but at least they aren't up to their parents level.

Fortunately I only grinded the rest of my team a bit so they could take on the Paralogues so they still have the ability to die on maps thankfully. I've taken to having my two gods stick to the back of my army and advancing them at a snail's pace just so they don't completely annihilate the enemy. Currently doing a few of the parent/child supports and aside from the two aforementioned god children the other children are keeping to a reasonable amount of power that won't break my game. I probably won't be doing most of the supports until after I beat the game though, just so I don't entirely get rid of the challenge.

If you're having trouble grinding lower level characters, buy reeking boxes from a merchant.Use them on chapter 1 or 2 areas and you will get low level enemies to fight (the chapter of the area will determine the difficulty). You'll always get at least 1 bullion to sell from the fight to make back your money spent on the reeking boxes. You could always deploy high level units there too with no weapons equipped to suck up some of the damage.

I'm still really early on, but all the opportunities for grinding certainly make it look like you could go crazy with it. I've done a few, but I think I'll start ignoring the random skirmishes.

Though it's pretty usual for your main crew to become unstoppable later on anyway.

what difficulty?

I've recently broken the game due to a lot of support grinding on normal difficulty. When I finish this run, I'll play the game more like a traditional Fire Emblem game on Hard mode.

E: In other words, strictly story missions and the optional missions that pop up. Spamming the Risen Boxes is lulzy, but it just ain't right.

yeah ive grinded A LOT in hard mode and i still get beat sometimes, glad i skipped normal

Even hard mode has become rather easy without the need to grind, so I've come to start a new project: make Lissa and Maribelle gods of destruction. both are lv 5 sages at the moment. I intend to get at least Lissa to be a war monk, destroying the end game stage with maxed magic and a bolt axe (axe that uses mag instead of str to calculate damage).

It does get alot easier on normal. Chapter 18 right now, and most of my crew can just roll up in pairs and kill dudes. It helps that the stats for the kids are even better than there parents.

Next run-through I'm rolling ALL MELEE, ALL BERSERKERS, (or equivalent) BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD.

Normal mode definitely gets way easy once you start to understand the game. Can't wait to try Hard and then maybe Lunatic!

I just finished the game on Normal last night and was a little disappointed by the lack of challenge. I immediately restarted on Hard mode so I could roll up a different avatar and do different support conversations and all.

Whoops, looks like I shouldn't have worried about grinding then cuz now I feel too overpowered and think normal is too much of a cake walk. I didn't want to push my luck at first because I never played any of these games before.

Yeah my units were pretty overpowered at the end and only a few people died because I got too cocky. I'm itching to give Hard difficulty a try.

I'm trying not to grind too much, but I do love seeing the support conversations. I'm trying to keep everyone around the same level, so maybe everybody being at a bit of a lower level will make it harder.

Hard mode is definitely real Fire Emblem mode, but there's apparently a later story DLC map where it's necessary to grind just to even think about surviving.

I started Hard mode last night and Virion got killed by an 8% crit. Fuck.

Yup. This is why most Fire Emblem games make grinding opportunities sparing and risky. Kind of takes the strategic element out of it when your dudes are all amazing.

Yeah, it's pretty clear how easy it is to break this game. Still, grinding is optional and so is abusing mechanics: just resist the temptation! And Lunatic/Lunatic+ are stupid-hard to break, unless you follow a very specific set-up that abuses every broken aspect of the game