"Is Guard Stance still too strong"

[Shadow Mir]

Attack and Guard Stance charges shield fast than regular Guard Stance. It is not "nothing".

But is it really worth being vulnerable to enemy dual strikes...?

[-Cynthia-]

Seems like a unit like Xander getting +Spd from Guard Stance would generally be better offensively than a halved Mt attack from someone else. Someone like Charlotte promoted to Berserker gives him +5 Str/+3 Spd automatically, and +3 more Str/+2 more Spd as the support grows(and Xander gets +1 to all stats from Defender), plus the shield gauge/negating attack stance adding to tankiness.

[WaterGoddessAzura]

If you get astra it's a full shield gauge in guard stance.

[NekoKnight]

I get a lot more use out of attack stance than guard stance. All the combo attacks you can do with ranged attackers is insane. One tactic I enjoyed was having an archer as the support for an attack stance character tanking flying units.

[mimasho]

Wait, I thought Lunatic growths were fixed? Or is that only for Nohr route?

All Lunatic growths are fixed when the character joins.

Aaah, did not know that since IK is my first Lunatic run; thanks for the heads up !

Guess there's no sense in resetting then, not that I have been (but was totally planning lol)

hnnng what a shame ><

Even still, I hardly use guard stance,

it's just so much easier to have units attack others (plus, having ogre strike and/or flamboyance...yes please ~).

Which is why I insist on using clone for most of my units lolol

attack stance for everyone, reset when killed sobs

[Tooru]

But is it really worth being vulnerable to enemy dual strikes...?

There is no dual strikes in normal Guard Stance.

Attack and Guard Stance is a Attack Stance with pair-up stats and shield gauge when facing a Attack Stance.

Attack and Guard Stance is a Guard Stance with faster charging of shield gauge when facing a Guard Stance.

So we will never "give up a skill slot for nothing".

[Shadow Mir]

There is no dual strikes in normal Guard Stance.

Attack and Guard Stance is a Attack Stance with pair-up stats and shield gauge when facing a Attack Stance.

Attack and Guard Stance is a Guard Stance with faster charging of shield gauge when facing a Guard Stance.

So we will never "give up a skill slot for nothing".

I didn't say it was giving up a skill slot for nothing. I DID say that the tradeoff of being vulnerable to enemy dual strikes might not be worth it...

Edited September 12, 2015 by Levant Colthearts

[CocoaGalaxy]

For what it's worth, I was told that the growths are fixed, but different playthroughs will still give different growths apparently.

I'm still not sure if the overall growths will result in the same number (I doubt it though)

Regarding the attack and guard stance thing, I'll have to double check

Update:

Oddly enough, the game does work that way. Oh well then

Edited September 12, 2015 by CocoaGalaxy

[nocturnal YL]

Guard Stance's biggest benefit is that it negates Attack Stance, though sometimes you'll want to use Attack Stance to finish off lone enemies more quickly.

In Lunatic, enemies will try to use Attack Stance whenever possible, and your HP will deplete easily. This basically encourages the use of Guard Stance all the time.

I would say the solution to this imbalance is to make it so that Guard Stance isn't 100% effective. But this would lead to another problem: with a more complicated formula, you can no longer easily predict the damage the enemy will inflict (since you'll have to think about the possible 2-enemy combinations that you may need to face). Also, FE14 has mostly low HP.

(At least the AI does try at times to make you waste the shield gauge...at times...)

I think they just move in a pre-determined order, and Attack Stance is the only thing that will make them move out of said order. You can exploit this behaviour and make them waste their powerful attacks.

Edited September 12, 2015 by nocturnal YL

[CocoaGalaxy]

Guard Stance's biggest benefit is that it negates Attack Stance, though sometimes you'll want to use Attack Stance to finish off lone enemies more quickly.

In Lunatic, enemies will try to use Attack Stance whenever possible, and your HP will deplete easily. This basically encourages the use of Guard Stance all the time.

I would say the solution to this imbalance is to make it so that Guard Stance isn't 100% effective. But this would lead to another problem: with a more complicated formula, you can no longer easily predict the damage the enemy will inflict.

I think they just move in a pre-determined order, and Attack Stance is the only thing that will make them move out of said order. You can exploit this behaviour and make them waste their powerful attacks.

The AI in general is very..I dunno....

I'd like an AI that tries to retreat and group all it's units rather than throw them at the "invincible walls"

(Or just have all the enemies with pass and have them make a beeline for your fragile units)

I'm digressing again though.

Guard Stance for the enemies mostly ends up as a way to make you waste more time, so to speak.

[Ryo]

One thing I don't like about GS is that the partner unit will still dual guard even if the enemy's meant to miss, thus wasting the guard on a non-dangerous attack and leaves you open for the next one which can potentially be more dangerous.

[gayserbeam]

The main disadvantage to being in Guard Stance is that in many cases there will be units in a group that you need to kill on Player Phase to survive the turn effectively, and halving the number of units on you have while simultaneously removing the ability to Attack Stance can make it difficult to eliminate large groups, especially when split up over the map.

Often there will be groups of ninjas with Snake Venom, who, regardless of your defense bonuses, will tear you apart if you try to tank more than one at a time. You'll take damage from Snake Venom even if they can't hurt you, and the defense debuff from their shurikens will allow them to usually land a damaging hit on a unit they'd otherwise deal no damage to. You can't pull one ninja from the mob or all will follow, and usually there's nowhere to stand to avoid being attacked by more than one. Moreover, they have 1-2 range, so most units can't reliably counterattack. In cases like this, where there are also bow-users, seal-users, mages, freeze/wind summon/weakness staves, and units with Cut Through, I found it was generally impractical to have half the number of units as I needed to eliminate large groups of low-defense enemies in one turn. Pairing up can be done at any time, so remaining paired-up when it isn't necessary is usually leaving yourself less able to respond to threats and less able to effectively kill large groups of low defense enemies or even small groups of high-defense enemies that may need Attack Stance to take down reliably in one turn.

The game does a good job of teaching you not to fight the game in enemy phase very early on in Nohr. There's a room in I think chapter 11 where Kaze and a group of ninjas sit. If you try to tank and aggro just one ninja, he'll use Cut Through to send you into the range of the ninja behind him, and that ninja will do the same, making every ninja in the room attack you until Kaze finishes you off. You need to be proactive and kill multiple ninjas in one turn to survive the trap. Unfortunately this room is entirely optional.

I'm not saying that being paired up in Guard Stance means you aren't being offensive. But when you are surrounded by eight enemies and you have twelve units, you are in a better position to not be paired up than you are in Guard Stance.

TL;DR, Guard Stance is incredibly useful and demands frequent use, but leaving your units in constant pair-up doesn't allow you to respond to multiple serious threats as effectively during Player Phase.

Edited September 12, 2015 by gayserbeam

[N7隊長ジョン]

The main disadvantage to being in Guard Stance is that in many cases there will be units in a group that you need to kill on Player Phase to survive the turn effectively, and halving the number of units on you have while simultaneously removing the ability to Attack Stance can make it difficult to eliminate large groups, especially when split up over the map.

Often there will be groups of ninjas with Snake Venom, who, regardless of your defense bonuses, will tear you apart if you try to tank more than one at a time. You'll take damage from Snake Venom even if they can't hurt you, and the defense debuff from their shurikens will allow them to usually land a damaging hit on a unit they'd otherwise deal no damage to. You can't pull one ninja from the mob or all will follow, and usually there's nowhere to stand to avoid being attacked by more than one. Moreover, they have 1-2 range, so most units can't reliably counterattack. In cases like this, where there are also bow-users, seal-users, mages, freeze/wind summon/weakness staves, and units with Cut Through, I found it was generally impractical to have half the number of units as I needed to eliminate large groups of low-defense enemies in one turn. Pairing up can be done at any time, so remaining paired-up when it isn't necessary is usually leaving yourself less able to respond to threats and less able to effectively kill large groups of low defense enemies or even small groups of high-defense enemies that may need Attack Stance to take down reliably in one turn.

The game does a good job of teaching you not to fight the game in enemy phase very early on in Nohr. There's a room in I think chapter 11 where Kaze and a group of ninjas sit. If you try to tank and aggro just one ninja, he'll use Cut Through to send you into the range of the ninja behind him, and that ninja will do the same, making every ninja in the room attack you until Kaze finishes you off. You need to be proactive and kill multiple ninjas in one turn to survive the trap. Unfortunately this room is entirely optional.

I'm not saying that being paired up in Guard Stance means you aren't being offensive. But when you are surrounded by eight enemies and you have twelve units, you are in a better position to not be paired up than you are in Guard Stance.

TL;DR, Guard Stance is incredibly useful and demands frequent use, but leaving your units in constant pair-up doesn't allow you to respond to multiple serious threats as effectively during Player Phase.

I agree with this fully.

Nohr on Hard/Lunatic Difficulty will encourage proactive offensive tactics in order to do exceptionally well in not only army survival, but also turn efficiency. Even if you're a player who doesn't care about turn count at all, relying only on Guard Stance through Pair-up isn't going to let you win, unless you just have an over-leveled army; losing extra attacks per turn, as well as Dual Strikes and support debuffs through Shurikens/Kunai dual strike attacks will force you to turtle much more, and not even turtling can help you win when the enemy will just debuff your turtle units with Str/Spd/Def/Res Seals. However, this is not to say that Guard Stance doesn't have it's specific uses.

One example of this is in Chapter 8 of Nohr Hard/Lunatic, where on Turn 2 a soldier calls several enemy units at the village north of your starting positions.

[spoiler=It's 9 seconds into the video to 2:38.]https://youtu.be/DyFoxaQDbBQ?list=PLZUC2vCaB_KwgxfMTu5gvAiGLMUr2N6Z8&t=9

Sorry for the crappy quality; I'll have a capture card when the game is localized.

There's no way to prevent these units from spawning, since there is no way, outside of excessive grinding/DLC, for Felicia or Elise to get close enough to Freeze the soldier that starts next to the village, so you pretty much have to cut your way through the squadron of reinforcements if you want to get the highest number of villages visited.

which is 4 by the way.

You also don't get more gold for visiting more than 3 villiages, but it does help you finish the map faster if you ignore the starting village and rush the top and left ones.

It is impossible to finish off enough units in order to reliably kill the Soldier safely on turn 3 unless you make significant use of Attack Stance. This only becomes more difficult as 3 more units spawn as reinforcements from the 1st village that is spawned.

[spoiler=Lunatic mode info]Oh and a side note, on Lunatic, the soldier that visits the two left villages will move a turn sooner than on Hard, which pretty much forces you to use Freeze with Elise on him on Turn 5 (I believe) if you want to prevent those reinforcements.

Another example of this is in Chapter 9 of Nohr Hard/Lunatic, where you have 3 Lancers, 2 Bowman, and a Pair-up of 2 Samurai.

[spoiler=Watch at 49:48]https://youtu.be/DyFoxaQDbBQ?list=PLZUC2vCaB_KwgxfMTu5gvAiGLMUr2N6Z8&t=49m48s

I've also developed a more reliable strategy for this part, which involves actually using Owain to initiate more Dual Strike chains.

I'll just do that later, since I don't feel like webcam recording/streaming right now.

On turn 1, if you want to take out the small squad at the entrance, you need to make use of both Attack and Guard stance in order to survive the through the enemy phase. Specially you need Guard Stance to survive and then Attack Stance in order to finish off the units before they can attack again; if you didn't use Attack Stance at all, then this wouldn't be possible within 2 turns, especially if you're already moving Kamui to recruit Nyx.

This is only amplified in Lunatic when, I believe, the Bowman have even more Speed to be able to double base Elfie unless she uses a Speed Tonic.

Edited September 12, 2015 by Kamui - Prince of Nohr

[nocturnal YL]

I agree with this fully.

Nohr on Hard/Lunatic Difficulty will encourage proactive offensive tactics in order to do exceptionally well in not only army survival, but also turn efficiency. Even if you're a player who doesn't care about turn count at all, relying only on Guard Stance through Pair-up isn't going to let you win, unless you just have an over-leveled army; losing extra attacks per turn, as well as Dual Strikes and support debuffs through Shurikens/Kunai dual strike attacks will force you to turtle much more, and not even turtling can help you win when the enemy will just debuff your turtle units with Str/Spd/Def/Res Seals. However, this is not to say that Guard Stance doesn't have it's specific uses.

One example of this is in Chapter 8 of Nohr Hard/Lunatic, where on Turn 2 a soldier calls several enemy units at the village north of your starting positions.

[spoiler=It's 9 seconds into the video to 2:38.]https://youtu.be/DyFoxaQDbBQ?list=PLZUC2vCaB_KwgxfMTu5gvAiGLMUr2N6Z8&t=9

Sorry for the crappy quality; I'll have a capture card when the game is localized.

There's no way to prevent these units from spawning, since there is no way, outside of excessive grinding/DLC, for Felicia or Elise to get close enough to Freeze the soldier that starts next to the village, so you pretty much have to cut your way through the squadron of reinforcements if you want to get the highest number of villages visited.

which is 4 by the way.

You also don't get more gold for visiting more than 3 villiages, but it does help you finish the map faster if you ignore the starting village and rush the top and left ones.

It is impossible to finish off enough units in order to reliably kill the Soldier safely on turn 3 unless you make significant use of Attack Stance. This only becomes more difficult as 3 more units spawn as reinforcements from the 1st village that is spawned.

[spoiler=Lunatic mode info]Oh and a side note, on Lunatic, the soldier that visits the two left villages will move a turn sooner than on Hard, which pretty much forces you to use Freeze with Elise on him on Turn 5 (I believe) if you want to prevent those reinforcements.

Another example of this is in Chapter 9 of Nohr Hard/Lunatic, where you have 3 Lancers, 2 Bowman, and a Pair-up of 2 Samurai.

[spoiler=Watch at 49:48]https://youtu.be/DyFoxaQDbBQ?list=PLZUC2vCaB_KwgxfMTu5gvAiGLMUr2N6Z8&t=49m48s

I've also developed a more reliable strategy for this part, which involves actually using Owain to initiate more Dual Strike chains.

I'll just do that later, since I don't feel like webcam recording/streaming right now.

On turn 1, if you want to take out the small squad at the entrance, you need to make use of both Attack and Guard stance in order to survive the through the enemy phase. Specially you need Guard Stance to survive and then Attack Stance in order to finish off the units before they can attack again; if you didn't use Attack Stance at all, then this wouldn't be possible within 2 turns, especially if you're already moving Kamui to recruit Nyx.

This is only amplified in Lunatic when, I believe, the Bowman have even more Speed to be able to double base Elfie unless she uses a Speed Tonic.

With Chapter 8, I used a different tactic.[spoiler=Yay]I just pressed my team westwards, and all those pair up / rescue makes it just enough to send enough units to kill the west soldier in time, thus securing all three villages in the southern half.

In Chapter 9, I spent 150 turns to beat it, with the first 70 or so being "effective" turns. The rest was dancer (well, singer) abuse.[spoiler=I don't care about turn count]Just don't bother with the entrance and enter from the south side only. Entering (from the south) itself is a bit dangerous since there is a Guard Stance pair, but after that there's nothing to fear.

If anything, Chapter 9 actually highlighted the usefulness of Guard Stance to me. I wouldn't have survived some of the enemy's Dual Strikes.

[N7隊長ジョン]

With Chapter 8, I used a different tactic.[spoiler=Yay]I just pressed my team westwards, and all those pair up / rescue makes it just enough to send enough units to kill the west soldier in time, thus securing all three villages in the southern half.

Yes, in Chapter 8 you can just ignore the top two villages and focus on the two west ones, but I really wanted to push it and save 4 to see if you would actually earn more gold.

[spoiler=spoilers]You don't. T_T

I also just wanted to dominate the map haha.

In Chapter 9, I spent 150 turns to beat it, with the first 70 or so being "effective" turns. The rest was dancer (well, singer) abuse.[spoiler=I don't care about turn count]Just don't bother with the entrance and enter from the south side only. Entering (from the south) itself is a bit dangerous since there is a Guard Stance pair, but after that there's nothing to fear.

If anything, Chapter 9 actually highlighted the usefulness of Guard Stance to me. I wouldn't have survived some of the enemy's Dual Strikes.

Even if you don't really care about turn count, you must admit that 70+ turns to finish one map is quite excessive.

Yes Guard stance is useful for sure, since it negates Attack Stance and gives you stat bonuses, but it still nerfs your offense significantly due to having less attacks overall and less Dual Strike chains as well. This is why Guard Stance isn't better than Attack Stance, since they both have their time to shine. Besides, if you don't take out the front squad, don't they chase after you anyway and force you to defend against them for the rest of the map?

[spoiler=Lunatic info]Ignoring the front squad and sneaking through the bottom entrance isn't that feasible as well since there's a Priestess that has a Weakness stave that will be within range of all of your units when you try to move further inside, so it's just easier to finish off the front squad instead.

[Tooru]

[spoiler=Lunatic mode info]Oh and a side note, on Lunatic, the soldier that visits the two left villages will move a turn sooner than on Hard, which pretty much forces you to use Freeze with Elise on him on Turn 5 (I believe) if you want to prevent those reinforcements.

Another example of this is in Chapter 9 of Nohr Hard/Lunatic, where you have 3 Lancers, 2 Bowman, and a Pair-up of 2 Samurai.

Freeze is not necessary if you only want to visit 3 villages.

2 samurais are not in that group, so it is easy to survive without Guard Stance.

[N7隊長ジョン]

Freeze is not necessary if you only want to visit 3 villages.

2 samurais are not in that group, so it is easy to survive without Guard Stance.

Yes, you don't need to use Freeze if you want to get 3 Villages, but I also didn't want the reinforcements to spawn since that will just increase my turn count yes, i know everyone doesn't care about turn count, but you can also just say that it makes the map easier if reinforcements don't appear. I also just wanted to dominate the map, so there you go.

The Pair-up of 2 Samurais aren't in range yes, but unless you use Guard Stance while rushing the front squad, Elfie and Harold will not survive the Enemy Phase due to Defense Seal debuffing both of them and making them take 6 more damage from all attacks in that group, not to mention the Dual Strikes they will be suffering will deal even more damage due to them having debuffed Defense stats.

[Tooru]

Yes, you don't need to use Freeze if you want to get 3 Villages, but I also didn't want the reinforcements to spawn since that will just increase my turn count yes, i know everyone doesn't care about turn count, but you can also just say that it makes the map easier if reinforcements don't appear. I also just wanted to dominate the map, so there you go.

The Pair-up of 2 Samurais aren't in range yes, but unless you use Guard Stance while rushing the front squad, Elfie and Harold will not survive the Enemy Phase due to Defense Seal debuffing both of them and making them take 6 more damage from all attacks in that group, not to mention the Dual Strikes they will be suffering will deal even more damage due to them having debuffed Defense stats.

I don't think we need to make this easy map even more easier... After visiting 3 Villages, the map becomes to easy to say whether Attack or Guard Stance is better in that situation.

There are plots that can only be attacked by 1 lancer and 1 bower, and a plot that can only be attacked by 1 lancer. Also we have Elise+Felicia/Jakob to reduce damage.

I didn't use Harold in this map so of cause he could survive. I didn't reclass Effie so 1 lance + 1 arrow won't kill her.

Edited September 12, 2015 by Tooru

[N7隊長ジョン]

I don't think we need to make this easy map even more easier...

There are plots that can only be attacked by 1 lancer and 1 bower, and a plot that can only be attacked by 1 lancer. Also we have Elise+Felicia/Jakob to reduce damage.

I didn't use Harold in this map so of cause he could survive. I didn't reclass Effie so 1 lance + 1 arrow won't kill her.

it's more so because I wanted to have low and efficient turn counts, which is why I opted to Freeze the soldier. Also, it makes the run harder over all because that's around 3 levels worth of EXP for your army from preventing the reinforcements from appearing.

Yes, you could just turtle and bait the units out into the bushes, but turtling is turtling, which naturally leads to higher turn counts and is something I do not wish to perform. Rushing the front requires use of pretty much all of your units in order to rout those 7 units in two turns, which requires use of both Attack and Guard stance to pull off effectively.

[Tooru]

it's more so because I wanted to have low and efficient turn counts, which is why I opted to Freeze the soldier. Also, it makes the run harder over all because that's around 3 levels worth of EXP for your army from preventing the reinforcements from appearing.

Yes, you could just turtle and bait the units out into the bushes, but turtling is turtling, which naturally leads to higher turn counts and is something I do not wish to perform. Rushing the front requires use of pretty much all of your units in order to rout those 7 units in two turns, which requires use of both Attack and Guard stance to pull off effectively.

OK, so the conclusions for this situation are:

1. It is easy to use Attack Stance only.

2. It is a little harder but still possible to mix Attack Stance and Guard Stance.

3. It may be too hard so nobody has posted his tactics of using Guard Stance only.

[-Cynthia-]

Well, I would also guess that Attack Stance may be more useful in earlier chapters while there are more uses for Guard Stance later. If you only have 6 units, having every unit able to take an action is probably important- perhaps not as much when you have 15 units available.

[N7隊長ジョン]

OK, so the conclusions for this situation are:

1. It is easy to use Attack Stance only.

2. It is a little harder but still possible to mix Attack Stance and Guard Stance.

3. It may be too hard so nobody has posted his tactics of using Guard Stance only.

1. It is easy to only use Attack Stance yes, but Guard Stance will still need to be used, especially later on in Nohr.

2. Yes, use of both Attack and Guard Stance is highly recommended, even if you aren't looking for low turn counts.

3. Well using only Guard Stance isn't the best strategy, but i'm sure there is footage of only Guard Stance being used.

[Tooru]

1. It is easy to only use Attack Stance yes, but Guard Stance will still need to be used, especially later on in Nohr.

2. Yes, use of both Attack and Guard Stance is highly recommended, even if you aren't looking for low turn counts.

3. Well using only Guard Stance isn't the best strategy, but i'm sure there is footage of only Guard Stance being used.

We are changing the topic to "Is Attack Stance too strong" with the answer "yes, but adding 1~2 Guard Stance in is a good idea sometimes" XD

[arvilino]

Well, I would also guess that Attack Stance may be more useful in earlier chapters while there are more uses for Guard Stance later. If you only have 6 units, having every unit able to take an action is probably important- perhaps not as much when you have 15 units available.

Towards the end of even Lunatic having a high offense is important so dual guard remains quite situational. There's a lot of enemies and they have high offense, while Dual Guard from Guard Stance adds durability there's the case that you'll more likely than not have a number of units who may only survive 1 or 2 attacks even when paired up, you don't really want to end the player phase with too many enemies in range of those sort of units so its desirable to wipe them out which would be tougher if you have effectively half as many units to move. Additionally the passive buffs like Demoiselle and Battle command only work when the unit is unpaired, a male unit can take 7 less damage and deal 3 more by being adjacent to Elise or 4 less damage and deal 2 more within 2 squares once she's fully levelled. You wouldn't get this bonus if she's paired up and the more units that are paired up the less effective this skill would be overall.

The biggest justification for pairing up/guard stance is crossing certain attack, speed or defense thresholds. Your most powerful characters, especially defensively will benefit most from pair up to draw enemies to your group/tank them and if Guard Stance makes the difference between doubling and not it can be better than the extra 0.5 power attack from an adjacent ally. What usually is the case is that you'll have a couple units that you'll use to tank/aggro enemies who'll be better off paired up but most units are best left unpaired until the situation requires them to be paired up in order survive an important attack or gives them the right combination of bonuses to defeat a specific enemy, but most of the time the supporting attacks and bonuses from skills are more worth it(especially with debuffs now in the game).

[Ownagepuffs]

Nullifying attack stance is what makes Guard Stance best. The enemies utilize attack stanc way more than you do.