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Hey all,

So... I like thinking about the mechanics and classes of Fire Emblem and whatnot. I love when people come up with ideas for new classes or new magic users especially.

One thing I have been thinking about recently is how... Incomplete the magic of anima, and just magic in general seems in some Fire Emblem games. Obviously Fire Emblem is not an RPG like Final Fantasy or something, but it still strikes me as odd that we have an elemental magic class in Anima that only uses basically 3 elements, whereas the Affinities have at least 2 more, if not 3 depending on the game aside from Light and Dark...

So I am wondering do you think the other elements could be used/useful in Fire Emblem? FEif appears to have someone casting ice... But how would you like to see it?

My personal idea comes from the 8 elements seen in Path of Radiance... Light/Dark/Anima could still make the greater magic triangle, but then Anima could still have a triangle within itself... Perhaps Light and Dark could be developed into that as well... But anyways, I can see the Anima or Elemental magic as being either two separate but interactive/overlapping magic types... Or if the Anima triangle had separate ranks for each of the three types... Perhaps the one other element could pair with it?

But anyways, here is the basic idea.

-another form of magic triangle?
Wind > Thunder > Fire > Wind... Water > Ice > Earth > Water
Earth grounds Thunder, Water puts out Fire, Ice blocks Wind
Thunder electrifies Water, Fire melts Ice, Wind stirs up Earth
Thunder and Ice are neutral... Fire and Earth are neutral... Wind and Water are neutral as well...

...this idea could do with some tweaking, maybe a visual aid to demonstrate/make it clearer... But what do you guys think?

Or are there any ideas for Magic in Fire Emblem you yourselves would like to see?

Edited by TheErrantShepherd
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My headcanon places ice in anima. Earth could work too I guess, but water? I don't see that being much use unless the monsters make a return and a monster species that's a thing made out of lava/fire is added. Water can damage if it's shot with enough pressure, but ice would be more powerful, and it basically IS water...having both water and ice elements works in Pokemon but that's about it imo.

With earth, are we talking mud/dirt or leaves/plants? Are vines coming out of the ground and snaring the enemy or what? I'd rather just add ice tbh.

My affinity list used to be massive. I had 12! One for each month. Let's see...fire, water, ice, wind, dark, light, nature, cosmic, metal, stone, thunder, ground. But a lot of them overlapped. There's like 4 in there that can be combined into earth. So I switched to the affinity/birthmonth system from FE7 and replaced anima with earth because of preference. Tellius has a heaven affinity, and I work with that world the most...I just tweak it to fit. Elincia can be light, and Lethe can have thunder like Lyre since it's birthmonth based and they're twins. It makes the affinities more like zodiac/horoscope signs, I like that idea.

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First we need the magic triangles and separate magic ranks back... I miss them ;~;

Personally, the magic triangle is one of the LAST things that needs to return.

Also, I don't like this idea full stop - it's too complicated.

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Personally, the magic triangle is one of the LAST things that needs to return.

Also, I don't like this idea full stop - it's too complicated.

If physical units get one, Magical units should too. Removing it was stupid, specially since iirc, both were introduced in the Jugdral games.

GBA era magical units were particularly good with variety. We had slow but strong Shamans, jack of all stats mages, and the fragile monks. In addition, the enemy magical units were varied enough for the magic triangle to affect tactics.

Unless you have a really compelling argument about the weapon triangle staying but the magic one being gone, nobody will listen to you.

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If physical units get one, Magical units should too. Removing it was stupid, specially since iirc, both were introduced in the Jugdral games.

GBA era magical units were particularly good with variety. We had slow but strong Shamans, jack of all stats mages, and the fragile monks. In addition, the enemy magical units were varied enough for the magic triangle to affect tactics.

Unless you have a really compelling argument about the weapon triangle staying but the magic one being gone, nobody will listen to you.

The magic triangle wasn't relevant since FE4, honestly - and even there it was broken, given that wind manages to be on even ground with the type that's SUPPOSED to have an advantage over it. It's also counterintuitive - you're attacking a mage's resistance, which is naturally higher than their defence. And that's saying nothing of how because of this, it's easier for the player to get away with being on the wrong end of the magic triangle.

Edited by Levant Caprice
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The magic triangle wasn't relevant since FE4, honestly - and even there it was broken, given that wind manages to be on even ground with the type that's SUPPOSED to have an advantage over it. It's also counterintuitive - you're attacking a mage's resistance, which is naturally higher than their defence. And that's saying nothing of how because of this, it's easier for the player to get away with being on the wrong end of the magic triangle.

Then why lose the magic triangle while keeping the physical one?

In addition, there's no saying we can't have "magic armors" in the future. They could be magical units with high physical defense but low magical resistance, designed to deal with physical units. Due to magic triangle, it would be useful to have an advantage on them for extra hit.

In addition, I felt it's effects in the GBA games quite well. It's effects on hit rates felt notable, especially early on.

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Then why lose the magic triangle while keeping the physical one?

In addition, there's no saying we can't have "magic armors" in the future. They could be magical units with high physical defense but low magical resistance, designed to deal with physical units. Due to magic triangle, it would be useful to have an advantage on them for extra hit.

In addition, I felt it's effects in the GBA games quite well. It's effects on hit rates felt notable, especially early on.

A what-if is not a very compelling reason for the magic triangle coming back. Also, I'd like to say that that was an idea they already had - they were called Barons. In all seriousness, though, I'd consider magic armors about as stupid an idea as bow armors.

Ehhh, I didn't, honestly, largely because two of the GBA games have pathetic enemies.

Edited by Levant Caprice
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A what-if is not a very compelling reason for the magic triangle coming back. Also, I'd like to say that that was an idea they already had - they were called Barons. In all seriousness, though, I'd consider magic armors about as stupid an idea as bow armors.

Ehhh, I didn't, honestly, largely because two of the GBA games have pathetic enemies.

You still haven't answered my question >~> Why do you seem so anti magic triangle, but don't complain about the physical one?

FE7 HHM enemies are far from pathetic, last I checked, FE8's I'll give you. (Tbh as far as FE8 goes the game boils down to train Lute then let her loose in my case or just Seth Solo everything in everyone else's). It's also notable that you feel its effects mostly in early Hector modes for the "easier" GBA games. Aka when you're more even. And that's not even mentioning Light...

FE6 enemies being no slouch at all, and the variety in later maps makes it far from irrelevant there. There is a healthy mix of magic types, we see Sages, Bishops, and Druids alike.

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Personally, the magic triangle is one of the LAST things that needs to return.

Also, I don't like this idea full stop - it's too complicated.

Yeah, pretty much agree with this. The Magic triangle has never been relevant, which is it's main issue. Mages generally make a minority of your party and the enemy army, and mages tend to have high resistance - which means you generally don't target mages with mages and vice versa. And if they aren't fighting each other much, there's not much use to having it.

If they wanted a magic triangle to exist, first they need to address the balance of magic users in general. There would need to be a higher percentage of magic users, with generally RES low enough to want to target each other (or otherwise some reason you'd want mages to target other mages).

I do like the idea of different forms of magic having a niche, with a few more forms of magic (it would be a good way to boost the potential variety of magic classes, since each can use different magic types and then you can further differentiate with stats more). Right now, Thunder has high crit, Wind has bonus damage against fliers and dark has various unique effects. Fire is kinda... generic. It had beast effectiveness in PoR but that wasn't too special. Something like burn damage which works akin to poison could be a simple but relevant change (it'd likely hurt the player more than it helps them though as you tend to kill enemies quickly, so something would need to be done about that. Earth could deal area damage in some form... I've thought about it, but it's hard to work out exactly how you'd make all the details work, but I think it could. Then Ice/water could have something, possibly, not sure what right now. And light would too.

I think it's important that you don't change too much with the magic, or you could completely shake the balance of the game. But maybe that's what you want to do.

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You still haven't answered my question >~> Why do you seem so anti magic triangle, but don't complain about the physical one?

FE7 HHM enemies are far from pathetic, last I checked, FE8's I'll give you. (Tbh as far as FE8 goes the game boils down to train Lute then let her loose in my case or just Seth Solo everything in everyone else's). It's also notable that you feel its effects mostly in early Hector modes for the "easier" GBA games. Aka when you're more even. And that's not even mentioning Light...

FE6 enemies being no slouch at all, and the variety in later maps makes it far from irrelevant there. There is a healthy mix of magic types, we see Sages, Bishops, and Druids alike.

Maybe because magic classes are pretty much all the same as units for the most part, whereas the stat difference between physical units tend to be more pronounced??? Incidentally, while Jugdral introduced both the weapon and magic triangle... you already know full well that I believe Jugdral brought a lot of crap to the table that was unneeded, so I'll spare you that spiel.

FE7: Maybe when you start seeing a lot of promoted enemies, because unpromoted enemies in FE7 tend to start stinking relative to the player's units around midgame (and other than HHM CoD, whenever do you actually see a lot of mages???). Also, Luna is another strike against the magic triangle, given that it's hilariously broken. And Light is only one chapter. In addition, the part where you're more even relative to the enemy is the same part where enemy mages tend to be rare relative to enemy physical units (and this doesn't just apply to FE7)...

FE6: Maybe, but given that it's FE6, where the mages all have issues... And again, mages tend to be a minority in the enemy army for the most part.

Edited by Levant Caprice
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Maybe because magic classes are pretty much all the same as units for the most part, whereas the stat difference between physical units tend to be more pronounced??? Incidentally, while Jugdral introduced both the weapon and magic triangle... you already know full well that I believe Jugdral brought a lot of crap to the table that was unneeded, so I'll spare you that spiel.

FE7: Maybe when you start seeing a lot of promoted enemies, because unpromoted enemies in FE7 tend to start stinking relative to the player's units around midgame (and other than HHM CoD, whenever do you actually see a lot of mages???). Also, Luna is another strike against the magic triangle, given that it's hilariously broken. And Light is only one chapter. In addition, the part where you're more even relative to the enemy is the same part where enemy mages tend to be rare relative to enemy physical units (and this doesn't just apply to FE7)...

FE6: Maybe, but given that it's FE6, where the mages all have issues... And again, mages tend to be a minority in the enemy army for the most part.

I already explained that isn't really the case in GBA. Mages can be as statistically varied as physical units.

FE7: Fair Enough. Thinking mostly of the Hector mode version of Castle Caelin which adds a lot of Shamans, and Erk and Lucius feel the effects. And how is Luna a strike against the triangle? Lucius has a nice Avoid boost on it.

FE6: Mainly in indoor maps, but there is a lot of magic there. Neverending Dream is particularly notable for this.

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I already explained that isn't really the case in GBA. Mages can be as statistically varied as physical units.

FE7: Fair Enough. Thinking mostly of the Hector mode version of Castle Caelin which adds a lot of Shamans, and Erk and Lucius feel the effects. And how is Luna a strike against the triangle? Lucius has a nice Avoid boost on it.

FE6: Mainly in indoor maps, but there is a lot of magic there. Neverending Dream is particularly notable for this.

And yet at the same time, it kinda is, when you can for the most part sum it up this easily: HIgh Resistance, low Defence.

How so? Easy. It negates Resistance, and is accurate enough that even light magic wielders aren't safe - for [EFF]'s sake, it has 95 base accuracy.

Edited by Levant Caprice
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And yet at the same time, it kinda is, when you can for the most part sum it up this easily: HIgh Resistance, low Defence.

How so? Easy. It negates Resistance, and is accurate enough that even light magic wielders aren't safe.

I already stated that you can have a magic class that swaps this and you just shot it down >~>

Then nerf it to FE8 levels?

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I already stated that you can have a magic class that swaps this and you just shot it down >~>

Then nerf it to FE8 levels?

Because it'd be an oxymoron, to put it bluntly - not unlike bow armors. And it's not like it'd help the magic triangle when mages are already a minority of the player's and the enemy's army as it is.

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Because it'd be an oxymoron, to put it bluntly - not unlike bow armors. And it's not like it'd help the magic triangle when mages are already a minority of the player's and the enemy's army as it is.

Except magic has 1-2 range, not 2 range like bows.

Admittedly I'm incredibly biased for magic based classes, ever since I played FE11 (second one I played), I believe (10 was my first, but now I use 6 magic users in the endgame every run, Micaiah, Sanaki, Pelleas, Ilyana, Soren, and Laura, so...) so the majority of any given one of my teams is going to be magical. So I'm going to find it more noticeable.

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Except magic has 1-2 range, not 2 range like bows.

Admittedly I'm incredibly biased for magic based classes, ever since I played FE11 (second one I played), I believe (10 was my first, but now I use 6 magic users in the endgame every run, Micaiah, Sanaki, Pelleas, Ilyana, Soren, and Laura, so...) so the majority of any given one of my teams is going to be magical. So I'm going to find it more noticeable.

That ain't the point - the point is you're combining two qualities that shouldn't necessarily go together.

Hey, so am I, but even I can see that the magic triangle ain't relevant, and won't be unless two things happen - more enemy mages, and mages having low enough resistance to actually warrant them fighting each other.

Edited by Levant Caprice
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That ain't the point - the point is you're combining two qualities that shouldn't necessarily go together.

Hey, so am I, but even I can see that the magic triangle ain't relevant, and won't be unless two things happen - more enemy mages, and mages having low enough resistance to actually warrant them fighting each other.

Why not? I can see why bow armours are stupid, there's no point in giving a heavily armoured frontliner bows, because they can't counter up close. But mage armours would counter close up.

Neither of which are things I count as implausible. Neverending Dream is a good example of enemy mages and physicals being varied, the fact it's among my favorite maps aside. And the low res... you keep shooting down. Maybe magical myrmidons or something would be better, in your eyes?

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Why not? I can see why bow armours are stupid, there's no point in giving a heavily armoured frontliner bows, because they can't counter up close. But mage armours would counter close up.

Neither of which are things I count as implausible. Neverending Dream is a good example of enemy mages and physicals being varied, the fact it's among my favorite maps aside. And the low res... you keep shooting down. Maybe magical myrmidons or something would be better, in your eyes?

And giving a heavily armored frontliner tomes isn't stupid?

Edited by Levant Caprice
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Yeah, why would you want to give a class that's designed to take counters a weapon that can counter every kind of weapon (except longbows and siege weapons). It would be madness!

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Yeah, why would you want to give a class that's designed to take counters a weapon that can counter every kind of weapon (except longbows and siege weapons). It would be madness!

Well, except for mages' counters. And at the end of the day, they're still an armor, with all the weaknesses that entails...

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Actually I would like to see the four elements fire, water, air and earth.

Fire can still be fire how it existed in the FE games.

Water includes tomes like splash or tsunami. It also includes ice magic.

Air includes the weather phenomea (wind and thunder magic): Tomes: thunder, bolting, tornado, blizzard (I don't count that as ice magic)

Earth: Tomes: earthquake, erosion. Erosion could be a long range tome, which attacks a larger area (3x3). Earthquake could work as the geosphere from FE11, though the attack range should be limited (10x10 at a max).

I know these ideas are done by myself on impulse and might sound a little bit weird. I'm still thinking about that...

Edited by The Taninator
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I would certainly like tomes to have more variety in them, and not just different stat orientations the way Awakening did it, though that was actually a step in the right direction. However, said stat leans should not be the only thing that is in place. More variation would definetly be required. And having just the usual five elements of fire, wind, electricity, light and darkness is also pretty bare bones. So here are some thought of mine:

First of, elements beating and being beaten by other elements should definetly be a thing. Naturally, just having a tome in a unit's inventory, even if the unit in question can in fact equip the tome, shouldn't grant neither weaknesses nor strengths of any sort. Those should only apply if the tome is actually equipped. That way tome using units will be able to switch their affinities if need but only on the players turn (by equipping a tome of a different element, of course) and only having a single set of strengths and weaknesses at a time (since only one weapon can be equipped at a time by any given unit). On top of that, having more than five elements while keeping a unit's inventory limited to five (or maybe even less) items will prevent the tome using units from becoming Swiss Army knives. And if a player tries to get around that by fielding a sufficient number of tome users? Well, I had some ideas on how to prevent that.

Second, I'm thinking that around eight tome elements would be best. Each element will have different leans and certain other functions (more on that later, perhaps), thus creating incentive to use each element. As strengths and weaknesses go, every tome will make the unit equipped with it take less damage from at least one element (read: itself) and, in the case of the six elements besides light and darkness, from the element it beats as well. However, all tomes will have a weakness to one element as well.

The pattern of elemental affinities can be that light and darkness oppose each other while being neutral to everything else. So being equipped with a light tome will have make the unit take less damage when taking damage from an enemy unit attacking it with a light tome and make it take more damage when taking damage from an enemy unit attacking it with a darkness tome. And if the unit in question is the attacker then, if it is using the light tome to attack an enemy equipped with a light tome, it will deal less damage while it attacking an enemy equipped with a darkness tome will make it real more damage. Naturally, this will make light vs light and darkness vs darkness battles slower with both sides resisting the other's attacks but otherwise no weapon triangle style advantage being involved while light vs darkness battles will have the units dealing quite a bit of damage to each other, with each side getting full weapon triangle advantage on each other on top of the trigger style damage boosts.

Meanwhile, the remaining six elements will go in two rock-paper-scissors patterns of fire>ice>water>fire and wind>earth>electricity>wind. As mentioned above, a unit equipped a fire tome will take less damage from enemy units attacking it with fire or ice tomes and more damage when attacked with a water tome. This would mean that fire vs fire battles will be as slow as the light vs light ones but with no weapon triangle boosts being gained or lost while fire vs ice battles and fire vs water battles will put the fire user at a clear one sided advantage and disadvantage respectively, both in regards to having their damage boosted and the enemy's lowered or vice versa and with the weapon triangle advantage applying as proper. Same thing with wind tomes defending against wind and earth but being beaten by electricity, with wind vs wind battles being slow, wind cleanly beating earth and being cleanly beaten by electricity.

Third, as far as the tomes' stat leans go, I think it would be best to demonstrate it with a point distribution. Imagine all tomes having three stats of might, accuracy and critical hit rate. Next, imagine each element having nine points it can distribute among these three stats. Naturally, most elements distribute the points in a different manner, thus making it so some elements deal more damage, some are more accurate and some have an increased crit rate. In addition, each stat must have at least one point in it but there can be more more than five points in any stat. The distribution of these nine points for each element would be as follows:

Fire - Might: 4, Acc: 4, Crit: 1

Ice - Might: 1, Acc: 4, Crit: 4

Water - Might: 4, Acc: 1, Crit: 4

Wind - Might: 2, Acc: 5, Crit: 2

Earth - Might: 5, Acc: 2, Crit: 2

Electricity - Might: 2, Acc: 2, Crit: 5

Light - Might: 3, Acc: 3, Crit: 3

Darkness - Might: 3, Acc: 3, Crit: 3

As you can see, the light and darkness opposing elements will be the "balanced" duo, where all three of their stats are equal on top of both elements having the same stat spread. The wind, earth and electricity cycle of elements will be the "pure" trio, having a single maxed out stat while the remaining two stats are equally below average but not abyssmaly so. The fire, ice and water cycle of elements, on the other hand, will be the "min-maxer" trio, having two stats that are above average while their third stat will be very low indeed. In other words, when rating all eight elements from highest to lowest in every stat the distribution will be as follows:

Might - Earth > Fire = Water > Light = Darkness > Wind = Electricity > Ice

Acc - Wind > Fire = Ice > Light = Darkness > Earth = Electricity > Water

Crit - Electricity > Ice = Water > Light = Darkness > Wind = Earth > Fire

Thoughts so far? Also, just take this arrangement at face value and disregard additional effects that are typically seen in the games like wind dealing massive damage to flying unit's and other such things. I have an idea on how to integrate that as well but that is not the focus right now.

Edited by RedEyedDrake
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