Shadow Mir

Doesn't make it any less moronic when Corrin is one of my more reliable units. Which I cannot say for Silas. And again, far as I'm concerned, it only makes Silas look bad. Which he is anyway, to be frank. Rally Skill and Skill Tonics combine for-drumroll please-a whopping 9 hit. That is less than when I would get out of tag team. At base. He can, but I consider it very stupid to rely on something with worse odds than Dark Void post-nerf to stay alive. Anyway, it might not be the only way, but it avoids Freeze lockdown, and I don’t want to play Xander vs the world. That is inviting disaster. Also, Physic sucks in this game. As for Rescue, I might consider it better saved for endgame. I have something better than numbers. I call it "common sense". If you had it too, you would see exactly how flawed Sol, and relying on it, is. If I wanted to bank on 30% odds, I'd use an OHKO move (that said, Fissure does see use on Ting-Lu in VGC, and it missing means that the next turn something is eating a powered up Stomping Tantrum; for context, Stomping Tantrum doubles in power if the last move did nothing, so Fissure has its poor accuracy translated into an advantage). That said, I know everything in FE is RNG, but still. Needing setup is one thing. Actually being worth the setup is another thing entirely. And Sol Master Ninjas fail the latter test miserably. Fates is really fucking unforgiving, Conquest especially, and relying on an RNG heavy setup is asking for trouble. Not unlike those who buy into Ryoma as being an immortal war god. Asidemfrom Laslow, who is mediocre, and Soleil, who has better options, the setup is too much to be worth it. Especially in the face of the likes of Xander, who don't fold like a napkin to one or two powerful hits, and more so when the characters involved are mid.

High magic alone is not enough for me to overlook how she is so slow she struggles to double fucking armors, aka the slowest of the slow. That's a deal breaker if I ever saw one. If "unga bunga big magic stat" is all it takes to convince you she's good... Really? Because one look at his stats and growths tells me with all the subtlety of a jackhammer that I am only shooting myself in the foot by having him go Onmyoji. For fuck's sake, I don't see why you'd rather make Azama a shitty mage instead of a tanky bruiser who also heals every turn. Unless you think his poor magic stat and the mighty Rat Spirit can work miracles... also, to be blunt, not having Rally Magic is no big loss when the mages are almost all lackluster. If I wanted to vie so hard for mages, I'd do it in any game that ain't Fates. I cannot speak on Constance; I have the DLC, but have not had the chance to use her (also, aren't she and Lysithea both praised for their spell lists?). I was not around during Reinhardt's heyday, so I cannot say anything on that either. Izana? As in the same loser who fucks my team over just by virtue of existing and has little to offer to make up for it? HAHAHAHAHAHA... NO. He can have a seat. On the bench, aka the only spot where he does anything good for me.

Ok. You ain't gonna like the DS games then. The highest difficulties in both pretty much mandate sacrifice strats.

Freakin jeez! How did you get past Ryoma then!?

Big fucking deal. High skill and resistance aren't exactly selling points, bud; there are good units that have those... but those units often get praise for other attributes. Anyway, you don't see a problem with making Azama a class that he is not built for just to make Orochi serviceable? Because that is exactly what you're implying. And I have issue with that, as you're making the team worse just to make a bad unit less bad. Bold: The only unit that manages to be good despite that (that I can think of anyway) is Atlas. Who is in a game where promoting boosts his worse stats up to class bases. Also, his game mostly made unit choice moot, as outside of dungeons and the final battle, you could deploy everyone. Contrast Fates, where as far as Birthright is concerned, you have to start cutting units from the team by chapter 9; who are you willing to bench to use Orochi, hmm...??? Because she, Setsuna, and Hayato are the obvious benchwarmers. I don't need everyone to be on the level of Ryoma, Camilla, Xander, Kagetsu, or what have you. That, of course, is unrealistic. But I generally consider crippling overspecialization to be one of the worst things a unit can be from a statistical perspective. It's all the same with units like those... and it seldom ends well. Unsurprisingly, those units' good stats get dragged down by their lacking ones. Like Setsuna. She's a glass cannon without the "cannon" part, as she has poor strength, as well as hit problems. Which is bad, especially when she's sharing a class with Takumi, who, aside from having a 14 might bow with no downsides, actually comes with the base stats to meaningfully contribute immediately. Or Nyx. While she is in a different class from Orochi, she has much the same issue, that being her stats are either good (magic and speed) or laughable (literally everything else). And the result is no different- her otherwise great offense is ruined (unlike Orochi, it's her hit rates that make her unreliable-and she cannot use Heartseeker to fix them because she is so brittle she REALLY doesn't want to take a hit), and she is more of a liability than an asset. And that isn't even getting into Leo's existence, as he is one of the TWO mages in the entirety of Fates to NOT be complete garbage. Long story short.... If the best I get out of a mage is being easier to squish than a Goomba and being too slow to double fucking armors without help forever (in Orochi's case) or being a magical Gonzales (Nyx).. then maybe, just maybe, the mages in this game are a lost cause.

What games have you played? Anyway, I can agree with you to some extent. The wind map in Conquest is fucking atrocious. I don't like the Ryoma duel map either. To its credit, Fates actually made an effort to balance pair up. Contrast Awakening, where it was utterly bonkers. Welcome to the club. Understandable. I hate status staves because they're seldom actually useful for the player, yet are always a pain in the arse in enemy hands. Special mention to Berserk, which made the target uncontrollable and attack whatever is in range. Even allies.

On paper, that's fair, but in practice, bows are actually good, with a valuable anti-air niche, so I often end up staying in it anyway. The only time I grab Renewal and bail is if I had other plans for the unit... which is pretty much only happening with other units more often than not.

Very funny, because I do not remember you hyping Orochi up. *Ever*. Until this thread, that is. And even if I didn't believe Horse Spirit was overrated to Mount Everest and back, needing to have it superglued to her just to make her look serviceable is telling. Don't get me wrong, I'm not looking for an ubermensch or anything like that, but having only one good stat is NOT the trademark of a good unit when their other stats are mediocre to shit. In fact, that tends to cement a unit as bad. Which describes Orochi to a T. That is a very, very, *VERY* generous definition of "legit" you have there... all I am getting from this assessment is that Orochi needs a LOT of investment and resources that could have gone to better units, as well as needing to use a specific weapon, to look good. Also, Orochi's high magic ain't enough to redeem her in the face of her statistical weakness... oh, everywhere fucking else.

C tier in PoR. Mages have below average move, which hurts; literally every physical class got increased move (including armors!). Tomes have low might, and it doesn't help that you can only forge basic tomes. Long range tomes are an exception, but good luck actually getting the weapon ranks to use more than one. In addition, the AS formula was changed so that AS loss from weight is mitigated by strength, which most mages have little of, both in bases and growths. This means they're generally going to suffer AS penalties, especially Soren, who has the misfortune of having a 5% growth in it. This pretty much restricts him to wind magic, which is at its worst in this game, thanks to double effectiveness and low might making it barely better than thunder when doing effective damage. Calill tries to put in a good showing for the class, but unfortunately, she got stuck with knives in an intentional nerf thanks to Pent and Saleh eclipsing the unpromoted mages in their respective games.

Really? Because I'd say Fates mages were pretty damn bad (maybe even on Radiant Dawn levels)... Orochi has armor level speed (and no, Horse Spirit does not magically make it good), and is *very* squishy (and no, Horse Spirit does not fix that. It's not a miracle worker), Hayato comes underleveled (that said, he gets a big glow up in Revelation), and Rhajat cannot hit the broad side of a barn. I am very hesitant to consider that "good". Oh, and there's Izana as well. He sucks too, being "blessed" with a personal skill that is a fucking sabotage to your side, and coming late on top of that. D tier in Radiant Dawn. Magic is at its nadir in Radiant Dawn. As are mages in general. Mages already had problems in Path of Radiance, but they're even worse off in RD. First off, enemy resistance is rather high; except for certain unit types, enemy resistance isn't that much lower than defense. Second, they are stuck with weak weapons. The might gap between physical weapons and magic is pretty high, not helped by the fact that mages are stuck with El tomes for almost all the game. Making matters worse, long range magic got nerfed. Their weight was severely jacked up, and they're only as effective as second level spells. Blizzard didn't get affected that much, but Meteor, Purge, and especially Bolting got hit pretty badly (Purge got its might halved, and Bolting went from 13 might to only 6!). Then there's the fact that mages generally have low speed. Also, they don't get staves until third tier, at which point they have to worry about the fact that staves are equipped when used. D tier in Fates. After Awakening, where magic was pretty much at its best, magic got slammed with the nerf bat. Again. And the mage selection, as stated earlier, is really lackluster. It's just hard to justify fielding any of the mages you get, with Revelation Hayato being the only one that is remotely usable. "Only one unit in this class is good, but only on a specific route!" is a VERY damning indictment of a class! Also, it's difficult to warrant picking Onmyoji over the alternative options for Sakura, Azama, OR Mitama. Oh, and Basara sucks really badly, with useless skills and an uninspiring stat spread. On top of this, magic got put in the weapon triangle, meaning it has to worry about WTD, whereas it didn't in Awakening. Did I mention that this game invented a new class and weapon type that makes life hard for mages? Because it did. I know that I couldn't expect mages to be on the level they were in Awakening, but the class sets the bar really damn low here. Oh, and unlike in Awakening, Tomefaire doesn't do double duty, as the magic boosting effect was nixed. Not that it would have helped, since ranged staves have fixed range.

More like anyone, to be honest. Mages are the bane of Knights, yes, but here, resistance is low for most units.

I would disagree here. Especially in Mitama's case. Largely because Renewal is great, and Rally Magic... isn't. It doesn't help that magic as a weapon type is kinda underwhelming imho. As is the mage selection; outside of like TWO units, the natural mages are godawful. But more on that when the time is right. D tier in Radiant Dawn. They're not useless, but they have a good bit going against them. For example, none of the big name staves are in this game. Also, more damningly, healing items are more effective and have more uses. Worst of all, staves are equipped when used, unlike in most other games (on paper, this would allow healers to defend themselves if attacked. In practice, however, it only serves to make it harder to steal staves from enemies considering that staff attacks are most likely doing nothing to, well, ANYTHING). This leaves them sitting ducks on enemy phase, unlike in other games, where they kept their tomes equipped regardless. It isn't the end of the world for them, though. C tier in Path of Radiance. Unlike the sequel, Rhys doesn't start with competition for the healing role. However, his class ends up as a poor man's Sage. On top of this, none of the notable staves show up here either.

Honestly, I agree Deen is the trap choice. Fighting a bunch of witches and a boss who WILL one punch anyone on a crit? Hell no. Especially when the best thing about Deen doesn't even require recruiting him.

Same. Granted, they're enemy exclusive, but still.

...Aaaaaaaand that is exactly what the problem is. I just find needing to critically injure my leading man, who is one of the few reliable units early on by the way, AND reducing them to pair up fodder just to buff an inferior unit to be unacceptable. Especially when other units can put in serious work without needing such conditions fulfilled.. A metric ton, to be honest. It's to be expected when you use a fragile unit that lives and dies by the RNG. Which brings me back to, with Fates, and Conquest in particular, why the hell should I use someone who things can quickly go south for if the RNG doesn't smile on them over someone who can take it?? And on top of this, this generally needs a lot of setup to even be doable. Ergo, specific friendship and/or marriage setups. And all this is for someone who needs the RNG to go their way else they're gonna end up in trouble quickly. You sound like capping stats is a frequent occurrence. I just brought up caps to make a point; in practice, the odds will be even lower for most, if not all of, the game. Also, I don't know about you, but in general, skill isn't something I use tonics for, nor the rally. I just like to keep my options open, that's all. Carries me through the Berserker and General room in chapter 26; exploit the move difference to have the Berserkers separate themselves from the Generals, so by the time the Generals have caught up, the Berserkers are dead.

B rank in Binding Blade. Honestly, Niime is the main reason for this; Raigh is okay, but not great, and Sophia is a candidate for the worst unit in the game. It helps that Nosferatu is not very heavy in this game. C rank in Blazing Blade. Nosferatu got nerfed, having its weight jacked up from 6 to 14 (!!!), and Canas doesn't really have a great stat spread. That said, Luna is really broken here (albeit situational, as most enemies have poor resistance. D tier in Sacred Stones. There is quite a bit going against the class here; first off, the above mentioned Luna got nerfed to hell, with its crit rate halved and its accuracy going way down, from 95 to 50. Second, availability issues; only Knoll and Ewan can access it, with the latter being the latest joining of the trainees, coming past the halfway point of the game, and the former coming in chapter 15. Third, Gleipnir, the dark Sacred Twin weapon, is laughably terrible, with a MASSIVE 20 weight, and adding insult to injury, it is NOT effective against monsters! The only reason it ain't E is because of Summoner. E tier in Radiant Dawn. Putting aside the fact he needs a replay to obtain, Pelleas comes underleveled, which is bad enough, but he also comes late (as in part 4 late), AND mages are at their worst in Radiant Dawn. Not helping matters is the fact his only other magic type is thunder, which got nerfed, which means he's liable to have accuracy problems. Nor does it that Balberith sucks. Oh, and dark magic in general doesn't have much of anything going for it either. A tier in Awakening. Honestly, with all the focus Nosferatu gets, it's easy to forget about Mire, the only long range attack in the game. There is also Ruin, which has a 50 crit rate. The only real knock against it is that the only natural dark mages have issues. D tier in Fates. First, the obvious: Nosferatu got nerfed. That was to be expected, but... honestly, it's a bit excessive for dark magic to have pretty much gotten culled for it (the whole thing calls to mind Dark Void and Darkrai). Also, Vengeance got nerfed, thanks to lower stats and decreased activation chance. Anyway, Nyx and Odin are lackluster. As in really bad. E tier in Three Houses. Unlike every other class, Dark Mage needs a separate item to qualify for, which is the start of the problem as Dark Seals only have one source. This makes Dark Mage harder to qualify for than other Intermediate classes, so it and Dark Bishop would need to have good offerings to make up for this. Unfortunately, they don't, as Dark Mage gives Poison Strike on mastery... which compares unfavorably to Fiendish Blow from Mage. It gets worse: You need ANOTHER Dark Seal to qualify for Dark Bishop. And its mastery ability is even worse; Lifetaker. Unlike in prior appearances, where it healed for half the unit's max HP when an enemy was defeated, Lifetaker only heals half the HP that the enemy had when the user attacked and defeated them. This means you pretty much need to oneshot or one-round the foe for it to do anything. Oh, and they're male exclusive on top of all this... when most of the handful of units that learn dark magic are female (only 3 units learn dark magic exclusively for Reason... and two of those are female). Long story short, the classes only benefit Hubert (who gets more Miasma charges)... who is only available on one route... and no one else.

The issue here is that because most white magic spells are non-offensive, and the offensive white magic spells mostly suck, any prospective Holy Knight pretty much MUST train reason as well. That's four ranks you're working on, before the obligatory authority rank. Of course, it doesn't help matters that most characters don't even get 2 offensive white magic spells, leaving those poor souls with Nosferatu as their sole offensive white spell. Honestly? Nope, nope, nope. For all the hoops I have to jump through for it, it's a letdown in practice. It looks like the modern FE equivalent of Karla; basically, work your butt off for something that fails to justify the investment. Re: Aura, I'm gonna have to agree with the above sentiment about it being inaccurate; it may not look so on the surface, but faith only gives +10 hit at max, whereas reason gives +20 hit at max, meaning in practice, Aura is gonna have worse hit rates than the likes of Bolting.

The obvious solution, to me at least, is to make new offensive white magic that isn't crap. Because that's at least part of the problem; it is supposed to be an offensive white magic user, but if it was meant as such, it would only be as good as the offensive white magic spells are... and there are only 4 offensive white magic spells, and almost all of them are bad. It doesn't help that the one universally available offensive spell is Nosferatu, which is too heavy and weak for use as a mage's main means of attack. I'm just being honest. Maybe brutally so, but honest nonetheless. I mean, I thought it was a decent class at first, but did a total 180 when I actually thought about it - and realized just how ill-conceived it was. It doesn't help that it arguably needs even more effort to qualify for than Great Knight, which is the poster child for disproportionately high requirements

Chapter 25 in Path of Radiance. It has mountain paths that slow down armored units and cavalry (funny thing is, it took looking it up on the forum to realize armored units got slowed down too). There is also the shore in chapter 9, but I'd send Titania and Oscar there anyway, because my initial approach for that map is to secure the beach and villages with all my manpower. Because the only cavalry units I worked with that didn't stink were bow knights. I worked with Sylvain in Azure Moon. I made him a Cavalier, then a Paladin. He fell off really fucking HARD after the timeskip, and he didn't impress me before the timeskip either. His failure to impress, aside from earning him a grudge being held against him, is gonna give me a lot of pause about working with Ferdinand when I go back to 3H... anyway, high movement is nice, but you damn well better have something going for you besides that. It alone doesn’t make a class good. Case in point: Holy Knight. Anyways... A tier in Fates. Elise is a first-rate support unit even in Revelation, where most Nohrian units got gimped, and Felicia has early Inspiration for inheritance and debuffs as well. B tier in Blazing and Binding Blade. Priscilla and Clarine are great healer units, though they suffer from the slow rate of experience gain for healers. C tier in Sacred Stones. Much as I love L'arachel, coming past the halfway point of the game at level 3 is not a good look, and the slow exp gain for healers doesn't help either. It doesn't help that Troubadour lost 1 move for whatever reason, which also applies to her promotion options. Natasha also has Valkyrie as an option, but it's competing with Bishop, which gets extra damage vs monsters and as stated earlier, only has 1 less movement. C tier in Path of Radiance. Mist is the only mobile healer for most of the game (read as: before Elincia joins), but it takes some work to get there. C tier in Radiant Dawn. Mist is a lot more usable, on the one hand... but on the other hand, healing items are more effective and have more uses. B tier in Awakening. F tier in Three Houses. Why the bloody fuck does Holy Knight exist? What the fuck were the developers thinking with it? It's completely unworthy of the master class pedigree. Shitty stats, shitty class skills, shitty mastery skill... every other fucking magic class in the level 20 and 30 tiers does what it can do better as the icing on the shit cake. It needing high investment to get into on top of all this is the death knell for any chance it had of being good. I will abstain from talking about Valkyrie as I haven't had the chance to use it.

Many of those other games didn't have terrain that slows down cavalry units and ONLY cavalry units. The only one I can think of was Path of Radiance... but unlike in 3H, it was only in one map. Of course, I don't hold it against them because PoR was one of, if not the best game for cavalry. It's much harder to like cavalry units when their mobility advantage doesn't even materialize in practice a good chunk of the time... especially when they aren't even that much better than my foot units, if they are at all. Also, you're forgetting another piece of the puzzle here; 3H has combat arts for moving other units around. In the GBA games, you had to rescue units to transport them... but Generals tended to be too heavy to move around in such a fashion. Almost all of the armors in the GBA games ended up with at least 15 constitution after promotion, which almost no mounted unit can pick up when they started promoting as well (special mention to Barth the Unrescuable and his 18 constitution!). Sorry to disappoint, but you ain't getting that here. Look in the appropriate ranking threads for those.

Same. Honestly, Alcryst starts falling off right after the Brodia arc is over. Maybe I'm being too hard on him, maybe I am not.

Swords are not better than black magic, but I was not trying to say they were. The offensive white magic, on the other hand? An absolute fucking joke. Except for Seraphim. Nosferatu has a laughable 1 might and 8 weight, and Aura and Abraxas are mega-heavy with only 3 and 2 uses respectively. Don't get me wrong, I don't think Swordmaster is a good class, but worse than a class that has the worst Faire ability, and only high movement going for it? Are. You. Fucking. Kidding Me? Fistfaire is better, but you know what ain't? Being in a class that is mediocre at both offense and support, which War Cleric is in spades. Bruh For how much I have to invest to get a Holy Knight, I would expect them to not set the bar So. Fucking. Low. This is a goddamn Master tier class we are talking about. War Master, Gremory, Wyvern Lord, Falcon Knight, Bow Knight... those master classes actually manage to justify the investment. Hell, I can't help but actively wonder if they made Holy Knight terrible on purpose. Getting one into Holy Knight is like grinding for aeons to get a new weapon... only for it to have the power of a rubber chicken. That's the kind of shit I have no tolerance for. That said, while Great Knight has its own issues, namely needing both armor and riding... it at least doesn't force me to invest in another area like Holy Knight does. That makes one of us. It's not good enough for me to warrant the trouble; Lances are *useless* if I'm focusing my unit entirely on magic. Even then, I refuse to settle for anything that's not the best of the best when it comes to mounted classes.

What about Crimson Flower's last two maps? And the Valley of Torment? And Gronder Redux? The Sealed Forest? The forest map used in Marianne's paralogue (as well as Petra and Bernadetta's)? In contrast, the most terrain heavy maps in non-3H games I can think of are Mount Prism in Awakening, and chapter 25 in PoR. Literally every class has ranged combat. It's goddamn Three Houses, where classes are not locked by weapon type. If I need my Swordmaster to fight at range, I can just use a bow. Which is better than what crappy offensive white magic there is. Also, Swordmaster has better speed than Holy Knight (4 vs negative 1), and 5 extra damage on a better weapon type than Holy Knight. You want a class that has literally nothing going for it?! War Monk/Cleric is a thing. That's where you're wrong. As was said earlier, you're pretty much forced to train reason alongside the requirements of faith, riding and lance because the offensive white magic spells are garbage. And of course you're gonna want to train authority. Which means you're spreading experience thin. Oh, and FYI, this is the exact same fucking thing I have bashed Dark Knight for. As far as units go, Marianne is the one unit who has strengths in all three. The only other characters with faith boons have weaknesses in at least one of the other requirements or start at E in them.

There is. It's called "being slowed down to a crawl by terrain that isn't plains".

More like 7 move and in a game where having a horse is not all boon. Canter can only do so much, and it is not nearly enough for me to absolve Holy Knight of being shit in just about every conceivable metric. Especially because again, Holy Knight takes a shitload of effort to get into. If it was actually decent, I might be inclined to forgive this transgression, but as it is, it's a fucking joke.