The Black Pot

This is the part where I out myself as never having done Golden Deer or unlocked their paralogue😬. I honestly just based them off the Barbarossa bases because it's a fellow bow user. Didn't notice how bizarrely jacked it is across the board compared to the other two personal classes. This might just be bias from the times and ways I've used Ignatz, but I actually gotta disagree- he comes across to me like more of a utility unit instead of even a partial caster. He gets debuffing abilities and multiple rallies like Annette and Hubert, both of whom got supportive classes above. Meanwhile his Reason list is one of the smallest in the game at a meager 3 spells. I'll agree that Commander is an unfitting name, but the mechanics subjectively seems more like the direction he might have been taken.

Only two haven't been done so far. Might as well complete the school! Whisper (Beradetta) Commander (Ignatz)

I'm a chronic competionist, and that damn golden start screen is tempting me to do a Maddening NG run, likely Blue Lions since it seems the least painful and I've already done SS Maddening (albeit NG+) so I wouldn't want to do VW right after. Naturally I bought a lot of my way to victory with previously developed skill/support levels, so instruction and time management were rarely a concern. In my SS run I would attempt to fully clear maps to get maximum exp, and I expect I'd do that again here. I'm currently unsure what I should be looking at in terms of roster size, between the enemy power levels and the need to be selective with instructing this time. I'm thinking going relatively low man, with 7 combat units, Byleth, Linhardt, and a dancer, so that I can pump the instruction into the 7 fighters and ignore the two support units in the classroom. Since maps go up to 12 units though, is it better to get as many hands on deck as possible?

Truth be told, I didn't end up going back to it after chapter 9 or so. I honestly got really put off by how pushy you got about the project like, say, going into another completely unrelated topic and bringing it up, and wasn't interested in continuing to support that. That's purely on me though, it did seem like a solid experience for someone who hadn't followed the project and would just be jumping right in to the developed patch.

Is there a reason you chose to increase difficulty by nerfing player unit stats instead of buffing enemies, which were approproately identified in the post you linked as the cause of the game's ease? Especially since you yourself fail to describe anything remotely positive about any of them other than Seth, who really doesn't need further cementing as the best character in Sacred Stones. Weaker characters can be compensated by grinding, funneling stat boosters, or using better weapons, the game's already beatable with 0% growths. Granted, this is all a hot take, without checking any changes you may have made to enemies, weapons, or formations.

I'm working on a patch for FE7 and would like to add two new staves to the game. Specifically, a recreation of Entrap from Fates and SoV and a Banish staff that does the reverse, teleporting an enemy away. My base idea for how to implement them would be to copy the Rescue and Warp staff effects, except targeting enemies rather than allies. Looking through FEBuilder, I can't find any obvious way to change targeting of effects. Is this at all doable through it or another tool/method?

What impact does this have in the GBA games, where the classes already are strictly physical or magical? Does it change stuff like strength for attack speed like in later games, or affect the scaling of the magic swords? Or does it just open the door for hybrid classes?

I've been working on a rebalance hack for FE7, since there's a weird lack of them compared to the other 2 GBA titles. One of the things I wanted to do was overhaul the magic system to make the magic types more distinct and staves less tedious. Now it's one of the last things I still need to implement, other than the maybe half hour it would take in FEBuilder to implement my planned stat changes. The plan is/was to change all the staves into one of the 3 magic types by simply changing the weapon type on FEBuilder. Torch, Unlock, Warp, and Rescue would become Anima, Ward, Sleep, Silence and Berserk would become Dark, and Heal, Mend, Restore, Physic, Recover, and Fortify would become Light. All Clerics would become Monks to be able to attack from the get go and avoid the stat grind, and Monks, Mages, and Shaman would be able to use their respective weapon type's former staves before promotion and without needing to grind a second weapon rank. Troubadors and Valkyries would get access to all 3 magic types but can only use the modified staves and E rank tomes While I was excited about the concept, the implementation doesn't quiet work so far, presumably due to my own inexperience. After changing the staves to a weapon type they can't be used with the Staff command. Unmodified staves properly trigger the command, but the modified staves aren't selectable as options. Modified staves can still be used from the item menu and work perfectly from there, but it's a hassle that I'd love to iron out before adding the overhaul in for good. Obviously I would need to do something fancier than selecting a different option in a dropdown menu to get the desired effect or to even find if it's possible, though I don't know a thing about where/what I would play with to do so. Anyone know of any way to expand the availability of a menu command?

Not dead! Still plugging away at it, and glad that someone out there thinks my harebrained ideas have potential.

I'm putting together a romhack of FE7. The original idea, which is currently completed, was to make a complete version that eliminates the route splits so that the player can do all of the chapters and recruit all of the characters, with limited story rewriting to maintain story flow (IE do both versions of Pale Flower of Darkness and recruit both Harken and Karel, do both The Berserker and Valorous Roland). Before I share it in Fan Projects, I'm putting together a second version that implements gameplay tweaks and rebalances, to be released as a separate patch so that any interested in just the story overhaul don't have to put up with my other potentially flawed ideas. I was hoping to get some feedback on the following potential ideas. Overhaul of staves: This one is largely inspired by White Magic in 3h. Essentially, I can remove staves as a weapon class and turn them into Light (Heal, Mend, Restore, Recover, Physic, Fortify, and Hammerne) Anima (Unlock, Torch, Rescue, and Warp), and Dark magic (Ward, Berserk, Silence, Sleep,). Clerics would be turned into Monks, and all magic classes would be able to use both the tomes and the staves of their respective weapon types, though they would not gain anything new on promotion and would not be able to access the staves of the other type. With this system, there wouldn't be any more need to level purely as a staffbot, since even Serra could throw around Lightning right out the gate and magic users could provide staff utility before promotion and wouldn't need to grind weapon ranks to contribute offensively after promotion. Erk, Lucius, and Canas wouldn't need to grind staff rank on promotion as they would simply be using their existing weapon skill. This would also likely better distinguish between the otherwise very samey magic classes, with each of the class trees having something distinct to offer. The obvious downside would be that Sages and Druids would lose their ability to heal and Bishops and Druids would lose their ability to use non-healing staves. Valkyrie is something that needs more consideration with this system. My current idea is to allow it to use 2 or maybe even all 3 types of magic, but limit it to the E rank tomes for offense, to offset the greater staff utility and mobility. Adding all 3 would it maintain the current level of staff utility, but runs the risk of excessive magic triangle control... for what that's worth and with only Fire/Lightning/Flux available. Still very up in the air with this one, and this is where I would be hoping to get the most input. Class Changes: I' wanted to increase weapon diversity so that each combo of weapon is represented. I also wanted to reduce the flexibility of Paladin and improve that of General. General gets Swords, Lances, and Axes and Paladin loses Axes, similar to SS. Since Paladin is now Swords + Lances, Falcoknight and Wyvern Lord are changing to Lances + Bows and Lances + Axes respectively. I'm really torn on Falcoknight since I haven't found any good Bow Falcoknight or Kinshi Knight sprites for GBA and I'm nowhere near competent enough to whip one up, so I'm just using the javelin animation as a placeholder (like a really really big arrow, I guess...). Buuuuut it's either that or an overlapping weapon combo + an unused combo. Either swords gets no flier or bows get no flier. Assassin is the only exception to this line of thought, as it is still swordlocked. To compensate for having poor combat, it's utility will be improved by getting 7 movement, Canto, and not losing the ability to steal, for the like 2 times there's something to steal after the class becomes available. I'm also making Soldier a real class and adding Halberdier as it's promotion. Sniper and Halberdier will get the same critical bonus as their fellow weapon locked classes. Character Class Changes: Some class lines we get multiple representatives of, while others we get only 1. Lowen would become a Soldier and Legault a Halberdier (we hear so much about his fighting prowess, but he's just a Thief...). Eliwood is getting Lances so the three lords complete the weapon triangle, his first chapter will see the bandits converted to Myrmidons and Mercenaries so he and Lowen aren't facing disadvantage the whole way. Either Farina or Fiora, leaning toward Farina, would become a Falcoknight as the class is otherwise completely unrepresented. Isadora would become a Valkyrie and Karla would become a Nomadic Trooper for the same reasoning. Character Stat Changes: Token in any rebalance. All characters that join as unpromoted foot units will have an updated growth total of 315, all unpromoted mounts will have a total of 280, and all promoted characters will have a growth total of 245. Nino will have a total of 350. This still results in a difference of 5% per stat between groups. Most characters were already at or near this anyway, though most infantry got a buff from this and Florina especially went quite a bit down (her growths are weirdly high for such an early joining unit and a flier...). The hope being that you have some sort of reason to use some infantry instead of leaving this game another mount emblem. Less Terrible Bows: Almost all bows would be given 2-3 range, so that they have some reason to be used. Short bows would remain 2 range, but would receive higher power while maintaining high accuracy and low weight. The Longbow would be treated similarly to Blades, with higher might and lower accuracy.

Manuela has a surprisingly good spell list, between Bolting, Silence, and Warp, but her fundamental attack spells (only Thunder and Bolganone) are lacking. Gremory gives her more uses of her compelling spells on both sides of the spectrum, and gets my vote. Her weakness in Reason makes this more of an eventual goal for her, and Bishop is about in the meantime or even as an end goal due to doubling her coolest spell. Seteth starts in the Wyvern line and has zero reason to go anywhere other than WL. Assassin is pretty much an upgraded Swordmaster, and a worthwhile low-investment target.

To be fair, people voted for the stronger characters and the characters with more versatility in options first, so we're left with the much more cut-and-dry or less interesting characters at this point. Raphael's boons orient him nicely toward War Master. He also doesn't have flying bane, so Wyvern Lord is also an option. The difference between the two is WLs higher base speed vs WMs gauntlet attacks, and how each play with Raphael's atrocious speed stat. Even if WL super boosts it the base, it still will rarely go up at a 25% growth chance, so I personally feel the gauntlets are a better for for guaranteeing doubles. Plus, you have so many people already who do best as WL already but few flying batallions. Hanneman takes a page from Dorothea's book and has both Meteor and Thoron. However, he doesn't get Physic, so he can't do the same commitment to long-range. BEtween this and his Riding boon, Dark Knight is an easy choice, giving you Throron with cavalry movement. Cyril is blessed with boons that can take him toward either Bow Knight or Wyvern Lord. He's a fine filler for either. I voted Bow Knight for his best, as it has fewer easy and strong candidates.

Poor Raphael. The least favorite of all the students. Mercedes is the best healer in the game, between her spell list, her personal, and her crest. Getting Physic and Fortify means that she doesn't need to be anywhere near the group, so Bishop to maximize her healing ability and double the chances to trigger her crest with Fortify. Can healing adjutant be an option? Ignatz doesn't have anything particularly special, specializing in bows in a house with Claude ad Leonie with worse stats and a poor personal. If you want to actually use him, Bow Knight lets him at least use the personal for extra long range attacks. Otherwise, make him an Assassin and just have him run around opening chests and stealing. Rescue is really cool, and she's the better user of it due to her existent magic stat. Fortify is also really neat. Holy Knight if you want her to be a better Rescuer, though Nosferatu is her only spell that would benefit from Tomefaire. Bishop improves Fortify and lets you use more Rescues, but at severely reduced mobility.

Caspar has Axe boon and doesn't have flying bane. If you can stomach yet another Wyvern Lord, it's the best option. Canto is super nice or his Personal, as you can readily readjust to give an accuracy bonus to the group. War Master is also great and plays perfectly to his strengths, but trades consistency and mobility for crit chance, which might be preferable. It's also lower investment, giving you more time to work against his Authority bane. Lysithea learns Warp the easiest of anyone in the game, between her personal and learning it at B instead of A. She also has the best range with it due to her magic growth. Capitalize on the spell's flexibility as a Gremory, giving you extra Warps without losing much in the way of power. This also gives her more Abraxis/Hades uses for extra one-shotting, or more Nosferatus to supplement her atrocious bulk. Leonie is meant to be a Bow Knight, cut and dry. Boons in all the right places and the class' strength means you can easily get everything you need and have time to spare to invest in Authority.

Ashe doesn't bring much to the table, between poor stats, no crest, and a personal that might as well not exist thanks tot he ubiquity of keys. If you must use him, Wyvern Lord makes him the ultimate chest opener and its bonuses and axe use offset his weaknesses. Half the cast is best as a Wyvern Lord, but few can effectively use Falcon. Flying res tanks are nice in this game, and Ingrid is the best suited for it. Just be sure to pick up Deathblow as early as possible. Dark Knight is a great class, but a lot of people struggle with the amount investment is requires. Lorenz comes in with boons perfectly tailored to the class, a decent spell list, and a crest that boosts magic damage. Easy pick.