Emperor Hardin

You can still several Steel, as well as a Silver shield on a casual playthrough, I feel those are pretty big defense changers. One of the perfect candidates. Well we see similar with villager characters like Kliff or any of the falcoknights with the DLC suddenly learning spells upon promotion. And there are plenty of Jugdral Barons that are military leaders. And we see noble Barons like in Desaix and (potentially)Lukas in Valentia. Plus like Gold Knights, Barons are supposed to be a top class, so it makes sense they'd have some sort of new ability. I was thinking a Baron would have access to thunder and recover, or maybe certain player barons getting access to the player style rewarp, that is the ability to teleport next to a nearby ally asa opposed to wherever you want like enemy witches. I suppose, or the player could get access to an armored slayer like a rapier more easily? That could indeed be interesting.

Its about time, though I'm surprised Medeus wasn't armored or even flying given the movement types of Earth/Shadow Dragons in past games. Funfact, in FE3, Earth Dragons had low MOV and similar restrictions to Armored units, whilst Shadow Dragons were flying units that didn't take effect damage from arrows.

I was thinking, would working on FE3 map sprites interest you? The map sprites in Mystery of the Emblem are rather sprite and there's a specific map animation that could be helpful to the hacking community if you're ever interested? Also do you plan to make a Javelin or hand Axe for the General and Hero respectively? If not, Gaiden shows its possible to have classes only be able to use Javelins as a melee weapon. By the way, what did you think of the ideas for altering a few specific Ballista weapons?

All it says is a clean FE6 rom.

This looks interesting, is it compatible with the unique boss palette patch?

Sounds great, note this is what the DS remakes did and mobile enemy Generals are rare in FE1. Sure, with the sprites, maybe you could use some sprites from FE2/Gaiden, as they're in the same style. The NES General attack animation could also easily be swinging a Lance, with the lance sprite being taken from another class. What do you mean by "2 range only for emulating the long range ballista behavior from later games", do you mean the 3-9/10 Ballistas in other games? One idea you could test out is just giving PachyDerm 1-2 Range as thats the only one used by a boss character and its the "ultimate" ballista, similar to Gradivus the ultimate Lance having 1-2 range. Besides FE1 Ballisticians are incredibly underpowered, having 4 MOV and using a niche weapon type, they need a buff more than Archers whom get good MOV and stats when they class change to Sniper. Here are some gaiden portraits you could use too. So an unused boss in FE1 was Wyler/ワイラー, maybe you could make the recruitable Harmein/NES Boss portrait recruitable be Wylar finally in a game? He could be a Ballistician (particularly if you make the class more appealing), Pirate, General or something else, there is no data for his class and during the class roll, his name can be assigned to any enemy. Also just as Lorenz looks a lil different from the Jiol portrait, you could slightly edit the NESBossFace, like make it red-headed with purple armor or something? Also for random enemy recruitment ideas: Gomer: Maybe Darros could recruit him? Merarch: He's heavily implied to be one of Minerva's former vassals, so I guess another Macedonian could recruit him? Emereus: Merach could recruit him if you add him? Khozen: If you want another Fire Dragon, maybe Bantu could recruit him? I was going to add Morzas, but that'd be too weird even for a hack. Heimler: To answer all those old memes and have a very meme-y character do it, if you go with that? Orridyon: In the DS version, he's stated to be Minerva's former subordinate, so she could recruit him Thats all for now, tell me what you think?

The power of shields is a big disadvantage to Barons, I feel. Anyone with a Dracoshield effectively becomes an unstoppable tank. Everyone being able to use shields doesn't work out well for the armored class line. The fear mountain shrine is where she's recommended to promote. I'm also talking about his convoy abilities making him important to be in good positions on the map. Witches don't teleport all the time so as not to make things unwinnable, but when they do, its typically to a low resistance unit. The AI in the older games makes dealing the most damage its highest priority. Arcanists have some decent speed on Hard from my recollection. You don't like the idea of barons having spells, right? It'd be best to give it to armored classes themselves at that point, probably starting with Knight rather than with Baron. That said, it might be annoying for enemy armored units like DracoShield Desaix to have.

On which point, on nearly every tier list, I've seen Forsyth is one of the absolute bottom units and Valbar isn't great, though he's higher than Forsyth due to availability. I'll take a look at your run. Wouldn't you say that was more due to the characters than the class, though? One idea I had for an SOV patch was giving Armored units innate access to shove, eventually getting access to smite as a Baron. What do you think of that idea? Valbar is good in the beginning section with Celica, I feel, as his 4 MOV isn't so outclassed than and the player still hasn't gotten many units on Celica's side. Later on when more units are promoted and Valbar has to deal with desert and swamp tiles, he starts falling off. Yes Knight/Baron bases are good in both games, but I feel they're boths in Echoes: SOV are too bad with both -5 Luck and -10 speed. Minus -5 Speed growth would do it, I feel. Yes that fits in FE, even in games like FE4, units like Arden and Hannibal have their uses and stuff they can contribute. When a unit is automatically deployed in Fire Emblem, there's almost no point where they're actively detrimental to use. That said, the class line still could use a buff, I feel. Saber has one of the highest defense growths in the gaem and his high Movement as Myrmidon/DreadFighter will mean he can get units who need protection on time. Infact one of the most recommended things to use a villager fork is on any Baron to make them a dread fighter. The Duma gate sure, but Desaix's fortress is a map I feel where armored units suffer from the nerf to warp. In Jerome's chapter, you have to rush and focus on taking out Jerome's unit quickly to save Zeke. Even the Duma gate has plenty of arcanists and witches to attack them. Alot of the time, Witches do go for the lowest resistance unit in my experience, whilst there are occasional exceptions, that is generally what they do as far as I can see. That is something I'd like to do, but I'm not sure is possible with the current hacking tools. Handling the bow battle animation with the Baron's shield might get annoying, though I suppose Emperor Shield Archers/Sniper battle animations could be used for reference. Another idea, I toyed with was a few spells like Jugdral Barons such as thunder or physic, I briefly considered rewarp but figured that might be too powerful to give to a generic class. Early on that is true, assuming you mean Arcanists, right? I wouldn't say they're the most threatening magical enemy, which would be witches, but they're certainly the most common in the early game. I would disagree considering chapters like this or this that are all filled with Arcanists and/or witches. Also the later chapters, starting with Marla/Hestia, have summoners that summon witches, which are magic enemies, showing not all summon physical enemies. And those same terrain restrictions for armored classes are in nearly every FE, including Echoes: SOV and the original Gaiden, the only exception is Heroes where Armored Knights instead have terrain advantages. I feel high resistance is a decent tradeoff for bad trade speed. Matilda will likely be a gold Knight, especially as you recruit already her as a Paladin with very good stats and again she'll get extremely tanky very quickly, Lukas falls off around act 4. Keep in mind, Alm is a higher priority alot of the time due to his convoy and you can only get a maximum of two warp users on Alm's side, with nothing for Celica's side. I'm not huge on luck based skills either, but I thought of it because Spartan had what was basically pavise. I'd like to do that, but it might be hard with current hacking tools. Any ideas on what a Baron's bow range should be, obviously it shouldn't be on the level of a Bow Knight, but maybe one more than Alm might work? Any other thoughts on Baron improvement?

In most casual runs, Barons still feel very extremely weak by the point they're competing with 7 MOV Dread Fighters and its easy to see they're never targeted by the rare enemy bow users. There really aren't many choke points in the game and most of the time, Silque won't be able to transport Lukas many places, especially when there's so much competition from units that can reach the enemy after being teleported. Also keep in mind, the enemy quickly becomes made up mostly of magic users, especially witches. That was a mistake, I meant to write 5 MOV, if even a sniper is given the speed ring, they'll have 6 MOV and 1-4 range. In other words, 5 MOV is still terrible for Barons. Mages and Clerics prefer the mage ring. How balance worked in the original is entirely relevant to what the remake changed. Again as someone who is brainstorming balancing the DS remake of the third game, checking how the characters were good in the older version is important to see why what was changed that made them not so good in the remake. If you're going to fix one broken thing like a 5 MOV ring, you should fix the other broken things like a 4 MOV melee only class that competes with a 7 MOV melee class with high resistance and the best weapon, not keep that distinction and make the 7 MOV melee class also halve all magic damage in a game with mostly magic enemies. Again you not playing the original doesn't mean it can be disregarded when the remake is being discussed. The Mage ring gave +5 range in the original and it gives +2 range in the original, in other words, its much less nerfed than the speed ring was. Additionally there's far less competition for the mage thing and there's 1~3 range spells which become 1~5 range with the magic ring. Even the summoned illusions are improved by the mage ring. Given his other issues, he'd still be low. Keep in mind, Valbar is very low in Echoes: Shadows of Valentia almost solely due to his horrible class line. Saber will likely have higher bulk and Grieth's fortress is very dangerous for Valbar due to all the magic users and witches targeting his resistance. Mages will still have higher range due to all the spells I mentioned, even generic magic users get access to 1-3 range spells like Thunder. Knights and Barons have nothing like that in a game where even Alm has his bows. You do realize Radiant Dawn had Armored units be very resistant to magic, correct? In other words, the series experiments with classes. Echoes: Shadows of Valentia is already a much simpler engine than a normal Fire Emblem, much like Gaiden was. Plus there is ZERO Fighter/Axe class which usually takes the pure strength/offensive class roll, so it would make perfect sense to merge Knight and Fighter together as stuff like Tokyo Mirage Sessions has already done. And as mentioned, SOV Barons fail at everything for the player, they're barely any more durable than Gold Knights, never attacked by Bow users, are torn apart by mages and doubled by everything. They have zero advantages, to the point, most players don't even use them after a certain point. If you really wanted to keep them 4 MOV, when again every post FE4 game but SOV/Three Houses has knights gain +1 MOV on promotion, you should come up with a skill thats worth it like traditional SNES era pavise, spells like Jugdral Barons, Bows like Jugdral Barons, or perhaps some sort of rally skill. But 4 MOV melee only units that are also mostly up against magic enemies, can't move across most terrain and are already competing with 7 MOV melee units that halve all magic damage that hits their already high resistance is too absurd to keep.

Well there's a small gap between armored units and infantry units in FE, but there's an even larger gap between armored units and mounted units, whom usually have 3 or 4 mov more than infantry which armored units are already before. It sounds like provoke is a very powerful skill. Interesting, so its more like FE Heroes where cavalry units have 1 more than infantry and two more than armored units?

All tier lists very strongly disagree with you and people think the class is at their worst with ZERO characters being recommended to be in it. Warp was nerfed from the original and now has a range based on a user's attack, so you can't just teleport Lukas anywhere as soon as Silque learns the spell, as a result his usefulness wanes very early. Rescue isn't enough, nor is Swap or Shove as again they're absurdly behind Snipers and unlike magic users, have no long range abilities to compensate. Speed Ring was nerfed to kingdom come and no longer gives +5 MOV. As a result, Barons would only have 4 MOV with it, which is still terrible and as a result, no one gives it to them. Boots is the same deal and you can only get a maximum of two so Baron units are very unlikely to get them over Alm/Celica or mounted units whom are already high move. You're the first and only person, I've read that from. Most players pre-release were hoping IS would do similar with the DS remakes and have the armored class gain MOV upon promotion as in the modern games. Indeed many players hate how the Baron class function in this game and think Valbar/Forsyth are worse than ever. Besides this is a game where normal Bows can attack at one range, if Archers can buck the standard bow rules in Valentia, why can't Armored classes have a try at normal infantry MOV for once? The enemy never really uses anti armor or combat arts in SOV. And halving damage from all physical attacks might be too much, even with the overabundance of magic enemies, plus the enemy's favorite physical units are cavalry lances.

Actually Soldier would stay 4 MOV, its only their promotions that would each gain +1 mov for each tier. And I'm pretty familiar with Echoes, most armored enemies only attack when units enter their range, it would not change the game if they got 1 more MOV. Believe me, this change would not make the game more difficult or change the enemy much at all. Actually cavalry is more popular than Armored troops in Gaiden/SOV among the enemy for once. Most Enemy Knights and Barons stay put until a unit enters their range, giving them one more MOV, would change almost nothing about the gameplay. Its not as if the game throws armies Barons to chase after you the player early in the game. Hell New Mystery had a invincible Armoed Knight like enemy that chased the player in an early map, they still increased his MOV and it worked fine!

This sounds interesting, did you make new sprites for Generals and Lances? Also if I can give an idea, if it hasn't been done already, what about Generals having 6 mov like in the DS remakes? Or Ballistician weapons having 1-2 range like tomes? And for a very silly idea, these are the two most common boss portraits in the game, but the Harmein portrait never has a playable counterpart, what if you added one or made a boss like Grigas recruitable?

Just throwing an idea out there, but I was thinking of a balance patch for Echoes: Shadows of Valentia that could be interesting to test anyhow. The ideas would be Knights have 5 MOV and Barons have 7 Mov instead of 4 MOV for both classes. Baron's heavy armor now halves damage from Lances and maybe claws (EX: Zombie weapons, Dracozombie bite, Dragon melee attack but not Tentacle, Breath or Skeleton sword weapons) in place of halve bows. Barons can also equip obtainable axes as a bit of an easter egg/minor ability (not sure if possible with current hacking tools). DreadFighter's halve magic damage might also need to be nerfed and the cavalry line could use some sort of improvement but I can't think of what would work at the moment outside of undoing the nerfs to individual lance weaponry. I'm mainly curious as to how 7 MOV Barons would change the game. Anyhow its just a thought that suddenly came to me and anyone who wants to hack SOV is free to use these ideas to their heart's content.

It sounds like there are cavalry units, its just they aren't very durable, correct? So its sounds like Erador's deal is more like regular infantry units compared to mounted units in FE? What makes the flying tank bad for reference's sake?