Whisky

More dragons good. Less humans good. Yeah I think Jahn would like that, but I don’t know if he’d want dragons fighting each other.

What do you mean “why not say Arch Sage is a logical progression of Druid”? It’s literally not. Shaman to Druid is a class line in the GBA games. as Is Dark Mage to Sorcerer in the DS games. In 3H, you can actually promote your units through the classes of Dark Mage - Dark Bishop - Dark Knight, and it makes sense to do so. Dark Knight acts as the natural upgrade to Dark Bishop. If you say that Dark Knight is too different to you and feels more like switching classes rather than ‘promoting’ then fair enough, but why are you acting like my perspective doesn’t make any sense? Surely you can see why I would consider a class that you can basically ‘promote’ into as an upgrade as being part of the class line, over classes that aren’t connected at all like the Athos exclusive Arch Sage class that cannot promote from Druid. I have never claimed that using Dark Magic is the only criteria that matters. I said that using Dark Magic is the key distinction between Mages and Shaman in the GBA games. You’d agree with that wouldn’t you? Gameplay wise that’s more or less the only difference for the most part. And wouldn’t you also agree that Canas, Teodor, and Niime and Hugh all make it pretty clear that using Dark Magic is an important part of their lore? Various FE games are different. Not all FE games even have the same classes, and in some games the same classes might be very different. Dark Mages in SD might be very different than Shaman in the GBA games, and Dark Mages and Dark Bishops in 3H could be quite different from either of them. Dark Mage to Dark Bishop in 3H is indeed the only literal class progression in 3H, but if we’re going to be strict about that, then no other classes in 3H can be considered class lines either. If you know more about SD than me then by all means enlighten me. I don’t know what Glower is, I don’t think I’ve heard of that before. Imhullu is exclusive to Gharnef. Dark Mages can’t even use it. Maybe they technically could if they obtained it, but they never do. In the game it’s impossible to ever have a playable Dark Mage use it. They instead use regular anima magic, and you know what that is and what it looks like, elemental magic, Fire, Thunder, Blizzard, etc. Swarm is that spell Gotoh comes with right? Is it Dark Magic?

Athos is a different class though. The games other than 3H had clear and specific class lines. Shaman promotes into Druid and does not promote into ArchSage, or Dark Druid for that matter. In 3H, there aren’t specific class lines or promotions. The only ‘classlines’ in that game are whatever makes logical sense of progression, and I believe Dark Knight is a logical progression from Dark Bishop. it’s not moving the goal post, 3H has completely different mechanics, any class can use any weapon, but each class still has certain weapon types that they’re more focused on than others, and some classes are more focused on certain weapon types than other classes, like Dark Knight being more focused on Dark Magic than most other magic classes despite any magic class being able to use Dark Magic. Also, what do you mean they “use visual dark magic”? It’s regular anima magic, it looks the same as the magic that regular mages use doesn’t it?

I just see using Dark Magic as an integral part of being a Dark Mage. Even lore wise, it seems pretty important based on the dialogue from characters like Canas and Teodor. The fact that Hugh doesn’t use Dark Magic is a part of his character. If Shaman and Druids just used Anima magic like regular mages, none of these dialogues would make sense. Gameplay wise, The use of Dark Magic is THE main distinction between Shaman and Mages in the GBA games. Gameplay wise they’d pretty much just be the same class otherwise.

But she is literally an Armor Knight, with all of the mechanics of the Armor Knight class. She has low Move, she doesn’t fly on a Pegasus. I get that we don’t agree but I don’t understand what’s so confusing about my perspective. If Meg’s class was called Paladin but she still functioned as an Armor Knight then I’d say she still counts as an Armor Knight, and that the name is weird and not consistent with the Paladin class in other FE games.

I disagree. If the next Fire Emblem game has a class called Paladin and looks like what you’d expect a Paladin to look like but gameplay wise plays like a General with low Move and high Def, I’d say it fits more in the Armor Knight class line than the Cavalier/Paladin line. Not gonna lie, I’m kinda scared of facing 25-35 displayed hit. It’s not uncommon to get hit by those numbers when you’re getting attacked by multiple enemies, but that’s what the life drain is for I guess. I feel like Nos tanking wouldn’t work well against speedy enemies like Mercs and Heroes but would probably work well against Archers and Fighters? His support partner is getting the +15 Avoid too, and in Lugh’s case would likely have more Avoid and also be pretty effective at taking down Wyverns with Aircalibur. You also might be able to position Lugh outside of the Wyverns range a few spaces way from Rei

How so? I have a hard time seeing Dark Mages in the DS games as anything other than Mages cosplaying as Dark Mages. I don’t actually care if you include them, they just seem weird to me because they just seem like regular mages. Gameplay wise I don’t even see any difference between them other than which characters can reclass into them. Yeah that’s fair. I’m curious what the Hit rates would be, I don’t think of Rei as being a very speedy or dodging unit but the support would help, and like you said, the combination of the high Hit and Avoid would make him unlikely to die. Sorry, I’m having formatting issues. That makes sense, if you’re willing to put in the investment then he can turn out a lot better in the long run. I do think there’s some merit to the early promotion though, being that he becomes immediately better instead of eventually better. Roughly how long would you say it takes him to reach the performance you’re talking about? We’ve been talking about Ch21, does it take that long and before that he’s be pretty bad? Or is at roughly this level of performance a few chapters earlier? I agree, it’s certainly not the end of the world if enemies survive, you have a whole team of units to back up Rei. You can have some Snipers take down the Lords, or Lugh, or something. It’s hard to say how well other strategies would compare. If we give others units enough investment between experience and stat boosters then a lot of units can become quite capable. I’ve had success with Dieck on this map before, and Garret as well, sitting on a Cliff with a Killer Axe. Or of course you could just use a player phase focused strategy of taking down the Wyverns on player phase with several units. You have multiple options that work well, but I am convinced that the Rei Nosferatu tanking can work with reasonable reliability if you’re willing to put in the investment for him, and am interested in trying it out sometime. oh, what site is that? That sounds like a neat resource. That does show that we don’t need to give too much favoritism to Rei to reach that level which is good. Experience distribution is a big variable though. You might choose to give less exp to units who are able to do more with less because they don’t need it. Those units are good because they let you give more to units who do need more like Rei. I also find that it’s often more beneficial to make the units you’re relying on the most as strong as possible while only using weaker units as back up for them without investing more than you need to. that’s not really a point, just a separate thought. In this case if you want to invest in Rei, then he could be one of the units that you do distribute more exp into to make him more reliable. ah, the support really helps out, huh? Yeah fair enough. I think Axe users can be underrated by some people because they can actually be pretty good against Lance enemies, but they can have issues with other types of enemies, that Rei would probably perform better against. Ah fair enough. I’ve never played Fates, I’ve noticed the Hosidians have equivalent weapon types that just go by different names and saw a few classes that seem like they’d fill the same role, but I didn’t know if they’re the same or different. Well, theoretically if a new Fire emblem game came out that has a different setting with different themes and styles, where the classes where exactly the same as classes from other games gameplay wise but had different names and appearances, I’d say they could be considered as the same class for gameplay discussions, but that’s apparently not the case with Fates. It sound interesting actually, I’d like to try it some day but don’t have a 3ds.

Weapon type usage is a mechanic. In the GBA games, using Dark Magic is the chief mechanical difference between Shaman/Druid, and Mage/Sage. Right, classes and mechanics do work very differently between games. That’s caused a few complications in previous threads about what classes count and which threads we should discuss them in. Some classes aren’t in some games, in some games they’re sort of in the game but are very different. This topic series doesn’t fit perfectly between each game, we’ve been having to take some liberty’s in counting certain classes even if they don’t fit perfectly. Classes aren’t always the same aesthetically either. Warlock in 3H looks very different from a Sage.

Ah that’s fair. We’re looking at him completely differently then. I was thinking of him as a low investment low reward unit that you can basically promote immediately and have a semi decent but unimpressive unit. That’s why I wasn’t expecting to be able to double most enemies, especially Wyverns. Per SerenesForest HM stats thread, Wyvern Riders in Ch21 have Avoid around 30-35 with Lords having around 35-40. At 125 Hit, we’d have around 90-95 displayed Hit against Riders and 85-90 against Lords. If you’re throwing him up against several enemies at once relying on him to not miss or else he dies then I’d consider that pretty risky, but could definitely be fun to try out. Sometimes the risky play can be more fun anyway. I’ve taken risks in Ironmans before if I thought it’d be more fun than the safer option. Mercs and Heroes have Avoid of around 40-45 reducing your displayed Hit to 80-85 against them, and of course you risk getting doubled by them. Well part of the reason I picked Ch21 as an example is because I gave up on Rei being able to double Wyverns sooner. You fight a fair number of Wyverns in the chapters following Rei’s joining and I don’t think he has any hope of doubling them for a while, and he’s going to take some time to build support too. He can get it eventually. Like you said, high investment high reward. There may be some enemy types that Rei is effective against earlier though, like Fighters perhaps. I didn’t pick that level because I thought it was a reasonable level for him to get to by that point. I picked it because that’s when he reaches Niime’s base Spd on average. And at that Spd, both of them are only doubling slower Wyverns, but probably not most of them, and definitely not the Lords. Also on that note, it takes around 33 MagAtk to 2HKO Ch21 Wyvern Lords, give or take. There’s some variance in enemies’ stats. Point being that base Niime and average 20/6 Rei probably won’t 2HKO most Lords, which means they’re 3RKOing. Maybe Aircalibur isn’t as important for the Riders, but it seems like a huge benefit against Lords. I said earlier that I don’t think Rei has any hope of doubling Wyverns for a while after he joins and it’s going to take quite some investment. Eventually he may reach a point where he can reliably double and kill most Wyvern Riders, but there’s a lot of chapters before that where having access to an effective damage weapon like Aircalibur would be really to nice to have. I don’t know what level Rei would reasonably be at this point. Really just depends on how much you want to invest in him. Hey, it’s still 5 more against Lance users. You can often play around using your units in the situations that they’re best in while covering their weaknesses with other units. I’m not afraid of going up to bat for Axes in FE6. I think they get a bit over criticized for their low accuracy, which isn’t an issue against Lances, and there are a lot of Lance enemies in the game. I’m also not sure Rei can really have much more Skl than the Axe users if you’ve been investing in them. Geese’s average Skill isn’t lower until very high level. Garret starts with 15 Skl which isn’t bad. Hit boosting supports, I’m not sure about. Also they can use Swordreavers to have the same hit against Sword enemies as Nosferatu, disregarding support differences. Also I think Axes generally have decent Hit against Axe enemies since they have low Avoid. Though Dark Magic would probably be notably better against Bow users or magic users. So you’re judging class lines by aesthetic, and perhaps thematic, while I’m judging them by mechanics. To me when I think of what makes Shaman distinct from Mages in the GBA games, it’s that they use Dark Magic, more so than that they wear darker robes. I haven’t played Fates but don’t the two factions in that game have basically the same classes but with different themes? Do you count those classes as the basic version of that type of class or as completely different classes? Also, Pegasus Knights promote into Draco Knights in the DS games so I’m not sure it’s as simple as you’re making it out to be. Pegasus Knight -> Draco Knight is the class line in that game. Yeah I think it would have made sense to discuss Veyle in the lords topic to be honest, but Dark Mage is fair enough too. Some units that are in unique classes might not fit well into this topic series. To be honest I only just noticed that you said ‘mechanically’. Is it a combination of aesthetics and mechanics then? I suppose so huh? I don’t know much about DLC.

Well first of all, what do you consider to be the qualifier? You seem to be suggesting that being called “Dark Mage” is more of a qualifier than actually using Dark Magic, which just seems strange to me. If Dark Magic were in the DS games, they would use it.. but it doesn’t. I don’t see what ties this class to Shaman and Druids in the GBA games at all aside from the arbitrary name. In the GBA games there’s a clear mechanical difference between Mages and Shaman. The type of weapon they use a big distinction in these games and often was pretty much the only distinction between classes in older FE games. In 3H, any class can use any weapon type for the most part and that includes magic classes being able to use any magic type. But classes still specialize in certain weapon types via skill bonuses, Faires, and certification requirements. Dark Knight has Dark Tome Faire. Mortal Savant does not. I don’t see how this is a contradiction. In previous games they didn’t need skills that boost it because they had exclusive use of it, but in 3H things have changed. Every class that specializes in Swords has Sword Faire, hence them specializing in it. You wouldn’t call every class a Sword class just because they can use Swords. Despite every class using any weapon type, classes can still be separated by weapon type based on Faire skills and such. 3H doesn’t have class lines or promotions like most other FE games, and I think Dark Mage -> Dark Bishop -> Dark Knight is just about as much of a logical and natural progression as pretty much any other class line in 3H She’s half dragon. Since her class is very similar to Alear it would probably make sense to include her in the same class discusión that Alear is in? But to answer the question, yeah I don’t know, it’s the closest thing to Dark Magic in that game and it is unique to her.

I don’t understand how you’re getting there from what I’ve been saying. Why is it ridiculous to not count the DS games’ Dark Mages? I don’t really think they should count because they aren’t really ‘Dark’ Mages at all. Their name is a lie. They don’t use Dark Magic, they just use the same magic as regular Mages. They basically are just regular Mages for a different group of units. And in 3H, any class can use any weapon type for the most part, including any magic class being able to use any type of magic. But Dark Knights are one of the only classes in the game to have a bonus to using Dark Magic. The other being Gremory.

Perhaps I need to try it, but I’m still skeptical. How high are their Hit rates? You say it works reliably so their hits rates need to be close to 100 against the enemies you have them fight. It seems that Rei’s Lugh support takes 60 turns to reach A. Is that fast? Killer Axes actually have higher accuracy as long as you’re fighting Lance enemies like Wyverns. Normal could be a different story, but in Hard mode Aircalibur is great. Wyverns are not slow, Rei’s not going to be doubling them for a while, and even later on I’m not so sure he’d be able to. It looks like they have around 12 AS in Ch21. Rei needs to be around level 20/6 on average to double that, but it seems that those are actually the slower end of Wyverns in that chapter, according to the HM stats forum thread here. And Wyvern Lords have around 14-16 AS. Niime can only double slower Riders and no Lords as well. Since Rei joins rather under leveled with not so great stats, I’d think I would want to promote him almost immediately if I’m going to use him, in order to make him somewhat decent as soon as possible. But that only puts him at 11 Spd, not nearly enough to double the Wyverns in the following chapters. You fight a lot of Wyverns starting in Ch13, right after Rei joins and also right after Aircalibur first becomes available if I’m remembering right. These Wyverns seem to have around 8-10 AS, or more if the equip a Javelin. Cecilia can deal some nice chip damage to Wyverns with Aircalibur, and a trained up Lugh can be really effective against them. It’s a great weapon. It’s also nice to not need to worry about getting to a high level to be effective, or if you get unlucky Spd procs. I’ve always found Air caliber really useful and a really nice bonus for Mages. And I don’t think doubling Wyverns can be assumed. Lugh is faster than most units so he actually might not even need to rely on Air caliber as much as Rei could’ve benefitted from it. If Rei were a Mage I think he’d be better specifically because he’d be able to use Aircalibur after promoting and be much more useful against Wyverns before reaching high enough levels to double them.

I think the main defining trait of Dark Mages is that they use Dark Magic. In the GBA games, Shaman are pretty much just Mages that use Dark Magic instead of Anima. And Dark Knights are one of the only classes that have any bonus towards using Dark Magic in 3H, even more so than Dark Mage/Bishop actually. That and that Dark Mage -> Dark Bishop -> Dark Knight is pretty much just as natural a progression as any other class progression in 3H and that Dark Knight is a pretty direct upgrade for anyone in the Dark Bishop class. Also I’d actually say that Swordmaster, Assassin, and Hero are basically all branching promotion paths, more or less.

Sacred Stones Knoll is pretty weak and joins pretty late too. But he still offers good utility by being able to promote to Summoner. I’m trying to rate more based on the classes themselves rather than the individual units, and Summoner is too good to not put on top. Though, it is a bit strange to being rating it on top of a Dark Mage thread, specifically for Summoning and not for its ability to actually use Dark Magic. Still true though, Summoning utility can be really useful. Summoners also still have some Staff utility and can fight in combat if they need to. Knoll is really weak in combat and only starts with E Staves, but the class itself it’s really good in general. Any Druid would be better if they were a Summoner. FE7; Blazing Sword Canas is actually pretty good, joining at a decent time at a decent level and not requiring too much investment to be able to promote. He benefits from an early promotion and should be pretty competent against most enemies after that. He can also raise up his Staff rank decently quickly. The class itself is ranked here because I think Dark Magic is relatively better in FE7 than it is in FE6. I know Nosferatu is heavier, but Flux is good enough against most enemies, and Luna is good against bosses, but most of all, well I’ll get that with FE6. Yeah it’s a solid class here. Binding Blade Okay so the problem is, Dark Mages here compete with Mages that deal effective damage to Wyverns. That’s a really nice thing to have. I just don’t see how Dark Mages can keep up with their competition. The unit themselves include Niime who is very good mainly for her Staff utility. Ray isn’t great. I’ve seen people talk about Nosferatu tanking, I haven’t tried it myself but that seems very risky and unreliable. Wouldn’t work for Niime either because of how frail she is. Three Houses Dark Mage and Dark Bishop simply aren’t very good classes. They’re rather disappointing actually. Mage is a lot better than Dark Mage due to the mastery skill and for most units, Warlock is much better than Dark Bishop due to Black Tome Faire. It’s worth it for Hubert to go Dark Bishop, but not because it’s a great class for him, but because Warlock offers him basically nothing, and Dark Bishop is barely any better. Dark Knight is a massive upgrade for Hubert, the only male class that actually offers any bonuses towards Dark Magic, not to mention high move and combat Cantó. Still though, it’s not available until pretty late, especially on Crimson Flower route. It is a pretty great class once you get it though.

Well class lines are different between every game anyway, this comparison series we’ve been doing doesn’t exactly fit perfectly between games, but we’re doing it anyway just for fun. One complication we ran into earlier was figuring out whether Astrid counts as a Nomad, a Cavalier, or both. In Echoes, Bow Knight promotes from Sniper and is clearly within the same Archer/Sniper class line. In FE6/7, Nomad is a distinctly separate class line from Archer. In SD, Hunter is an infantry class that promotes into the mounted Horseman class. Hunter -> Horseman is a clear class line that is distinct from the Archer line. In most FE games, class lines are easy to define based on which classes promote into what. 3H is complicated because for the most part, it really doesn’t have class lines at all. You don’t ‘promote’ the same way as in most FE games. You can certify into any class that you meet the requirements for regardless of what other class you’re in. The only ‘class lines’ for the most part, are just whatever seems to make logical sense to people. Archer -> Sniper is a logical class line, but there’s nothing stopping you from going Archer -> Wyvern Rider, or Brigand -> Sniper, or whatever instead. Archer -> Sniper -> Bow Knight is a pretty logical progression, and if not for Hunter’s Volley, Bow Knight would be a pretty direct upgrade from Sniper. You bring up a good point about Dark Bishop requiring you do have certified for Dark Mage, making these two classes into a clear ‘class line’. That’s actually the only class in the game that works that way. But even despite that, I’d personally find it a bit strange to not include Dark Knight given that it is hands down the best ending class for the main Dark Mage of the game; Hubert. Dark Mage -> Dark Bishop -> Dark Knight is a pretty natural progression for him and Dark Knight is a pretty direct upgrade form Dark Bishop. It’s the only class in the game to have Dark Tome Faire, so it’s pretty clearly a Dark Magic using class. The other main Dark Magic user; Lysithea, can’t even be a Dark Mage/Bishop because those classes are for some reason male only, but Dark Knight is a very good class for her because of Dark Tome Faire. I’d consider 3H Dark Knight closer to a Dark Mage class than Dark Mage / Sorcerer in the DS games. Despite being called Dark Mages, they don’t actually use Dark Magic. They’re more like alternative versions of Mages than they are actual Dark Mages. Whereas Dark Knights are Dark Magic users because of Dark Tome Faire. If you don’t want to include it, that’s fair enough. But I don’t think it’s strange at all that some people think it should be included, and from my perspective, the fact that it’s the natural final progression of the main Dark Magic user of the game pretty much seals the deal for me to include it.