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Thoughts about the new weapon system


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Bold: You ask me, relying on TWO luck-based things to go in your favour is terrible strategy.

Depends on what your strategy is. I have an Ophelia with a minimum 65% crit rate. (Mjolnir, Death Blow, gamble, bibliophile)

It's not luck based it's percentage based. If you can get your crit into the 25-50% range, then you're going to get a lot of crits. You don't depend on them for any individual fight, but in the aggregate, they greatly increase the power of a unit. Sure I can't depend on Ophelia to crit all the time, but she crits so often that she makes a great sweeper.

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Depends on what your strategy is. I have an Ophelia with a minimum 65% crit rate. (Mjolnir, Death Blow, gamble, bibliophile)

It's not luck based it's percentage based. If you can get your crit into the 25-50% range, then you're going to get a lot of crits. You don't depend on them for any individual fight, but in the aggregate, they greatly increase the power of a unit. Sure I can't depend on Ophelia to crit all the time, but she crits so often that she makes a great sweeper.

Ehhh, personally, I think that killer weapons on the whole have seen better days. Also, at least in Birthright, I tend to run into situations where getting a critical hit can actually be a BAD thing.

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I find it funny you mentioned Takumi's bow, since personally, I find it the least useful out of the brothers' personal weapons - the Acrobat effect is nice, but the accuracy, not unlike most other Yumi, leaves something to be desired...

This. The Mt on his personal is generally overkill for a while due to not being enough to one-shot enemies but being way overkill in a two-shot. So I had him using a Bamboo Yumi for a while until he gained enough levels for his Hit to stop being bad with the Fuujin.

The issue with this idea of not making Ninjas with good strength is still a problem though.

For starters, that would mean that Corrin should not be allowed to be a Ninja at all, or becoming a ninja would nerf your strength so hard that you'd never want to be a ninja-- which would defeat the purpose of ever wanting to really be an ninja class branch, and instead, you'd merely want to be a Butler/Maid (assuming those didn't have terrible growths as well). Which would mean that you'd be nerfing entire classes / characters simply to make sure a weapon isn't too strong-- which simply demonstrates why the weapons are too strong in the first place. The other weapons have drawbacks, but the knives don't outside of "low might." If we make them do fixed damage, then we have a problem with the ninja unit not being able to damage very well. However, if knives DID do fixed damage we might have something going here.

IE, knives come in varieties that instead of getting stronger, they do a fixed percentage of damage to the enemy if they hit, and they debuff different status effects depending on the knife equipped. You could do this for 1-2 range knives. And then have 1 range knives function like standard weapons-- they could still give debuffs, but they could only do it from 1 range now.

As for forging, instead of having forges be the way they are, they should make each gemstone up a different stat. Like say Garnets up the might of the weapon, but Sapphires up the critical chance of a weapon. That way, trading in isn't such a colossal pain when you want a specific weapon.

Weight can come back if it wants, but they should perhaps make it based off of the class itself rather than the character. IE, ALL mages have 4 con instead of this one male mage has 7 con while the female has 3. If everyone wants unique con, then they need to make weights less ridiculous. Especially for dark magic... Like what...?

Hmmm, that is a good point, although I'd argue that Corrin is meant to be allowed to be broken due to the ability to build Boon and Talent for extreme synergy. I don't think Maids/Butlers would be too much of a problem, though, due to having even worse durability than Ninja and that Def as a Boon is pretty nerfed compared to Awakening. Still, if you're not sold on that, there's my other suggestion that knives/shuriken be only allowed to double when the unit initiates. This way, the weapon type can still fulfill its primary purpose of debuffing, but the single hit with such a low Mt weapon (especially compare to the higher powered Javelins and Hand Axes that also can't double on a counter) wouldn't deal massive damage and would require a good PP to clean up all the enemies that were pulled. On the enemy side, the player would have even more incentive to get the drop on enemy Ninja and to prevent them from getting their more deadly EP (bonus flavour where Ninja who are exposed don't do as well in a fight).

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I never noticed that the Fujin Yumi had low accuracy. Takumi's skill, which is apparently his highest growth, made it so he didn't miss. At least, mine didn't miss often. He also consistently one shotted, even on Lunatic. Essentially, I found all the royal weapons to have their uses for when I needed them.

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I do have a few problems with the system...

  • It doesn't feel like there is a reason to go with Nohrian weapons over Hoshido unless we are talking Swords over Katanas, or Brave Weapons over literally anything else. I mean, a free +1 boost to Defense and Resistance? Free +2 speed? Free +2 Resistance? Free +whatever to whatever? Sign me up.
  • It doesn't feel like you ever really want to upgrade your weapon arsenal over time. You might add Dual weapons overtime, but generally speaking I just upgrade all of my Iron weapons and be done with it. Hell I don't even feel the need to keep using the free Steel weapons that most units come packing upon recruitment.
  • Some weapons just ruin the point of others in my mind. Magical weapons that can't crit or trigger offensive skills are easily replaced with "extra" magical weapons that don't have that limitation (Felicia's Plate over Flame Shuriken, Leo's Iceblade over Levin Sword), and also there never feels like a reason to use magical weapons in the first place. A physical attacker is a physical attacker to the ends of time.
Edited by Xenomata
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I do have a few problems with the system...

  • It doesn't feel like there is a reason to go with Nohrian weapons over Hoshido unless we are talking Swords over Katanas, or Brave Weapons over literally anything else. I mean, a free +1 boost to Defense and Resistance? Free +2 speed? Free +2 Resistance? Free +whatever to whatever? Sign me up.
  • It doesn't feel like you ever really want to upgrade your weapon arsenal over time. You might add Dual weapons overtime, but generally speaking I just upgrade all of my Iron weapons and be done with it. Hell I don't even feel the need to keep using the free Steel weapons that most units come packing upon recruitment.

Also what is this about Shuriken being too good? What about tomes? They're exactly the same but tend to give really weird stat alterations. What about Point Blank bows? Bows are powerful by nature, and we are soon to access a skill that lets bow users fire away at any range.

As for the first point: I dunno about the Hoshidan weapons on the whole being better - especially Yumi, because most of them don't exactly have good accuracy, which 2 Resistance doesn't really make up for imo. Also, someone else said that Brave weapons tend to be underwhelming in the campaign, which I agree with.

Second point: In general, I had no issue using Steel, because I didn't bother forging.

Edited by Levant Mir Celestia
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As for the first point: I dunno about the Hoshidan weapons on the whole being better - especially Yumi, because most of them don't exactly have good accuracy, which 2 Resistance doesn't really make up for imo. Also, someone else said that Brave weapons tend to be underwhelming in the campaign, which I agree with.

Second point: In general, I had no issue using Steel, because I didn't bother forging.

In terms of online and My Castle, Brave weapons are used to try and one-round the enemy opposition before they can even attack. In the campaign though I only really find the use of them on General Wary Fighter Benny, so I agree with that. In terms of Hoshido > Nohr, there are some admitable differences, but there are also skills that help to bypass the shortcomings of Hoshido weapons. It's the small boosts that get to me most, and admitably the Guard Naginata, Horse Spirit, and Illusory Bow (weapons that exaggerate on the hoshido stat boosts) are my favorite Naginata/Scroll/Yumi in the game, so perhaps I'm biased.

Steel weapons and similar I have many personal problems with, most prominently being that a units effective speed does not come to mind until after I begin to target the enemy. On someone like Kaze who doubles everybody anyways it doesn't really make a difference to me, but if we're talking Oboro or Arthur (for a personal example) who hover around average speed, then I begin to think that maybe I should stick to using what isn't slowing me down.

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Hmmm, that is a good point, although I'd argue that Corrin is meant to be allowed to be broken due to the ability to build Boon and Talent for extreme synergy. I don't think Maids/Butlers would be too much of a problem, though, due to having even worse durability than Ninja and that Def as a Boon is pretty nerfed compared to Awakening. Still, if you're not sold on that, there's my other suggestion that knives/shuriken be only allowed to double when the unit initiates. This way, the weapon type can still fulfill its primary purpose of debuffing, but the single hit with such a low Mt weapon (especially compare to the higher powered Javelins and Hand Axes that also can't double on a counter) wouldn't deal massive damage and would require a good PP to clean up all the enemies that were pulled. On the enemy side, the player would have even more incentive to get the drop on enemy Ninja and to prevent them from getting their more deadly EP (bonus flavour where Ninja who are exposed don't do as well in a fight).

. I honestly see no point to having a broken main character, because it still causes balance problems-- Robin is a testament to that. RD Ike is also a showcase of that as well. Sure with grinding I'd argue that Corrin can break things with Seals and A supports, but at that point you're grinding so balance has already flown the coup there. It's one thing to have a strong lead, but the reason for stronger leads is no longer an issue because Lords no longer have forced promotion points anymore. Maids/Butlers would still be a problem, because of the support system that's in play. Take someone like say Camilla, let's say we S rank her with Jacob. Camilla has a rocking strength score and defense to boot. Suddenly she's a Maid with 1-2 range, 60% strength growth, and her defense is 40% and with her base magic and 35% mag growth, she's fine on healing. She literally has no weaknesses. It's still a problem.

Doubling on initiation attacks only? There we go. That's something that would definitely make more sense there.

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In terms of online and My Castle, Brave weapons are used to try and one-round the enemy opposition before they can even attack. In the campaign though I only really find the use of them on General Wary Fighter Benny, so I agree with that. In terms of Hoshido > Nohr, there are some admitable differences, but there are also skills that help to bypass the shortcomings of Hoshido weapons. It's the small boosts that get to me most, and admitably the Guard Naginata, Horse Spirit, and Illusory Bow (weapons that exaggerate on the hoshido stat boosts) are my favorite Naginata/Scroll/Yumi in the game, so perhaps I'm biased.

Steel weapons and similar I have many personal problems with, most prominently being that a units effective speed does not come to mind until after I begin to target the enemy. On someone like Kaze who doubles everybody anyways it doesn't really make a difference to me, but if we're talking Oboro or Arthur (for a personal example) who hover around average speed, then I begin to think that maybe I should stick to using what isn't slowing me down.

The key word in that sentence is "try" - get unlucky, and you're in for a nasty counterattack thanks to the defence drop; it's also worth noting that braves have the Mt of unforged iron and are pretty inaccurate. (I'm not even getting into forging because any braves forged to any level above +1 or +2 are most likely hacked) All told, I consider the Guard Naginata and Horse Spirit to be pretty nice, the Illusory Yumi, not so much, since I'd already have more notable answers to mages

I guess you have a point, but in cases where my unit is unable to double attack anyway, wynaut?

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. I honestly see no point to having a broken main character, because it still causes balance problems-- Robin is a testament to that. RD Ike is also a showcase of that as well. Sure with grinding I'd argue that Corrin can break things with Seals and A supports, but at that point you're grinding so balance has already flown the coup there. It's one thing to have a strong lead, but the reason for stronger leads is no longer an issue because Lords no longer have forced promotion points anymore. Maids/Butlers would still be a problem, because of the support system that's in play. Take someone like say Camilla, let's say we S rank her with Jacob. Camilla has a rocking strength score and defense to boot. Suddenly she's a Maid with 1-2 range, 60% strength growth, and her defense is 40% and with her base magic and 35% mag growth, she's fine on healing. She literally has no weaknesses. It's still a problem.

Doubling on initiation attacks only? There we go. That's something that would definitely make more sense there.

Well, I say that because of the existence of things like +Str Ninja, +Mag Cavalier and +Mag Wyvern Corrin. Heck, even my unoptimized +Spd Nohr Noble Corrin didn't have much trouble tearing through most of the game once she got her Levin Sword. Sure, it's not quite as insane Robin or Ike, but Corrin can still easily become a sweeper.

I guess you do have a point about the issue of class sharing, but on the other hand, I don't hear about anyone using Maid (or Master Ninja) Camilla right now, so would anyone really go for that after a theoretical adjustment?

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the penalty for silver weaps is a little high, I agree. I don't mind though since I can just forge other weapons

As for weapon durability I kinda like it, I mean I hardly notice it anyway. I've never rly had an issue of being low on weapons so that's probably why.

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First bold: And Awakening wasn't a game where you could just click "optimize" and win?

Second Bold: You ask me, relying on TWO luck-based things to go in your favour is terrible strategy.

First: We're not talking about Awakening, we're talking about Fates. I understand the point you're trying to make, but they still have a plan for weapon durability. It's not easy to optimize and run through an army without at least one weapon breaking or, if you don't have enough strategy, someone dying each chapter.

Second: My strategy is foolproof after Chapter 10. My Skill stat is so high, something activates every time I attack. Pair that up with Lethality, and I'm usually killing squads every turn. For range I use Mjolnir, so any holes left are completely sealed.

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First: We're not talking about Awakening, we're talking about Fates. I understand the point you're trying to make, but they still have a plan for weapon durability. It's not easy to optimize and run through an army without at least one weapon breaking or, if you don't have enough strategy, someone dying each chapter.

Second: My strategy is foolproof after Chapter 10. My Skill stat is so high, something activates every time I attack. Pair that up with Lethality, and I'm usually killing squads every turn. For range I use Mjolnir, so any holes left are completely sealed.

I guess.

I still stand by my point that it's unreliable as fuck. Let's say, for simplicity's sake, you have 20 skill. You'd have 33 crit with a killing edge (before enemy crit evade), and 15% Dragon Fang activation rate. Assuming I don't screw up my probabilities, the chance that both have of going off at the same time is about 4.5% - that's less likely than even effing Lethality, which is already written off as a bottom-of-the-barrel skill (note that I've completely disregarded miss chances, so that might be even lower in practice). And it's not like critical skill activations being devastating is anything new (though Awakening was the only other game where skills could critical).

Edited by Levant Mir Celestia
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The general problem with Boon and Bane is how STR MAG DEF and SPD is far away the best stats. A character who is good on these areas is naturally good and Corrin is guaranteed to have this on top of the insane amount of in game bias they get

Seriously why the fuck chapter 15 exist?

Also im not sure about this since iirc Corrin isnt that broken but they need to stop giving super exp increase to an avatar character.

Robin is almost solely broken because of Veteran. And the only reason Kris is broken is his snowballing. Luke stats is almost as good as Kris yet he isnt as broken because he doesnt snowball off of that first chapter

Edited by JSND
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The key word in that sentence is "try" - get unlucky, and you're in for a nasty counterattack thanks to the defence drop; it's also worth noting that braves have the Mt of unforged iron and are pretty inaccurate. (I'm not even getting into forging because any braves forged to any level above +1 or +2 are most likely hacked) All told, I consider the Guard Naginata and Horse Spirit to be pretty nice, the Illusory Yumi, not so much, since I'd already have more notable answers to mages

I guess you have a point, but in cases where my unit is unable to double attack anyway, wynaut?

  • Admitably I have much better luck with forged Iron weapons, high crit/quadruple damage on crit weapons, and beastkiller, wyrmslayer, and similar weapons than Braves, unless the brave weapon is on the Attack Stance support unit I guess... The Illusory Bow is a weapon I find best used when you know you can't target a magic unit, but your bow wielding unit has the advantage against an enemy and you are trying to lure more units to your army (in the campaign of course).
  • It's not really units who can't double attack anyways, it's more units who CAN double attack, but not when using a weapon that lowers their effective speed, so using an Iron weapon would be the most damaging option anyways. High speed units like Kaze and Speed Boon Avatar are good Steel wielders, but not so much so for someone like Silas or Azama (at least as all 4 are on my own save file).
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Forged Iron is objectively the best weapon overall this time around true. They cost almost the same as Steel and only around 1 less MT. The only upgrade over Forged Iron is broken personal weapon, my room weapon, and Silver/Braves in niche situation

Except for Tomes in Conquest. Best Tomes in Conquest is Horse Spirit, followed by Forged Thunder. Brynhildr isn't that good but its as good as +2 Thunder which is amazing in its own rights. Lightning also deserve a shout out

Granted Braves and Silver is surprisingly good in late game of Conquest since the ability to one shot is fairly important later on

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I guess.

I still stand by my point that it's unreliable as fuck. Let's say, for simplicity's sake, you have 20 skill. You'd have 33 crit with a killing edge (before enemy crit evade), and 15% Dragon Fang activation rate. Assuming I don't screw up my probabilities, the chance that both have of going off at the same time is about 4.5% - that's less likely than even effing Lethality, which is already written off as a bottom-of-the-barrel skill (note that I've completely disregarded miss chances, so that might be even lower in practice). And it's not like critical skill activations being devastating is anything new (though Awakening was the only other game where skills could critical).

My Skill is high enough where you only need ONE to activate to kill pretty much any enemy. I can understand someone with a less sound strategy or lower stats than I, but I'm not even in a class that boosts any one stat, not am I at max level yet, even without Eternal Seals.

Math Time!

Considering I have enough of a Speed stat to attack twice almost all the time, that gives me a 66% chance of a Critical hit activating at least once during that, going by your example of 20 Skill stat, with a 30% chance of Dragon Fang activating at least once, usually almost doubling the damage dealt. The chances of those overlapping on the same attack are still small as hell (9.9% chance), and I agree, that's unreliable, but with my current loadout I think I'm set even without overlapping.

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PROS:

- Statistical complexity is reinstated to a system barren from it since FE11.

- The new weapon triangle adds to the experience and makes up for complexity lost when FE11 removed the Trinity of Magic.

- Throwables are nerfed, and long range weaponry are often unable to attack up close leading to a player phase vs enemy phase debate.

CONS:

- Statistical complexity is used in place of fund management complexity, not in unison leading to fund management being watered down substantially from older installments. Even the path that used limited funds as a selling point suffering from an abundance. This is namely due to the lack of weapon durability.

- Forging has been limited to a convoluted system of online/streetpassing and randomly selected gems all to focus on social elements of the game and luck of the draw. As someone who deliberately avoid online and streetpass on some of my campaigns, I found myself unable to successfully forge items I wanted because the new system is connected to extraneous content that has little to do with the main campaign.

- The lack of durability mixed with the new debuffs have lead to a system where tiers are all over the place. In particular, throughout my Lunatic runs, I never touched Silver with a 10 foot pole but legendary weapons (Not S rank) and Killer Weapons which often only had durability and availability going against it, were far too good not to use as the statistical changes were marginal.

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PROS:

- The new weapon triangle adds to the experience and makes up for complexity lost when FE11 removed the Trinity of Magic.

I'm not sure why you're insinuating that the trinity of magic added complexity when in reality, it just felt tacked on.

  • Admitably I have much better luck with forged Iron weapons, high crit/quadruple damage on crit weapons, and beastkiller, wyrmslayer, and similar weapons than Braves, unless the brave weapon is on the Attack Stance support unit I guess... The Illusory Bow is a weapon I find best used when you know you can't target a magic unit, but your bow wielding unit has the advantage against an enemy and you are trying to lure more units to your army (in the campaign of course).
  • It's not really units who can't double attack anyways, it's more units who CAN double attack, but not when using a weapon that lowers their effective speed, so using an Iron weapon would be the most damaging option anyways. High speed units like Kaze and Speed Boon Avatar are good Steel wielders, but not so much so for someone like Silas or Azama (at least as all 4 are on my own save file).

I generally found most of those, except killers, more useful as well. Though that could be because the other killer-esque weapons have very serious downsides.

Forged Iron is objectively the best weapon overall this time around true. They cost almost the same as Steel and only around 1 less MT. The only upgrade over Forged Iron is broken personal weapon, my room weapon, and Silver/Braves in niche situation

Except for Tomes in Conquest. Best Tomes in Conquest is Horse Spirit, followed by Forged Thunder. Brynhildr isn't that good but its as good as +2 Thunder which is amazing in its own rights. Lightning also deserve a shout out

Granted Braves and Silver is surprisingly good in late game of Conquest since the ability to one shot is fairly important later on

I suppose you're right, but I'm not one to actively piss away cash for a slightly stronger version of a weapon when I could instead use that cash for crap that can actually help me win, like tonics and staves.

My Skill is high enough where you only need ONE to activate to kill pretty much any enemy. I can understand someone with a less sound strategy or lower stats than I, but I'm not even in a class that boosts any one stat, not am I at max level yet, even without Eternal Seals.

Math Time!

Considering I have enough of a Speed stat to attack twice almost all the time, that gives me a 66% chance of a Critical hit activating at least once during that, going by your example of 20 Skill stat, with a 30% chance of Dragon Fang activating at least once, usually almost doubling the damage dealt. The chances of those overlapping on the same attack are still small as hell (9.9% chance), and I agree, that's unreliable, but with my current loadout I think I'm set even without overlapping.

In general, I think killer weapons in general have seen better days, in spite of the quadruple damage on critical thing, which only really serves to make them that much more potent in enemy hands.

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I'm not sure why you're insinuating that the trinity of magic added complexity when in reality, it just felt tacked on.

I've always felt it worked to balance the three magic types and encourage/discourage Mage/Mage combat. All a manner of personal preference though.

Edited by DeoGame
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It really doesn't. The reality of old Magic trinity is actually Asvel still fight against other Mages because he's god damn Asvel, Pent still fight against other Mages because he's god damn Pent, and other magician shouldn't fight enemy magician because they deal little to no damage

The weapon triangle had a huge problem trying to be relevant in general, but on Magic Triangle it went from trying to be relevant into completely irrelevant

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I always found the huge Res values mages had to be deterrence enough. Barring Canas plowing through things with Luna, even when I had a magic triangle advantage, it felt useless because 1 extra point of damage is pitiful. To be relevant at all, there would first need to be way more enemy mages and then the magic triangle adjustments would need to be something ludicrous like +/-6 damage and +/-40 Hit (and even then, that might not be enough). I think integrating magic into the standard weapon triangle was the best way to go about it.

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I've always felt it worked to balance the three magic types and encourage/discourage Mage/Mage combat. All a manner of personal preference though.

JSND and Kuroi pretty much hit the nail on the head - in general, other than FE7 Luna, which was a danger even to Bishops, being at a disadvantage in the trinity of magic tended to mean nothing to the player because magic units tend to have high Resistance.

Edited by Levant Mir Celestia
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