Taking Fire Emblem Fates’ Witches’ Trial

The last Fire Emblem Fates’ DLC map is here. Today, Witches’ Trial is added to the game. Upon completing this map, people get the Witch’s Mark, an item that allows you to make female characters into witches. The map itself isn’t very difficult, and the reward is absolutely worth the effort it takes to complete it.

The Fire Emblem Fates’ Witches’ Trial map may look familiar to people who have been following the series for years and collecting import copies of the game. It originally appeared in Fire Emblem Gaiden, the second entry in the series. Which is fitting, since that’s the only other Fire Emblem game with the Witch class.

Despite this being a map introducing people to the Witch class, there’s only one Witch unit on the field. She guards a fort, which must be seized to complete the stage. The map splits into two paths, with the upper one leading to the witch has a hero paired with a sniper and four generals guarding her. The other branch has two Paladins, three snipers, and four generals waiting to attack. If you can hold out until the eleventh turn, one Witch with a Warp scroll will appear. (Edit: My Gale Force army didn’t last that long – thanks to Zonic for the tip!)

Given all the generals, it’s a good idea to send magic users out onto this map, to take advantage of their low resistance. A few warriors with Armorslayer weapons will he helpful too. If you already have a witch in your party, thanks to the free Anna’s Gift DLC that offered either one Witch’s Mark or one Sighting Lens, then sending a flying unit to help the witch quickly advance to fight the other witch could help. Someone who’s a Malig Knight with the Bowbreaker skill would be best, since their high defense and resistance stats would help keep them safe against the generals and the hit and avoidance +50 against bow and yumi wielders would help them against the snipers.

Once you’ve completed the map, you earn one Witches’ Mark and can make one of your women into a witch. Let me warn you, this is a role that has the potential to be gamebreaking. With the right units deployed and other skills learned, witches can work with flying units to put a halt to opponents’ actions.

This is primarily due to Warp, a skill learned at level 25 that lets the witch teleport next to an ally and act again. While you can only Warp once per turn, you can warp as many times as you’d like throughout the battle. Combine that with Toxic Brew, the level 35 skill that reduces an enemy’s movement to 0 and inflicts –20 avoidance on them after the Witch initiates a battle, and you have a unit that can ruin any plans the enemy may have had. Toxic Brew’s trigger is based on a unit’s skill stat x 1.5%, which in most cases means a 20% chance of stopping a foe’s advance. The Witch also learns Shadowgift, which allows any class to use Dark Magic, and Witch’s Brew, which uses the luck stat to determine the percentage chance of finding a potion item after a battle’s first seven turns. Combine this with Galeforce, and you have a deadly individual.

I recommend making a character who’s normally a cleric into a witch. In my game, Sakura was my first witch. (She headed over to the dark side after getting one of the Witch’s Marks from the Gift from Anna free DLC.) As a level 60 witch, her magic stat maxed out at 42 and her resistance maxed out at 34. I chose to keep the Renewal, Counter, and Counter Magic skills on her, to compliment her new Warp and Toxic Brew abilities, so she can safely head out as an advance unit on the field. The respective counters allow her to retaliate if I choose to Warp her out onto the field alongside another advance unit, while Renewal will reliably restore 30% of her health as each turn begins.

With Fire Emblem Fates’ Witches’ Trial DLC released, that marks the end of the Map Pack 1 releases. Additional maps and scenarios have been released in Japan, but localization information has yet to be announced.

Fire Emblem Fates is immediately available on the Nintendo 3DS in North America and Japan. It will come to Europe on May 20, 2016.